Best dark history episode

[FaxModem1]

I was watching the Farscape episode "The Way we Weren't", the one where we see what Aeryn Sun was like during her time as a regular Peacekeeper, and it got me wondering, what other shows had great flashbacks to the dark days?

For instance, in Deep Space Nine, we see Odo's past and origin as a security worker in the episode "Necessary Evil".

So, what episodes of a character's dark past did you particularly enjoy?

[Stofsk]

B5 had a few focusing on Londo Mollari. The episodes in question weren't like the above examples, but they still did a similar thing. In particular, I loved the one where G'kar gets high on dust which gives him telepathic powers for a brief amount of time, and he uses it to mindrape Londo. When all his dirty laundry came out you got the feeling that G'kar was seriously going to kill him then and there, consequences as a result of the surrender treaty be damned.

Then a certain vorlon ambassador showed up...

I loved how Londo got the gig on B5, when it was considered 'a joke, and not a very funny one at that.' To see where he began, well, before he began, and to see where he ended up, that was a truly epic character arc. Man I love Londo.

[Ryag Han]

I loved how Londo got the gig on B5, when it was considered 'a joke, and not a very funny one at that.' To see where he began, well, before he began, and to see where he ended up, that was a truly epic character arc. Man I love Londo.

yeah, he and G'kar made the show for me. just gotta love those two.

[Thanas]

And Vir, of course. Gotta love Vir.

[Ahriman238]

Teal'c had a pretty good one in 'Threshold.' The show had already dealt very well with his history as a Goa'uld footsoldier, and then Apophis' chief minion, though establishing that he still felt guilty. But in the episode before Teal'c had been brainwashed into believing he had always been secretly loyal to Apophis, and to prove he wasn't they almost kill him to let him have the relevant flashbacks showing him and how his doubts grew over time.

It's the sort of thing that sounds really tacky when described, but the execution of it was magnificent.

[StarSword]

Purely hypothetical, of course, but I would've liked to have seen a Firefly episode where we learn Shepherd Book's origin story.

It's hinted in Serenity, of course, that he was a Parliament operative like the one played by Chiwetel Ejiofor.

[Ahriman238]

Should 'In the Beginning' count? It's not like anyone was evil at the time, but the Earth-Minbari War definitly felt like a low point in most of the character's lives. Londo gets a front-row seat to the end of the human race, Delenn is helpless to stop a war she started, all of the human characters lost friends and family, Franklin was arrested as a traitor for sticking to his medical ethics etc.

It kind of suprises me that the human characters weren't a lot more distrustful and hostile to the Minbari during the show. Did no one ever straight up ask them how they could justify their war of anihilation for the death of one man?

[Stofsk]

The human characters in B5 were consummate professionals working at a diplomatic post. Why would they grill people like Delenn or give her a hard time over a war that was, to them, ten years in the past?

I'm not taking the minbari's side either but the fact is that the war started because the human captain in charge of that task force was gung ho and trigger happy. 'In the Beginning' makes it clear that had EarthForce sent someone else in that guy's place the whole war thing would never have happened.

[Night_stalker]

While I hate to play Devil's advocate for a man, that I agree should never have been placed in charge of a tugboat, much less a frigate, is a difficult task, but let's lay out the facts.

1. He encountered 3 unknown vessels, who are operating powerful stealth fields, that he couldn't penetrate. A smart commander at this point would've obeyed his orders, which were to NOT provoke them, and jumped away. Either that, or attempted to contact them with a First Contact protocol, that I had drilled into my head by my teachers at the Academy.

2. All of a sudden, He's told that the "alien scanner rays are interfering with our systems." He can't jump out, like he planned to. He's now trapped with 3 unknowns, who are scanning him, but he can't return the favor. Acting on the idea that they may want to capture HIS ships, he orders Red Alert, and a comm channel to be opened, stating, "We mean no harm".

3. To add more fuel to the inferno, he's told that their gunports are now OPEN, and his sensors wouldn't be able to tell him whether or not their weps are armed, or even if he's been locked. Then, all of a sudden, he's told that their weapons are armed. From there, he sees no alternate option but to open fire.

Honestly, he does deserve most of the blame, but I doubt many officers in his position would've reacted differently.

You can see the encounter here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgZVGkllXJo

[Stofsk]

When I said he was gung ho and trigger happy, that was mainly informed by Sheridan refusing the offer to be his XO on that mission. While the minbari have some questionable traditions like opening gunports as a sign of respect or admiration (who the hell does that?), Sheridan noted that Jankowski has both a reputation for being a loose cannon maverick by the officers who have served under him, and also at least one incident where a first contact situation went awry (albeit Jankowski was cleared of any malfeasance according to Lefcourt).

