“Acts of Sacrifice”
Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Jim Johnston
Season 2, Episode 12
Production episode 212
Original air date: February 22, 1995
It was the dawn of the third age… We open on a battle between the Narn and the Centauri. A Narn heavy cruiser opens a jump gate to retreat, as the Centauri are kicking their asses, but then they detect a civilian ship being attacked by the Centauri. The cruiser runs interference to allow the civilians to escape through the gate, sacrificing themselves in the bargain.
Cut to B5, where G’Kar is showing the footage of the battle to Sheridan and his senior staff by way of asking for Earth’s support. The Centauri promised not to target civilians, and this is a very straightforward breaking of that promise. Mollari was supposed to be in this meeting, but refused to attend, saying only that the transport ships they fired on had weapons, not civilians. As lies go, it’s pretty transparent, and nobody in the room believes it. Sheridan can’t promise anything, but he’ll talk to his superiors on Earth. G’Kar says that’s all he asks. If Earth Alliance supports the Narn, he’s sure the other powers will fall into line.
A Lumati ship is arriving at B5, with an emissary who will be exploring the possibility of the Lumati becoming allies with Earth, maybe even joining the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. Because Sheridan is too busy dealing with Narn-Centauri issues, he delegates the task of playing diplomat with the Lumati to Ivanova. Sheridan tells Ivanova to do whatever it takes to get the Lumati on board, an order that you just know will bite everyone on the ass before the episode’s over…
G’Kar makes the same appeal to Delenn that he made to Sheridan: requesting support. However, Delenn is less optimistic about her government’s willingness to help than Sheridan is. The Minbari nearly committed genocide in their last war, and it will take a lot for them to go to war again. Also, G’Kar has often plotted and schemed against the Centauri and sworn to wipe them out. In a few years, will Mollari or some other Centauri be asking for Minbari support against Narn aggression?
Allan has to break up a fight in the casino between a group of dudebro Centauri boasting about Centauri victories against the Narn and a group of Narn who don’t appreciate that.
Two Lumati arrive and are greeted by Ivanova. One is Correlimurzon, the actual diplomat. The other is Taq, his aide. The pair have a telepathic link, and Taq speaks for Correlimurzon, as it would be a loss of face if the diplomat spoke directly to an inferior race. So that’s going well.
Mollari has a meeting with a Centauri merchant, who wants a favor and is willing to do Mollari any number of favors in return. He is obviously the latest in a series, and after Mollari dismisses him, he tells Vir to keep the rest away until tomorrow. He is disgusted with the fact that the same people who barely acknowledged his existence a year ago now are sucking up to him, like he’s a wishing well with legs.
Another fight breaks out between the Centauri dudebros and the pissed-off Narn, this time in a corridor. Again, Allan has to break it up, but one Narn refuses to drop his weapon when Allan orders him to, and Allan is forced to shoot him. G’Kar is livid, but so is Sheridan. B5 is neutral territory, and crap like this makes it that much harder to convince EarthDome to support the Narn.
Ivanova’s tour of B5 takes the Lumati to medlab, where Correlimurzon is appalled to see that they treat inferior species, as that interferes with evolution. Franklin is equally appalled by the Lumati’s callous attitude.
In the casino, Mollari sees Garibaldi and invites him over, handing him a bag of money. It’s repayment for all the times Garibaldi loaned him money when he was running short. Garibaldi is less than enthusiastic about that or, indeed, about even talking to Mollari. For his part, Mollari is enjoying good fortune for the first time in a long time, and the only real friend he has to share it with is Garibaldi, to whom he offers a “chemically inoffensive” drink. Relenting only slightly, Garibaldi makes a half-hearted promise to come back and share that drink with him when he’s off-duty. Spoiler alert: he never makes it.
G’Kar appeals to the Narn on the station to avoid violence, as that only makes it harder to recruit allies. The Narn agree, but it’s a rectal infusion of smoke, as the moment he leaves, they drag the Centauri dudebro out, tied and gagged, and stab him to death, leaving his body where it will be found.
Later, we see Franklin doing the autopsy on the Centauri dudebro. While there’s no definitive proof of who stabbed him to death, it’s pretty obvious that it was a pissed-off Narn. Sheridan tells Garibaldi to hold off on telling Mollari. He’ll need to know eventually, but right now, it’ll just make matters worse.
The Lumati show up unannounced to Ivanova’s quarters, with Ivanova trying and failing to explain the concept of privacy to them. While Correlimurzon shows an unhealthy interest in Ivanova’s clothing, he also states that Ivanova has only shown him the good parts of the station. They want to see everything. Ivanova demands that he stop pawing her things and offers to take him anywhere he wants. Naturally, he wants to go to downbelow.
Sheridan is disappointed to learn from Liaison Officer Franke that EarthDome will not be providing support for the Narn. They’re staying out of the conflict. Sheridan then contacts Delenn, and the pair of them work out a plan to surreptitiously rescue Narn civilians from the war zone, and also to get food and medical supplies to them—mostly leftovers that would be disposed of or otherwise not missed. Delenn agrees.
Na’Toth sees the Narn gang buying Drazi blades and figures out what’s up, which she reports to G’Kar. For his part, G’Kar immediately goes to confront the Narn, Na’Toth backing him up. G’Kar challenges the leader of the Narn gang to combat, because that always seems to work for some stupid reason, and G’Kar beats him handily. (Na’Toth at one point has to stop another Narn from shooting G’Kar in the back.) The Narn agree to stand down, though the ringleader manages to stab G’Kar with a poisoned blade. G’Kar knocks him out, then walks out under his own power, not letting Na’Toth help him until they’re out of sight.
Ivanova explains about the lurkers to Correlimurzon: that they’re people who came to the station hoping for work and/or a better life, they failed to get either, and didn’t have the money to buy passage elsewhere, so they eke out their lives down here. Correlimurzon is impressed with the humans’ good sense to isolate their undesirables down here, away from everyone else, so they can’t pollute the gene pool. Ivanova tries to explain that that’s not the case, but it’s enough so that Correlimurzon is finally willing to speak to Ivanova directly, saying that there will be an alliance. She later meets with them in the captain’s office to sign the alliance agreement, but Ivanova is gobsmacked to learn that the Lumati seal such alliances with sex. Correlimurzon starts to take his robes off right there in the captain’s office, making it clear that they really really don’t get privacy. Ivanova makes an excuse to leave and promises to seal the deal later.
