I Very Much Doubt It

I am returning to the Babylon 5 universe after being unable – and in many ways unworthy – to continue traveling in it over 10 years ago.

It took me a long time to come to terms with the things that Straczynski’s brilliant, revolutionary, and mind-blowing epic opera tore open and exposed for me about myself. Babylon 5 was the abyss that looked back at me when I naively peered into it thinking myself somehow immune; separate. I was foolish and blind and by the time I was barely halfway inside, it vomited up at me such truths, questions, and revelations that I had to turn away. I ran screaming in fact, like the arrogant and delusional knights who attempted to pass through Ende’s Magic Mirror Gate, suddenly realizing the truth of themselves. I wasn’t so far from them, blind to the truth of myself, and my mirrors – Delenn, G’kar, Londo, Vir, Sinclair, even Morden – reflected the horrible reality of my own lack of self, my own emptiness, my own misguided nature.

There are moments in your life when everything crystallizes. When the whole world reshapes itself, right down to its component molecules, and everything changes.

Dr. Benjamin Kyle (The Gathering)

When I first tried to watch Babylon 5 it was as if I had watched it as a newborn and couldn’t begin to comprehend it in any kind of discernible language because I myself had none. I was a gibbering idiot and the world was just color and sound and wonder. I grasped clumsily at it thinking that if I could hold it in my hand that it would somehow make sense and all the mystery of life would unfold in that one moment. I was a fool – a worm crawling out of the primordial ooze with not one shred of humanity to speak of. There was no way I could have understood anything of the universe, anything of myself, in that state.

Now everything is different … everything has changed. I have changed and now I see.

Open Mouth. Vomit Lie. Begin #Fail.

So much has changed for me and I can tell, just in the few notes that I scrawled while watching the show, what things are standing out for me, causing a rise in me, and piquing my new worldview as it related to the reality of Babylon 5. There are so many things wrong right from the start. Tearing down the mysticism, the awe, the trauma from the past and really looking at the series with fresh eyes and a new soul, my sensitivity to – and awareness of – all the cracks in the foundation are so heightened.

My first exploration into Babylon 5 all those years ago revealed that I had yet to form a sense of my own ideology but it’s clear to me now that Babylon 5 represents a very clear one. Babylon 5 is the representation of an ideal future; a vision that takes into account a known history. I have complained constantly about the world I reside in being filled with mundanes who live willingly blind to everything around them. They do not take into account even their own personal histories let alone a global one. History is doomed to repeat itself because people pretend only to study history when in actuality they are whitewashing it, spinning it, misrepresenting it to cloud the minds of the young.

The Babylon 5 station takes everything that we want to forget and molds it into a spinning bastion pointing towards a terrible future. By even existing, it puts the past into focus, adjusting the lens into such sharp focus that it makes sense why the first 3 were sabotaged. It is the same as killing of MLK, Kennedy, or Gandhi. No one wants change. No one wants to reach the future. To reach the future you have to embrace the past and to embrace the past you must always be ready and willing to be held accountable for your part in it – good or bad. If there is one thing I hate most about people – and the primary reason I decided to become a recluse – it’s people’s lack of accountability for their own actions. This lack of accountability comes from an inherent selfishness that equally disgusts, makes me wonder how we ever got this far in the world, and reminds me that the future will be as black as I expect.

No one wants to remember – and they have their own reasons I’m sure – they only want to push forward as if they believe that putting enough distance between themselves and the past will take away guilt, pain, and remorse … like G’Kar who can’t accept the word “slave” even though it’s entirely accurate …

The Lie Of The Line is one of those concepts that brings up a lot of irritation and anger for me immediately – a sense of rage almost. The arrogance of Terrans willing to believe something so ridiculous mirrors, in many ways, the imbecilic ego of the American people who slip so easily into believing even badly designed propaganda about their own government. The Minbari surrender during the Battle Of The Line shouldn’t be something that any self respecting Terran could possibly accept as a moment of triumph and yet probably a good majority of them do. How is that possible? Delusion – a word that describes the state of mind of 90% of the population.

Delusion disgusts me and it’s so prevalent in the world. There is a strong, deep rooted aversion to truth and reality that I see daily in my interactions with people and it astounds and sickens me. Sinclair’s girlfriend represents this mass of people out there who cling to such desperate nonsense, “They surrendered because of the Line …” she says, probably by rote the sentences fed to those on Earth willingly ignorant to reality. But still after 10 years she says this? She still believes it because she never cared – no one ever cared – to question it. How could you not? Sinclair is wise enough to know better and I admire him for his willingness to express true disgust at the medal he received.  What’s really bothering him, however, is the “hole in his mind” and that empty space is what feeds his doubt more than the obvious incredulous nature of the surrender of a clearly superior race. He’s not deluded. He’s angry, he’s confused, and he has been – for a decade – completely unsettled.

I understand that feeling … unsettled. I have felt it for so long – seems like forever – that feeling that there is something wrong with the reality you have come to know. There is something wrong with what everyone believes. It is terrifying to feel like you’re the only one in the world who is questioning things that everyone else seems to simply accept. How could you not be unsettled if you’re the only one who seems to know that something is wrong and no one wants to believe anything but lies spoon fed to them by people who want only to save face? 

In the “Special Presentation” of The Gathering, Sinclair has a great moment where he actually tries to explain what is wrong with everyone’s beliefs about The Line and I felt, deep in myself, the desperation of it all for him. No one would really listen, not truly. They gave him a medal didn’t they? A medal for what? For little more than being willing to commit suicide. Isn’t that what all such medals are for in the end? A thanks for being willing to die for a futile cause.

A half-truth is the most cowardly of lies.

Mark Twain

Lies … so many lies … too many lies … The political agenda. The social agenda. The religious agenda. All built on lies – withholding. Can any real good come from this kind of conduct?

The Minbari withhold from their own people about the surrender, ultimately causing a major separation between castes that results in an incredible ripple effect of negativity, suspicion, doubt, and discontent. The Earth lies to their own people about … well … just about everything. Sinclair lies and withholds in order to conduct actions based on his own ideas of righteousness and he lies to ensure the success of Babylon 5. The Minbari lie to protect themselves. The Minbari also lie to Sinclair to protect him – [“I would never tell you anything that wasn’t in your own best interest.”  Who are you to determine that?] – and also to manipulate the “past future”. G’Kar lies to advance his own sense of justice. Londo lies to try and save the long gone face of his people and protect his pride. Lies. Lies. Lies.

This is how Babylon 5 begins as a series; two million five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal, all alone in the night, and upheld by a foundation of lies. It won’t end well. It can’t possibly.