Talia Winters and Kosh (Deathwalker)

OK, firstly can i say hello and i am new to this site as you can tell from my post count.

Anyway, i have recently just got into babylon 5, i bought the first season, watched it enjoyed it and since then i was hooked. I have stay up til stupid o'clock in the morning watching the episodes and only recently have i watched all 5 seasons. I bought season 1 a month ago. So in 4 weeks i have watched 5 seasons. As i say i was hooked.

Now back to my original point and why i am posting this. I pretty much have clocked on to all the parts of the babylon universe and all the questions were answered in my head bar one.

In the episode "Deathwalker" season 1, Kosh is speaking to Talia winters in cryptic phrases and recording her response. I have not figured out why this is. Later in season 2 (i think - just in process of watching them all again) Lyta alexandar comes aboard and say's she knows there is a spy and she has the password to tell it telepathically to the spy which turns out to be talia. Then later in the episode Garibaldi has a flashback of the kosh/talia meeting and says he needs to look into it. But then nothing comes from that. I am obviously missing something (as i have only seen them all once) because they would not have forgot this. so what was it all about? Does anybody know?

Please clear this up for me and i will be grateful....thanks

Phill
(byevjzts)

I think it was a plot line... which was not pursued.

It could have been Kosh noticing the secondary personality, and either recording it for study, or recording a backup of Talia Winters' original personality (either in full or part) for possible later repair.

Welcome to the boards and Babylon geekdom.

I have stay up til stupid o'clock in the morning

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Me, too- watching B5, studying, working, other more fun things... it's a good hour.

So in 4 weeks i have watched 5 seasons.

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Holy shit, dude, did you like eat or shower or anything during that time?

Have you seen the pilot, called The Gathering? If not, you can get it as part of the Babylon 5 Movie Collection, which contains the pilot and 4 made for TV movies set in the Babylon 5 universe.

Anyway, about Talia...
(spoilers for the Gathering below)


The series needed to set up some sort of ultra-powerful telepath. Originally, this was Lyta. She is actually in the pilot and contacts Kosh directly. The actress did not come back to do the series (one of many). So she was replaced with Talia Winters, who now was to pick up the super-telepath plot line. This is accomplished by the Jason Ironheart incident. His "gift" was developing in her, and she is set up to be special (the creepy telepath bum called her "the future"). However, this actress also left and, ironically, Lyta came back to the show. So it turns out her character went covorting about with Vorlons while Talia is practically dead.

The result of the super-telepath angle is seen towards the end of the show, where Lyta gets involved with Byron and eventually leads a telepath rebellion. It is presumed that had Talia stayed, she would play that role (especially as her faith in the Corps was waning during her stay on B5).

Kosh's "recording" of her mind/personality/whatever would be something the writers kept in their back pocket to be used in any potential return or saving of Talia. Sinc the actress up and left the show completely, that never happened. So now it's just a road that leads to a dead-end and a cool look into the oddness of Kosh.

Yeah i slept, shaved and showered during that time but didnt eat much, mostly drank beer.

I haven't seen the gathering, but i'm thinking about getting the movies and watching them.

Your input on this matter has finally answered my question and i can put it to rest, so thank you very much for that.

Hi there, BYEVJZTS.

Well Ol Mighty, GkarsEye does it again. I hadn't come to see the connection to the casting issues, but it makes a lot of sense. I figured it was just undeveloped, rather like the introduction of Bureau 13 in the Season 2 episode A Spider in the Web. I don't believe Bureau 13 was ever mentioned by name again after that episode either.

I always took it that Bureau 13 was swallowed up by the whole Clark thing, the he used it as a tool to gain and hold power.

Bureau 13 was dropped by JMS because the name had already been copyrighted by someone else.

What I find interesting about Spider in the Web is that Control advises Abel Horn to terminate Talia Winters after she witnesses his attack. But Control *is* Talia, so in fact Talia's second personality is prepared to die to protect Bureau 13!

No, Abel Horn is also Control. There were two Controls.

I always took it that Bureau 13 was swallowed up by the whole Clark thing, the he used it as a tool to gain and hold power.

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I kind of figured they were also the ones who worked on Garibaldi, and it leads me to wonder how much pull our Mr. Bester might have had with it, even if only before possible restructuring. It would have made for a cool sub-battle that Sheridan could have been holding with this shadow branch of a shadow type organization...........not Shadows, but just shadow as in black ops type.