Na’Toth turns the Narn ringleader over to Garibaldi, promising that he’ll confess to killing the Centauri dudebro. Garibaldi arrests him, but is worried about how Mollari will react.
Ivanova discusses her dilemma with Franklin. She really doesn’t want to have sex with Correlimurzon, obviously, but she already told Sheridan that it was a done deal, and she has no idea what to do—at least until Franklin offhandedly mentions that the Lumati don’t know anything about human anatomy, which gives her an idea.
G’Kar, barely recovered from being stabbed, goes to meet with Sheridan and Delenn. Hopeful that they will tell him that their governments will support the Narn Regime, he is instead devastated to learn that they won’t. At first, Sheridan and Delenn’s alternate plan to provide covert aid to the civilian victims of the war is met with dismissive annoyance by G’Kar, but he puts a brave face on and thanks the captain and the ambassador. Once he leaves the meeting, he breaks down with both laughter and tears.
Ivanova invites the Lumati to her quarters. She says she wants to have sex the human way, but then demurs, figuring that Correlimurzon wouldn’t be able to handle it. As expected, the Lumati claims he can handle anything the humans can, and says he’ll do it her way.
So Ivanova does an interpretive dance all around Correlimurzon, while scatting and uttering various 1990s relationship clichés. Correlimurzon is nonplussed, but agrees to sign the treaty. He leaves. Taq stays behind a moment to shake Ivanova’s hand and give her a smile that makes it clear that he knows exactly what she did, even if his boss doesn’t, and also leaves.
Sheridan and Garibaldi go to Mollari, who surprises them by not making a public fuss. He says that the Centauri dudebro is a known pain in the ass, and has no family, and no one will miss him. If the Narn is extradited to the Centauri, his possessions and assets seized and auctioned to support the Centauri war effort, that will be enough.
Sheridan congratulates Ivanova on a successful negotiation. He also passes on a gift to Ivanova that Correlimurzon left for her. It includes a card that says, “Next time, my way.”
Garibaldi heads to the casino, and finally joins Mollari for the drink. Garibaldi is both surprised and grateful that Mollari did what he could not to escalate the situation with the Narn and the dead Centauri dudebro. Mollari says he’s happy to help his friend, even if he is that for only a little while.
Get the hell out of our galaxy! Sheridan is, to his credit, unhesitating in his support of the Narn, and the nanosecond EarthDome turns him down, he goes to Delenn to find an alternative method of supporting them.
Ivanova is God. Ivanova comports herself well on her diplomatic mission, succeeding in completing it successfully despite the apparent requirement for non-consenting sex…
The household god of frustration. Garibaldi finally gets paid back by Mollari for all the times he staked him when he was on a losing streak. It takes a bit for him to be genuinely grateful, with good reason.
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Delenn, notably, does not mention to G’Kar another reason why the Minbari might not help the Narn: Delenn herself has seen her influence reduced considerably. Once she might have been able to command the resources to help the Narn all on her own, but those days are now gone.
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari’s days apparently now include an endless stream of people asking for favors from the newly influential ambassador.
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. G’Kar is trying desperately to help his people, but the road is made considerably more difficult by politics and his own people’s unwillingness to play nice. This includes G’Kar himself, as his past behavior is cited as a reason why Delenn isin’t sure the Minbari can provide aid…
Welcome aboard. The two Lumati are played by the great character actor Ian Abercrombie and the great singer/songwriter/actor Paul Williams. Christopher Darga plays the Narn troublemaker while Paul Ainsley plays the Centauri dudebro. Glenn Morshower plays Franke, and the ill-fated Narn military officers are played by Sandey Grinn and Jennifer Anglin, who are among the regular gaggle of background actors the show used a lot.
Finally, we have recurring regulars Jeff Conaway, back from “The Coming of Shadows” as Allan, and Joshua Cox, back from “All Alone in the Night” as Corwin; both will be back in “Hunter, Prey” next time.
Trivial matters. This is Mary Kay Adams’ second and final appearance as Na’Toth, and the character’s penultimate appearance. Na’Toth will next be seen in season five’s “A Tragedy of Telepaths,” played by her original actor, Caitlin Brown. Adams will, however, continue to be listed in the opening credits for the rest of the second season.
Garibaldi was seen loaning money to Mollari to pay off his gambling habit all the way back in “The Gathering.”
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“Mr. Garibaldi, in my time very few people on this station have listened to me or taken me seriously—until recently. Now I have friends I never knew were there. But you—you always listen to me, you are always kind to me, even when you had nothing to gain. And now that things are changing, and I look around for someone to share my good fortune with, there is no one. Except you. My good, close friend Garibaldi.”
—Mollari baring his soul to Garibaldi.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “When you have been crushed beneath the wheel for as long as we have, revenge occupies your every waking thought.” All right, let’s get the pink elephant in the room out of the way: I was dreading rewatching this episode because the final scene between Ivanova and the Lumati made me laugh in 1995, but the memory of it three decades later made me shudder.
And then I watched the episode, and I did laugh again, but this time the laughter caught in my throat. While Ivanova’s solution was a clever one to get her out of being forced to have sex against her will—pretty damn close to the textbook definition of a rape—that doesn’t change the fact that she was being forced to have sex against her will. Brava to her for the solution, which has the added benefit of being hilarious (and Claudia Christian played it beautifully), but the entire notion as written is problematic as hell.
J. Michael Straczynski pointed out online back in the day that the notion of using sex to close a deal is something that has been seen throughout human history in places like ancient Egypt and parts of the Middle East, and even in parts of medieval Europe. The problem is that in those places, both parties knew going in that that was the endgame, as it were, and that’s not remotely the case here.
There’s also a very oogy component to all this, that the prize Correlimurzon gets is to have sex with the hot chick. (A component that is borne out by Correlimurzon pawing over Ivanova’s clothing in her quarters, setting us up for frat-boy behavior rather than the behavior of a diplomat doing what he’s culturally obligated to do.) Straczynski also said that if Sheridan was the one negotiating, the same demand would’ve been made, and sorry, that doesn’t wash. I don’t buy for a nanosecond that he would’ve ever even considered writing that, and also saying it on an online forum is easy. I didn’t buy it when J.K. Rowling tried to convince us that no, really, Dumbledore is gay, and I don’t buy it here, either.
