“Believers”
Written by David Gerrold
Directed by Richard Compton
Season 1, Episode 10
Production episode 105
Original air date: April 27, 1994
It was the dawn of the third age… An Onteen boy named Shon is in Medlab, being treated by Franklin. He’s been having trouble breathing, and his parents, M’Ola and Tharg, are at their wits’ end. Franklin and Dr. Maya Hernandez explain that there’s blockage in his air sac, and it can be removed with a simple surgical procedure. M’Ola and Tharg immediately balk and say they will go elsewhere. It turns out that the Onteen believe that the soul lives inside the thoracic region, and to cut open a person like a food animal will let the soul loose.
Ivanova reports to Sinclair that the starliner Asimov has suffered a breakdown in the midst of space in which raiders have been sighted. Sinclair has her send Garibaldi to investigate, but Ivanova goes on an epic rant about how stir crazy she’s going, and Sinclair has her go instead.
Franklin and Hernandez patiently (ahem) explain the surgical procedure and how simple it is, but M’Ola and Tharg understand the science. However, Franklin and Hernandez don’t understand the religion. They will not condemn Shon to a life without a soul. Franklin then proposes an alternate, non-invasive treatment that has less of a chance of working, to which the parents agree.
Hernandez criticizes Franklin for going along with the parents’ nonsense, and Franklin says he’s just buying time until the parents come around and see that surgery is the only way to save their son.
Franklin gives Shon what he calls a glopet egg from the planet Placebo. It’s truly a bit of industrial goo that glows and which he has molded into the shape of an egg, but Franklin tells Shon that he has to hold onto it and care for it, which gives him a nice distraction while he is treated.
While meeting with Sinclair and Garibaldi, Franklin asks if Sinclair can use his authority to force the parents to allow Shon to be treated. Sinclair says he doesn’t want to set the precedent, but Franklin counters that the precedent has already been set when Sinclair had Franklin’s predecessor Kyle operate on Kosh after the ambassador was poisoned. Sinclair asks him to find another way.
Unfortunately, the alternate treatment doesn’t work, and Franklin once again tries to convince M’Ola and Tharg to consent to the surgery, and once again they refuse. Franklin threatens to bring Sinclair into it, and the Onteen call his bluff. Franklin makes the request, and M’Ola and Tharg also go to the commander and beg him to not allow the procedure. Sinclair says he’ll make a decision in twenty-four hours.
Expecting that Sinclair will side with his fellow human, the Onteen go to the other ambassadors on the station, but G’Kar, Mollari, Delenn, and Kosh all refuse to get involved for their own reasons.
Sinclair, meanwhile, does the one thing nobody’s done up until now: asked Shon what he wants. Shon says that he doesn’t want to die, but he doesn’t want the operation, either, as he does not wish to lose his soul. (Shon also admits to Sinclair that he knows full well that the “egg” is just industrial goo, but he asks Sinclair not to tell Franklin that he figured it out.)
Reluctantly, Sinclair refuses to grant Franklin’s request. He can’t override the Onteen beliefs in order to satisfy his own. Franklin decides to go ahead with the surgery anyhow. It’s successful. M’Ola and Tharg are outraged, as is Sinclair, while Franklin is smugly pleased with himself that he saved a child’s life.
Ivanova and her wingman manage to escort the Asimov back to B5 while fending off raiders.
Shon is discharged, and a subdued M’Ola and Tharg take him away in what they call a “traveling robe” used for a “great journey.” Because he doesn’t understand euphemisms, apparently—unusual for a doctor—Franklin assumes this is for the ride home. Hernandez, however, has been doing research on the Onteen and shows him that the traveling robe is for the journey to the afterlife. He runs to the Onteen quarters only to find that they’ve killed Shon now that he has no soul.
Franklin offers Sinclair his resignation, which Sinclair doesn’t accept because Richard Biggs is in the opening credits.
Nothing’s the same anymore. Sinclair argues very eloquently for not imposing his or Franklin’s beliefs on Shon and his parents, and also for the fact that there should be more to life than just whether or not someone has a pulse.
Ivanova is God. Ivanova goes on at great length about how stir crazy she’s going working in CinC all the time, her not-very-subtle way of asking Sinclair if she can go rescue the Asimov please.
If you value your lives, be somewhere else. Delenn refuses to involve herself in the Onteen’s affair, as they do not like it when others interfere in their religion (possibly a reference to the soul hunters?).
In the glorious days of the Centauri Republic… Mollari refuses to help the Onteen because it isn’t in the budget. This is at once appalling and also truly the most realistic of the four refusals the Onteen get from the B5 ambassadors.
Though it take a thousand years, we will be free. G’Kar’s refusal to help the Onteen boils down to their answer to his question of, “What’s in it for the Narn?” which is pretty much not a damn thing. G’Kar says he never even heard of the Onteen until they came aboard.
The Shadowy Vorlons. The Onteen think that Kosh’s experiences of being operated on without his consent means he’ll be sympathetic to their cause. They are hilariously incorrect.
Welcome aboard. Silvana Gallardo makes her one and only appearance as Hernandez, while the Onteen are played by Tricia O’Neil (M’Ola), Stephen Lee (Tharg), and Jonathan Charles Kaplan (Shon). Plus Ardwight Chamberlain is back from last time as the voice of Kosh; he’ll be back in “Signs and Portents.” O’Neil—who is probably best known in genre circles as Enterprise-C Captain Rachel Garrett in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise”—will return in the movie In the Beginning as the Earth Alliance President.
Trivial matters. This episode was written by David Gerrold, probably best known for writing the Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles,” which is generally at or near the top of lists of the best Trek episodes. Gerrold is also an award-winning prose writer, having won both a Hugo and Nebula Award for his novelette “The Martian Child.”
Gerrold put in a reference to his own works here, as the mentions of the Shakespeare Corporation and pfingle eggs are from Gerrold’s novels Under the Eye of God and Covenant of Justice.
The concept for the episode was creator J. Michael Straczynski’s, and he assigned it to Gerrold, at least in part because Gerrold was a single parent with an adopted son who was, at the time, ten years old. Straczynski also wrote the Ivanova B-plot.
This is Hernandez’s only appearance after being mentioned twice before, in “Infection” and “And the Sky Full of Stars” (and she’ll be mentioned again in “Objects in Motion”).
The Asimov is, obviously, named after the famous and influential science fiction author and scientist Dr. Isaac Asimov.
Sinclair ordered Kosh to be operated on against his wishes in “The Gathering.”
The echoes of all of our conversations.
“The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.”
—Kosh being all metaphorical and stuff.
The name of the place is Babylon 5. “Life has to be more than just a pulse beat.” Full disclosure: the writer of this episode, David Gerrold, is a friend and colleague of your humble rewatcher. Most recently, my wife Wrenn Simms and I co-edited and co-published an anthology called The Four ???? of the Apocalypse, to which Gerrold contributed a story.
At least, I hope we’re still friends after he reads this, because I have to admit to being a bit disappointed with this episode on rewatch. Mind you, it’s still very powerful and thought-provoking, with a wonderfully nasty ending, but I have two problems with it.
