• Introduction to Susan Ivanova, Vir Cotto, Talia Winters

• TIME —

  • (Kosh) They are alone, they are a dying people. We should let them pass.
  • (Sinclair) Who, the Narn or the Centari?
  • Yes
• 8:10 — He claims to have never seen them act dishonourably, but what about the pilot and the evil Minbari?
• 23:40 — He has no gills? I guess that got taken out..
• 30:00 — The first appearance of the council.
• 40:50 — That’s like the story of Scientology‘s Narconon
• We understand some of Ivanova’s feelings towards the Psi Core as well as some of the Core’s internal workings.

• TIME – Santiago wins the Earth Alliance presidential elections.
• TIME – Molari’s death-dream is of being choked to death by J’Kar in 20 years.

• TIME – Introduction of Susan Ivanova

  • the second in command.
  • 9:00 — Russian.
  • 25:30 — willing to go against Earth government with Sinclair.

• The Centari

  • 0:30 — Religion has “The Great Maker”.
  • 2:00 — Not related to humans.
  • ~2:00 — To them, Earth is “Beta 12”.
  • 16:30 — Uncomfortable around Winters. Not explained
  • 18:00 — According to Kosh, are “a dying people”.

• Kosh

  • 17:10 — First look in Kosh’s encounter suit. Notice the neck, suggesting he has a nonstandard form.
    – Introduction of Kosh as being light.
    – Introduction of Kosh’s speed and etherealness.
    – Introduction of Kosh’s voice as being authentically from him and not from some voice modulator in the suit.
  • 18:00 — Introduction of Kosh’s “yes”.

• 21:50 — Introduction of Naarn

  • The Naarn Regime’s homeworld.
  • 21:50 — the Centari stripped it bare, was all green before .

• Garibaldi

  • 20:50 — Has a crush on Winters.

• Molari

  • 19:00 — Drinks a lot

• 2:30 — Introduction of Vir

  • Molari’s diplomatic attache.
  • 19:00 — a groveling person.
• 6:00 — Introduction of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds.
• 6:30 — Introduction of the raiders.
• 6:40 — Introduction of Talia Winters, licensed commercial telepath, psi-core rating p-5.

• 7:40 — Introduction of Louise Santiago, incumbent Earth Alliance president.

  • 42:40 — platform included keeping earth out of war. His agenda for the coming term includes creating a closer relationship with the Mars colony, and a greater emphasis on preserving Earth cultures in the face of growing non-terran influences.
    – It’s particularly interesting to say “non-terran”, since Mars and other colonies are excluded from terra.
• ~7:40 — Introduction of Marie Crane, election challenger.

• TIME – Introduction of Talia Winters

  • Commercial telepath

• Sinclair

  • 8:20 — His father, deceased, was a pilot.
  • 8:30 — “The Sinclair’s have been fighter pilots all the way back to the Battle of Britain.”
  • ~25:00 — his relationship has declined with J’Kar, because of the Naarn sneak attack on a non-military target.
  • 25:30 — willing to go against Earth government
• 9:00 — Introduction of president Santiago, by name.
• 9:00 — Introduction of president Santiago’s vice president (no name mentioned)

• 10:40 — Introduction to the raiders

  • have recent access to large weaponry. TIME – Turns out to be from the Naarn.

• 11:00 — Introduction of spoo

  • A Centari dish
  • Centari eat it non-fresh.
  • J’Kar has a preference for fresh spoo
    – which disgusts Molari

• The Centari

  • 11:00 — Have a dish called “spoo”, which they eat non-fresh.
  • 12:50 — Have a dream about how, and sometimes when, they’re about to die.
• ~18:00 — Terrorist nuking of San Diego, California, United States.

• ~18:00 — Introduction of the Mars colony

  • The first was destroyed. Not explained.

• J’Kar

  • ~25:00 — his relationship has declined with Sinclair, because of the Naarn sneak attack on a non-military target.