As for the rest of the episode, it’s truly excellent. I love that Mollari is finding out that being influential and powerful isn’t all it’s cracked up to be (kind of the same lesson the emperor learned too late in “The Coming of Shadows”), and his scenes with Garibaldi are superb, full of pathos and sorrow, as he realizes that it really is lonely at the top.
Of course, if we feel sorry for him for too long, we can always cut back to the opening scene of the Centauri firing on civilians and G’Kar’s righteous indignation at the way the war is progressing. While this episode is full of excellent performances, Andreas Katsulas is the one who owns it. G’Kar is trying so desperately to do right by his people, and it’s a constant struggle, not aided by his own people complicating matters. Katsulas beautifully plays G’Kar’s anger, his sorrow, his desperation, and especially the complex series of emotions he goes through when Sheridan and Delenn give him the news of the aid they can provide. On the one hand, he went to this meeting so sure that the Minbari Federation and Earth Alliance were going to provide aid, and he’s so disappointed that they’re not. What Sheridan and Delenn are offering is a pittance by comparison, and you can see that it takes him several seconds to realize that both the captain and ambassador are taking a huge risk by acting against their government’s wishes to still help the Narn people. But it’s not nearly enough, either…
Also the Lumati plotline is generally pretty good, too. I love and heartily approve of the shot taken at the Star Trek spinoffs’ appallingly brutal application of the Prime Directive (see my rants on the subject in the rewatches of The Next Generation’s “Homeward” and Enterprise’s “Dear Doctor” in particular) by having the Lumati act the same way Trek protagonists do when dealing with “inferior” species. And for all that the “sex” scene is yucky, I love that Taq very obviously figured out what Ivanova was doing and gave her that knowing smile and handshake at the end.
Next week: “Hunter, Prey.”
The pair have a telepathic link
Are we ever told that? I got the sense it was less telepathy (because in that case, wouldn’t Correlimurzon get Taq’s realization/understanding and be upset?) and more that Taq knows, from experience/history/training, what to say/do/think.
The telepathy could be one-way. Or it could be surface only, like reading the subvocalized words formed in the speech center of the brain. Alternatively, they might have cybernetic implants that have the same effect.
Star Trek: TNG used the same device in “Loud as a Whisper,” the trio of interpreters that knew what the deaf-mute ambassador was saying, without a clear explanation of how.
In the episode, Franklin described it as “cultural symbiosis”, which to me implied merely that Taq was extremely-well trained to correctly present Correlimurzon’s views.
Also, Franklin actually said they didn’t know human biology, not just anatomy. Not a huge difference, here, but…
I actually had the opposite reaction to KRAD: I always loved the Ivanova “sex” scene because of how cleverly she played it, but this time was extremely uncomfortable for all the reasons KRAD correctly outlined. That’s topo bad, because the rest of the episode is excellent. And even the rest of Ivanova’s interactions with the Lumati were perfectly reasonable (except the clothing episode in her quarters, which presumably would not have been there if the ultimate resolution didn’t involve sex).
And we are finally getting to why, for me, Andreas Katsulas will always be the epitome of acting through a layer of latex. From here to the end of the show, he is spectacular.
I wonder if Vir took over the refugee pipeline later, or did he start his own?
Katsulas and Jurasik are so good here.
He started his own network. All Sheridan and Delenn were doing was sending food and medical supplies.
Perhaps it’s just me, but it looked like those Centauri fighters in the prologue were performing atmospheric craft style maneuvers.
Those lurkers are amazingly well-coiffed
To my eye, the fight between G’Kar and the agitator just looked silly. Had a bystander beaned one of them with a folding chair, it wouldn’t have been out of place.
Had Sheridan been the one who dealt with the Lumati, they could have cast Bill McKinney as Correlilmurzon.
Riffable moments
[After Taq kisses Ivanova’s hand]
You can catch me later performing at the El Sleezo.
I skipped the sex related bits. Just a solid no. Otherwise (a word doing a lot if heavy lifting) that plot line was interesting.
The Narn dominance fight looked to me like they were trying to show that the Narn have at least somewhat different bio mechanics than humans.
Tragic Londo continues to be tragic.
This episode is all Katsulas’, though Peter Jurasik makes a pretty good claim for his scenes, especially the two with Garibaldi.
The stuff with the Lumati isn’t quite as squicky as I feared it would be. Ivanova’s solution comes across a little dated in its relationship cliches, but mostly holds up. The expectation of sex is pretty bad, though you could argue the assertion and assumption of the inherent rightness of their own cultural mores is part of the Lumati’s superiority complex. However the way it comes across on the screen is still problematic, for the reasons Keith notes.
It’s also obvious that the Lumati are from the Shadows’ sphere of influence.
As yucky as it is, Ivanova’s dance is one of the few, truly laugh out loud moments, and one of the most memorable, in the entire series. And while not defending it, the yucky aspects are consistent with the Lumati attitude towards other species. Whether Straczinski meant it at the time, it can be viewed as a critique of power relationships among entities, be they species, classes, or genders.
This is a superb one, especially G’Kar’s portions. So much going on, so many complex emotions and dilemmas.
What bugs me about the Lumati subplot is, why would Earth even want an alliance with them after Ivanova reported what a bunch of racist, eugenicist creeps they are? Okay, it’s the Clark government, which isn’t much better, but you’d think Ivanova would at least recommend to Sheridan that it wasn’t worth pursuing an alliance.
I think it’s an exaggeration to equate the ambassador’s indecent proposal with forced sex, since Ivanova could’ve always refused, just at the cost of scuttling negotiations. Or she could’ve asked a different person to take over negotiations, at the cost of breaking her promise to Sheridan to get it done, but he would surely have understood under the circumstances. The only person who compelled her not to walk away was herself. Of course, from the ambassador’s perspective, what he offered was completely normal and casual, so he didn’t intend it as predatory; he just assumed and expected that she would go along with it, because he was too closed-minded to consider that other cultures might approach sex less casually.