One cool thing about the B13 business, the woman we saw as being at the controls, at least of those operations, she was marked as deceased. While it could simply to cover her work, what if she was being controlled in the same manor as Abel was......imagine multiple layers being controlled in the same manor as the lowest level operators, one big hollow group with only one free mind at the top.

Welcome aboard, BYEVJZTS, and thanks ever-so-much for picking that handle, which is doing wonders for my carpal tunnel. Forgive me if I refer to you as "Bye" in the future.

GKE pretty much covered it. The plot point was overtaken by real-world events (the deaparture of the actress) and there really wasn't much to do with it except drop it. (Kosh's recording is mentioned once more, by Garibaldi, but only as something he needs to look into. It is never mentioned again because the actor never returned. In the novels Talia's ultimate fate is left unresolved. By the 2270s even Garibaldi, for all his wealth and power, hadn't been able to find out what happened to her after she left B5. The thread with Talia's instructor from the Academy, officially dead but still around in "Spider" was another story thread that was just dropped, because it was too personal to Talia and could not have been plausibly transferred to Lyta. So the character was never seen again. Given the nature of Clark's regime and his even less savory allies, it is quite possible that the woman was killed when she was no longer useful or there seemed a danger that Project Lazarus might be exposed. Dead teeps tell no tales, after all.

The evaporation of Bureau 13 - Real world reason - a game company was using the name and asked JMS to drop it, which he agreed to do. Plausible B5 universe reasaon (put forth by JMS) - Covert ops units like Bureau 13 are often ad hoc outfits assembled for one purpose and broken up when that purpose is accomplished. More formal covert agencies, conversely, often grow, mutate, absorb other functions and get reorganized. Sometimes they're even shut down entirely, then a new and similar unit is created a few years later around a core of veterans from the earlier agency. The KGB, which had previously been the NKVD, the MGB, the OGPU and probably several other lethal-sounding sets of initials that I've forgotten is an example of the former, the CIA, built around a cadre from the wartime OSS, an example of the latter. So, as GKE indicated, Bureau 13 probably lived on in one form or another as part of the overall Clark aparatus. Don't forget, based on the dates given in "Spider" B-13 existed years before Morgan Clark could have had any realistic thoughts of staging a coup, but not, perhaps, before others might have been planning one on his behalf. The Shadows wanted to co-opt the Human Teeps, whom they rightly saw as the Vorlon's most potent weapon against them, and neutralize the Humans themselves, who were a new player of unkown potential in this round of the unending war. Clark's dictatorship and continued unrest on Mars, both supported by perhaps rogue elements within the Corps, would admirably fit the Shadows goals of evoltion through chaos, keeping Earth distracted with its own problems and mistrustful of aliens under Clark's rule, and a neutralized Psi Corps that would not help the Vorlons but could supply the Shadows with Teep counter-measures.

One cool thing about the B13 business, the woman we saw as being at the controls, at least of those operations, she was marked as deceased. While it could simply to cover her work, what if she was being controlled in the same manor as Abel was...

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I don't think this likely. Abel was clearly an experiment, and not a very successful one. I think Garibaldi's captors were part of Bester's paramilitary wing of Psi Corps, itself a highly secret organization with its Black Omega Squadron and illegal motherships, but not Bureau 13. Bester's ultimate loyalty was to his Teeps and to the Corps. He was the perfect company man. The teeps involved with Clark were much more political animals. Morden would never have trusted him, or vice versa. (Now there's a confrontation I would have paid to see - Bester vs. Morden. It would be like Dr. Doom vs. Lex Luthor - who the hell do you root for? ) The Shadows wanted to use the Teeps, in the current war, but they also wanted to neutralize them in the long run. Where do you think the anti-teep virus came from? (I've always wondered if the virus or the cure played some part in the eventual cure to the Drakh plague - or at least the interim cure. For that matter I wondered if any of the research into Deathwalker's immortality serum (which might also have been derived from Shadow technology) would have played a role.

Oh, and by all means get the movies.

Regards,

Joe

Welcome aboard, BYEVJZTS, and thanks ever-so-much for picking that handle, which is doing wonders for my carpal tunnel. Forgive me if I refer to you as "Bye" in the future.

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No problem, just to quickly explain, i wanted an new e-mail address for hotmail, and my name was taken, etc etc and i didnt want numbers, DOB in it, etc. So i wanted something unique, that would work first time, and if i ever signed up for anything new again, forums, etc it would also be unique. So i chose BYEVJZTS. Not surprisingly, whenever i sign up for anything that name is never taken always works first time. I chose that name 4 years ago and have been using it ever since.