• The Naarn Regime

  • 18:00 — According to Kosh, are “a dying people”.
  • ~25:00 — did a sneak attack on a non-military target.
• 27:00 — Re-introduction of ambassador Delenn
• 30:25 TIME — Introduction of the league of non-aligned worlds

• Station fighters

  • 31:00 — able to do quick turns.

• Telepathy

  • 33:30 — Talia can be touched by someone with strong intent, and will receive a vision against her own will.
  • 38:45 — There are drugs to disable human telepathy.

• Ivanova

  • 38:40 — Now knows she must both control her mind, and avoid touching Talia.
  • ~38:45 – backstory with her mother and the Psi-Core, and her hostility to the Psi-Core and human telepaths.

• 39:20 TIME — Introduction to the Psi Core

  • 39:20 TIME — helps telepaths bring out their fullest. This includes a program which turns some of them into vegetables? (pilot episode) FIXME

• Mars Colony

  • An independent government from Earth
  • There is a rift between them and Earth

• TIME — 1000 hours earth standard time? Uh, what?
• 00:20 — What’s with the broken speech being used in so much media?
• Wouldn’t the colony’s mines be active by default?
• 8:30 — “The Sinclair’s have been fighter pilots all the way back to the Battle of Britain.”
• 8:40 — “They’ve never pulled a sneak attack.” .. I don’t think this is true, according to flashback/retelling done later in the series.
• 9:00 — Santiago has no chin.
• TIME — Santiago’s vice president has several chins.
• 12:25 — Notice Molar’s hand across his neck. This scene is a bit of a precursor to his death-dream.
• Molari’s dream is about his dying 20 years from then, choking and being choked to death with/by J’Kar.
• 14:10 — Introduction of Karn, Molar’s nephew.
• 15:40 — Not only is Molari suggesting he has influence over Centauri policy, but this scene gives a very strong bond between Molari and his nephew which is never explored or explained in the series.
• 16:30 — Buildup of Ivanova dodging Winters.
• 18:00 — Kosh’s “yes”.
• TIME — Attack on Pearl Harbor
• 27:00 — Delenn looks way better than her first appearance in the pilot episode.
• 30:25 — The league of non-aligned worlds seems to be part of “the council” for seconding a motion to vote. That doesn’t seem right.
• 31:00 — Introduction of the fighter’s ability to do quick turns.
• 38:40 — Now Ivanova knows that she must both control her mind, and avoid touching Talia.
• 41:40 — Introduction to Garibaldi’s “second favourite thing in the universe”, Duck Dodgers. Used elsewhere.

• Introduction to Stephen Franklin, Soul Hunters (race)
• 48:42 — Uh, they measure things in feet?
• 53:25 — Oh man, that’s a really bad video transfer. You can see the lines down the screen.
• 1:19:20 — The Soul Hunter peers into Dilen’s soul and says: You would plan such a thing? You would do such a thing?
• 1:19:50 — The Soul Hunter tells the captain that Dilen is Satai.

• 1:23:42 — Dilen says “We were right about you.” to the captain.

… the death of ‘x’ and his importance to the Minbari.

… the captain’s role in the Minbari-Human war, missing memory.

• Babylon 5

  • ~42:00 — The Soul Hunters are barred from entry.

• Sinclair

  • 36:00 — Sinclair is told Delenn is Satai and “they” (presumably the Minbari) are “using him”.
  • 39:10 — Is told by Delenn “We were right about you”. She either forgets this or pretends to.
  • 40:00 — Learns about Satai, the honourific title describing a member of the Grey Council.

• Delenn

  • 39:10 — Is told by Delenn “We were right about you”. She either forgets this or pretends to.

• Stephen Franklin

  • 17:45 — Materialist. Doesn’t believe in souls.

• The Earth Alliance

  • 0:50 — Io, a moon of Jupiter, has a transfer-point.
  • 19:00 TIME — The typical human lifespan as almost 100 years.
• Ben Kyle was transferred to Earth.

• Delenn

  • a member of the ruling body the Minbari, secretly placed as an ambassador to watch Sinclair. This this-episode-revealed as the Grey Council.
  • 22:50 — “Sati” Delenn
  • 22:50 — of the Grey Council, great leaders of the Minbari.
  • 22:20 — one of the Minbari who stopped this episode’s Soul Hunter and other Soul Hunters from taking Ducat.