I particularly enjoyed the social commentary that the awful racist eugenicists look at the terrible way we treat our homeless and praise it for its cruelty. But what annoyed me was the way Ivanova, Franklin, and the camera kept focusing their gaze on the interpreter instead of the person speaking through him.
Meanwhile, I was just struck by the realization that the Lumati were played by Alfred Pennyworth (from the Birds of Prey TV series) and the Penguin (from Batman: The Animated Series). I was also amazed by how young Glenn Morshower looked here.
Keith, in your cast list, you left out David Sage as the Centauri merchant bribing Londo in the beginning, and Kat Cressida as Kat the Bartender in her biggest speaking role yet.
A couple of thoughts:
“There’s a decent argument that was made that the Lumati were JMS’ critique of the Federation as well as the Prime Directive.”
What, because they said they wouldn’t interfere to provide medical care? I think that’s a stretch. There was only one passing mention of non-interference in the context of a larger conversation that was blatantly about eugenics and so-called Social Darwinism, the belief that only the strong should be allowed to survive and the weak and “inferior” should be winnowed out of the gene pool. The ambassador’s argument was that it’s wrong for medical science to interfere by preventing the “inferior” from dying like they’re supposed to. JMS wasn’t critiquing the Prime Directive, he was critiquing Nazism, like he’s been doing for most of his career.
@ChristopherLBennett, your suggestion r.e. the Lumati Ambassador really depends on:-
(A) Him telling the truth, rather than exploiting his own position and another culture’s ignorance of his own.
(B) Ignoring the fact said Ambassador sprung all this on Ivanova at short notice, rather than being even slightly upfront with her., which does not encourage me to give him benefit of the doubt.
This is NOT the stuff of Consenting Adults, this is a politician pulling a fast one (and the fact that his own interpreter clearly appreciates Ivanova’s gambit strongly suggests at least a few Lumati would regard this as a trickster being tricked, rather than any kind of violation of their own diplomatic norms).
My suggestion regarding the Lumati ambassador depends on him not being a real person with a will of his own, but a construct of J. Michael Straczynski, who’s on record about his intent in telling the story the way he did. The overall story JMS wrote is about a clash of cultures arising from lack of prior knowledge, and about Ivanova having to overcome the complications that resulted. The part about sex should not be considered in isolation, but in the context of the overall storyline it was created to be part of.
And yes, the ambassador sprang it on her at short notice, but the same goes for everything else. He didn’t tell her before going to Medlab that he objected to treating the sick. He didn’t tell her in advance that he planned to visit Downbelow. He didn’t even send advance word that he’d be speaking through an interpreter but sprung it on her when he arrived. That was the basis of the comedy in the subplot, that Ivanova was faced with a series of mostly unpleasant surprises that the ambassador sprang on her and had to try to adapt to them as best she could.
That’s not really how diplomacy generally works. Among many other examples, the French Republic’s defense plan against German aggression was entirely predicated on an alliance with Tsarist Russia that would tie the German up on two fronts. Tsarist Russia, in turn, were mostly interested in French money and know-how. That the two of them had radically different values on almost everything is neither here nor there. Alliances are about mutual benefit, if the ideologies mesh then that’s merely a happy coincidence.
Sure, as I said, I can buy Earth opportunistically pursuing the alliance, but I have a hard time buying that Ivanova would remain so eager to secure an alliance with such awful people. I think she’d at least make a recommendation against an alliance with them, even if her superiors overrode her. I mean, really, why would it be her job to secure the treaty anyway? Realistically, this would’ve just been a first exploratory meeting and actual treaty negotiations would’ve happened afterward on a higher level.
Earth’s last big diplomatic disaster almost led to genocide. And this very much reads to me like a situation where if Ivanova had gone to Sheridan with the problem, he’d have said “of course you don’t have to have sex with him.” I can see a lot of reasons why having Sheridan show up in a dog collar offering to seal the deal himself to “scare” the ambassador off wouldn’t have aged even as well as this solution did.
Yeah, i was also surprised that despite their questionable values, Ivanova had no problems going through with this deal and did not even mention the problem to anyone. But I just assumed that it made sense to her to make sure that such a race won’t join the Centauri and support them in the war and it was worth it…
“The problem is that in those places, both parties knew going in that that was the endgame, as it were, and that’s not remotely the case here” Oh sure, women were totally asked and had full decision power if they wanted to participate or not in various cultures when it was about diplomacy…I mean come on, the principle is exactly the same – and as problematic it was in human history, it is the exact same problem here. Only that I didn’t understand why Ivanova didn’t send a guy in to sign the treaty – that would have been the typical 90s solution as well as obviously you are right that Correlimurzon would not have asked Sheridan for sex.
So while yes, it is not nice to surprise her with this demand and it did not age well, and it’s a bit unlikely that you’d force representatives of random alien species to have sex with you to sign a deal, but it’s not exactly impossible either.
I had a lot of problems with Ivanova’s solution – assuming that “sex” means roughly the same in different worlds, it’s hard to imagine that someone would believe that there’s a variant of her performance that will result in new lives born. :D So for me that scene and solution really did not work…
Diplomatic marriages were commonplace, complete with the expectation of (male) children, and without much concern for consent.
The comedic tone may be problematic, but I don’t think the problem is gone and I don’t think this episode endorses the situation. Creepy ambassador from cringe race wants to coerce Ivanova into sex? Even if JMS is making light here, I don’t see any endorsement (and Taq’s response implies that the Lumati “superior/inferior” culture is as much posturing and artificiality as anything. Taq’s pretty obviously one up on his boss and one gathers that may happen a lot.
“and Taq’s response implies that the Lumati “superior/inferior” culture is as much posturing and artificiality as anything.”
Not necessarily. The Lumati’s belief in their superiority seems as absolute and unshakeable as the British Empire’s was. But as an interpreter used to interacting with other species, Taq probably has a more cosmopolitan perspective than his employer, who refuses to speak directly to anyone he doesn’t recognize as worthy.
There’s no reason to assume that sex requires procreation, as there are multiple ways to have sex that don’t allow for that possibility, and even the kind of sex that can lead to procreation only does so at certain times. And there are more possibilities when you bring alien biology into the picture. The Biauru in my Analog story “Aleyara’s Descent” have fleshy crests that, in females, become engorged during the fertile cycle, so the participants in sex always know whether the female is fertile or not, and there are hormonal effects that make the mating act deeper and more involved when the female is fertile. So the Biauru perceive sex for recreation or relationship bonding to be quite distinct from mating for reproduction.