The first is a simple one of an inability to predict the future: seeing Franklin use a scalpel to cut open Shon’s chest probably seemed reasonable in 1994, but in 2024 we already have way less invasive ways of operating on people. Indeed, there are plenty of procedures that involve using existing openings in the body to put in the tools that will be used in the surgery, and that’s just thirty years after this episode was aired, much less the three hundred that it’s supposed to be in the future.
Still, that’s minor, and not really the point. The Onteen are fictional, so even if the surgical procedures are less invasive than slicing open the skin, one can adjust the religious beliefs in question to make the surgery not be an option.
The other problem is a bigger one, to wit, that of consent. Specifically, that of Shon. I know that in our culture, at least, children under eighteen don’t have a full set of rights, and there is also precedent for the government interceding to save a child’s life when the parents won’t do everything possible.
But I still can’t get my mind around the fact that, not only do M’Ola and Tharg refuse the procedure, but Shon himself says he doesn’t want it. I have a real problem with the government stepping in to force a medical procedure—any medical procedure—on someone. And Shon is fully aware of what’s happening—hell, he’s cogent enough to see through Franklin’s “glopet egg” thing—and doesn’t sound in any way coerced or hesitant in his lack of desire to lose his soul.
Sinclair, at least, realizes this, and Gerrold’s script serves the commander well, as it feels like he’s the only one behaving rationally. Certainly more than his medical officers are, as I spent the entire episode wanting to smack both Franklin and Hernandez. Yes, they have a fervent desire to save the child’s life, and that’s important, but it’s mainly important because a) they come from a culture that values the life of a child even more than that of an adult and b) they are dedicated to healing. But that doesn’t give Franklin the right to play god—even though he himself thinks that. Franklin says that every patient who comes through Medlab’s door wants him to play god, and if he has that responsibility, then he wants the power, too. Except for one thing: this patient very explicitly did not ask him to do that.
I felt like the script desperately wanted us to see that there were no right answers, and while there aren’t, there are wrong answers, and Franklin’s was wrong every single time. That’s brought into sharp relief at the end when Hernandez shows him the cultural database on the Onteen and the real meaning of the travelling robe, which indicates that he did no such research prior to that. He couldn’t even be bothered to learn all he could about the Onteen, he just went ahead and assumed he was right when, by their lights, he couldn’t have been more wrong.
Michael O’Hare gives one of his best performances here, and you can always count on Tricia O’Neil to bring depth to a guest role, something she made a career out of. I also loved how Claudia Christian delivered Ivanova’s rant to get Sinclair to let her out of the house, so to speak, though the rest of that B-plot went absolutely nowhere interesting, and was such obvious filler that nobody even bothered to show its climax and resolution.
Now that I’ve written several hundred words criticizing this episode, I actually feel more positive about it than I did when I started. There’s a lot of meat here, and while the execution doesn’t always land, it doesn’t back away from anything, either. And that really is a powerful ending. In fact, the only flaw in the ending is that Franklin should have resigned, and failing that, been fired—and either way, also been disciplined by the Earth Alliance medical authorities.
Next week: “Survivors.”
I’m not sure if he should be fired. I would expect a doctor to save a child’s life at an Earth hospital, no matter who says what. Parents’ wish to let the kid die should be ignored in such case and the child is too young to decide for themselves. So while I saw the flaw in Franklin’s behaviour, i totally supported it. I would really hope that any doctor would do the same to be honest.
The tricky thing here is that it’s a clash of cultures here and they are not on Earth – they are on a station, which is a meeting point for all these different cultures. No easy answers, but in general, i’m with Franklin on this. If there was Earth jurisdiction, they should have taken the kid away from the parents as they are clearly not able to take responsibility for him due to their idiotic beliefs.
(This reasoning is built on the premise that cultures are not equal. It is my personal belief. :))
@th1- this is, I believe, the exact same logic that persuaded the Australian & US Governments (Doubtless amongst others) that it was their perfect right and duty to steal children from their parents, since those parents came from ‘lesser’ aboriginal cultures.
To say the least it’s an attitude equally (and arguably far more) ugly than one which demands respect for it’s
own religious practices come Hell or high water.
This is a slippery slope. That is NOT what I think, so please don’t say that it would be the “exact same logic”. No, it is not. I’m happy to discuss the equality of cultures, but let’s not go to extreme cases which are beyond my point.
There are times when medical treatment should not be provided and it is the right of patients (or those who have the legal right to make such decisions) to refuse treatment. It is not Franklin’s job or right to pass judgement on those reasons.
If there were parents who would not want their kid saved after a car accident because of their beliefs, do you think doctors should let the kid die?
It takes a whole lot for a doctor in US to be able to go over parents wishes. It literally takes a court order by judge. And that involves child being removed from parents custody into foster care and having fosters agree to that medical procedure. To get that court order, hospital must provide at least several specialist testifying that such action is absolutely necessary while parents provide their own specialists. So No, doctors in US cannot willy nilly run roughshot over parents wishes on child treatment.
You need to provide more information about the scenario. Are you talking about setting bones, an irreversible coma, multiple amputations, possible brain injuries?
And, legally I don’t believe the doctor is allowed to go against the parent’s wishes.
I guess US is different, but here’s an automatic translation about how the situation looks for instance in Hungary:
Can a parent refuse to provide care to a minor if failure to do so would endanger the minor’s health?
A minor patient CANNOT be refused health care if failure to provide such care would result in serious or permanent damage to the patient’s health.
If the parent/legal guardian refuses life-sustaining or life-saving treatment for a minor patient, the healthcare provider will bring an action to have the consent replaced by a court. In these cases, the treating physician is still obliged to provide the care justified by the patient’s state of health until a final court decision is issued. In order to fulfil this obligation, the treating doctor may, if necessary, seek the assistance of the public authority.
The legal representative of the sick child may NOT make any valid declaration which would adversely affect the child’s state of health.
In the event of imminent danger to life, the necessary interventions must be carried out despite the refusal of the legal representative, and the court’s substitution of a declaration is not required to carry them out.
https://egeszsegvonal.gov.hu/ellatorendszer/betegjogok/1727-gyakran-ismetelt-betegjogi-kerdesek.html
Translated with http://www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
In the episode, Sinclair acted as the court of your example and ruled in favor of the parents. Franklin then ignored that ruling. This is what makes his actions wrong.
and THIS is why the US is considered a free country and Hungary is not. People have the right to make stupid decisions even ones that lead to their deaths. It is NOT the governments job to take care of you.
That’s the case in US too! Need court order removing child from parental custody first. There were several cases like that with Jonovah Witnesses, and parents refusing radical (and painful) treatment for dying child.
I don’t want to divert the conversation to politics of today, HU was just an example, many countries have similar laws.
So I think the other fundamental question besides how to handle alien cultures on an interplanetary space station is what is more important – a child’s right to a healthy life or the parents’s rights to their belief and decide over their kid. For me it is clear – the right to live is more important – parents don’t own their children, so they don’t have the right to decide about their death (if it is evitable).
I’m sorry, but your statement makes zero sense. In any country, US included, there are institutions that provide care for people who are either physically or mentally incapable of caring for themselves. Should they be shut down and the people released into the wild? And what about people who can’t afford health care? Should they rot? And people with suicidal tendencies. Should they put themselves in danger just like that? No psychiatric oversight to keep them from doing something that can’t be undone? Either you lack knowledge of how institutions and societies work, or you’re just propagating libertarian nonsense.