• 18:10 — Introduction to Ducat

  • A Minbari
  • Died during the war with Earth
  • ~22:20 — Probably their greatest leader.
  • 22:20 — Was pursued to be taken by the Soul Hunters, but Delenn and other Minbari stopped them.

• Ben

  • 1:00 — Transferred back to Earth because of his knowledge of alien species.

• 0:30 — Introduction to Stephen Franklin

  • the new medical chief of staff, replacing Doctor Ben Kyle (from the pilot episode).
• ~1:00 — Hyperspace

• TIME – Introduction of the “Shag Tot”, Soul Hunters.

  • Immortals who can sense death and steal souls to collect them at the moment of death.
  • The Minbari have a long history with them, and hate them.
  • 11:00 — Soul hunters can sense death well before injury.
  • 12:40 — That Soul Hunter has been to Earth.
  • 22:00 — Description of their perception of death ending the entirety of a person including the soul.
  • 22:20 — Pursued Ducat to take his soul, but the Minbari stopped them.
  • ~42:20 — Access to Babylon 5 is barred. They’re rarely welcomed.
  • 42:20 — The Soul Hunter perspective is canonized. Souls are a real thing, capturable, can be thereafter released and can briefly move objects. This is in line with the earlier appearance of Kosh in s1 disk1/1, 17:10.

• The Minbari

  • Have a long history with the Soul Hunters, and hate them.
  • 21:45 — Description of the Minbari’s concept of souls passing from one generation to the next.
    – Hints at the problem of Minbari’s diminishing.

• Introduction to “hard currency“

  • 11:55 — seems to be oddly-shaped bits of metal.

• ~12:00 — Introduction to “down below”

  • Its name hasn’t been established yet.

• 25:10 — Introduction of Nagrat

  • Sells black market information and security stuff.

• 1:00 — Ben was transferred back to Earth because of his “knowledge of alien species”.

  • This is odd, because that’s why Franklin was transferred to Babylon 5.
• You’d think the stargate jumpgate wouldn’t be pointed right at the station..
• Yes, Sinclair can and should be the one going out there, because first contact is serious stuff.
• 18:40 — Why would it take so long to get security there? By now there seems to be a clear need for security to be near the lab.
• A security guard overheard that conversation. However, that guard appears to be stupid.
• 23:40 — He puts the gun away dramatically only to pull it back out dramatically.
• He has called his collection “his children” twice now. I’m pretty sure the souls of great people would be offended by that.
• 24:30 — So the ship, which was being check out, wasn’t being checked out at the time the Soul Hunter arrived to reclaim the souls.
• 29:05 — Delenn was recording something, does this mean the Soul Hunter was also recorded? Or was she doing one of the later-established voice-to-text transcriptions?
• 30:20 — Bondage.
• 32:30 — Foot Fetishism.
• 32:40 — “pounding out”
• 33:50 — It sure looked like that Soul Hunter was misleading them. Also, why would he be left alone?
• 34:50 — Now that the Soul Hunter knows stuff about stuff, why would he kill her? Oh right, he’s insane.
• 35:05 — I would have considered “ripping” her soul out. She’s pretty calm right now, so it wouldn’t be too bad would it? Or maybe that process would take too long and the Soul Hunter had to go fight one way or the other.
• 35:20 — Apparently it takes time for laser bolts to travel.
• So isn’t Delenn technically missing a piece of her soul now?

• 39:50 — First appearance of the Sinclair Aircraft logo in Sinclair’s room.

• 1:15:00 ~~ Introduction to the female Centari.
• 1:39:00 — We begin to understand the Centari nobles’ political and social structure as well as Molari’s ties.
• We also begin to understand Ivanova’s technical expertise.
• 2:00:00 — Oh man, that little grey box-tipping obstacle was pathetic.
• 2:03:00 — Peeking into Ivanova’s family.

• Euphrates negotiations.
• Molari’s love for Adira.