Granted, it is hard to believe the ambassador would be so gullible as to think he’d actually had sex, but I’m willing to give it a pass for Rule of Funny, and it may be that he was simply so nonplussed by the situation that he didn’t know what to think. His “Next time, my way” message implies that on some level, he knew he’d been had, but was willing to cede the first round to Ivanova anyway, perhaps simply to save face.
Yes, I think flummoxed is right, but also clearly uncertain. Too concerned about not showing inferiority, possibly, especially as Taq is standing right there (no privacy indeed). Ivanova outmaneuvers him: if he claims what she just did isn’t sex, but doesn’t KNOW for sure, maybe he’s wrong (or Sheridan backs her up) and embarrassed. If he accepts it, he only looks a fool to Taq and Ivanova herself, but rejecting it and being wrong would end his career. Taq will keep the secret, Ivanova every reason not to blab to a Lumati, so he retires gracefully.
Granted, I think it plays more as, “huh? Well, um, I gotta go” with a “Hey, wait a minute” coming later. The comedy here is how much the “superior” race isn’t.
of course there are other possibilities, that’s why i wrote that this did not seem that some variants of it could lead to procreation…but as you wrote, ” it is hard to believe the ambassador would be so gullible as to think he’d actually had sex” – this is what i meant basically:)
And I agree with your conclusion, he probably did know it indeed. :)
offtopic: I actually never doubted Rowling’s claim about Dumbledore. To me it seemed quite reasonable and normal that the topic just never came up, so it was not mentioned in the book. I had no reason to doubt her on this topic to be honest. :)
https://ew.com/movies/2019/03/19/harry-potter-fantastic-beasts-jk-rowling-dumbledore-sexuality/
Same. Given that overt queer representation in children’s books is a relatively recent thing, I always assumed that Dumbledore was absolutely gay for Grindelwald, but JKR and/or her publisher were just not bold enough to turn the subtext into text.
Also, being pro-gay and anti-trans is sadly not an uncommon stance even among gay people, so I don’t think her statement had anything to do with trying to shield herself from criticism.
Agree with everything you wrote, except that I actually don’t think she’s anti-trans, she is concerned about many aspects of it – some of them probably exaggeragated and i disagree with her, but in some, i think her concerns have some base that should be taken into account. But people don’t really aim to understand her view, they just put her in a box. And some of her opinions are probably just silly, but that’s not enough for me to box her into a clear category of “anti-trans”. She’s a feminist for sure. :) But this is one level higher offtopic here :D
No, you’re too generous. If she were that rational about it, she’d listen to the counterarguments explaining why her concerns are based in ignorance and prejudiced stereotypes — specifically the delusional and intolerant belief that trans women are “actually” men pretending to be women in order to prey on women, instead of actual women who were mistakenly labeled as male in childhood and simply seek to correct that error and be themselves. Instead, she’s tripled and quadrupled down on her counterfactual beliefs and rhetoric and has gotten more and more extreme and hostile.
The fact that she’s a feminist doesn’t help, because she refuses to accept the basic fact that trans women are women who need protection, rather than men that women need protection from.
The most charitable interpretation I can give is that she’s fallen into a cult-rabbit-hole-like situation where every attempt to reason with her on the topic is seen as a personal attack on her and her newfound beliefs, which brings her to double down on even more unreasonable statements. But yeah, that’s the last I’ll say on the topic here.
I agree with both of you actually, i’m just more forgiving for people to be sometimes ignorant, not open to counter-arguments and biased because i see it all the time in almost all debates, especially when it stirs so strong emotions.
Being “forgiving” of her ignorance would only be valid if her use of her bully pulpit to promote anti-trans hate didn’t directly endanger people’s lives, safety, and rights. She’s not the underdog here.
We appreciate everyone keeping this discussion civil, but let’s get back to tallking about the episode itself–thanks!
yup, this topic would be better to be discussed over some beers in person, but hard to do that for multiple reasons :D
Eh, it’s a completely unnecessary retcon. And one that seems, given her later actions, to be an attempt to insulate herself from the consequences of those actions.
So wait, you think that she thought in 2007 that “well, in 10 years or so, i’ll have some strong and controversial opinions about trans people and trans rights, so let’s prepare for that by stating that Dumbledore is gay”? or how would you imagine it? :)
Earth knows as little about the Lumati as they know about Earth. I don’t see anything in the episode that indicates the Ambassador wasn’t making up the sex as an excuse to indulge himself. It also makes the interpreter’s reaction more empathetic.
Mollari was supposed to be in this meeting, but refused to attend, saying only that the transport ships they fired on had weapons, not civilians. As lies go, it’s pretty transparent, and nobody in the room believes it.
Why assume it is a lie? Transports have been used to ship more than just refugees in the past and using civilians as shields is also a well known tactic (forbidden by the Geneva Conventions, but still done). It is certainly believable to me that both were true.
Would a Narn battleship have heroically sacrificed itself to protect a shipment of weapons? Would weapons be shipped in a slow transport that needed that kind of protection? The Centauri have an obvious self-serving motive to pretend it wasn’t a refugee ship, so I say the burden of proof should rest on them.
I’m not saying the transport didn’t have refugees that the Narn captain would have sacrificed himself for. I’m suggesting that it could also have been carrying weapons. For a historical parallel of sorts, remember the Lusitania.
I object to looking for excuses to blame the victims. And it seems a profound misreading of the intentions of the episode. Can you really come away from this story as a whole and believe the Narn are supposed to be the villains here?
“Acts of Sacrifice” always hits hard, no matter how many times I’ve seen it. It lays the Narn bare, completely subverting all the aggressiveness and posturing from the first season. They’re up against the wall, battered, broken, humiliated. And any aggressiveness from them is either born out of frustration or lashing out rather than ambition. We have a race that’s terrified of going back to the way things were – when the Centauri occupied their world. And they’re breaking apart at the seams, hence the refusal of some of them to follow G’Kar’s pleas for peace, taking up arms instead. In short, we’re seeing the end of Babylon 5’s primary purpose as a space station – their last, best hope for peace. Just a brutal episode.