Here’s the thing. Franklin is assuming that he know more about the Ontkeen than the Ontkeen do. And he has no real basis to make this assumption.
And a key point is that, in the Baby.lon 5 universe, souls DO exist.
yeah, that’s true that he could have checked if there’s any medical/scientific truth behind their religious BS.
How? Who would he have asked? The Onteen authorities would presumably have said, yes, of course their beliefs are right. The Earth Alliance’s, probably not. Picking a side needs better reasons than that!
Not necessarily. Don’t fall into the “Planet of Hats” trap — surely the Onteen are just as diverse as humans in their beliefs. It could be that these parents are fundamentalists by their own people’s standards, like the transfusion-refusing Jehovah’s Witnesses that inspired the story. Or even if the government backs the religious dogma, there could be a scientific community that’s more open-minded.
Indeed, what the posters above are suggesting is that, within the B5 universe, it’s conceivable that the Onteen could actually be right about their species having some intangible essence unknown to human science that functions like a soul to them, and if so, there may be measurable scientific proof of its existence. After all, if W. Morgan Sheppard can build a gadget out of random junk that can extract people’s souls and stick them in floating crystal balls, then that suggests there is something there that could be detected by technology.
In any case, getting more knowledge about a situation is always a good idea. There’s no guarantee it’ll give you the answers, but it’s better to ask and find nothing than to assume you’re right and miss out on learning something important.
If true or not is irrelevant – they THINK it is true and it is THEIR choice. They are not only a different culture but an ALIEN one. We should not get involved.
they are on foreign territory – local laws should apply even on B5
Yes, come to B5, where medical treatment ignores your species’ wishes! That’s going to make it popular, and I’m glad that that does not in fact appear to be the local law (even if it required a ruling from the station commander to make that clear).
come to B5 if you want to save your child’s life
But they didn’t, that was the whole plot of the episode. Or rather, they did, but only if it didn’t conflict with something they valued more than their child’s life. Is that a good reason to judge them harshly as parents? Apparently, views differ!
Certainly the decision should not be made unilaterally.
I seem to recall that there was a bit of a hullabaloo when this this episode premiered, as a DS9 tie-in novel by Peter David was released at about the same time with a B plot that was broadly similar to this episode. Now Mr. David is a talented writer, and his Legions of Fire Trilogy is IMO the best Babylon 5 tie-in fiction. However, his take on the religious objections to a medical procedure plot was the inferior. It failed to flesh out the parents and their reasoning, instead portraying them as a couple of superstitious bumpkins who deserved to have their wishes overridden.
I just reread the subplot in Peter David’s Deep Space Nine: The Siege (no relation to the later episode of that title), and though I only skimmed it, I didn’t notice any great difference in how the two stories portrayed the alien religions. In the novel, the father, Mas Marko, made a pretty cogent argument that his people’s belief against interfering in the will of their god by employing medical care is analogous to the Federation’s Prime Directive. Also, the mother is portrayed in a nuanced way, in that she actually gives in and consents to the procedure after Dr. Bashir basically terrorizes her into it by showing her a hologram of her son’s impending suffering and death, yet she resents him for imposing his beliefs even as she guiltily compromises her own out of love for her son. And rather than feeling she “deserved” it, Bashir feels ashamed of himself for subjecting the mother to such anguish in order to change her mind. If anything, I think the parents in “Believers” were portrayed with less nuance, since they had no ambivalence or doubt about the rightness of letting their son die.
Also, The Siege came out just about exactly one year before “Believers,” not at the same time.
Is it typical for writers to only contribute (or be asked to contribute) the A-plot or was this more of an exception?
It depends. JMS said online that the main story needed to be tightened up and streamlined, leaving space that he wrote the B-plot to fill. Every freelance script is rewritten by the showrunner or regular staff, but how extensively and in what way depends on what each particular story needs.
I liked this episode as a subversion of the typical medical drama “it’s against my religion” episode. Also, the way they used Shon’s parents going to the other ambassadors as a way for us to get to know them I thought was really neat for an episode that didn’t have a ton to do with the greater story arc.
As I have heard it, Gerrold had only recently finalized the adoption of his son (who inspired The Martian Child) when JMS offered him the story. Gerrold galdly accepted, but as he wrote it and realized there was really only one way for it to end, he called JMS a number of bad names to his face.
A story like this depends a lot on the quality of the child actor, and I thought Jonathan Charles Kaplan did a pretty good job. About the only time he really felt off was when Shon’s parents appeared after the operation. His happy and excited felt just not quite right, which could have been an acting or directorial choice.
This episode, along with a few moments in “Infection” tells us just about everything we need to know about Dr. Frankin. His arc is shorter than others’, but we probably know him better at this point than most of the rest of the main cast, who all have depths and sides we haven’t seen yet.
That’s not how JMS described it online:
“When I developed the basic Believers story, and was looking for someone to assign it to, David was the first person we went to. He asked me at the time why him…he’s more generally associated with humorous stuff. I had my reasons. See, lately, David adopted a young boy, about the same age as Shon. So about halfway into the outline, David called and said, “NOW I understand.” I knew that having a child of his own now would mean that the story would be a lot more personal. Especially the end scene, which I knew would have to be done *very* carefully.”
This episode was and is very much relevant for today. I took a pediatric bioethics certificate course as a parent of a medically fragile child. I think the closest parallel would be Jehovah’s Witness objection to blood transfusions and the laws regarding parental consent for treatment of children under the age of 18.
This one always gets me thinking. During this particular rewatch, I found myself agreeing the most with Sinclair. He makes his rationale very clear, despite how it may differ from what he personally wants to do.
This episode goes a long way towards showing us what kind of man (and doctor) Franklin is. While I understand why some people may take his side in the debate, I still think it displays how arrogant and prideful Franklin can be. That pride and sense of authority is something that will continue into the future, and presages his eventual fall.
Beyond that, I also like how the reactions and choices of all the ambassadors were on point.
As far as Ivanova’s subplot goes, I think there was some vague intent to tie it to the A-plot because Ivanova also went against regs/orders to save the transport, but it just doesn’t land. Especially because the A-plot’s ending hits so much harder and Ivanova’s subplot resolves off-screen.
I think Sinclair did the best he could do in the given circumstances, but i think that so did Franklin. He might have been arrogant, but for a good reason.
I think it walks the tight line between displaying Franklin’s pride and arrogance while also keeping his choices somewhat relatable. For example, I do think that Franklin could have done a bit more research into the beliefs of the Onteen. He holds fast to the notion that the parents will ultimately come around to his way of thinking, rather than trying to anticipate how their belief system will influence them…even after they make it very clear that they consider their beliefs to be sacrosanct.
Yeah, he definitely should have done more research on them, totally agree. Especially that there was no urgent time pressure, so he probably even had time to do so.
I also did not understand why Sinclair hasn’t contacted their government and ask how this really works there.
It’s clear they had more information than Franklin knew; in the circumstances I imagine he checked medical data and not religious practices. Inexcusble but understandable. If this species was minor and barely space-faring, their information could be very limited.
I’ve seen doctors ignore 10+ years of tests in favor of “taking a look themselves” so imagining Franklin trusts what he can see himself over the “superstition” of these parents isn’t too hard.