• Ivanova’s father’s death.

–

• 1:50 — Introduction of Kodoth

  • G’Kar’s head of diplomatic staff, the counterpart to Vir (the diplomatic attache to Molari/The Centari Republic).

• 2:00 — The Euphrates treaty.

  • Only mentioned in passing.
  • ~30:00 “.. and that joke may harm a dozen worlds.” leads me to believe this treaty has to do with a significant system, or perhaps a group of stars or worlds.

• Talia Winters

  • 7:00 — While she is a commercial telepath, she’s doing ambassadorial work.

• Londo Molari

  • 8:25 — Is washed up, and is a Republican.
  • 15:10 — Maintains appearances, and feels empty underneath.

• Babylon 5

  • 9:50 — Gold Channel communications are established
    – No one outside of the officers and senior officers know they exist. However, the command staff who were present also know.

• The Centari

  • 11:30 — Have slavery.
  • 12:00 — Have a backbiting political and social climate. This was established earlier when J’Kar blackmailed Londo.

• 19:50 — Introduction of coercion technology

  • Which is never specifically heard from again, although it has counterparts.
  • I think this is non-Centauri because the Centauri would use a telepath.

• 21:10 — Introduction of data crystals (explicitly)

  • 39:00 — May be write-once.

• Susan Ivanova

  • 35:10 — Has a dying father — 39:30 — Garibaldi knows

• Michael Garibaldi

  • 39:30 — knows about Ivanova’s dying father.

The banter between J’kar and Sinclair is strange, considering the “bug” Sinclair planted in him. Can this episode be moved even further up?

• ~2:00 TIME — Mention of the Euphrates treaty.

  • This is named after Euphrates, a historically important river in Western Asia.
  • This is likely the solar system Achernar (aka the binary solar system Alpha and Beta Eridani), in the Eridanus constellation.
  • I say this, because the Eridanus constellation represented several rivers, like the Nile, the Euphrates or the Po, due to its elongated shape – from the Orion constellation to almost the south celestial pole.
• This entire bit feels wrong, considering the recent hostilities between the Narn and the Centauri.
• 6:00 — “Run it by the EO..” but what’s an EO. (something) Officer?
• 7:00 — Talia is a commercial telepath, but she’s doing ambassadorial work? If Earth Central actually cares about what’s going on, then they wouldn’t leave it to her.
• 7:50 — “For a moment there I thought I was dead.” .. the French call an orgasm “the little death”.

• 8:25 — Londo is washed up, and is a Republican.

  • This establishes FIXME
• 9:10 — Hot Jala is introduced, a drink Londo likes and probably an equivalent to coffee.
• 9:50 — “No one outside of the officers and senior officers even know they [gold channels] exist.” .. and now all the command staff know about them, too.

• 13:00 — Introduction of Star Laces, a flower.

  • So how did Londo have star laces grown so quickly? I guess he’s just playing the moment up.
• 14:40 — Introduction of Fresh Air, the finest restaurant on Babylon 5, which requires reservation.
• 15:30 — The Dodgers still play.
• 15:50 — Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics (ICE)
• 16:30 — Sinclair taking Talia out like that is odd. The commander wouldn’t necessarily have access like that, and such an event, requiring her dressing up like that, really would make the event considered a date. I’m ok with this, I’d totally hit that.
• 23:20 — Her baldness really is convincing.

• 24:30 — “It’s the perfect opportunity to get your feet moist, as the Earthlings say.”

  • “to get your feet wet”
• 26:10 — Introduction of the shock-glove, which is sort of used in one other episode.
• 27:00 — See the thing is.. there’s no way Molari has anything of value enough to threaten the entire Centauri republic. Enough to ruin his own career certainly, tarnish his family name certainly..
• 27:30 — Introduction of cloaking-bugs. I don’t think these are used anywhere else in the series, but probably by the techno mages (not yet introduced).
• 30:30 — That dude reminds me of a character in either Buffy the Vampire Slayer – (1997 show) or Angel – (1999 show).
• 31:50 — Seriously, Londo isn’t even going to try to be subtle about any of this. Aren’t other people overhearing this?
• 32:20 — That’s Nagrat he’s speaking to.
• 32:50 — Flashback to 1980s sunglasses.
• 37:20 — The banter between J’kar and Sinclair is strange, considering the “bug” Sinclair planted in him. Can this episode be moved even further up?
• 39:00 — Can data crystals be copied? Obviously, since the data was written to one in the first place.

