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Jumpgate #83 - The Exercise of Vital Powers (Patreon)

Published:
2024-02-27 14:00:09
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Garabldi puts on his best noir detective vibes as he exercises his "vital powers" on the latest Babylon 5 episode as the Jumpgate podcast continues! As, Vera and I may have made way too many inappropriate jokes haha. 

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Jumpgate #83 - The Exercise of Vital Powers

Vera Wylde and Jessie Gender take up residence on Babylon 5, taking in one episode at a time. Season 4, Episode 16, The Exercise of Vital Powers - Garbaldi gets in deeper with his employer on Mars while Lyta may hold the key to helping Franklin bring the telepaths held by the Shadows safely out of cryosleep.

Comments

Conrad

I was always very uncomfortable with how the show handled the Psi Corp honestly. Yes the Corp is not good BUT the whole reason why the Corp exists, the reason why the Corp injects telepaths with a serum that suppresses their native telepathic ability (which causes mental harm) like they did with Ivananova's mother is because the Earth Alliance Senate passed laws to require that!! The hatred of Ivananova & other characters towards the Psi Corp should honestly be directed towards the Earth Alliance government which year after year, decade after decade has required the Psi Corp to exist to control telepaths & to suppress the abilities of telepaths who don't join the Corp... per the laws passed by non-telepaths. When Ivanova calls Talia just as much a victim as her mother, this true... but ultimately all telepaths--even Bester--are victims of the laws passed by non-telepathic individuals to repress telepaths. As Vera points out, this is one of the limits of allegory because if I were to transpose the discussion of telepaths & the Psi Corp to the real world then the idea is that mass repression of Jews by gentiles in terms of where they can live, what jobs they can do, what clothes they can wear, who they can marry, & how they related to politics has made the Jews into a group of fascists therefore we need to blame the Jews for being fascists. My two biggest series-wide critiques of B5 as a series are (1) that the ending of Shadow War (particularly the Vorlon genocidal turn) was too fast & in conflict with the narrative before it despite it thematically mostly working & mostly being interesting & (2) the moral judgments about the Psi Corp are ultimately pretty gross & victim-blaming. My first criticism I've never harped on too much because given that I know season 4 was highly compressed/JMS didn't think he would get a 5th season I can overlook the narrative failures because the themes still (mostly) work whereas the Psi Corp & telepath issue bothered me as a kid & bothers me even more as an adult.

Raven Woods

Regarding the first part of your spoiler minute, the answer is: he has both