As much complaining as I have done about Season 5, there was a kernel of a good idea in some of the plots for the season.  The Interstellar Alliance seems like an obviously good idea to the various planetary governments, but how it will work and what its impact will be is still up in the air.  Exploring how something like this begins is fertile ground.  The choice to pair up this story with Byron and his telepath colony is less so.  

The episode starts off with trouble brewing in the new alliance.  Most of the governments were enticed to join the alliance with promises of technological advancement.  However Sheridan and the council are attempting to put conditions on that aid, with a declaration of principles that everyone needs to sign.  The Drazi are outraged at the affront to their morality implied by needing to sign a pledge.  They end up staging a walkout and encouraging a few other races to join. Garibaldi meets with Sheridan later and they discuss the situation.  Garibaldi points out that maybe it is better to drop the whole thing, but Sheridan wants to start the new alliance in the right way.  Garibaldi also predicts that eventually Sheridan will have to use force to establish the ISA with the other races.

We leave that happy thought in time to see an unknown race of aliens being attacked from above by another unknown race.  A ranger has come to help them, and the aliens excitedly tell one another that the ranger will bring back help.  

Back from credits, the council is still trying to figure out how to best address the Drazi concern while also attending to some other issues, when Garibaldi presents his proposal to expand covert intelligence gathering:recruit Byron’s telepaths as spies.  Sheridan is uncomfortable, but Garibaldi points out most other races use telepaths in military and intelligence work.  The council agree to let Garibaldi approach the telepaths with the offer.  

The approach does not go well.  Garibaldi goes to where they have been staying, but none of the telepaths will speak to him, going as far as to turn and walk away when he approaches one of them.  They ignore him entirely until he casually threatens to tell Sheridan about their lack of cooperation. Eventually Byron comes out and gives him a curt no on his proposal before Garibaldi has a chance to make it. Byron informs him that he already knows all of his arguments and counter arguments and other personal details.  He then goes on a small rant about how regular people accidentally broadcast their surface thoughts, and then decides to personally insult Garibaldi’s habit of rehearsing what he is going to say before he says it.  In general Byron comes off as rude and incredibly condescending.  He says that they are willing to work, but only on their own terms.  

The ranger from earlier comes drifting through the gate in a beat up White Star, on the brink of death.  Franklin reports to Delenn that the Ranger is terminal, and Delenn requests a telepathic scan to find out what the Ranger stumbled onto before he was attacked.  Lyta does the work, finding out that the race have been attacked by raiders twice a year, for years.  The raiders come and steal resources and destroy cities.  The aliens, called the Enfeeli,  wish to join the alliance, saying that in twelve days the largest raider force will come.  She is still in the Ranger’s mind when he dies, perceiving his spirit to disappear through a doorway. 

Delenn and Sheridan discuss the situation over dinner.  They lament that the alliance will have to start a fight, but they eventually land on sending an overwhelming amount of White Star’s to deal with the problem.  Later Sheridan informs the Drazi ambassador about their plan, as the Enfeeli are on the border of Drazi territory.  The Drazi ambassador hurries down the hall after the meeting, passing by Byron.  

Garibaldi still hoping to get the telepaths to work for him, meets with Lyta, but she is still reeling from her experience with the Ranger.  She describes what it feels like to be in contact during a death.  She also talks about how it can mentally damage a telepath if they experience too many deathbed scans, and mentions that Bester has done the most out of anyone.  Garibaldi explains his problem to Lyta, and she turns him down.  Garibaldi pleads with her, citing how much the new alliance means to Sheridan and Delenn and how much good it can do.  She eventually relents.  

Later that night G’Kar finishes his declaration of principles and rushes off to Sheridan’s quarters to deliver it.  Sheridan and Delenn sit together and Sheridan reads it aloud.  The declaration emphasizes plurality and optimism.  It is a nice enough document, and G’Kar’s voiceover narration of it cut against different happenings lends it some weight.

Lyta goes to see Byron on Garibaldi’s behalf, and Byron is as dismissive and superior with her as he was with him.  He accuses her of being the pet of the mundanes, and then asks her to join him and the rest of his telepaths.  He then declares that he and his group are tired of being used by non-telepaths. Lyta sympatheizes pointing out that people forget that telepaths are humans too, and Byron angrily declares that telepaths are better than normals, which leads normals to fear them.  After declaring himself and his fellows to be the superior people, he then accuses normals of having an ego problem.  He then moves along the asshole continuum by haughtily quoting Shakespeare.  He then agrees to Garibaldi’s request, but only because Lyta says that it matters to her.  He then lets her know what he snooped from the Drazi ambassador.  This is supposed to be shown as him being a good guy, but apparently he was super cool with all the Rangers and all of the Enfeeli dying because he does not like having to work with those he finds beneath him.  Thank God that Lyta is pretty I guess. 

Lyta tells Sheridan and Garibaldi, and they spring into action having the Rangers double time it to the planet instead of linking up with the Drazi fleet which had been planning on ambushing and killing them.  We get a cool shot of dozens of jump points opening as seen from the planet below as the fleet arrives in time to kill off the raiders and to take positions to spring an ambush of their own.  Sheridan calls a full alliance meeting in the middle of the night and outlines to everyone what has happened.  The Drazi ambassador sweatily asks if the raiders had time to radio anyone, and Londo takes pleasure in letting him know that the raiders were wiped out too quickly.  The Drazi ambassador is then informed that the Rangers have orders to annihilate the attack fleet as soon as they arrive.  He begins to beg to be excused from the meeting to contact his government, and admits to what is happening.  Eventually he is allowed to run off.  Sheridan uses this as teaching moment to emphasize why the alliance needs set principles that can make it more than just a mutual defense and technology exchange pact.  He and G’Kar distribute the documents on the spot.  

Later on Sheridan sits contentedly before his pile of signed declarations.  He and Delenn begin to discuss telepaths when G’Kar bursts into the room and starts scooping up the declarations, insisting that he has written a better version and that every single race is going to have to sign the documents again.  Delenn and Sheridan pick up their conversation again, and both are wary of relying too much on telepaths.  

Lyta goes to visit Byron and the others.  This time he is not instantly dickish, and Lyta asks to hear more about his philosophy.  

I respect the episode for showing that the Interstellar Alliance is very much not a “happily ever after” situation.  Every race is going to have to adjust to there being a new authority, and this transition will be difficult and dangerous.  The season will tackle this overall issue many times this season, but eventually it will get eaten up by more personal problems on the parts of the characters. None of which matters for next week’s one off that feels like it came from a different show “A View from the Gallery”.

Where do I know them from?

• Tony Abatmearco as Verchan the main Enfeeli, has bounced around TV and low budget film.  He at one point showed up in Frasier according to IMDB.
• Bart Johnson as the Ranger, is another frequent flyer in TV and apparently is in all of the High School Musical films. 

The Good

• As mentioned above, I like the showing drilling down into all the problems associated with starting a galactic United Nations. 

The Bad

• Byron is just kind of an asshole by default to everyone, and he is an avowed telepath-supremacist which makes his character hard to like. 

Arc Points (Spoilers Ahead)

• Sheridan makes the decision to begin spying on the alliance with telepaths, though he knows it is almost certainly a bad idea in the long run.
• The White Stars are powerful and advanced, but still vulnerable to ambush, especially from ships that can get in close as “allies”.
• Lyta is beginning her path towards radicalization that we will follow as the season progresses.