Yeah, we are left to assume that, if anything, Sinclair would have heard the same thing that the parents told him. Which, to be fair, the parents did state that if Franklin operated on Shon, then they would kill him. We are left to assume they meant Franklin.
yeah, it’s a bit of a problem that it’s just our assumption :D
One of my first Trek viewings was “Tribbles”. And shortly after, B5 came. I was surprised how Gerrold could transition from comedy to drama so seamlessly (now I know it’s a lot easier for comedy writers to do that transition than the other way around – Succession being a good example).
This is essentilaly B5‘s take on the Prime Directive. When I first watched this almost 30 years ago, let’s just say this was one of the first episodes of television that left me outraged. I was young, and I agreed with Franklin 110%. I could not tolerate any culture that had parents sacrificing their own child over a religious belief. I thought it was barbaric.
I mellowed quite a bit on that stance in the many years since. I still don’t condone what M’Ola and Tharg did to Shon’s life, but I sympathize a lot more with Sinclair’s position. Certainly no one else is listerning to Shon. Back then, I didn’t even consider that Franklin’s actions could be seen as a violation of other people’s individual rights. But Franklin being in the wrong isn’t really a flaw in the episode. It’s intentional. This is the beginning of Franklin’s big arc, which will explode in disastrous ways over the next couple of seasons: the Markab plague and also his addiction to stims.
I couldn’t ever put myself on the parents’ shoes. But having rewatched it many times since, I can see things more clearly. Gerrold really puts in the work to make the parents sympathetic (and the actors really sell their desperation), especially in the scenes where they plea their case to the other ambassadors.
But here’s the thing: the episode shows us that Shon doesn’t want to “lose his soul” either. But that personal fear is bred out of years of religious conditioning from his parents. His giddyness on that scene when he’s healed – wanting to assure his parents he’s still himself. He’s deeply hurt when they reject him as a soulless husk. The parents doing that might be not ‘coercion’, but it sure feels like it – if not outright abuse. He didn’t get to live a life out of that bubble, to be exposed to a wider world with other ideas. In the end, the 10 year old has resigned himself to be a part of the ritual that will end it all. The parents are making the decisions for him and Franklin/Hernandez are doing the same.
I definitely have a problem with the fact that people below a certain age don’t have the same set of rights as everyone else. Is the government right to intefere? Hell, no. But there should be a way to safeguard those who don’t have the ability to defend themselves from those who make very bad decisions (whom they love and trust with their lives), even if the parents believe they’re doing it for their well being. I feel more and more like Sinclair in this situation, that’s for sure. This is why I feel parents imposing religion on their kids in general does more harm than good.
And that’s just it. There are no easy answers out of this, and the episode is all the better for it.
Sinclair’s conversation with Shon is one of my favorite moments of the episode. O’Hare handles it with such deliberate care.
“let’s just say this was one of the first episodes of television that left me outraged. I was young, and I agreed with Franklin 110%. I could not tolerate any culture that had parents sacrificing their own child over a religious belief. I thought it was barbaric.”
And you were completely right. But Sinclair was also right – he is not a doctor.
On Facebook, one friend of mine said that he spent a long time agonizing over this episode, but ultimately came to the conclusion that Shon should have been taken away from his parents.
The problem there is: what happens after he’s taken away? Okay, his life is saved, but he can’t go home now, because the act of saving him has made him an outcast in his society. What happens to him now? Who takes responsibility for him?
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
btw one more thing: “Franklin offers Sinclair his resignation, which Sinclair doesn’t accept because Richard Biggs is in the opening credits.”
Let’s say that the prime minister / president / king / queen (or the commanding officer in an army) would tell a doctor not to save a patient’s life because reasons. The doctor knows their duties that they are there to save lives – they make an oath for it. Should the doctor resign if they do their duty and save a patient against the orders? Not sure that’s a world i’d want to live where this was the norm. I do understand the differences between a hospital in the 21st century and the medical facilities on B5, but fundamentally…it is the same question. Franklin did his duty – at all costs, yes. Arrogantly – yes. But still…
Who takes responsibility for any child taken away from abusive parents, or any orphaned child, or any refugee child whose parents can’t be found? It’s hardly an unprecedented situation, so there are systems in place for dealing with it, although one can only hope they work as well as they’re intended to.
It’s a bit different when a society takes a child away from their parents and a different species takes a child away from their entire culture.
Yeah, if “his parents are going to kill him” isn’t a good enough reason to take a child away from his parents, what the hell ever could be? The tragedy is that Franklin didn’t realize in time that was a step that needed to be taken (or that Sinclair would have refused to take it even with Shon’s life clearly on the line, but now I’m just speculating about alternate scripts).
The happy ending is Shon in whatever B5 has for an orphanage, which isn’t *that* happy, but it beats the canon ending. Lots of people even within one species have had to find new families after their birth families rejected them. Often for religious reasons!
“any refugee child whose parents can’t be found”
The US is currently wrestling with this one after a number of children were deliberately separated from their parents at the border. The INS didn’t bother to keep records of which children went with which child…
But this is another planet that doesn’t even have an ambassador on B5. It’s not clear that there’s any mechanism in place for handling his disposition once the operation’s done.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Which is why I brought up refugees. If his culture considers him dead, they’ve waived all further responsibility for him and that would leave him a refugee in need of asylum. (Which is similar to how Peter resolved it in his DS9 novel.)
this is why i wrote that normally, the kid should be taken away from the parents
The problem with this approach is that it opens up a whole can of worms: who gets to decide? Can we guarantee that their judgement is more trustworthy than that of the parents? What standards are we to apply as we pass judgement between very different cultures?
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
I would think that the standards would be the laws that prevail in that specific jurisdiction. If you’re in someone else’s territory, you’re obliged to act in accordance with their laws. Although in this case, B5’s objective of being neutral ground works against that, as discussed in the episode.
yeah, there are usually laws and experts who apply those laws to those decisions. I understand the unique situation of Babylon 5 in this, because the family members aren’t earth citizens, but I think that this is a question that actually should be followed up. What laws apply on the station and who punishes those who break it? If endangering your child is a crime on Earth (as it should be), does that apply to alien races on B5?
Sinclair states that, because they have no representative on the station, it is his responsibility to decide. And everyone who could share in making that decision passes the buck right back to him.
The only thing I disliked about this episode (other than the pointless filler of a B-plot) is how the scene following the surgery is played. It felt really over the top, even for this show. Everything else really worked for me. I remember Christian Science being very topical around the time this was broadcast thanks to cases like Commonwealth v. Twitchell, which is what I’m imagining this story was referencing. I agree that Franklin should have been disciplined for his actions, but perhaps Sinclair thought seeing what happened to the patient he’d “saved” was punishment enough.
When this episode first came out, I was underwhelmed, because it was the exact same plot Peter David had done as a B- or C-story in the first original Deep Space Nine novel The Siege just about exactly a year earlier (as discussed in above comments), and I felt this episode didn’t handle it as well, that it was a more simplistic treatment going for a shock-value ending. This time, I liked the episode better. It is quite effective and dramatic, with good writing. O’Hare and Biggs have improved greatly since their performances in the early episodes.
I recall that part of what annoyed me at the time was JMS’s hype that the episode was doing something bold and daring that no other sci-fi show had ever done, when Peter’s novel had done almost the exact same thing a year earlier. Apparently JMS did have it pointed out, since his later comments acknowledge the novel, saying it hadn’t yet been released when “Believers” was written (which means it must have been written more than a year before it aired, which seems iffy) and that both stories were independently inspired by the headlines at the time about religious parents refusing medical treatment for their children.
