Season 4

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The Hour of the Wolf

01/26/2000

Emperor Cartagia: "... the crest allows me to leave the palace, walk in places where the nobility would never think of being seen....  ...  ... I've started quite the trend.  ...  I suppose there are those that might object, but they remain silent because the Emperor's always right.  Is he not, Mollari?"
Mollari: "That is our tradition."

Morden: "Flesh is transitory.  Flesh is a prison.  Flesh is -- an instrument.  Flesh can be replaced."

G'Kar: "Our thoughts form the universe. They always matter."

G'Kar (re: a picture of Daffy Duck in Garibaldi's quarters): "I was studying this image.  Is it one of his household gods?"  
Zack: "No.  That's Daf --  Yeah.  Well, in a way, I suppose it is.  It's sort of the Egyptian god of frustration."
G'Kar: "Most appropriate."

G'Kar: "It takes a rare kind of wisdom to accept change and redemption in another.  Many would refuse, seeing only what was, not what is."

Cartagia: "Some are always sacrificed for the greater good."

Cartagia: "The Emperor is the soul of the people, the center of this republic.  This whole world may perish.  The Emperor goes on, we go on."

Cartagia: "What are a few million lives compared to the glory of becoming a living god?"

Mollari (to Cotto): "I want you here as fast as possible.  ...  Conspiracies require more than one person, and there is no one here I trust."

Ivanova (to Alexander): "Have you ever heard of the hour of the wolf?  ...  It's the time between 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning.  You can't sleep, and all you can see is the troubles and the problems and the ways that your life should've gone but didn't.  All you can hear is the sound of your own heart.  I've been living in the hour of the wolf for seven days....  Seven days.  The wolf and I are now on a first name basis."

Ivanova: "Lennier, get us the hell out of here."  
Lennier: "Initiating 'getting the hell out of here' maneuver."

Mollari (to Cotto): "Vir, it is a terrible truth, but as one accumulates power, one loses friends.  One only has those who wish to use you and those you wish to use.  And yet, in all of this, you have somehow managed to walk through the corridors of power and not be touched.  I can only assume you have not been paying attention.  And still, the hideous truth is, you are the closest thing I have to a friend.  ...  I need a friend, Vir, and I need a patriot.  And you are both."

Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi?

Sheridan: "The job now is to turn this around and make it into something positive. My dad always told me that's the only way you deal with pain. You don't surrender, you don't fight it, you turn it into something positive. He used to say 'If you're falling off a cliff, you might as well try to fly, you've got nothing to lose.'"

Lorien: "Perhaps. We all have secrets, surprises."

Lorien: "You can't turn away from death simply because you're afraid of what might happen without you. That's not enough! You're not embracing life, you're fleeing death. And so you're caught in between, unable to go forward or backward. Your friends need what you can be when you're no longer afraid. When you know who you are, and why you are, and what you want. When you are no longer looking for reasons to live, but can simply be." 

Lorien: "Hope is all we have."

Lorien: "Words have meaning and names have power."

 

The Summoning

Drazi spokesman: "Captain, we're sorry. We thought you were dead."   
Sheridan: "I was. I'm better now."

 

Falling Toward Apotheosis

02/08/2000

Ivanova: "... our greatest enemy is fear."

Lorien (to Sheridan): "You've never seen a Vorlon enraged.  They're more powerful than you can imagine."

Mollari: "... after the Vorlons have eliminated Centauri Prime ... who'll be left to sing your praises?  ...  A god is a god, yes, but if no one knows his name, visits his temples, sings his songs - Once we are gone, who will remember the living god Cartagia?"

Ivanova: "The Captain wants the biggest fleet in history if we're going to end this war.  ..."
Garibaldi: "And then what?  ...  ... if we lose, there is not 'then what' and if we win, what next?  We're still renegades.  I don't think there's anybody on this side of the galactic core we haven't already honked off.  We can't go home.  And sometimes I don't know which scares me more, winning or losing."
Ivanova: "... I thought I was depressing."