• 02:10:00 — That actor became the doctor on NCIS
• 02:14:58 — Now how.. HOW can someone be so damned stupid. I mean, all trace would lead so directly back to you. Bad writers, bad!
• 02:16:45 — And we learn that the use of the device looks like natural causes. So perhaps the attacker thought it would be overlooked. But his ship wasn’t checked all the way through.
• 02:18:25 — Since things are recorded, they would know exactly where the energy spike would be.
• 02:18:45 — Uh, what’s a “mile”?
• 02:20:00 — Revealing that the Vorlon and maybe some Minbari technology is biologically-based.
• 02:43:35 — Umm, the bad guy shot, but no explosion was seen on the wall..

• 02:51:00 — Gariboldi talking about his past a bit, and the military mindset.

• 41:20 — Santayana: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

Now humans have this bio-technology, but it never appears in the series again. There should have been a side-story about it being made top-secret. But then later in the series it should have been either used or justification should have been made for it not being used, e.g. it was destroyed.

… brewing anti-alien sentiment.

• This is a pretty standalone episode. It does nothing with the Naarn/Centauri conflict. Those characters aren’t even shown.

• Earth is researching bio weapons.

–

• ~0:00 — Introduction to Interstellar Network news (ISN)

• The Earth Alliance

  • 9:30 — Has been pursuing organic technology.
  • 41:40 — Has an active bio weapons division.

• The Vorlons

  • 10:20 — use organic technology.

• The Minbari

  • ~10:20 — Some people say they have organic technology.

• Michael Garibaldi

  • 16:50 — A hint at his past.

• Stephen Franklin

  • 36:00 — has a strong moral streak.

• I don’t understand the “Lords of London” reference. Perhaps see Gambling in the United Kingdom.
• 1:40 — The expression of that alien is so plain. That may as well have been a muppet.

• 2:00 — Introduction of Max

  • one of Franklin’s old professors.
• 3:30 — Oh the days when security could be so light.
• 6:20 — Someone who is new is being left alone to do security? Right.
• 7:50 — Aren’t sensors being recorded?
• 8:50 — No sign of wear or age? But later in this episode they supposedly fell apart over time.
• 10:40 — A bunch of names, none of which I’ll look up.
• 12:30 — Wasn’t there a bunch of stuff bowled over and broken when Nelson gets zapped? Did he clean it up on its own?
• 13:40 — “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth” is from King Lear (~1605), by William Shakespeare.
• 14:00 — The comment about martians and the common cold is a reference to The War of the Worlds (1897), by H. G. Wells .
• 20:50 — His belt is askew.
• 20:30 — So you see, the thing about math is that 120% of something that stuns and gives bumps and bruises to one person DOES NOT entirely disintegrate two people.
• 23:00 — If the area is secure, why isn’t there security?
• FIXME – I should have noted earlier that Sinclair has a history where he was interviewed then shipped off somewhere out of the way. I don’t know that this backstory gets mentioned again in the series.
• 26:00 — Establishing Babylon 5’s riot gear.
• 28:00 — Arianism, World War II
• 29:30 — The orb in his chest reminds me of the circle in the forehead of a Soul Hunter.
• 31:30 — How did he survive? I guess Tular wanted to make him suffer..
• 32:40 — The zap target/landing didn’t get shown.
• 35:10 — Tular exclaiming “Great Maker!” means the Centauri and Ikara 7 had contact.

• 35:55 — Through the power of science, Nelson reverted back to human form.

  • .. and he’s just fine.
• 39:40 — Sinclair’s past might have been an interview after The Battle of the Line.
• 41:30 — “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — George Santayana
• 42:40 — A bunch of names, which I won’t list.