I like how Na’Toth’s role here mirrors her first meeting with G’Kar back in “Parliament of Dreams”, covering his back at the most crucial moment. This whole plot also signifies the beginning of a major subtle arc for G’Kar himself – which I won’t get into here – way too spoilery for those who don’t know what’s coming.
I never had much of a problem with the Ivanova/Lumati B story. Let’s put it into perspective. This is a species that already assumes other races are inferior by default. If their values differ that much from others, one can infer the same about their approach towards sexuality. As Christopher already pointed out, for them it was probably a normal, casual thing. And Ivanova certainly didn’t put up the kind of rejection she usually does in the event she’s up against a Psi Corps telepath out to invade her mind and privacy. She’s mature enough to know that sex could be a part of any deal.
Of course, the episode has to have the classic act 3 twist where she’s blindsided by this sudden new bit of information. It’s TV writing 101. That could have been handled a bit differently, perhaps. But it’s worth it for that final “act”. Claudia Christian knows when to throw any and all inhibitions aside and really chew the scenery. Easily the funniest bit. My only issue with this B plot is that it doesn’t mesh so well against the A plot the way the Ivanova/Drazi diplomacy plot does with the Technomages in “The Geometry of Shadows”. The tone shifts feel a bit jarring (reminiscent of a DS9 example actually, the Jake/Nog plot up against the dying Bareil story in “Life Support”).
Andreas certainly has some of his finest moments here, but Jurasik almost steals the spotlight again with some truly compelling Londo/Garibaldi scenes (which Doyle also plays well). You also see Londo as he gains more power and followers, he feels more and more alone (much like the late Emperor).
“And Ivanova certainly didn’t put up the kind of rejection she usually does in the event she’s up against a Psi Corps telepath out to invade her mind and privacy. She’s mature enough to know that sex could be a part of any deal.”
Okay, I think you’re going a bit too far in the other direction now. Ivanova had every right to put her foot down and say that what the ambassador was asking was inappropriate by human values and made her personally uncomfortable. Just because it’s an exaggeration to call it rape doesn’t mean it wasn’t the equivalent of sexual harassment.
Hmm… given different civilizations’ sexual mores, it seems to me that interstellar diplomacy, like the film and TV industry, should employ intimacy coordinators, people whose job it is to negotiate differing sexual mores and ensure everyone’s rights and values are respected.
I’m not saying she didn’t have the right to put her foot down or claim it was inappropriate. But as we see, she didn’t. She went to talk to Franklin instead about how to solve the issue. To me that implies that had she known in advance about the Lumati sex clause, she would have gone along with it. But the script designed it as a gotcha moment, so we the audience could feel the same initial fear and wariness as Ivanova. We’re not given the whole picture here, but we know from “The Gathering” that humans are still exploring and learning the ins and outs of interspecies mating, and it seems humanity as a whole is a bit more open-minded towards sex in 2259 than they are in 2024.
And I’m guessing that no one at the Earth Alliance have even thought of the possibility this might happen in diplomatic situations. The intimacy coordinators idea isn’t a bad one. Then again, it would never happen under the Clark administration (look to the Julie Musante character in season 3 as an example as to why Clark’s Earth Alliance has no set of standards when it comes to in-office sexual politics).
“To me that implies that had she known in advance about the Lumati sex clause, she would have gone along with it.”
I don’t think it implies anything remotely like that. I think if she’d known about it, she would’ve declined up front. It’s just that she was so deep in the negotiations by the time she found out that she didn’t want to scuttle them if she could find another way out.
“and it seems humanity as a whole is a bit more open-minded towards sex in 2259 than they are in 2024.”
Sure, but open-mindedness doesn’t mean submitting to every offer. Even in the most sexually enlightened and healthy society, nobody should expect that another person is obligated to have sex with them. The freedom to say yes and the freedom to say no go hand in hand.
What’s most dated about this episode is that Ivanova felt she had no one else to turn to when dealing with a sexual-harassment situation, that her only options were to submit or to suffer negative consequences to her career. Franklin’s unsympathetic attitude and “Close your eyes and think of England” suggestions were particularly antediluvian.
The “comedy” angle complicates a reading here. Franklin doesn’t seem that concerned about Ivanova screwing up negotiations or the Lumati alliance, for that matter, and I challenge anyone to watch and claim “put a bag over your head and do it for Babylon 5” has even the faintest whiff of seriousness. The conversation starts with an obvious subtext of “that’s not gonna happen” and Franklin’s first serious suggestion is talking to Sheridan.
The issue here is about the standard Ivanova is holding herself to, which is ultimately about solving this problem without calling in the captain to bail her out. That, to my mind, is well-observed.
Framing the Lumati comically is obviously a satiric commentary on this actual attitude in real human beings; the Lumati ambassador is obviously out of line and comically thwarted, and the episode endorses his being thwarted. It’s painfully clueless in the sense that this sort of sexual coercion was (and is) common and common for actresses especially, but while Christian had reasonable objections to some of the writing, she’s on record as loving this scene. At a certain point, I think we should be allowed to say “that hasn’t aged wonderfully, but the episode supports Ivanova whole-heartedly and it’s just a bit of an embarrassment at worst.”
I cringe more at seeing Sirtis as Troi wearing that non-uniform cleavage top for years n TNG than I do at the two scenes in this episode.
I dunno, it seemed to me that Franklin was making the suggestion somewhat seriously, and just didn’t have much sympathy for her problem, which is pretty much how I’d expect a male coworker in the 1990s to react when a woman is facing a sexual harassment situation. Maybe it’s just that Richard Biggs wasn’t a nuanced enough actor to make his intention clear.
I don’t think it was clueless per se; I think the point was to draw an analogy with the kind of uncomfortable sexual pressure that women in the workforce have always had to contend with and to show a woman finding a creative way to overcome it. You can probably find a number of sitcom plots over the decades about women trying to evade the advances of lusty bosses, though earlier sitcoms were probably more circumspect about the specifics. The fact that it was approached with humor doesn’t mean it wasn’t understood to be a problem or that the writer didn’t sympathize with the women, because a lot of humor is dark or sympathetic to real-life struggles. Though to an extent, it was seen as an unfortunate fact of life that women just had to learn to negotiate.
