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Divided Loyalties Lyta...Talia...Lyta

Sindatur

Regular
So, Talia was given IronHeart's gift so she could fulfill Lyta's S4 & S5 arc. Kosh recorded Talia's reflections and fear so she could be cured. Garibaldi went to find Kosh so he could use those reflections.

Was JMS still intending to keep Talia around at this point? Or had he already made up his mind to switch back to Lyta?
 
I think Garibaldi's comment about them maybe having a defense against Talia 2.0 was just that - assuming that Kosh's recording could be used as a weapon or to blackmail Talia if she became a threat. I don't think a cure was on the table at that point because JMS had, in fact, decided to bring Lyta back. Andrea had made it clear that she was unhappy with the amount of screen time she was getting and Pat was interested in coming back to work. I don't think JMS would have written Talia out of the show until he had a replacement lined up, but since Pat was amenable he didn't have to. (Pat had just given birth when she did "Divided Loyalties", so I don't think she was ready to return to work full time yet, but she and JMS must have reached an agreement to have her join the cast as a regular down the line before doing the episode.)

Regards,

Joe
 
It just seemed weird, as tightly as JMS matched everything up, that there was no further expansion on that, it felt like an unfulfilled arc point, as if he had intended to do more, but, reality changed things and we simply hear of Talia's fate later.

So, just for blackmail? Why the emphasis on reflections? (or was that because it was already established from the prior episode?)
 
I don't think there was an emphasis on reflections in Garibaldi's mention of Kosh's recording. (Their was a just a repetition of what Kosh had said, and that was, of course, written and filmed at a time when they assumed Talia would be with the show for all five seasons.)

There wasn't a hell of a lot JMS could do with the Talia arc given that all the stuff he'd set up for her either duplicated what he'd had in mind for Lyta or was designed to distinguish her from the first telepath and give her story a little spin of its own. The Lyta stuff Lyta would now do, and the purely Talia stuff was no longer relevant. Throw in the fact that JMS was probably a little peeved with Andrea (don't sign up for an ensemble show where you are not the lead and then expect to be the main focus of a lot of episodes) and there's no way to pay off much of what he'd laid in for the character. Best to simply drop it. (And we don't learn about Talia's fate later. :) We learn what Bester implies happened to her - when he's trying to get a reaction out of Garibaldi, as Ivanova points out at the time. There's no particular reason to believe him. And according to the Telepath Trilogy Garibaldi is never able to determine what really became of her, even with all the resources of Edgards-Garibaldi at his disposal and the better part of 20 years searching. I like to think that we might find out if the story of the Telepath War is ever told. :)

Regards,

Joe
 
At the other end of that particular story, Talia appears in one panel of one of the comic arcs (don't know which issue as I only have the graphic novel version 'Shadows Past and Present'), in a way that implies that the Mars facility stumbled on by Sinclair and Garibaldi was where Talia v2.0 was programmed.
 
Joe, you are correct we don't have absolute confirmation of Talia's fate, but, I felt the fact that after 20 years, Garibaldi couldn't disprove it, was a pretty good assumption that it was true.

GH, that may be "In Valen's Name"
 
Just to clarify my own position - I don't think there is any reason at all to believe that Talia was dissected, and I don't think that the Teep Trilogy says Garibaldi failed to (or was even trying to) "disprove" that. I think what Bester said was simply the usual Bester lie designed to get Bester what he wanted - an emotional reaction from Garibaldi that would give Bester a way "into" his mind. The Corps had no reason to dissect a trusted agent. They could still debrief her and user her elsewhere.

Garibaldi was never able to find her alive, or find out what became of her after she left B5, but that's hardly proof she was dissected. She could have been given a new identity and put in the Corps' version of the witness protection program. She could have been killed in the Telepath War. Lots of people simply vanish in wartime, bodies never found, lost on ships that sink or are destroyed, or in planes that crash in remote areas. Lots of possibilities that don' involve deliberate murder and medical research. :)

Regards,

Joe
 
Joe, you are correct we don't have absolute confirmation of Talia's fate, but, I felt the fact that after 20 years, Garibaldi couldn't disprove it, was a pretty good assumption that it was true.

GH, that may be "In Valen's Name"

Nope ... definitely "Shadows Past and Present"
 
No, this might sound weird but I'm trying to do it spoiler free. "In Valen's Name" deals exclusively with the rediscovery of an "artefact" closely linked with Valen, with an adventure involving said artefact (as well as it's ultimate fate) and glimpses into Valen's past and a further pointer towards something hinted at in "To Dream In the City of Sorrows".

You are right about what was going on in the facility on Mars though and the panel with Talia in it. It is in the other comic collection though.
 
No, this might sound weird but I'm trying to do it spoiler free. "In Valen's Name" deals exclusively with the rediscovery of an "artefact" closely linked with Valen, with an adventure involving said artefact (as well as it's ultimate fate) and glimpses into Valen's past and a further pointer towards something hinted at in "To Dream In the City of Sorrows".

You are right about what was going on in the facility on Mars though and the panel with Talia in it. It is in the other comic collection though.

Oh, my bad, "Shadows Past and Present" was the title of another single comic book, I had forgotten that one. Thanks.
 
You said "Shadows Past and Present" was a compilation, correct, so therefore you weren't sure of the original comic it came from. I was saying I believe the three parter "In Valen's Name" was where it came from (Issues 12-14 of the comics).

Over here, "In Valen's Name" was published across the first half dozen issues of the official B5 magazine (the issues only available in the UK). The Talia appearance definitely happened the second "graphic novel" collection "Shadows Past and Present" which, if research serves, was issues 5-8 of the original DC comic run.
 

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