The unusual suspects

But they wouldn't have known that themselves... unless they tried it off screen.

I do like that explanation though.

But they wouldn't have known that themselves... unless they tried it off screen.

I do like that explanation though.

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Didn't they try it on screen? Or am I confusing Garibaldi/Edgars scenes?

They never used a telepath in Sheridan's "interrogation", and the episode never so much as suggested that as possibility. (You are thinking of Edgars and Garibaldi and the unfortunate teep who verified G's answers.)

JMS has said that they took the approach they did because they wanted Sheridan broken and then rebulit to their liking. They were trying for force-feed a Stockholm Syndrome reaction in which he would genuinely come to identify with his captors, believe them, and agree with them. The Sheridan who emerged would sincerely believe that his previous actions had been wrong and that Clark was in the right. He'd not only be able to say that with a straight face even in a public speech, but any teep in the crowd (who at that distance and to avoid detection could only do a surface scan) would confirm that he meant it. Any kind of psychic surgery would be much more readily apparent even in a surface scan, and they couldn't take the chance of being exposed that way.

"Intersections" was really more "The Manchurian Candidate" than an account of the kind of torture used to either extract immediate military plans or simply to punish enemies of totalitrian regimes (and warn others.) So it was really more about brainwashing techniques than "torture" per se. The point was never to inflict pain on Sheridan (as it always is at least in part in interrogation torture, confession torture or punishment torture.) It was to convert him.

Regards,

Joe

Joe's quite right. They wanted Sheridan "back in the fold," believeably. But wouldn't the process have been hastened with a telepath guiding them?

I'm just wondering if JMS was already planning that scene with Lyta and decided to hide Sheridan's "ability." Note that Bester doesn't get as far as Sheridan when he tries to scan the command staff in "Epiphanies." Of course Lyta was blocking him anyway, but it's still interesting to note.

But wouldn't the process have been hastened with a telepath guiding them?

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Maybe, but probably not enough to risk a teep leaving some kind of psychic fingerprints. Also Clark was seated in the evil, but not stupid section. He knew his alliance with Psi Corps was a marriage of convenience, and that the Teeps had their own agenda. He may even have caught wind of elements within the corps assisting Sheridan. So he would have wanted to limit Sheridan's "conditioning" to those closest to him and avoid letting anyone else - least of all a teep of uncertain loyalty - into the process.

Regards,

Joe

A fair point, although I think you're overestimating the "fingerprints." Even still, Clark may have decided better safe than sorry.

Given that Clarks Admin. was influenced by the Shadows heavily (remember Morden, who always had an escort of Shadows, sitting in on a meeting with Clark representatives) I would think that he would want to have little to do with telepaths.

Ironically, Sheridans forcing the Shadows to leave the galaxy probably eliminated the greatest threat that human telepaths would ever face.

By the way, human telepaths were apparently created by Vorlon intervention.

Without the Vorlons, will human telepaths continue to be born or are the powers likely to disappear over time without continual Vorlon modifications?

They didn't use telepaths on Sheridan for the simple reason that they didn't think they needed to: they had already had success with others using the same methods they used on him.

Given that Clarks Admin. was influenced by the Shadows heavily (remember Morden, who always had an escort of Shadows, sitting in on a meeting with Clark representatives) I would think that he would want to have little to do with telepaths.

Ironically, Sheridans forcing the Shadows to leave the galaxy probably eliminated the greatest threat that human telepaths would ever face.

By the way, human telepaths were apparently created by Vorlon intervention.

Without the Vorlons, will human telepaths continue to be born or are the powers likely to disappear over time without continual Vorlon modifications?

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They genetically modified some humans and reintroduced them to the main populous. The gene has been sufficiently strong to reproduce on it's own for some time.

Humans only had telepaths 100 years or so before B5... yet the vorlons didn't try to reintegrate telepaths into the Narn culture around the same time. I wonder if this was because the vorlons had abandoned them as unworthy of support based on their continued attrition with the Centauri.... and Kosh was merely stating vorlon policy to Sinclair when saying the two races were a dying race and they should be left to die.

Its also interesting that none of other known races as far as we know use legislation to control their telepaths. I sort of got the impression from what Justin said in Z'Ha'Dum, that the Corps was a useful tool for the Shadows because under a Shadow infiltrated administration like Clarke's, having teeps controlled by law suited their purposes.

Also remember that they wanted some teeps of their own -- turning the Vorlon weapons against them. The teepsicles would have been used to make the Shadow ships immune to telepathic interference, no? Good thing B5 stopped them.

Given that Clarks Admin. was influenced by the Shadows heavily (remember Morden, who always had an escort of Shadows, sitting in on a meeting with Clark representatives) I would think that he would want to have little to do with telepaths.