Lorien (re: Sheridan): "He was gravely wounded at Z'ha'dum.  He was dying.  He was dead.  I did all I could to help him, but I cannot create life.  Only the universe can do that.  I can extend, enhance.  There is no magic, nothing spiritual about it, only the application of energies, healing and rebuilding cells."
Sheridan: "I had Franklin do a complete medscan.  He found things in my neural system -- some kind of biochemical energy repairing and sustaining me.  He's never seen anything like it."
Lorien: "I did the best I could.  I gave him back a portion of his life, but only a portion."
Delenn: "How long?  --"
Lorien: "In human terms, barring injury and illness, perhaps twenty years, but no more than that."
Delenn: "Twenty years -"
Sheridan: "I'll be in my early sixties by then.  ... it's a good run, Delenn."
Delenn: "You told that humans lived to be a hundred years old, even older.  You can't -"
Lorien: "Twenty years.  No more.  And then, one day, he will simply -- stop."

Sheridan (to Delenn): "It's an Earth custom.  You see, you give someone you love an engagement ring as kind of a down payment for another ring, the kind that you exchange when you get married.  ...  ... whatever time I have left, I want to spend it with you."

Cartagia (to Mollari re: G'Kar): "... I don't like the way he's looking at me.  ..."
[Mollari leaves]
Cartagia (to guard): "... I don't care at all for the way he looks at me.  --  Pluck out his eye."

The Long Night

Into the Fire

Drano: "In my experience, if you can not say what you mean, you can never mean what you say. The details are everything."

Epiphanies

Sheridan: "Embrace the moment. In the end, that's all we have. Trouble will come in its own time, it always does. But that's tomorrow. Give me today, and I will be happy."

 

G'Kar: "I have seen what power does, and I have seen what power costs. The one is never equal to the other."

 

G'Kar: "I'm delirious with joy. It proves that if you confront the universe with good intentions in your heart, it will reflect that and reward your intent. Usually. It just doesn't always do it in the way you expect."

 

Sheridan (to Bester): "... it's an imperfect world and we never get exactly what we want. So get used to it."

The Illusion of Truth

Atonement

01/21/2000

Zack Allan: "...  I should listen to a Minbari about fashion.  --  I mean robes, hoods - I mean, no offense, but I've seen seen Vorlons with more fashion sense."

Delenn: "... it is tradition for Minbari to spend three nights together.  The female -"
Sheridan: "- watches and the male sleeps until his true face is revealed, I know.  ... whatever you see in a face mashed against a pillow, and drooling, I kno't know, but, ... I try not to be judgmental about alien cultures...."
Delenn: "...  Our first night together was on the White Star.  Our second in you quarters, before you left for Z'ha'dum.  If we are going to be complete, you own me a third night."

Sheridan: "The problem with a big lie is that if you repeat it long enough, people start to believe it...."

Callenn: "In the long history of our world, no Minbari has ever taken an off-worlder as lover or mate.  It has been forbidden since our people first made contact with other species.  ..."
Delenn: "I must follow the calling of my heart."
Callenn: "What affects only you is your decision, but not if it affects the history and the laws and rules of our society."

Dukhat: "There is nothing to fear in the dreaming -- only that which we bring with us.  The dreaming takes us forward and the dreaming takes us back."

Dukhat: "We have, from time to time, heard of a race known as humans.  ...  They're reportedly primitive, passionate -- dangerous."

Delenn: "Valen said -- the greatest energy is the one you do not know.  You can predict the actions of those who are familiar to you.  The one you cannot predict is the one who can harm you.  ...  If we do not know these humans, then they're a mystery to us.  If the universe puts a mystery in front of us as a gift, politeness requires that we at least try to solve it."
Dukhat (to Delenn): "...  You're curious.  You'd like to know, to simply understand.  Simple curiosity.  (to the Grey Council)  Ministers and counselors and warriors -- and not one of you has the sense of curiosity of a simple acolyte!  Are you so jaded, so superior, so smug in your complacency that you have lost the simplest of joys -- that of the child and the closed box?

Dukhat (to Delenn): "I can not have an aide who will not look up. You will be forever walking into things."

Dukhat: "Authority should never be used as a club...."

Dukhat: "When others do a foolish thing, you should tell them it is a foolish thing.  They can still continue to do it, but at least the truth is where it needs to be."

Lennier (to Delenn): "It was your order that began our war with the humans."

Dukhat (to Delenn): "You are -- a child of Valen."