I think the father could have been better cast; he comes off as an unreasonable fanatic and it’s hard to sympathize with his perspective. I also think the reason for their refusal to allow surgery makes them seem superstitious, and it raises a lot of questions. I mean, nobody goes their entire life without ever sustaining a cut or break to their skin. I mean, do they euthanize everyone who steps on a tack or gets cut by broken glass?
And yes, the episode’s premise hasn’t held up well over time. Not only do we have plenty of non-invasive techniques today, but I couldn’t help thinking that there should probably have been an easy nanotech fix.
I’m very surprised that Kosh’s iconic avalanche/pebbles line came here in this standalone episode. I thought it was from something more important to the arc.
Incidentally, the end titles misspell Ardwight Chamberlain’s name as “Adwright.” They may have done that before, which could explain why I always thought it was “Ardwright.”
“I also think the reason for their refusal to allow surgery makes them seem superstitious, and it raises a lot of questions. I mean, nobody goes their entire life without ever sustaining a cut or break to their skin. I mean, do they euthanize everyone who steps on a tack or gets cut by broken glass?”
I had the same thought while watching it, but I decided they had to mean a cut deep into the body, regardless of the language used about puncturing or whatever. Then again, maybe their skin is more resistant than ours, and they just don’t get superficial injuries like that.
Yes, and JMS clarified online that it was only cutting into the body cavity that was forbidden, though the episode itself wasn’t clear about that. But what if someone’s in a serious accident and a piece of sharp metal punctures their abdomen or chest, say? Are they written off as dead even though it was an accident? Or does their taboo only apply to deliberate cutting? Given that they equated it to the slaughtering of livestock, I kind of get that impression.
Although one problem here is the treatment of the aliens’ belief as monolithic. Any religion has a variety of ways of interpreting its rules — ask any rabbi or imam. If Franklin had studied their beliefs earlier, not only would he have caught on to that “traveling robe” thing, but he might have found a way to finagle the letter of the doctrine in a way that would have persuaded them to permit the surgery. Or, better yet, he might have found a cleric from their own culture who could have convinced them it was all right.
A fairly trivial injury might be fatal if you refused blood transfusion, so surely this question can be related to actual human religious practices. I’m not sure allowing the husk to die peacefully as opposed to keeping it alive after the soul departs is very likely, though that presumes people wouldn’t naturally recover from an injury that “releases the soul.”
On top of everything else, why should we believe that “Children of the Egg” worship is universal and without controversy? All we know is the records available on the station conform to this family’s practices.
Well, yes, of course there are real-life analogies, since the story (and the extremely similar one in Peter David’s Deep Space Nine novel a year earlier) was an allegory inspired by prominently covered real-life cases of religious parents refusing medical treatment for their children.
And they didn’t “allow the husk to die peacefully”; they killed their son. He was conscious, talking, and perfectly fine by any human standard; he could have lived a full, normal life, but his parents executed him because they didn’t consider him a person anymore.
My impression was that it relates to the desensitization of the chest cavity (Franklin notes they should hear a hissing sound). Accident or not, once that occurs the soul has left and the person is therefore considered dead, regardless of what happens afterwards to the body.
except this would be him meddling in their culture and beliefs which is not his job or something he should do. It would be paternalistic, controlling and wrong. As soon a they made their wishes known he should have backed off. ESPECIALLY when the child agreed with them.
I certainly hope they wouldn’t write someone off for being inadvertently stabbed, but maybe they just have a very different interpretation of what constitutes a fatal accident in the same way they have a different opinion about what constitutes lifesaving medical treatment. But yeah, Franklin was boneheaded when he went ahead with the procedure without looking into the cultural beliefs that were standing in his way. I felt like that’s the impression I was supposed to get, anyway.
I liked that there were no easy answers in the situation with Shon, no “this is obviously the right answer and everyone else is wrong.”
As @@@@@Eduardo S H Jencarelli wrote above, this is essentially a Prime Directive episode and not a bad one. And I did appreciate that everyone took it according to their duties and took responsibilities for it.
I can’t decide whether it’s a bug or a feature here that the parents are written and portrayed as so aggressively unlikable that it’s almost impossible for me to take their side.
What has long impressed me about this episode is the degree to which it avoids portraying the parents as completely unlikeable, irredeemable monsters. They come across as genuinely terrified that efforts to save their son with either fail or result in an abomination. While their stubborn refusal to expand their mindset ultimately makes them mostly unsympathetic, to some degree they are victims themselves of a too-rigid culture.
What would be an example of parents that let their kid die due to their superstitions and still stay likeable? I can’t imagine that.
You keep using that word and I don’t think it an appropriate one: superstition is a mere habit, religion is a way of life.
Put another way, superstition is often a mere individual eccentricity, but Religion is almost always a matter of actual Law and the Social Contract, not to mention widespread and heartfelt belief: no matter how little you believe in what must be taken on Faith, it is deeply dangerous and arrogant to assume that there will be no tangible consequences to dishonouring an Article of Faith (Legal, social or illegal).
So let me ask you: how many of us would be really, truly willing to change our way of life and our way of thought simply because some well-meaning stranger in a foreign hospital insists that WE must be wrong and HE must be right?
btw just a sidenote – the fact that an episode from so many years ago triggers such intensive discussion clearly shows to me that the episode is pretty good – it really touches a lot on personal beliefs, ethics and norms. :) I don’t think we need to reach an agreement – i am definitely to see so much diversity of opinions here.
RELIGON not superstition, and they stayed likeable if misguided by my own personal beliefs – but those are just that MY personal beliefs that I have ZERO right to impose on anyone else. Sigh ..
well, religion is something else. For me it’s a superstition if you rather harm someone based on your belief than do what scientifically would be the right thing to do. So no, not letting puncture the kid is superstition, not religion in my view.
Science doesn’t ever define or say what is right. It can determine what is possible. Only people can decide what is right.
no, science can tell you that puncturing someone will not lead to losing their soul. But in this case if the given culture cares about people’s lives, then it’s easy to figure out that the right thing to do is to operate and not let someone die. But the ethics can be built on scientific facts, otherwise we can truly believe that operating someone would be worse for them than letting them die.
I’m curious, what test is it exactly that can report on the status of one’s soul? I didn’t know that was possible. I think it is an untestable hypothesis, which puts it outside the bounds of science.
well, i think we can – more or less – prove if a person’s identity, personality or memories have changed or not. we know that certain brain injuries change a variety of factors – it can be tested even if not to 100%…so i think it is within the realms of science. maybe our current abilities are not there to test every aspect of it perfectly, but that can change over time with progress.
The thing about “soul” is that there’s no consensus definition of what it actually means. Sometimes it’s equated with the mind and personality, while at other times it’s defined as some intangible thing independent of those. That’s clearly what the Onteen believed; Shon still had the same personality and memory as ever, but they saw him as a soulless abomination.
I have to admit I am pleasantly surprised. This (along with one other episode) were the ones I was looking forward to reading the least. I expected a complete repudiation of the alien’s beliefs and the commander for allowing them. Glad to be wrong and to see that the sites disgust for religion didn’t take over here.