There was also Londo at the start telling Lefcourt and some civilian dude probably from the ministry of defence or whatever that if they wanted to send an expedition it should be one ship. Their arrogant dismissal of Londo's advice is just another reason why I'm being harsh on the whole affair. They put the wrong man in charge to begin with and the expedition had the wrong attitude as well, even in the planning stages. If they had sent one vessel, with someone else in charge, I'll bet all the pennies in my pocket that it would have resulted in a better outcome.

[Ahriman238]

The human characters in B5 were consummate professionals working at a diplomatic post. Why would they grill people like Delenn or give her a hard time over a war that was, to them, ten years in the past?

I'm not taking the minbari's side either but the fact is that the war started because the human captain in charge of that task force was gung ho and trigger happy. 'In the Beginning' makes it clear that had EarthForce sent someone else in that guy's place the whole war thing would never have happened.

There's lots of things that both sides could have done to prevent the Prometheus Incident, and the War. If they had picked someone else, if they had listened to Londo, if the task force obeyed orders and quietly bugged out when they ran into the Minbari, if their power/jumpgate systems were slightly less shitty, if the Minbari had a gesture of respect that couldn't easily be interpreted as belligerance by anyone who didn't know the Minbari well, If they had considered the Humans unworthy of this gesture of respect, or asked anyone senior first, if the Minbari had simply jumped out and resolved to make first contact another day, if Delenn hadn't voted to pursue and destroy...

I hate to resort to cliche, but it's the most important word in the English language.

ANd yes, the Minbari War was a decade ago, so what? Ivanova lost her older brother, and there are tens of thousands of human on B5. Yet we never see any anti-Minbari sentiment except as part of the general xenophobia of the Clark regime, and the one incident with the gropos. Hell, the Minbari are the only ones who seem to have a problem, they're still holding a grudge against Sheriden for blowing up one of their ships, once. The Minbari chewed up almost the entire Earth Fleet!

[Stofsk]

Bullshit there aren't grudges from humans. There was an entire episode in season 1 dealing with earth-based xenophobia which targeted aliens. One minbari poet got branded by their thugs. After they split from earth there was the immediate episode that had Nightwatch remnants kidnap Delenn and a visiting Captain. There was also the season 2 episode 'And now for a word...' which had Delenn ambushed by the reporter about the war, when it was a fucking EF warship that fired the first salvos in it. The whole point of the conflict is both sides should have exercised restraint, particularly the minbari, but earth's attitude ten years on was 'oh those damn minbari if only we were in charge then we could have beaten them'*, which suggests a lot of the people in positions of power didn't learn a goddamn thing. Despite the aforementioned argument over how they picked the wrong man to lead the expedition and had the wrong attitude in mind for it to boot.

* Sheridan even points this out to the reporter bitch in that episode, and then she smugly corrects Sheridan by saying 'Well actually Captain, Earth didn't lose that war - we won. The minbari surrendered.' Even Sinclair, who's incredibly level-headed, privately expressed how long it took him before his hatred against minbari began to quell. Sheridan makes no apologies for his actions in the war either: 'It was our only victory and I'm not about to apologise for it now.' That was in the first episode he was introduced and he made it clear he's not going to be lovey-dovey with minbari but nor is he going to be a bigot. Ivanova may have lost her brother but she has no time for xenophobes, as the episode in season 1 showed (damn I can't remember its name). And she knows that Delenn and Lennier weren't the ones who pulled the trigger on her brother. As for Garibaldi, he's law enforcement, he's not going to express hostility or anything towards minbari residents on B5 because that's a no-go for someone who's a goddamn professional.

[Ahriman238]

Bullshit there aren't grudges from humans. There was an entire episode in season 1 dealing with earth-based xenophobia which targeted aliens. One minbari poet got branded by their thugs. After they split from earth there was the immediate episode that had Nightwatch remnants kidnap Delenn and a visiting Captain. There was also the season 2 episode 'And now for a word...' which had Delenn ambushed by the reporter about the war, when it was a fucking EF warship that fired the first salvos in it. The whole point of the conflict is both sides should have exercised restraint, particularly the minbari, but earth's attitude ten years on was 'oh those damn minbari if only we were in charge then we could have beaten them'*, which suggests a lot of the people in positions of power didn't learn a goddamn thing. Despite the aforementioned argument over how they picked the wrong man to lead the expedition and had the wrong attitude in mind for it to boot.

* Sheridan even points this out to the reporter bitch in that episode, and then she smugly corrects Sheridan by saying 'Well actually Captain, Earth didn't lose that war - we won. The minbari surrendered.' Even Sinclair, who's incredibly level-headed, privately expressed how long it took him before his hatred against minbari began to quell. Sheridan makes no apologies for his actions in the war either: 'It was our only victory and I'm not about to apologise for it now.' That was in the first episode he was introduced and he made it clear he's not going to be lovey-dovey with minbari but nor is he going to be a bigot. Ivanova may have lost her brother but she has no time for xenophobes, as the episode in season 1 showed (damn I can't remember its name). And she knows that Delenn and Lennier weren't the ones who pulled the trigger on her brother. As for Garibaldi, he's law enforcement, he's not going to express hostility or anything towards minbari residents on B5 because that's a no-go for someone who's a goddamn professional.