Delenn: "Valen, who created the Grey Council, defeated the Shadows -- a Minbari not born of Minbari we know was Jeffrey Sinclair, a human who became Minbari, genetically altered by the Triluminary he received from Epsilon 3.  Little is known of his activities after the war.  Even his death remains a mystery -- his body never found.  ...  We knew that after his change, human and Minbari souls began to merge.  But that was not all that merged.  Valen was still partly human, as I am part Minbari.  After the war, Valen married and had children.  They left Minbar to escape those who would persecute them.  After Valen died, his children returned to Minbar.  They married and had more children.  Human DNA entered into our race.  And over a thousand years, how many of our people carry his legacy?"

Callenn (to Delenn): "It was our tradition, long ago, when we still warred amongst ourselves.  After the war was over, each side would give one of its own to the other in marriage.  The victorious side gave a female of its clan to the one that lost ... as a symbol of life and hope.  ...  I can explain this to our people as a similar offering to the humans who died during our war.  You are willing to pledge yourself as a symbol of life.  It is a great sacrifice, I imagine."

Racing Mars

Ivanova (to smuggler): "Everyone's entitled to a fresh start."

Lines of Communication

Marcus (to Franklin): "Touch passion when it comes your way.... It's rare enough as it is. Don't walk away when it calls you by name."

Conflicts of Interest

Rumors, Bargains and Lies

Delenn (to Neroon): "Yes, we've disagreed, even fought, but I would rather have someone who oppose me out of an honest belief in the rightness of his cause than someone who is always on my side because it was expected and required. I question your judgment and wisdom, your temperament, but never your loyalty."

Moments of Transition

No Surrender, No Retreat

The Exercise of Vital Power

The Face of the Enemy

Sheridan: "We need to keep this a clean fight.  That means human commanding officers only.  The last time an assault fleet came to Earth, it was under Minbari command.  We don't want the folds back home thinking the Minbari war is happening again."

William Edgars: "If information is power, then telepaths represent the greatest threat to freedom we've ever seen.  We have to deal with that threat or face the very real possibility of our own extinction.  The danger before us is nothing less than the death of human liberty and human thought."

Wade: "It's the tyranny of evolution.  Sooner or later, you have a species that will have a genetic or technological advantage, and that species will always conquer species without that advantage."

Edgars: "... I wanted to help people, not harm them.  But I won't stand by and let telepaths turn into a ruling class."

Garibaldi: "Telepaths have an unfair advantage.  I think it's right that we make an advantage of our ouw in return." 