As a libertarian certainly think the commander was right. Would make a different decision myself of course but that doesn’t give me the right to force anyone else. The only reason vaccines can be forced is the affect on others – people want to leave themselves open to death – their prerogative. Expect the comments here will be terrible, but glad the rewatch was not.
As for the Doctor not being fired or disciplined, the difficulty and the fact it is a NEW issue given first interactions with aliens is why that didn’t happen. Expect there wasn’t a rule for this occasion yet (and as you stated in the US the rule would have been NOT to go with the child’s and parents wishes).
I’m no Libertarian, but I definitely agree that you should not (Perhaps even cannot) FORCE an individual to be helped: without basic consent there’s an enormous risk of mission creep and wasted effort.
adult individuals, certainly not – children are different imo. But again – they brought the child on their own will to ask for help.
This certainly is another episode that is screaming “we aren’t Star Trek” because in the Star Trek shows, and apparently the novel others have talked about, the kid would have been saved somehow.
I think back on this episode when season 3 rolls around and we get the return of
Agree with respect to the ST contrast. The cognitive dissonance from presenting efforts to save the life of a child as wrong is still impactful today. However, the degree to which Franklin’s portrayal here—self-righteous, consistently wrong, and ultimately failing at his task—subverted common expectations of The Ship’s Doctor seems to have been blunted by developments in TV writing over the last thirty years. Now it seems like something a script doctor should have fixed up, but in 1994 it was perhaps a bit more of a conscious choice to push some boundaries.
I don’t buy the argument that Star Trek wouldn’t have done a morally ambiguous episode like this. That ignores “The City on the Edge of Forever” and “A Private Little War,” not to mention “Tuvix.”
And “Believers” wasn’t “presenting efforts to save the life of a child as wrong.” That’s missing the point, which was that Franklin and the parents were both doing what their beliefs told them was right, and that both of them were driven to cross moral lines in the name of what they thought was right. It’s left to the audience to decide whether they think one side or the other was justified in their actions. As with the aforementioned Trek episodes, the story isn’t telling the audience which side is right, but asking them to decide for themselves.
I wasn’t at all suggesting that ST didn’t present moral ambiguity, rather that viewers more accustomed to the general goodness of McCoy and Crusher may have found Franklin’s behavior surprising and off-putting.
And you are entirely correct that a major point of the episode was to examine the impossibility of absolute ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ with respect to medical ethics. But to get there it first had to frame some scenes in a way to suggest that letting Shon go was better than trying to save him, which again would have likely struck many viewers as appalling.
IMO those were both bold creative choices for a TV show to make during its first season on the air.
“But to get there it first had to frame some scenes in a way to suggest that letting Shon go was better than trying to save him, which again would have likely struck many viewers as appalling.”
No, the story wasn’t suggesting that letting him go was better — some characters in the story argued that letting him go was better, while other characters argued that it was not. The story was a forum for their debate. And the goal, ideally, is to get viewers to think, to re-examine their certainties and develop empathy for alternative points of view, rather than simply closing their minds to them. It’s too absolutist to frame it in terms of taking one side or another. It’s about hearing both sides, thinking about them with an open mind.
The episode did imply that there might be something to their belief after all, since they instantly recognized on sight that Shon was now “soulless,” even though he showed no outward sign of having been operated on. It’s ambiguous, since they could’ve just seen him suddenly healed and breathing normally and deduced that he must have been operated on, but it’s at least hinted that there may have been some genuine change that they perceived and humans did not.
This is one of my favourite episodes from the first season, though I also have some issues with it, or mostly just with Franklin. The big one is with Franklin chastising Hernandez about “respecting the patients’ beliefs” in the opening and then not bothering to do even the most basic of research into those beliefs himself. The former does go well with what we learn about his beliefs down the road, but the latter undermines it. Given what we learn later, the idea that he would ignore learning about their religious beliefs doesn’t really track, even if the arrogance does.
There is also the conversation between Hernandez and Franklin that makes it clear that they both know that the alternative treatment Franklin offers will not work, and Hernandez even states that they will basically be torturing the child with a sham treatment to no effect. Franklin just comes off so badly in this episode even if you agree with his position on treating the kid.
On the other side, Sinclair working though his dilemma and sitting down to talk to Shon is great. There is a reason minors aren’t allowed to make such decisions themselves, but it is good to see that at least Sinclair realizes Shon’s views are still important enough to be consulted before the decision gets made, something nobody else appears to do.
Delenn’s conversation and the reason she will not intervene is also a highlight despite the briefness of the scene. She is sympathetic but notes that both sides are trying to save the child based on what they believe. “Who is right? And how do we prove it?” I mean, I’m with Franklin and medical science on this one, but at least the questions are being asked. I also love the parent’s shock that someone might refuse to help them based on their beliefs without recognizing the irony.
It remains an episode that provokes strong feelings in most of those who watch it, but the questions raised continue to come up, if not always to such an extreme conclusion, which is why I still hold it in high regard.
Quoth northman: “There is a reason minors aren’t allowed to make such decisions themselves,”
See, I question that. Maybe it’s because I teach karate to kids, and some of them are perfectly capable of making intelligent decisions on their own. Plenty of them aren’t, of course, but that applies to adults as well. And we’re talking about an alien species. Who’s to say that they don’t mature differently? Indeed, the episode implies that to an extent, with Franklin treating Shon like a human child with the fake egg and Shon seeing through it but going along to be polite.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Regarding his species, the story is clearly allegorical, so I am fine with ignoring it. Shon is a child, and a relatively young child at that. In human terms, his figuring out the glopet egg thing means he’s likely old enough to no longer believe in the actual existence of Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, but still young enough it would be a criminal offence to claim he consented to sexual activity with someone much older.
But let’s take your martial arts example. I don’t know offhand which martial art we’re talking about, but assuming for the sake of argument, there are full-contact competitions, where significant injury or even potential life-threatening consequences are at least a possibility, would you take the word of a kid Shon’s apparent age that they fully understood the risks and consequences of engaging in said full-contact competition, to the extent that you would be comfortable overruling their parents’ objections to the same?
I’m not sure what there is to debate here, since Shon agreed with his parents. If he’d asked for the treatment and his parents had refused, then your question might apply, but he was with them in refusing it — which I think means that Franklin violated medical ethics by doing it without his patient’s consent. I think the only time you can operate without a patient’s consent is if they’re unconscious and their life or long-term health is at stake, or something like that.
The question isn’t about Shon, but kids in general and how much we should trust them to make intelligent decisions, particularly when those decisions can have negative life-altering consequences.
If you prefer, change the scenario to the pre-fight medical examination, where the parents and child want to fight, and the examiner says they shouldn’t. Is the child’s choice the dispositive one?
“The question isn’t about Shon, but kids in general”
Why? This is a thread for discussing Babylon 5, not general child care.
However, I do think adults should resist the tendency to condescend to children or assume they’re incompetent. Children are people, they have rights, and they deserve to at least be consulted and have their opinions respected in decisions that affect them, even if they don’t have final say. Sinclair was right to talk to Shon, to treat him like a person who had a stake in the decision rather than merely an object to be acted upon. I think he did better than Franklin, Hernandez, or Shon’s parents in that regard, since they kept arguing about him rather than talking to him.