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Remember the telepaths that were modified to serve as CPUs in Shadow ships ("weapons components" - "Ship of Tears" and The Passing of the Technomages)?

By the way, human telepaths were apparently created by Vorlon intervention.

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There's no "apparently" about it. It's in the Psi Corps trilogy and "Secrets of the Soul."

Without the Vorlons, will human telepaths continue to be born or are the powers likely to disappear over time without continual Vorlon modifications?

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Continue to be born, powers cultivated by Psi Corps and whatever follows Psi Corps. It's in their genes. This is not something like making the shadowtech necessary to create more Technomages. All the teeps have to do is have kids.

Given that Clarks Admin. was influenced by the Shadows heavily (remember Morden, who always had an escort of Shadows, sitting in on a meeting with Clark representatives) I would think that he would want to have little to do with telepaths.

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Psi Corps helped get Clark elected Vice President (there was a scandal about their violating their charter by becoming active in politics. There's a headline story on the issue in a copy of Universe Today in "Midnight on the Firing Line".) Talia, Garibalidi and Sheridan all come to suspect that Psi Corps is in some ways trying to become the government. Edgars talks about how Clark is giving increasing authority to Psi Corps. The telepath virus and his plan to take Clark down after his capture of Sheridan cause hiim to drop is guard are two sides of the same coin.

I think Clark would be careful in using telepaths in his plans for Sheridan, for reasons I've given above, but it is simply not correct to say that Clark wouldn't have anything to do with Teeps because of his Shadow connections. The Shadows themselves were using Clark preciesly in order to co-opt Psi Corps and the Human telepaths, thus neutralizing them. (Chances are that Clark had no real idea who he was dealing with, anymore than Londo did at the outset. For that matter Bester was almost certainly right in thinking the Shadows were behind the teep virus - the "aliens" that had to be recruited to help develop it, according to Edgar's agents who delivered it to Garibaldi on B5.)

By the way, human telepaths were apparently created by Vorlon intervention.

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Thanks for pointing that out. :angel:

Someone asked why only Earth's teeps required something like Psi Corps to control them. I think it was because only Earth's society generally offered such a high level individual freedom that teeps would be a threat to others. Minbari society is so other-directed, so bound up with clan and caste, so respectful of the privacy of others - so conformist that it is almost inconceivable that a Minbari Teep would perform an unauthorized scan or used his or her ability for personal gain, as at the gaming tables.

Centauri Teeps would all be in the service of aristocratic families. They would be spies, but also weapons. No house could go too far in its use of teeps without risking massive retaliation from others. And the nobilityas a whole would resist any attempt to create formal, planet-wide rules governing their use.

Drazi teeps would probably fall asleep or die of boredom reading other Drazi minds.

I suspect the lesser races - those who even have teeps - also have social structures that would tend to make something like Psi Corps unnecessary, because other things - personal conscience, social pressure, tradition - would effectively serve the same purpose.

Regards,

Joe

The other thing about Psi Corps is that it is a corps = military organisation. Its name reflects its purpose. A civilian organisation could been called the Telepath Trade Union or the Scanners Professional Society but they chose corps. As the first of the telepath books shows the know that the telepaths existed to fight the spider ship aliens.

The other thing about Psi Corps is that it is a corps = military organisation. Its name reflects its purpose. A civilian organisation could been called the Telepath Trade Union or the Scanners Professional Society but they chose corps. As the first of the telepath books shows the know that the telepaths existed to fight the spider ship aliens.

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Hang on sec though... don't the yanks have a Peace Corps?

True. Also an AmeriCorps that does similar work within the US.

The Fore runner to the PsiCorps, was also a Gov't Agency (The Meta-Sensory Bureau, or something similar)

Holy crap, I just typed up this whole thing about why I think the humans "needed" a PsiCorps and no one else did but then I closed my browser by accident.

Multi-tasking is hard.

Anyway, my basic point was that humans just had telepaths for a much shorter time than anyone else and it takes a while to figure out how to integrate them into society. By the time of Crusade, the PsiCorps was gone so things were slowly geting better.

I multi-task all the time.

Hang on sec though... don't the yanks have a Peace Corps?

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Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_corps

Notice how its spending goes up and down with the military budget.

Notice how its spending goes up and down with the military budget.

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Coincidence is not causation. The Peace Corps is not a paramilitary organization, does not have any connection to the Department of Defense and stands as an example of how an agency that is not military in organization or ethos can have "Corps" in its title - which was the only reason anyone brought it up. As an attempt to shore up your contention that the word "corps" somehow makes Psi Corp analogous to a military organization... well, let's just call it "unpersuasive".

Regards,

Joe