[Bester reading Garibaldi's thoughts]
Edgars: "This virus is encoded to embed itself in the gene that activates a telepath's abilities.  It's airborne, 100% contagious and utterly harmless to normals.  Once infected, they have to receive injections of the antidote every two weeks.  If they miss even one injection ..."
Garibaldi: "... they die."
Bester: "Well -- thank you.  Not that you had much choice.  I knew there were forces out there with plans for my telepaths, but this --.  I had no idea.   The sheer scope of it.  Well -- we'll stop it now, of course, -- in our own way.  I can feel you, you know.  The real you, beating at the inside of your skull, screaming to get out, to know what's going on.  For a long time, I've been debating what to do when this day came.  To let you know what happened to you, or do I leave you like this, trapped in a prison of meat and flesh and bone -- forever?   I've decided to be magnanimous, Mr. Garibaldi.  Not that you'll appreciate it.   Because you have prevented a new holocaust: the enslavement and murder of several million telepaths.  Though, I doubt very much you'll appreciate that either.  --   Go back, Mr. Garibaldi.  Go back and remember."
Bester (narrating flashbacks): "The Shadows had come to Babylon 5, and Sheridan had gone to Z'Ha'Dum.  ...  They knew there were three people who could replace him:   Delenn, Ivanova and you.  Given your checkered background, they thought you would be the easiest to turn to their side.  ...  Once Sheridan was dead, Ivanova and Delenn would be eliminated.  They left the station intact, on the theory that it could be used for their purposes.  And you, they took back with them to -- adjust you.  By this time, I knew they had infiltrated the Corps so when they pulled in some of my people to help in your -- adjustment, I was able to intervene.  Not so much on your behalf as my own.  This virus that kills only telepaths, I'd bet good money it's Shadow technology.  They probably got it to him through third parties.   Helped his people work out the details.  We both know that telepaths were a threat to the Shadows, one they wouldn't mind eliminating.  It's ingenious, really.   They played Clark's drive for power on one side, and Edgars' fear of telepaths on the other, leaving us in the middle, controlled or dead.  But let's get back to you.   I arranged to have you rerouted to our research facility here on Mars.  Then we got to work.  ...
Bester (in flashback): "All right!  I want a complete neural workup.  I want to know all the soft points where we can go in without disturbing the neural landscape.  We can't leave any fingerprints.  He may have to pass a telepathic scan. ...  By nature, Mr. Garibaldi is rebellious, stubborn and suspicious.  He has an inate distrust of authority figures.  And he's very good at figuring out when a conspiracy is taking place and tracking it back to its source.  We need that part of him.  So I don't want to risk tampering with it.  We don't have to reprogram him, just accentuate his natural instincts.  ...  More rebellious, more stubborn, more suspicious of his fellow officers.  Then all we have to do is nudge him in the right direction from time to time, and let nature run its course."
Bester (narrating flashbacks): "After we finished, we had to make sure you didn't remember anything we had done to you.  That was the hard part.  We were, shall we say, less than gentle.  ...  Once we felt it was safe, we put enough information out there to let your people find you.  After that, all we could do was wait, and hope for the best.  It worked even better than I could have imagined.   You resigned your position, something I hadn't expected.  But it put you in the perfect position to be recruited by William Edgars, and it isolated you from the people who cared about you and might try to help you.  ...  From time to time, we updated your conditioning, continued to point you where we needed you to go.   Until, in the end, the old Garibaldi was gone, and the new Garibaldi worked only for us.  You would do anything to find what we wanted you to find, even sell out Sheridan.  Your final orders were to report back when you had all the information we needed."
Bester: "So, now the question becomes, what do I do with you now that I have no further use for you?  I could kill you, I suppose.  In some ways, it might be a mercy.  By now your friends know that you betrayed Sheridan.  So, as the saying goes, you can't go home again.  And your current employer is not going to be around much longer.  Or -- I could leave you just like this -- forever.  Whatever you think of me, Mr. Garibaldi, I'm not capricious or cruel.  I used you because I had no other choice.  I have what I want.  My interest in you is over.  We'll be docking in a moment.  I just sent the all-clear signal telepathically.  After I'm gone, you'll be able to move again.  You'll remember it all.  You'll be yourself again.  You can try to tell the others what happened, but under the circumstances, I doubt very much anyone will believe you.  Be seeing you, Mr. Garibaldi."
Garibaldi: "Nooooo!"

Ivanova: "They've got the Captain all right.  It was a setup, and Garibaldi was behind the whole thing."
Cole: "I just heard he's tried to contact Babylon 5."
Ivanova: "You tell Corwin to refuse his signal.  There's nothing that he has to say to me right now that I have the slightest interest in hearing.  And you tell them that if he turns up on the station, I want that son of a bitch shot on sight."

Cole: "The other ships want to know what we're going to do now."
Ivanova: "We finish what we started.  ...  The Captain once told me 'The person is expendable, the job was not.'  We keep going."

Intersections in Real Time

Interrogator (to Sheridan): "There is nothing to be gained by trying to harm me, I am not the enemy. To be the enemy, I must have some personal stake in what happens to you. I am not interested in that at all. I'm here to do a job, nothing more. You are a name, a file, and a case number, that's all."

 

Interrogator (to Sheridan): "It does prove though how everything is a matter of perspective. You see what you think is daylight, and you assume it's morning. Take it away, you think it's night. Offer you a sandwich, if it's convenient, you'll think it's mid-day. The truth is fluid, the truth is subjective."

Between the Darkness and the Light

Ivanova: "Who am I?  I am Susan Ivanova, Commander. Daughter of Andrei and Sophie Ivanova. I am the Right Hand of Vengeance, and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth ... I am Death incarnate, and the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me."

Endgame

Lefcourt: "Engineering, this is General Lefcourt. In case you didn't notice, the enemy just pulled our shorts up over our head and tied them into a knot. You will get the ship under control ASAP, or I will come down there and skin the hide off every last one of you."

Rising Star

Luchenko (to Sheridan): "The bitch of it is that you probably did the right thing. But you did it in the wrong way. In the inconvenient way. Now you have to pay the penalty for that. I know it stinks, but that's the way it is."

 

G'Kar: "You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."

The Deconstruction of Falling Stars

Brother Alwyn Macomber: "Faith sustains us in the hour when reason tells us that we can not continue, that the whole of our whole lives is without meaning."

 

"Dedicated to all the people who predicted that the Babylon Project would fail in its mission. Faith manages."