Contents: Overview - Backplot - Questions - Analysis - Notes - JMS

Overview

Londo's career is in jeopardy when a beautiful slave seduces him and steals a sensitive computer file. Garibaldi investigates an unauthorized use of a restricted communications channel. Fabiana Udenio as Adira Tyree. Clive Reville as Trakis. Robert Phalen as Andrei Ivanov.

Sub-genre: Intrigue
P5 Rating: 6.79

Production number:  104
Original air date:  February 9, 1994

 Written by: Larry DiTillio
Directed by: Bruce Seth Green

Backplot

• Trakis: "Do you know why a drunken fool like Mollari has the power he does? Because his family has been collecting dirt on other families for years, like all the 'noble' houses of the Centauri republic."
• Londo: "We Centauri live our lives for appearances: position, status, title. These are the things by which we define ourselves. But when I look beneath the mask I am forced to wear, I see only emptiness."
• Centauri law permits individuals to own Centauri slaves. Owners are legally responsible for the actions of their slaves. This appears to be a slave system of economics rather than of caste. According to Trakis, powerlessness and slavery is the fate of all Centauri who don't play the game of blackmail and backstabbing.

Unanswered Questions

• What was the Euphrates treaty compromise that Sinclair forced Londo to accept?

Analysis

• Londo and G'Kar agree over a drink that females are the finest of all things in life. They are much more friendly with each other now than when last we saw them (cf: "Midnight on the Firing Line"). The Narn must have been very pacifying in the meantime.
• Intense anger from a couple nearby people is enough to send Talia away for a breather.
• Londo agrees to Sinclair's compromise on the Euphrates treaty in exchange for his personal help recovering the purple files. However, this should not be taken as another example of Londo putting personal concerns above state concerns. In a profoundly blackmailable culture like the Centauri, power lost by one individual or family would always be gained by another. But if an outsider were to get hold of a treasure trove like Londo's purple files, all of Centauri would be diminished. There is an interesting parallel here to the Minbari concern for souls (cf: "Soul Hunter").
• Ivanova's brother was killed in the Earth/Minbari war, her mother committed suicide (cf: "Midnight on the Firing Line"), and she's been estranged from her father for years. Thus it's unsurprising she's so hard-edged.
• Talia is willing to skirt Psi Corps regulations when a life is at stake (though she has no concern for Londo's career). The Psi Corps' hold on remote psis appears to be pretty weak.
• Ivanova is willing to skirt EA regulations for personal perks. (cf: "War Prayer")
• When G'Kar meets with Trakis to exchange the information, Trakis says to him, "You said nothing about a telepath." From this it is clear that G'Kar was the one who contacted Trakis. However, Trakis knew through the bug he planted on Londo that Sinclair was onto him. So, Sinclair must have set up G'Kar's call to Trakis in such a way that it wouldn't arouse his suspicions.
• Telepath-aided negotiation must make future diplomacy much different than it is now. No posturing, tailored versions of the situation back home, empty threats, or hidden agendas. Parties have the same freedom to make choices for their governments, but there are vanishingly few tactics left to gain more advantage over one's adversary than one already has.

Notes

• The episode's title is a term dating back to Roman times, still in use in Britain. Roman senators in the days of the Republic wore purple edged togas as a symbol of royalty, since purple dye was very expensive. Today, members of the House of Lords wear purple robes for state occasions. When someone is made a peer in the UK they are said to have been "raised to the purple." Hereditary peers are "born to the purple". Perhaps this implies that the purple files are so named because they are what keeps Londo's family in its preeminent position.
• G'Kar glances no less than four times at the human dancer behind him when he and Sinclair first confront Londo about the treaty.
• Babylon 5 communications has a priority "Gold Channel" reserved for emergency communications. Sinclair's express permission is required to use it, and its existence is known only to the ambassadors and senior officers.
• Londo's family heirloom, from the earliest days of the Empire, is a stylized eye-and-teardrop.
• Universe Today main headline: Homeguard Leader Convicted
• "Fresh Air" is the finest restaurant on Babylon 5.
• Talia used to work for the "Political Bureau".
• "I like to know all there is about Babylon 5," Sinclair says, "and Garibaldi's files are very thorough."
• Ivanova appears to wear only one earring, though it's hard to tell since throughout the episode we get no more than a glimpse of the right side of her head.

jms speaks

• We're currently finishing up production on "Born to the Purple," with Clive Revell and Fabiana Udeno. It's a very offbeat and funny story (by Larry DiTillio, natch) which adds a new side to Londo's character. It puts our characters into different situations than we're used to, and it's fun seeing how they react to these new conditions.

• Trakis, Adira's owner, was not a Centauri, but (and this is something we may bring up at some point down the road), was at one point a Centauri slave.

