Robert Silverberg on Getting Your Life Back On Course

Eton College has formed and shaped
some of England's greatest leaders. 

What do you do when you realize that you've gotten off-track? Your first inclination is obvious: just get back onto your desired course, right? But what if every effort you make to steer yourself back toward the road leads you down a false path, and you end up back in the wilderness again? How can it be that you've gotten so lost, when the way ahead seemed so clear?

For David Selig, in Robert Silverberg's novel Dying Inside, life seems to have veered wildly off-course. Because he was able to read other peoples' minds, he knew what those around him were feeling and thinking. He could anticipate their reactions, and structure his interactions with them accordingly. Yet he ends up friendless, and earning his living by ghostwriting term papers for students at his old university. You can bet he didn't plan on that happening!

People may not know that he can read minds, but the way he interacts with them usually puts them on edge, at least in the long term. He's had friendships, lovers, and jobs, but none of them lasted. Perhaps it would have been better had he announced to the world that he could read minds: at least then he would have been a celebrity, perhaps a prized talent utilized by the government. But he always feared the other possibility more, that people would revile him for his gift, and that he would end up an experimental lab rat. It's difficult to fault his logic, as his sister Judith, the one person he tells--or at least, the single nontelepath he tells--ends up hating him as a result. So, while he can immerse himself in the lives of everyone around him, he only ends up feeling more alone.

If only he had spent more time developing other abilities, instead of merely exploiting the gift he was born with. 

Dragon Dave

J. Michael Straczynski on Reading People's Minds Part 1

Gray Dalek says:
Listen. I'm projecting my thoughts to you.
Can you hear me?
Can you hear me now?

Scientists and Science Fiction writers have often speculated on the capabilities of the human mind. They've wondered if abilities like telepathy lay dormant in the brain, just waiting to be unlocked. Wouldn't it be great, they asked, if you knew what people were going to say before they said it? Wouldn't that be a useful skill? 

Most of the time we don't say what we're really thinking. Sometimes, we're just being kind and thoughtful, and repress our reactions because we don't want to hurt our friends. Then again, sometimes "friends" lie to us, and sometimes we don't learn the truth until years later. Wouldn't it be great if you could read other people's minds?

In his TV series Babylon 5, creator J. Michael Straczynski foresees a future in lots of people demonstrate psychic ability. Eventually this number grows so large that Earth's government passes laws to regulate individuals with psychic or telepathic abilities. Anyone identified with such abilities must enlist in a governmental agency called Psi Corps, be properly trained, and agree to abide by a strict code of conduct. These laws protect the privacy of nontelepaths, and prevents those with psychic abilities from preying on "normal" people. But they also help those with psychic or telepathic abilities to perform useful roles in society, and live a somewhat normal existence.

So if you're hearing voices, and you're not sure where they're coming from, you might very well be a telepath. But don't rush down to your government office and join PsiCorps. At least, not until you read tomorrow's post.

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries
John Vornholt's Mars Novel

Another Welcome Return to Babylon 5

In her novel Accusations, Lois Tilton returns us to Babylon 5, a space station built by humans after the Earth-Minbari War.  While Commander Susan Ivanova played a small role in John Vornholt’s novel Voices, Tilton’s story centers on her.  While working in Command & Control (C&C), she gets a call from J. D. Ortega, her former flight instructor.  The man has retired from the military and works on Mars.  He sends her a message, asking to meet with her later in the Alpha Wing ready room.  When he doesn’t show, Ivanova visits Michael Garibaldi, the Chief of Security, who informs her that Ortega is wanted for terrorism and conspiracy back on Mars.  This makes no sense to Ivanova.  As with Talia Winters’ uncle in Voices, Ivanova cannot believe that Ortega is a terrorist.  Garibaldi conducts a search, only to discover that Ortega has been murdered.

Babylon 5 then receives a mayday signal: raiders are attacking a transport ship.  Susan Ivanova leads the Starfuries of Alpha Wing from the station.  Before they reach the ship, the raiders take its cargo, and kill its crew.  Raiders have grown bold of late, and hit a large number of heavy transport vessels.  Ivanova conducts an investigation into inventory records, and discovers that many of these transports were carrying supplies of morbidium, a metal mined on Mars, and important in the manufacturing of military weaponry.  She sends her findings to Earthforce, in the hopes of preventing future attacks. 

Events rapidly escalate on Babylon 5.  After an investigation team arrives from Earth, Ivanova is relieved of her duties in C & C.  Meanwhile Garibaldi discovers another body.  The investigators round up anyone with the slightest ties to Mars, and they order Talia Winters to scan their minds, or even perform deep probes.  As these are conducted without the witnesses’ permission, she protests.  But the inspectors produce orders from Psi Corps: she must accede to the team’s demands, without question.