I thought the group with the stealth-suits attacked other aliens, not just Minbari? It's been a while, I could be wrong. There are small issues, but somehow it always felt more like 'damn aliens' than 'damn minbari,' which is what I meant when I said that every anti-Minbari sentiment just seems like part of a general xenophobia. Especially when dealing with the Clark administration and it's policies. Even the 'Minbari War Syndrome' they invent makes it clear that the Minbari are singled out only for relevance to Sheriden, their bullshit explanation could just as easily apply to the Centauri or the Narn.

I agree with you about virtually all of this, it just seems odd to me that there so many Narn-Centauri incidents on the station, and Gaim-Abbai, and Drazi-Drazi, yet almost no Human-Minbari tensions, and almost all of the ones that existed were the Minbari being dicks to Sheriden. I hate to sound like I'm harping on this, and I don't plan on turning into a broken record, but Sheriden takes vastly more shit from the Minbari on the station then Delenn or Lennier do from the Humans. Maybe that's because the intervening centuries have made humanity more enlightened (doubtful, but ti could happen,) maybe it's because Sheriden did a specific act, that was definitly done by him, I don't know.

And no one, among the Humans or the Minbari, knows why the Grey Council called the war off, until Delenn explains it. I doubt EarthGov even knows why the war started, beyond that one of their ships fired on one of the Minbari's. There was a scene during the first season where dr. Franklin straight out asks Delenn what she did during the war, and she ducks it. This leads me to believe that the Minbari have explained nothing about their motivations at any stage of the war to the humans.

[Stark]

I think you're missing the difference between an extended period of enslavement and exploitation (which G'Kar can go on about in any given episode) and a war that the humans lost. Like Stofsk says, plenty of people have hard feelings and the senior opinion is 'oh yeah we'd totally win if the war started today', but it's a totally different situation - particularly because both Earth and Minbar policy is one of reconciliation, rather than antagonism.

[Stofsk]

I thought the group with the stealth-suits attacked other aliens, not just Minbari? It's been a while, I could be wrong.

No you're not wrong, they were xenophobic in general, I just pointed it out because a minbari was targeted as well as other races.

There might not be any specific anti-minbari xenophobia expressed, but that could just be because overt hostility against minbar might provoke a second round at a war, which despite all of earth's bluster would end much the same way the first one did.

I agree with you about virtually all of this, it just seems odd to me that there so many Narn-Centauri incidents on the station, and Gaim-Abbai, and Drazi-Drazi, yet almost no Human-Minbari tensions, and almost all of the ones that existed were the Minbari being dicks to Sheriden. I hate to sound like I'm harping on this, and I don't plan on turning into a broken record, but Sheriden takes vastly more shit from the Minbari on the station then Delenn or Lennier do from the Humans. Maybe that's because the intervening centuries have made humanity more enlightened (doubtful, but ti could happen,) maybe it's because Sheriden did a specific act, that was definitly done by him, I don't know.

Stark pointed out that both governments, at least before Clark took over, had reconciliation as a policy. Anyway it's been ages since I watched B5 from start to finish. It's possible there's some more subtle indications throughout the show, but I can't immediately remember any. As for the warrior caste giving Sheridan shit, that's a different thing to someone giving Delenn or Lennier shit. For one thing, the latter are part of the religious caste and they go out of their way to be nice to people. Meanwhile the warrior caste are just a bunch of dicks. They're just dirty on Sheridan for suckerpunching them with so cheap a ploy as a fake distress signal. If you want to psychoanalyse it I bet many in the warrior caste deep down can't believe they fell for it and it manifests as irrational hatred toward Sheridan 'the Star Killer'.

And no one, among the Humans or the Minbari, knows why the Grey Council called the war off, until Delenn explains it. I doubt EarthGov even knows why the war started, beyond that one of their ships fired on one of the Minbari's. There was a scene during the first season where dr. Franklin straight out asks Delenn what she did during the war, and she ducks it. This leads me to believe that the Minbari have explained nothing about their motivations at any stage of the war to the humans.

I am reasonably certain that someone told President Clark why the minbari surrendered. It was in the short lived comic series (which IIRC JMS gave his thumbs up as far as canonicity is concerned). Sinclair got recalled to earth and met Clark and the latter told him he's being made ambassador to minbar and so on.