• Re: Londo as a romantic character...bless your heart. You are the first to have nailed it absolutely on the head. If I had to write a description of the character, I doubt I could have done any better than what you just wrote. There are a *lot* of episodes that bring this out in him, including the next one up, "Born to the Purple," which I suspect will end virtually all of the hair jokes once and for all.

  Anyway...yes, and thank you, that's it *precisely*.

• Let's just say for now that you'll learn something very unusual about Centauri "intimacy" in "The Quality of Mercy."

• Fabiana didn't shave her head to play Adira; that's a prosthetic head piece. Ditto with all our Centauri women. (Funnily enough, the one time we DID have a bald woman as a background extra, those not in the know on stage kept commenting on how fake the bald-cap looked....)

• The point you raise is exactly correct; which is why we've set up the Psi Corps in such a way as to *prevent* them from becoming a deus ex machina all the time. This is what's always bothered me about the way "empaths" are treated on ST; it's a terrible invasion of privacy. The Psi Corps has strict rules about who can and can't be scanned, and under what conditions. In "Purple," she couldn't just go scan Trakis; she had to be hired, had to be already engaged in a business capacity, and had to find it *only* in surface thoughts, no deliberate poking. And this is the ONLY -- repeat, the ONLY -- time this is done in the entire season, aside from the accidental run-in with Londo in the pilot episode.

  We'll get deeper into the rules and regs of the Psi Corps as we go, further establishing that there's a lot they're expressly forbidden from doing by law.

• I confess I don't see the problem. In real life, some women are scientists, and doctors, and atheletes...and some women dance in bars, some women hook part- or full-time. Some men are scholars and diplomats and teachers...and some men are gigolos and thieves and *also* dance in bars. Where exactly is the problem in portraying both sides of this? Have we become so concerned with being politically correct that we can not show a legitimate part of human existence?

  B5 has all kinds, and both sides of all kinds. Male and female, equally. I "chose" exotic dancers for a kind of sleazy, not-entirely legitimate operation, a backroom club. What would one *expect* to find there? Opera singers? You look at the situation, and you choose what is *appropriate to the situation*.

  I would also point out that the dancers didn't "eagerly rush forward to betray their friend." Londo was trying to find Adira in hopes of helping her. He didn't say he was going to do anything bad to her, and he was probably known to more than a few of them. He was simply trying to find her. The coin was an added incentive. Back when I was an investigative reporter, I did some research on strip joints while I was living in SAn Diego. Spent a LOT of time talking to nude dancers (when they had their clothes on, I hasten to add). And 99.9% of them had a rule: you want to ask questions, you pay. That simple. That's how this stuff *works*. My job is to keep the B5 reality as close as possible to our reality in that respect.

  Some of them probably wanted to help, knowing Londo was okay. Some probably didn't care. And some probably would've betrayed her at the tip of a coin. Life's like that. So again, where in this is the problem?

• Re: the club owner recognizing Sinclair (or not)...this is something we discussed. Can Sinclair go places in the station and not be recognized? In some cases, no. In a place like the Dark Star, maybe so; this isn't the kind of place he generally hangs out in. It's a question of how much day-to-day interaction somebody would have with him. Yes, he's an important figure; but I'm not sure if I'd immediately recognize L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan at first glance, particularly in different style of dress, in an unusual location. We're *not* going to do it a lot -- just once this season -- but we thought it was a reasonable approach.

• This was a bit cut from the script for time; Gold Channels are ONLY for official use, they're high-priority channels that can go anywhere back on Earth. Commercial communications are less reliable and only have a few channels available; you've got to wait for a call to go through. To use a Gold Channel for personal communications is a No-No.

• Regarding Ivanova...it's not really an attempt to pull at heart strings, as it is to establish that this is someone who's had, and is still having, a pretty rough life. It's a real roller-coaster for her, and the way she survives it is to absolutely bottle it up inside. She has had angst throughout her life, and she's in for more.

  We start to track that in little ways that probably no one will notice, as well as making it the occasional story point. A little way nobody'll notice: after this episode, she starts messing with her hair, which we'd deliberately set as extremely tight until now. Suddenly she doesn't have someone for whom she has to be a certain way, and she has to start finding her *own* identity, and it ain't easy.

• Larry DiTillio's episodes this season are "Born to the Purple," and "Deathwalker." He's currently working on a third, tentatively entitled "TKO." And yes, he uses blood instead of ink...unfortunately, it's mine.

• There will be both sex and romance on B5 (sometimes together, sometimes not). It's perversely appropriate that in the B5 series, it's not the Commander who gets laid first, or Garibaldi, or G'Kar... it's Londo. And it's a very funny, but very touching and moving episode.

• It's a standard bed, works fine. Though we *did* have a thing in mind where Londo sits up in bed, having just had wonderful sex, and his hair is now hanging limp...but in a sudden burst of sanity we decided against it.

Last update: March 27, 1996