As noted in the episode description, Shon said that while he wanted to be cured, he did not want to live as a soulless being. I don’t recall that we find out in the episode just what Shon thinks about what will now happen to him after the surgery. Was he in fact desirous of it, not wanting to exist as a living creature that simply functions and has no spirituality?
I don’t think that scene implies that Onteen children mature differently, since human children can be just as savvy. Frankly, I believe children are *better* at understanding the difference between fantasy and reality than adults, because adults get out of practice at using their imaginations. (Except for adults like us who never grow up and thus become writers.) And of course, children are smarter and more perceptive than a lot of adults give them credit for, so they can often see through the comforting fictions we spin for them. (I’m pretty sure I figured out the truth about Santa Claus well before my parents dropped the pretense.)
I agree that this doesn’t track with Franklin’s later portrayal, but you can’t really blame this episode for that. If this were a novel where you could go back and revise the scene once you realize the character has gone in a different direction than you originally planned, then that would be a valid criticism, but the most fair thing here is to analyze the episode in itself. Within the episode itself, it certainly looks at first like Franklin is the advocating for the parents’ rights to their beliefs, but his later actions clearly indicate that he’s merely being “magnanimous” because he assumes that the parents will eventually come around to his way of thinking.
This has always been one of my favorite non-arc episodes, if for no other reason than the amazing Kosh pebbles line you included in the article. I frequently cram that into conversations where it has no place being because I love it so much.
While you have good points here, Krad, I just can’t help but always enjoy the episode because of the ambiguity of the story. The twist at the end is heartbreaking, but Franklin was in the wrong, and Sinclair is absolutely in the right, and is one of O’Hare’s best performances because he actually acts like a commander looking at things from all of the angles. Also, the episode gives us Kosh’s avalanche quote and that line is just so great. I find it one of the better of the seasons episodes.
This episode tries to make me feel that Franklin’s mistake was disrespecting the Onteen’s culture and faith, and I just… can’t.
B5 may be neutral ground, but they are still applying a set of laws, and those laws seem to be mainly Earth’s with some exceptions due to the various embassies and diplomatic immunities. Assuming that Earth has not regressed when it comes to universal rights and international law since the declaration of the UNCRC in 1989, then it should hold the position that B5 “shall ensure to the maximum extent possible the survival and development of the child”, even if it means overriding religious objections and/or taking the child away from their parents.
And since the Onteem couple specifically went to B5 in search of a cure (as opposed to just being on B5 because of a layoff when their child got sick) they implicitly agreed to abide by the laws of B5 when it comes to medical matters.
Sinclair’s decision may have been the most politically cautious and culturally respectful, but it certainly was not made with the child’s best interests in mind.
(I do, however, still find ridiculous that Franklin got away with it with only a slap on the wrist. Right or not, he disobeyed a direct ruling from the station commander acting as tribunal, and that should have come with far stronger consequences than a “just don’t do it again”.)
That’s not how medical ethics and consent requirements work in respect of minors, at least not in jurisdictions that I am familiar with. The operative question where I live is whether the child is competent to make the decision. If so, the child’s decision should generally prevail. Competence is assessed on a case-by-case basis. Age is certainly one of the relevant factors, but not the only one.
There is no blanket rule that says that a child is never competent to refuse even life-saving medical care. But there are also rules, which can be complex, about whose decision prevails if the particular decision to be made is beyond the child’s capacity. Sometimes it is the parents, but not always. And there are usually processes by which a court or some other authority can settle any disagreements about a course of care. The best interests standard applies to substitute decision makers who are making decisions on behalf of the child. It doesn’t, by itself, allow anyone to override the child’s own decision, if the child has the capacity to make it.
If we assumed that these were the governing rules, Sinclair applied them appropriately: he directly assessed Shon’s competence, concluded that Shon had the capacity to make the decision, and then accepted his decision. There was no obvious reason to think Shon did not understand the issues.
In the past, this episode hasn’t been one of my favorites. I still don’t think the dynamic between Franklin and Hernandez works very well and the whole thing depends on there being absolutely no other possible course of treatment that could work, which just doesn’t seem plausible. But thinking about this has made me come around a bit on how it deals with the medical ethics point. It’s a bit misleading because it spends too much time talking about the parents and not enough about Shon, but in a show-don’t-tell way, it works. The fact that Shon was conscious and capable of making an independent decision explains why Sinclair was right to treat this situation differently from allowing Dr. Kyle to intervene to save Kosh in the pilot.
That said, I do also agree that, if these were the governing rules, Franklin’s deliberate decision to reject them and impose treatment against the patient’s express wishes and in defiance of a legal order should have had consequences.
In Italy the opinion of an underage person is taken into consideration with variable weight depending on the age and maturity, but it’s not binding: if the doctors and legal guardians disagree, then the final decision goes to the children’s tribunal. So yeah, it varies by jurisdiction.
And again, I think that Franklin was in the wrong to do the surgery against Sinclair’s ruling. What I meant was that (quoting the article) “[Sinclair] can’t override the Onteen beliefs in order to satisfy his own” is bull because he’s meant to uphold the law on B5, regardless of his or the Onteen’s beliefs.
(There’s actually been a recent case here where the parents’ objections to transfusions during surgery on religious grounds (not JW, but no-vax catholics, which apparently are a thing…) was overruled by the children’s tribunal because the safety of the child came first.)
The episode wasn’t saying that Franklin was the only one in the wrong. On the contrary, its goal was not to take a clear side at all, to leave the situation ambiguous and up to the viewers to judge for themselves. We can disagree with the parents’ religious extremism while also disagreeing with Franklin’s heavy-handed and arguably ethnocentric decisions. As I mentioned above, perhaps if he’d done more work to research the Onteens’ culture, or consulted with an Onteen cleric, he might have found a compromise that would have saved the boy within the bounds of their faith.
Franklin commits larger ethical violtions (though concentrated in non-JMS episodes) that should get him fired, and he’s consistently played as extremely arrogant (not uncommon with doctors). A few lines could easily establish that there simply aren’t more than a few people who could do this job. Kyle is no longer available. As an Earthforce medlab, Earth will want a human doctor, but needs someone who can deal with aliens or new diseases. Franklin refused to share research but was one of the few human doctors with much alien medical experiences (that plus his dad may have made him palatable). Maybe Franklin can’t be dismissed so easily. Sinclair saying as much in a short scene would have helped.
i will say, when this aired there were hospital shows with unaccountable doctors which were more the norm. So it didn’t seem as unreasonable at the time.
Sinclair did indirectly explain why Franklin wasn’t punished: “sometimes doing the right thing doesn’t change anything.” Disciplining Franklin would have been ethically and legally correct, but it would have solved nothing while causing new problems.
Maybe. But then again, it might have avoided some future problems that we will come to in due course.
Did they ever specify whether the parents were prosecuted for murder at the end of this one? Surely killing your child would be a crime under the laws enforced on B5 regardless of your religion.
it did bother me a lot that they could kill someone on the station and just walk away…the station is in a very special situation indeed, but i don’t like the precedent this sets up.
They can’t kill anyone and walk away — only a member of their own nation if it’s allowed within their laws, and if it doesn’t have an impact on anyone outside their culture. I guess it’s sort of like how a foreign embassy within a country is treated as the foreign nation’s sovereign territory, except it applies to all visitors within their own residences or offices or whatever.
fair enough, but it’s still interesting. so if they had killed a Narn whose laws would apply? Earth, Narn or some other civilization?