Mysteries build upon mysteries, and we’re never sure what will happen next, or why.  But Tilton keeps us focused on Garibaldi’s search and Ivanova’s dilemma.  The heavy-handed methods of the inspectors impede Garibaldi’s efforts, and their superior access to computer records make it difficult for him to discover clues before they classify the records or arrest a potential informant.  But he won’t quit, as inspection team has linked Ivanova with a Martian terrorist.  Ivanova also does what she can, knowing that her career is over unless she can uncover the plot involving Ortega, and demonstrate that she was not involved in…whatever it is that Earthforce seems so concerned about.

In Voices, John Vornholt returned us to Babylon 5, showed us Earth in the twenty-third century, and then whisked us off to Mars for a thrilling climax.  Now Lois Tilton returns us to Babylon 5 for an entire novel, and spins such an involving mystery that I tore through the book in a couple days.  I literally couldn’t put Accusations down for the last seventy-five pages.  If you loved the show, seek out these novels.  They’re real treasures, and would have made wonderful TV movies.  Plus, both tantalize us with the possibility of colonizing Mars.  And who doesn’t love stories about Mars?

Dragon Dave

Related Dragon Cache entries

John Vornholt’s Mars Novel

Talia Winters’ Plight

Talia Winters’ Plight

Often, we wish that we possessed superior abilities, without realizing that every gift comes with a price.  Take, for example, the fictional ability of telepathy.  Sure, it could sometimes work to your advantage to know what others are thinking.  But imagine never being able to turn this ability off.  How many people could you draw close to, if you were constantly assaulted by their every dark thought or negative reaction?  Imagine hearing all the things they would never say about you, but cannot help thinking?  Imagine also how they would feel about you, if they knew they could hide nothing from you, if their every thought, reaction, and plan was laid bare in your presence.  Suddenly, it sounds as though the costs of possessing telepathy might outweigh the benefits, doesn’t it?

In the TV series Babylon 5, anyone with telepathic ability is given a choice: they must either take drugs to suppress this ability, or join Psi Corps.  Any drug can induce side effects, sometimes drastic ones, and such was the case with Commander Susan Ivanova’s mother, which is why a relationship between Ivanova and Harriman Gray would prove difficult, if not impossible.  But joining Psi Corps is no treat either, because then you become part of their system, and lose the independence and freedom of choice that most of us value.  Yet Talia Winters seems to have made this system work for her.  In the first two seasons, she’s Babylon 5’s resident commercial telepath, and even though her Psi rating is average, she’s gained unique experience by constantly peering into alien minds on behalf of her clients.  But all her hard work, and her special place on the space station, are ripped away from her in the novel Voices, by John Vornholt.  When a bomb explodes during the Psi Corps conference on Babylon 5, the evidence paints her as the chief suspect.  Suddenly, most normal people demand her arrest, and her fellow telepaths, outraged by her seeming betrayal, want her condemned to death without a trial.  So she finds herself a fugitive, fleeing the space station on her own, and hoping to find evidence to clear her name before the authorities or the Psi Cops can catch her.

Unlike his predecessor Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, in the pilot movie “The Gathering,” Captain John Sheridan doesn’t lock down the space station after the explosion that kills several members of Psi Corps. So Security Chief Michael Garibaldi must return to Earth, alongside Harriman Gray, as the two men try to discover the person responsible for the bombing.  In Garibaldi’s case, he’s got something of a crush on Talia, so he’s got added incentive to clear her name.  But Gray also has something to prove.  He wants to impress Susan Ivanova, to make her look past his Psi Corps badge, and see that he might be someone worthy of her affections.

"The Gathering," can be found on
the five disc Babylon 5 Movie Collection

Talia’s flight will take her across the American Southwest, where she’ll meet a group of outsiders called the Bilagaani, who have forsaken the modern world to celebrate a culture that died out hundreds of years previously. Garibaldi and Gray’s investigations will take them to twenty-third century Boston and Washington D.C.  Eventually, all three, along with the top Psi Cop Mr. Bester, will make their way to Mars, for a showdown with the party responsible for the bombings on Babylon 5 and at the Royal Tharsis Lodge on Mars.  (Remember, I said it was a Mars novel).

By the end of the story, Talia realizes that she had taken her place on Babylon 5 for granted.  Now she longs to return there, “to see the aliens, who were less judgmental and prejudiced than her own species.  Among aliens you could be whoever you were, she realized, but among humans you had to be whoever they wanted you to be.  And no one was what they seemed.”

In many ways, it can be a good thing to break down the walls that separate us. But perhaps it's an equally good thing to preserve our uniqueness, and not to know too much about each other.  For, as John Vornholt writes, we are all aliens to each other.  Maybe that’s a good thing. 

Note: While I've given you a rough outline of the story, I've tried to avoid sharing any real spoilers.  If you're a fan of Babylon 5, I think you'll enjoy returning to that milieu in Vornholt's novel, even if most of the action takes place not on the space station, but on Earth and Mars.

Dragon Dave