[Ahriman238]

I think you're missing the difference between an extended period of enslavement and exploitation (which G'Kar can go on about in any given episode) and a war that the humans lost. Like Stofsk says, plenty of people have hard feelings and the senior opinion is 'oh yeah we'd totally win if the war started today', but it's a totally different situation - particularly because both Earth and Minbar policy is one of reconciliation, rather than antagonism.

Stark pointed out that both governments, at least before Clark took over, had reconciliation as a policy. Anyway it's been ages since I watched B5 from start to finish. It's possible there's some more subtle indications throughout the show, but I can't immediately remember any. As for the warrior caste giving Sheridan shit, that's a different thing to someone giving Delenn or Lennier shit. For one thing, the latter are part of the religious caste and they go out of their way to be nice to people. Meanwhile the warrior caste are just a bunch of dicks. They're just dirty on Sheridan for suckerpunching them with so cheap a ploy as a fake distress signal. If you want to psychoanalyse it I bet many in the warrior caste deep down can't believe they fell for it and it manifests as irrational hatred toward Sheridan 'the Star Killer'.

Fair enough. I do actually appreciate the difference between a solid century of enslavement, abuse, and degradation and a war. But the Minbari were remorselessly killing their way across human space, and ignoring any attempts to surrender. As far as anyone knew at the time, it was the end of the human race. After watching this unstoppable juggernaught come at me, losing thousands of lives, some of them my friends, in a futile attempt to even slow it down and knowing that I would be one of the last generation of mankind, I would probably hate them. I'd get over it eventually, but that has more to do with my personal life-experiences then any sort of moral superiority on my part.

I never quite got that, about the Black Star. Yes, they say a false distress signal is dishonorable, and I can even understand that view, though I disagree. But it wasn't a false distress signal, the Lexington had been attacked, it's squadron destroyed, it was crippled and running out of air and you know, actually in need of help. Hence the distress signal. They went through this whole melodrama because the only way to survive was to send a distress signal, but if they did that the Minbari would beat any rescuers, and the Minbari would destroy them. So they rigged a few improvisied mines as insurance, so when the Black Star turned up to coup de grace them they deliberatly lured it towards their mines, so what?
Their distress signal was genuine, the Black Star wasn't there to render aid, they defended themselves with what they had. I'm seeing zero problems here, even if you accept a flase distress signal as dirty pool.

[OmegaChief]

This is also mentioned In The Begginning by that old Ranger dude, the Warrior Caste are enjoying the war because the Humans have absoluty no chance against them.

The Blackstar incident shows otherwise, and that gives them the whole issue, they should have been easily able to destroy the Lexington with no casulties, as the Humans cannot possibley win and the Blackstar is thier best ship.

And yet the humans blew it up, and effectivle emasculated the entire Warrior Caste, which is why they're so butthurt about Sheridan.

[Stark]

All their banging on about 'honour' could be seen as a smokescreen for the realization their faction is and has been losing influence since then. Doesn't Minbari culture end up depreciating the war caste and their politics?

[FaxModem1]

Along with the Religious caste as well. Delenn reorganizes the council so that both castes have minorities compared to the Worker caste.

[lordofchange13]

Purely hypothetical, of course, but I would've liked to have seen a Firefly episode where we learn Shepherd Book's origin story.

It's hinted in Serenity, of course, that he was a Parliament operative like the one played by Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Were is it hinted at that he was a super angent?

[Ahriman238]

Purely hypothetical, of course, but I would've liked to have seen a Firefly episode where we learn Shepherd Book's origin story.

It's hinted in Serenity, of course, that he was a Parliament operative like the one played by Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Were is it hinted at that he was a super angent?

It's implied several times throughout the show that Shepherd Book has a dark and violent history, and is connected somehow to the Alliance. Most tellingly and most often cited is his ease with weapons and gunfights in 'War Stories,' his familiarity with Operative tactics and psychology in Serenity and an incident in 'Safe.' The Shepherd was wounded as a bystander to a gunfight, at the same time SImon and River were kidnapped, they take the Shepherd to an Alliance ship for treatment, and the Alliance captain is completly prepared to sit back and let Book die until he pulls his ID. It's never said or shown what was on the card, but it convinced the captain to drop everything and make Book his new top priority.

Many fans consider it telling that the Operative had 'go anywhere, do anything' access, but as far as I know it's still just a fan-theory.

[Thanas]

^Didn't a recent serenity comic clarify his background?


***************

As to Dark history episode in Star Trek, I would name DS9: "Necessary Evil" and "Things Past". Very good character pieces about the choices both Kira and Odo made or had to make during the Cardassian Occupation.

[StarSword]

^Didn't a recent serenity comic clarify his background?

Having not read the comic, but rather the Firefly wiki article on Shepherd Book, all I know is that he took the name Book in memory of a man he killed.

[Thanas]

^Spoilers dude.

[StarSword]

Oops. Sorry.