I think that in a case like that, it would fall under the station’s jurisdiction, in the same way that interstate crimes in the US are federal jurisdiction rather than state jurisdiction. Also, I believe that under maritime law, if a crime occurs on a ship, the laws that apply are those of the country whose flag the ship flies. Since B5 is an Earth Alliance station, Earth Alliance law would apply.
We will get a bit more insight into how legal matters are resolved on B5 in Grail and a few other other episodes that involve the Ombuds. Ombuds Wellington is part of the Earth Alliance judiciary and operates under EA law.
In Dust to Dust, G’kar is tried for assault by another unnamed Ombuds, presumably also under EA law.
JMS says no: in a comment quoted on the lurker’s guide page for this episode, he says that matters that affect only members of a single species are judged on B5 under the laws of that species and this particular act would not have been considered criminal by the Onteen. I am not sure whether that particular conflict of laws rule is applied consistently in the rest of the series.
IIRC the show mostly respects that non-interference rule. There is an episode involving the Centauri and another involving the Drazi that both depend upon those species’ expectations that they can handle things among their own people without interference from B5 personnel.
There is real-world historic precedent for multi-ethinic/multi-religious states that largely allowed those communities to administer their own justice when outsiders were not involved, so it does seem a natural extension that a place like B5 might function similarly.
Yeah, I was thinking about Green/Purple in Geometry of Shadows. But in that case, I think there was a stated concern that the violence was causing problems outside the Drazi community.
I don’t think it was ever brought up onscreen, but JMS specified elsewhere that they were not; because no other species were involved the laws of their own culture applied, and from their point of view no crime was committed. (Source: Lurker’s Guide.)
Reading all these comments, I’m amazed how few people take the approach that these are truly alien races and cultures. In story, they are not just humans with funny prosthetics. Their life cycle and their philosophy is supposed to be alien to us. Of course we see the parallels to religious humans who want to forego medical treatments. But in story they need to only be viewed based on their race’s customs. Anything else is too human-centric. What’s the point of going to space if we just treat everyone as “just like us”? Aren’t we supposed to be learning about other’s ways?
From a dramatic point of view, I did find the parents sympathetic. I saw their love for their child, but they were caught wanting to do the right thing, even if it was hard emotionally. It was certainly not a casual or knee-jerk decision to stick to their chosen beliefs. And people are just assuming it was superstition that guided them rather than actual knowledge. We just don’t know.
I think it’s an admirable choice when people choose their chosen ethics over their immediate emotional response. I’m reminded of the Amish school shooting and how the families there could look beyond their own pain and desire for revenge and forgive the shooter based on their teachings. So many of us would have difficulty following a similar path.
But we do know. We see Shon after the operation and he is not a zombie. That would have been an almost equally disturbing ending — the parents are right, Shon does lose his soul and then someone has to mercy kill him — but it’s not what happens. What more do you want, confirmation from a telepath? (I suppose in B5 that could have been provided, if they had dropped the B-plot to free up enough screen time to involve one. Nobody talks about the B-plot on this one anyway, is there some rule that there *always* has to be one?)
Well, there was the fact that his parents instantly recognized him as “soulless” even though there was no outward sign that we could see, implying there may have been some genuine change that their senses could detect. Though as I said before, that’s ambiguous, since they could’ve just deduced that the surgery had been performed when they saw him up and about again. The story deliberately left it up to us to draw our own conclusions.
Respectfully, it’s difficult to take this approach when the overwhelming experience from both Babylon 5 and the wider genre is that these sorts of “alien” cultures are meant to be read as essentially different types of humans with different mores. This one, for example, very much seems to be riffing on opposition to blood transfusions amongst Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I think it was intended to be read as such.
I believe that certain values and beliefs should be universal – even if a civilization is alien and have completely different values etc, i will still not agree with them if they for instance enslave other species or not give a chance to all members of their society live a full life in the way they would like to.
“And people are just assuming it was superstition that guided them rather than actual knowledge. ” Yes, i did assume that the doc would know if this was true. But it is an assumption indeed and I agree that he should have done both medical and cultural research on them and search for ways how to agree with the parents – because there was enough time for it.
I think you can respect the sincerity of someone else’s beliefs while still firmly considering those beliefs to be wrong. Respect for others’ beliefs doesn’t require agreement with them, because we’re as entitled to our own beliefs as they are to theirs. It’s wrong to force our beliefs on others, but that doesn’t mean we can’t argue our side and try to convince them to change their minds.
I mean, they loved their faith, sure, but they loved their son too. So it’s not like their beliefs were a monolithic thing. They themselves were torn between two conflicting imperatives that both arose from their sincere feelings and devotions. So why should it be inevitable that they’d choose one of those conflicting imperatives over the other? If they’d chosen to act on their love for their son over their love for their faith, they would still have been true to what they believed in, just in a different way, a more personal way.
By that light, the problem is that Franklin chose to cast it as a conflict between his belief and theirs, so they saw it as an external imposition rather than something arising from their love for their son. People tend to get more reactionary about their cultures and religions in response to pressure from outsiders.
The conversation here around this episode is much more interesting (to me, anyway) than the episode itself was. :-)
Off topic, but this place is one of the few where I tell people they should read the comments.
I also love both the rewatch articles and the discussions :) especially when there are so diverse opinions as on this one, i’m learning a lot from all the conversations. :)
I say the same thing about this site. :)
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Always thought that the fact they called themselves “children of the egg” had something to do with a cultural taboo about opening up the chest cavity, similar to cracking open an eggshell.
I believe it’s a literal epithet and they hatch. The father mentions Shon first emerging, and the script describes them as possibly descended from dinosaurs.
The impression I got was that they were hatched in eggs rather gestated inside a parent. At one point, they used the fact that humans eat eggs as an insult, and there was serious revulsion at the very notion of eating an egg.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
Given that they referred to Dr. Franklin as a descendent of egg-sucking mammals, I assume that it was probably a reference to their birthing habits (and that they were maybe intended to be reptilian or ornithoid or the like).
This episode reminds me of the old legends where someone is fated to die, and no matter what choices are made, or actions are taken, each takes them closer to their inevitable doom. B5 always had a kind of legendary or epic feel to it, and Fraklin’s hubris leading to failure fit the character of the show.
Shon might have gotten over having his life saved against his will, if he hadn’t then been *murdered by his parents*. (Or maybe you would prefer the term “sacrificed”?) Even if that led him to become a heretic and exile from his birth people, B5 is probably the best place in the universe to make that kind of life transition, if you have to. Like, for example, if the alternative is death.
It’s a pretty decent To Be Lawful Or Good dilemma, which I suppose means it makes sense that the authority figure chose to be lawful.
It seemed to me that he already had gotten over it. He seemed happy and excited about being well again, and didn’t despair until his parents rejected him as an abomination.
I’ve always felt that the script desperately wants us to see that Franklin can be a self-righteous jerk who just assumes he knows best even when he blatantly doesn’t, and that maybe if he’d had some humility he would’ve at least tried to find some other solution to the boy’s condition, like, he could’ve consulted with other doctors at the very least to see if anybody with more experience with this sort of body might have more insight.