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Contents: Overview - Backplot - Questions - Analysis - Notes - JMS


Overview

Bester asks Talia to investigate an "underground railroad" of unregistered telepaths. Walter Koenig as Bester.
Sub-genre: Intrigue
P5 Rating: 8.38

Production number: 207
Original air date: January 25, 1995
DVD release date: April 29, 2003

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Jim Johnston

Watch For

A minor character from a previous episode, who turns out not to be so minor after all.


Backplot

Michael Garibaldi says, "The Corps got started because of our own fears." The sudden appearance of real psi abilities in otherwise unremarkable people caused so much concern among the general population that those showing such talents were gathered together into a group that could be more easily controlled -- and Psi-Corps was born. Its members are deeply conditioned to prevent any psi from using his or her talents to dominate normal people or disrupt society. But this conditioning isn't absolute, and attitudes molded early in life can still evolve over a persons lifetime.

Given that psis were forced into this essentially closed society, shunned by the rest of humanity, it isn't surprising that the loyalties of the telepaths turned to the Corps itself. Soon Psi-Corps gained control of itself, and eventually the organization began pursuing its own goals. The leadership began to exert ever greater control over the lives of the members, in an effort to enhance the abilities of their people.

The level of control exerted by the Corps over its members grew as they began seeking to enhance the abilities of their people, extending even to marriage and reproduction. Eventually the onus became too great and too pervasive for newly awakened psis to tolerate, and they began seeking ways to escape. The Psi-Cops exist to counter this, to search for and either capture or eliminate psi talented people who escaped early detection or who fled Psi-Corps.

Now the Corps has become a power in its own right. Though the organization was intended to keep psis under control, it has itself come under the control of those very people. As a group, they must feel seperate and different if not outright superior to the rest of society, and who have long been held in a position of subservience. They are organized, ruthless, and determined to pursue their own agenda.

"We created our own monster." -- John Sheridan

Unanswered Questions

Analysis

Notes

jms speaks


Originally compiled by Dave Zimmerman

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Last update: June 10, 2018