Although the analogy is inexact here, because Correlimurzon was never in a position to coerce Ivanova; he was an equal partner in a negotiation, and the only thing that compelled her to stick with it was her own refusal to abandon her assignment to secure a treaty. In-story, it was a simple cultural misunderstanding, and Ivanova always had the power to walk away; she just didn’t want to exercise that option if she didn’t have to.
“Ivanova explains about the lurkers to Correlimurzon: that they’re people who came to the station hoping for work and/or a better life, they failed to get either, and didn’t have the money to buy passage elsewhere, so they eke out their lives down here.”
Once again I wonder: Just why is that the case? Both Sinclair and Sheridan used creative budget maneuvers to accomplish their goals and buying the homeless a bus ticket so they can go be homeless somewhere else is a time-honored tradition that’s nearly as old as the bus itself and pays for itself almost instantly. Just buy them a one way ticket anywhere, issue a lifetime ban on them returning to the station and move on. Having a desperate population lurking about on a military/diplomatic base is a security issue, a potential diplomatic issue and even a public relations issue with the other governments. Many problems are intractable, Sinclair/Sheridan could clear this one up in a few days.
“…buying the homeless a bus ticket so they can go be homeless somewhere else is a time-honored tradition that’s nearly as old as the bus itself and pays for itself almost instantly.”
More than that — it’s been shown that the cost of a government simply giving homeless people housing and a basic income is less than the costs of arresting, prosecuting, incarcerating, or hospitalizing homeless people, not to mention the costs of building anti-homeless architecture into cities. And people who are given that leg up usually find gainful employment within a year or so and don’t need the help anymore.
I have some sympathy for that line of reasoning, but for purposes of the fictional context of Bab5, it’s irrelevant. Even accepting it as a given that it’s cheaper to give the homeless housing than any other remedy, it’s not cheaper to give them housing on Bab5, where space is scarce and even a few extra square meters are enough to catch the attention of Earth Alliance beancounters. Send them to a planet that has ample space– by virtue of being a planet, rather than an artificially constructed station– and house them there. Heck, Babylon 5 as a station has only been operational for a bit less than three years at this point, therefore everybody who is now homeless on the station came from somewhere else. Send them back.
“Even accepting it as a given that it’s cheaper to give the homeless housing than any other remedy, it’s not cheaper to give them housing on Bab5, where space is scarce and even a few extra square meters are enough to catch the attention of Earth Alliance beancounters.”
But that’s exactly why the idea of homelessness on a space station doesn’t make sense — because every resident’s life support needs would have to be budgeted and accounted for. If the station has the environmental resources and budget to sustain their existence in Downbelow indefinitely without impairing life support for everyone else, then by definition it already has the resources and budget to sustain their existence in more comfortable dwellings. So it shouldn’t be necessary to send them away. Their presence must already be accounted for in the budget.
And “send them back” is hardly a blanket solution. A lot of them probably ended up in this situation because they can’t go back where they came from. Many may be refugees, or trying to get away from an abusive family, or maybe they left their homes because of a lack of opportunities there.
I always get the impression that most of the station’s life-support systems are fixed costs. X plants producing oxygen, for example, with the station deliberately producing more than needed as a safety margin. Earthgov doesn’t want to spend money on B5 at all, much less give a bunch of people “free rides” home; the show abstracts the logistical situation, but presumably private bars and restaurants pay for food and drink and most residents can afford it: maybe most stuff is produced from plants grown on-station or very cheap ration bars that keep forever. A low level of corruption seems endemic, esepcially given how easily Morden can come and go; perhaps some combination of neglect or deliberate choice (Sinclair/Sheridan reporting levels of “wastage and spoilage” while ensuring the homeless can eat) where an actual policy would require lawmaker action and Earth lawmakers simply don’t care.
Too plausible, really. And yes, probably if you ran conjectural numbers on station resources, this and Grey 17 is Missing are simply far off of reality, but at some stage it’s fiction and not interested much in these details.
A different show would have made more of the supplies needed to take in Narn refugees, treat them medically, etc, but B5 doesn’t ignore these factors, it just abstracts them and handles them off-screen.
“I always get the impression that most of the station’s life-support systems are fixed costs.”
To an extent, yes, but there would be variations in how efficiently the resources are used, so you could get better or worse results from the same input of resources or expenditures. Which is all the more reason why it would make more sense to give everyone basic, well-regulated housing and subsistence allowances rather than allow homelessness to exist. I mean, heck, if people are living in Downbelow off the station’s air and water and food and reclamation systems, then make them pay the station back by giving them a job to maintain those systems.
Yeah, I definitely don’t buy the writer’s claim that he would have put Sheridan in that scene (or had the aliens rummaging through his underthings). However, I admit to smirking at the ending as well.
As for the rest of it, it was very good. I didn’t realize just how much sympathy I had lost for Mollari until he started asking for it. Also, because I was watching this episode without my glasses, for a moment I thought the Narns had knifed Vir, which upset me a lot more than it might have done during the first season.
The man wrote much of Sense8, planned a relationship between station captain and a male alien who became a female human-alien hybrid (even if that plan fell apart), and had a planned lesbian relationship that fell through due to casting change during the set-up phase and proceeded to show it in one episode anyway instead of discarding it.
I don’t think it would have been possible to run the same scene with Sheridan, but I place no bets on whether JMS would have tried it if provoked. Of course, he chose this way instead and that matters, too.
JMS wasn’t saying he would’ve written the scene with Sheridan, since of course that would never have flown in 1990s TV. He was saying that in-universe, a Lumati would presumably seal a contract with sex regardless of the gender of the other party. In commercial TV, there are a lot of things that have to be implied because they can’t be shown outright.
Regardless of how he says it would have worked in-universe, the way it was written and performed didn’t suggest anything to me other than a science fiction twist on the very old trope of the attractive woman having to fend off the advances of a dirty old man.
And the man is clearly in the wrong, and indeed depicted as a dangerous fool.
But that’s my point — that the metatextual analysis of how a story is written and the in-universe analysis of how the cultures, technology, etc. work are two different topics and one should not be mistaken for the other. Something can have more than one layer of meaning at the same time.
The Lumati storyline needed a scene at the start where Ivanova volunteers to handle the negotiations and everyone else knows about the sealing the deal with sex thing and they’re asking her if she’s sure but they’re just vague enough that she and the audience think they were warning her about them being racist assholes.