GKE pretty much covered it. The plot point was overtaken by real-world events (the deaparture of the actress) and there really wasn't much to do with it except drop it. (Kosh's recording is mentioned once more, by Garibaldi, but only as something he needs to look into. It is never mentioned again because the actor never returned. In the novels Talia's ultimate fate is left unresolved. By the 2270s even Garibaldi, for all his wealth and power, hadn't been able to find out what happened to her after she left B5. The thread with Talia's instructor from the Academy, officially dead but still around in "Spider" was another story thread that was just dropped, because it was too personal to Talia and could not have been plausibly transferred to Lyta. So the character was never seen again. Given the nature of Clark's regime and his even less savory allies, it is quite possible that the woman was killed when she was no longer useful or there seemed a danger that Project Lazarus might be exposed. Dead teeps tell no tales, after all.

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Thank you for that, it gave me a little (when i say little, i'm underexaggerating, and this was a very long reply from you ) more information.

(Now there's a confrontation I would have paid to see - Bester vs. Morden. It would be like Dr. Doom vs. Lex Luthor - who the hell do you root for? )

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I'd vote for Bester, Morden was down right evil and was responsible for the death of Kosh. Bester's only desire was for teeps and the love of his life. But i would deffo of liked to see it.

Oh, and by all means get the movies.

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I think i intend to now, i didnt realise the movies also explained so much.

Regards

Phill
BYEVJZTS

i didnt realise the movies also explained so much.

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Eh, not really. The Gathering of course shows the details of Kosh's arrival and subsequent attempt to frame Sinclair, which is referenced a bit, but other than that, very little new information is provided in the movies. It's just that they're more stories with Babylon 5, so if you're a fan, you may as well see them.

Everything important in In the Beginning, the "prequel" movie, was revealed throughout the series. Thirdspace and River of Souls are completely stand-alone stories, and A Call To Arms is as much a set-up for the failed spin-off series Crusade as anything.

personally, i've always wanted to see Super! Lyta Vs Control! Talia.

Garibaldi wouldnt have to know.

Welcome to the asylum, BYE.
You've got questions. We've got answers.

Re: Lyta vs Talia

I wonder also how many of the Talia plot points were also taken from Lyta's original outline (with the exception of Ironheart, who would be redundant). When we see Lyta in The Gathering, she is a smartly dressed, professional teep proudly wearing the Psi Corps Omega insignia. If she hadn't been dropped by TPTB, we probably would have witnessed her slow and steady turn away from the Corps, just as we were seeing it with Talia. Her relationship with Kosh probably would have developed over the next season. When it finally came time to make a choice, she would have had to break from the Corps, start working for Kosh, and everything from there would be about the same.

Except for Season 5, Byron would've included Susan in a Love triangle.

Was Ironheart story created for Talia, or was that supposed to be for Lyta, and since they used Ironheart for Talia, JMS expanded the Vorlon side of her story to explain Lyta's absence and get her to super-teepdom?

It seems that the Ironheart story was created specifically for Talia. Lyts's super-telepathy is a result of the Vorlons, so she wouldn't have needed the Ironheart thing.

Ironically, this means that the cast problems with one telepath gave us good fortune with another: without Ironheart, there would probably be no Bester, who was not planned as a recurring character.

Yeah, and Walter Koenig was going to be one of the "Knights" that go after Sinclair in "And The Sky Full Of Stars" had he not had a health issue that kept from being able to film during the time that episode was filmed.

Yet again dumb luck works in B5's favor.

It was of course always unresolved if Talia's Control personality inherited Ironheart's gift. And of course how did Ironheart miss the artificial personality? He seemed pretty aware of everything else. Unless, of course, he didn't, and built in a fail-safe to his gift... but in which case why didn't he simply shut the artificial personality down?

Kosh, probably a bit more experienced in such matters, certainly had a plan to deal with Talia, or Talia v.2, but of course it's unlikely we'll ever find out what it is.

JMS did say that Garibaldi had a chance to ask Kosh about the data crystal -- and there would be an interesting conversation! -- but we know no more about it than that.

As for Morden vs. Bester -- a tough fight. Bester could probably do a few nasty things to the Shadows, but what then? Of course such masterminds would not be likely to meet directly in open warfare.

personally, i've always wanted to see Super! Lyta Vs Control! Talia

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I'm thinking "Jell-O wrestling" on pay-per-view.

Joe

spoo wrestling, fresh, of course.