BPP Crusade 106 – Ruling From The Tomb

The Babylon Project Podcast

The episode opens on Mars, where we find Captain Lochley and Gideon together in advance of a conference convened to discuss the Drakh plague. Gideon is there since he’s the captain of the Excalibur; Lochley has been called away from Babylon 5 to head up the event security. She confidently declares the event “perfectly safe.” — Oh boy! Early in the episode we also see several tips of the hat to Ray Bradbury, starting with a visible street sign for Bradbury Street.

Lochley and Gideon seem slightly flirtatious, Max and our old friend Trace seem to be squabbling over a chance to gain Dureena’s affection, and Dr. Chambers isn’t immune to what may be advances from others either. It’s not clear why everyone seems so interested in the affection of others, but outside of the seriousness of the conference, things are somewhat lighthearted…until violence strikes. A brutally murdered victim seems to have something to do with a shady Foundationst priest named Dr. Lebecque and a sketchy religious order called Sacred Omega. The decision is made to transport the body to Excalibur to attempt to reduce visibility and gossip about what could be perceived as a threat to the conference. As with having Lochley head the security effort, the reasoning for moving the autopsy off-world seems a bit weak, but it’s used to set up time to hear about Trace’s past. He was going to be a priest at one point and has a connection with Lebceque. As for Lebecque, he seems unstable as he’s hearing and responding to a voice in his head that seems to be encouraging him to consider the Drakh plague a result of the will of God, driving him to consider ending the anti-plague event by killing everyone present, preventing them from thwarting God’s will. He’s listening.

There’s more social interaction between Lochley and Gideon, and what appears to be a romantic interest forming. In a comical moment, Gideon divulges to Lochley that his hero is John Sheridan; Lochley divulges to him that she used to be married to Sheridan. (Awkward!) Trace and Max are still squabbling over Dureena (she’s not interested), Trace has had too much to drink and isn’t holding up well, and eventually stumbles outside.

Based on the prompting of the voice, Lebecque has a bomb rigged and ready to detonate to kill all those who can contribute to curing the plague who are in attendance, and as things come to a head, Trace’s prior knowledge of Lebecque from his days entering the priesthood pay dividends. They run a pretty cheesy but successful bluff to convince Lebecque to back off his plan, everyone is saved, and we learn the voice in his head is Joan of Arc. The episode ends with Lochley inviting Gideon to swing by Babylon 5 if he’s ever in the area, and as the credits roll we hear…dogs and cats?

In the end, this was a fairly obscure episode, in that the title refers to a play written by T.S. Eliot. A line from that play is also quoted toward the end of the episode. At least one of your hosts couldn’t cleanly connect the episode to the point of the play (the temptation and death of Archbishop Becket of Canterbury, in 1170). We tried to piece the connections between the episode and the play together, but probably not with much success. Overall, it wasn’t very clear what the episode added, but it definitely provided a little humor and some additional character development for several of our main characters. It definitely established the beginning of what could be an interesting personal relationship between Lochley and Gideon.

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