That would’ve made no sense at all. If Ivanova were the only person ignorant of something everybody else knew, why in the world would she be qualified to conduct the negotiation? Why would she even have been needed to conduct the preliminary assessment if the culture was already well-known? The whole point of the story is that it was a brand-new contact and nobody knew anything about them. Ivanova was assigned to handle that first formal diplomatic negotiation because Sheridan trusted her to be qualified and capable. What you’re suggesting would make her look ignorant and incompetent — and would make the system look incompetent for failing to incorporate safeguards to ensure that everyone involved was aware of the known parameters of negotiation.
In (very) brief fairness to Correlimurzon, Ivanova did say they could use the Captain’s office.
I would bet cash money that Lumati ambassador is talking **** about that ‘Sex as the Deal-maker’ thing: it’s so very, very obviously a powerful man exploiting his position, even by the standards of 1990s, that I refuse to believe it’s a legitimate cultural practice.
If I believed otherwise one would happily sic the Imperium of Man on the whole d***** culture (and there’s no kill like WARHAMMER 40,000 overkill, so I’d really prefer that it not become necessary).
God, that little note at the end is horrifying (Not least because the Ambassador probably thinks it’s hilarious).
I really don’t think that was the intent. The overall thrust of the story was that this was a completely new and unfamiliar culture, and that there were thus unknown pitfalls to dealing with them that Ivanova discovered along the way. Within that larger context, it stands to reason that the sex thing was exactly what it was presented to be — a normative part of negotiations in Lumati culture that Correlimurzon simply was unaware was not normal among humans, because he assumed his culture’s ways were the only valid way of doing things.
I mean, there is an analogy between a culture that assumes its superior right to insist that everyone conform to its values and an individual man who assumes his superior right to insist that everyone submit to his desires. But I think it’s dangerous to assume that what we see in a member of an alien culture is exactly what it appears to be by our own cultural expectations. That’s the exact same ethnocentric mistake that Correlimurzon was making.
And if Lumati, among themselves, are so open about sex that they freely and consensually use it to seal their deals and contracts, what gives anyone the right to want to punish them for it? It’s not coercive or abusive if everyone knows going in that it’s how contracts are sealed and agrees in advance to participate. It was only problematical here because Ivanova didn’t know that was the custom and the Lumati didn’t think to inform her because they ethnocentrically assumed humans must do things the same way. It’s part and parcel of the overall story about a near-first contact causing misunderstandings and friction because of the cultures’ lack of knowledge of one another.
The only thing that gives me pause about your interpretation is the scene in Ivanova’s quarters where the Lumati is handling her negligee and (apparently) steals part of that. That doesn’t read as “sex is part of our negotiation process.” (I guess unless in his culture it’s considered appropriate foreplay/part of the deal-making process.)
Christopher, I appreciate your calling out the multiple layers going on in the plot, even though I’m mostly hung up noticing the cringe part. (I’d like to believe that it’s just a cynical Lumati tactic to quickly gauge how compliant new contacts can be forced to be. But Taq’s smirk at the end torpedoes that.)
However, I have this thought about the Lumati in first contact situations.
First, the Lumati don’t want to deal with inferior races, so when some contact fails that test, they’re ignored/discarded/whatever.
Second, of the races remaining, the Lumati always assume that their deal-closing behavior will be typical of other cultures, for any number of reasons we could make up.
So we’re being told that if a species looks promising, but doesn’t seal the deal the special Lumati way, the Lumati dump them and relegate them to the ash heap, regardless of the possible benefits.
I find it difficult to believe (in-universe) that the Lumati have prospered without having met and worked with other cultures/species – who would have by now caused them to notice Lumati ways are not universal ways. (For example, Lumati ship design may suggest contact with a species we hear more about later that has its own, quite firm social ideas)
I know JMS’s story is making a point here about ethnocentrism, but it’s straining [my] logic.
They are so clearly about biological superiority that this development seems to fit: a practice in sealing Lumati alliances that shows a willingness (if symbolic only) to perform a reproductive act showing that the other party has elements of biological superiority worthy of the initiating faction. Maybe it started with actual children, and gradually developed to non-reproductive sex; the Lumati haven’t had many out-of-species alliances but as reproduction isn’t necessary they’re sticking with the same custom, or at least the ambassador may have the option. “Neither of us is biologically dangerous to the other and I would dishonor you if I behaved otherwise” is one possibility; given the episode pushes more toward “I am a creep and what I can see of your anatomy appeals to me so I must see more” I think on balance it can be two things.
I don’t think the Lumati’s approach to intercultural contacts is that different from how European and American imperialists approached interaction with other cultures — our way is naturally superior and correct, everyone else is uncivilized and has to be converted to our religion and conditioned to embrace our culture and abandon their own, and those who refuse to do so are dangerous savages to be shunned, contained, or exterminated. It’s sadly all too plausible.
I have to say that I did not enjoy the Lumati plot back in the day and this has never been one of my favorite episodes because of that. Making an entire species into a Dickensian caricature just seems a bit lazy, even without the sex aspect. I think it would have worked better if Correlimurzon had some redeeming qualities. As it is, I’m just as glad that the Lumati never show up again.
G’kar’s piece is great. But Lando’s “I want you to be happy for me, and me to be happy for you” speech is the part of this episode that sticks with me.
Well, that’s a typo I don’t recall making before. Sigh.
Regarding Franklin’s remark about the Lumati treating sex as akin to shaking hands, I was reminded of something from the Traveller RPG. Whenever two Hivers meet, they exchange reproductive cells through contact with their rearmost limbs, with said cells going into a pouch. The process is referred to as “shaking hands” among humans.
https://members.tip.net.au/~davidjw/libdata/alphabet/h/hivers.htm
The funny thing to me about all this, is that we also have no idea what Lumati sex is *actually* like. Maybe it *is* shaking hands, and that would be the ultimate intimacy to the ambassador! :)
Since we’ve previously commented on Dr. Franklin’s terrible ethics, I’m surprised nobody else has commented on his joking that Ivanova could deal with the ambassador by putting a bag over his head and “doing it for B5”. I always thought that was the ickiest part of that subplot.