**Bizarre Content Warning**
No Surrender, No Retreat - Season 4, Episode 15
And lucky you, you film lovers, the entire five year run of Babylon 5 is available for free on Tubi right now.
That would actually be more fun for a politically independent person to view for the first time and compare with current events. Because like other media (Star Trek, Doctor Who) science fiction media is notorious for dropping social commentary about recent events into the middle of lasers, weird alien races, and shit blowing up.
Babylon 5 in its entirety is one big long story, planned in advance to have an overarching theme. Within the first few seasons the characters are established, we know their personalities and can predict somewhat how they will behave in a spur of the moment crisis. But this crisis is not spur of the moment. And that long building crisis is the authoritarian takeover of Earth by President Clark. And a lot more than a quick one liner joke from a Simpsons pop culture reference that was buried over a long running series this entire episode comes off as startlingly prescient.
The alien races on Babylon 5 serve as proxies for different cultures. President Clark is the Trump figure (although more competent). Earth is “the bad guy” regime using military force to silence dissent. And very specifically, it’s about ex-Earth military resistance and current regime fence sitters having to deal with illegal orders. And if you don’t see a parallel with what Hegseth and Trump has been up to with bombing boats and the ex-military congressional member response, you shouldn’t be watching it in the first place. You’re probably super closed minded and more likely to think it’s stupid and unwatchable.
Clips of this episode are making the rounds on the “naughty” social media spots. And we know what the gematria/zero actual evidence crowd thinks about it from history. Although the entire series is about illegal authoritarian takeover, the crickets are deafeningly silent about this bit of “predictive programming”. The whole concept of predictive programming, in practice, is purposefully stupid. It gives the Alex Jones fan something to complain about from a show that notoriously threw so much shit on the wall that some of it was bound to stick. While Babylon 5 was based on actual history of conflict, authoritarian power grabs, are silencing critics through force instead of having viable long term ideas to benefit society. It’s not prediction, it’s a historical documentary wrapped up in starships and pretty special effects. The gematria decode would be to wait until Trumpism dies out or find if he gets his wish of being king of the world.
Oh, what about that Christmas tie in? Christmas has a lot of good qualities, even for the secular crowd. It’s a time to put aside your differences, fit in long enough to eat way too much food, spend way too much money that currently you are far more likely to not be able to afford, and do nothing more political than argue whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie or an action movie that just happens to be set at Christmas. If 15 year old little Johnny asks for a Christmas present of the entire five season box set of Babylon 5 because he saw a clip of this on Facebook, following the dictates of the pushes towards extremism the reaction could be either disgust or joy. The, “What have I done wrong that he acts this way?” to, “That’s my boy!!!” Although it could be the neutral let’s watch it together during this time of the year. I myself never miss a Christmas season viewing of two of my actual Christmas favorites - It’s A Wonderful Life and Krampus. About as tonally different as you can get.
When I watch the scene of G’Kar and Mollari where G’Kar is offered to share a drink given to him, I think of Christmas 1914. A day when two opponents in a crisis said, “You know, today, just for today let’s not try to kill each other.” The Narn and Centauri despise each other. Diplomatically at odds, the entire series until they sit down here. Two representatives mulling the long term consequences of an epic crisis with generational impact. G’Kar appears to totally refuse the burial of the hatchet, until we find out that instead of just a knee jerk spur of the moment emotional reaction he did the correct thing. He thought things over; measured his response. It’s clear he’s not totally on board with becoming friends with Mollari. He’s not certain that lasting relations between the races is possible. He doesn’t need to be. “My house is on fire today. There are bigger fish to fry. Maybe, just today, I’ll try to not be a totally dickhead about stuff.”
So now let’s swing back to the obeying illegal orders content. There are clearly, on both sides, way too many people afraid to talk about the core of the issues facing the globally political atmosphere. Way too many Team Narn or Team Centauri gung ho my way or the highway types. The beauty of pushing towards extremism through misinformation resulting in perpetual monetization and protests and ineffective leadership foot dragging. The right people are not sharing a Christmas drink together. The people most in need of sitting down and saying, “You know, maybe, just maybe for today I won’t be a total dickhead about stuff.” We’ve scene this movie before, this illegal order thing:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_massacre
Instead of clairvoyance it’s far more likely that this kind of thing is the inspiration for the Babylon 5 writers. A dark chapter of history you’re not supposed to know about. The kind of thing little 15 year old Johnny might find out about if he gets “radicalized” by the naughty websites he starts visiting. Definitely best not to bring that up at the holiday dinner table. But also most definitely not a subject to hand wave away for eternity because “my team did it, so it’s fine.”
And that’s why bizarrely Babylon 5 created a great Christmas episode.
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