Babylon 5 Season 3, Episode 5. Written by
J. Michael Straczynski. directed by
Menachem Binitsky. Originally aired on
January 29, 1996.
Primary Plot: Earth sends a political officer to ensure that
Sheridan's decisions are more "politically astute" in the
future.
Secondary Plot: While hooked into the
Great Machine,
Ivanova discovers
concrete evidence that
President Clark arranged the assassination of
President Santiago.
Tertiary Plot: Draal helps Ivanova contact the
First Ones.
Commentary: Well, at least EarthGov sent an absolute
babe to keep an eye on Sheridan. :) She doesn't stay long, though, returning to
Earth at the end of the episode to help do
damage control on some stuff that happens during the episode.
Again, we get a payoff to what seemed like a small part of an earlier episode...in
Mind War,
Catherine Sakai visits
Sigma 957 and is attacked by a strange, advanced ship there.
G'Kar had warned her to stay away, knowing that a great power lived near there. Now, in
Voices of Authority, we find out just what that weird ship was--a remenant of a very, very old race, so old in fact that they're referred to as being one of the "
First Ones". Ivanova and Marcus get them (the race is never given a name) to help in the upcoming Shadow war.
Along the same sort of "payoff" line, we had previously known that Morden had links to
EarthDome--we see him talking with a
Senator on
Earth in
Matters of Honor--but now we find out that he was directly involved in the assassination of President
Luis Santiago. Furthermore, he did it at the behest of then-Vice President
Morgan Clark. Ivanova finds this information while she's linked into the
Great Machine and sends it back to Sheridan's contacts within EarthDome (the same place they sent the information in
Hunter, Prey about Clark not really being sick during the assassination).
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Babylon 5 Episode Guide.