Snowflake Challenge #4

[justanorthernlight]

Challenge #4

In your own space, add something to your fandom’s canon. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

For Babylon 5, I want an explanation of how/whether the telepathy gene can conceivably skip a generation and what happens to non-telepaths born to two members of the Psi Corps.

It must happen, because there are no canonical hints or implications that Ivanova's brother Ganya was also a telepath, and the Corps doesn't treat it as suspicious or impossible that Ivanova could be a mundane when her mother was a telepath. To borrow a term from Harry Potter, there must be some telepath equivalent of Squibs.

Are there support groups for kids whose entire families are members of the Psi Corps, who are perpetual outsiders with both the Corps and the world of the Mundanes? Do those kids get put straight into foster-care or are they raised in the Corps? Are they ever pressured into doing some kind of liaison job between the Corps and the rest of human civilization? Do they run away and form their own communes? 

(Also, and only semi-related, post season 5 Lise Hampton-Edgars-Garibaldi uses her billions of credits to sue her first husband for joint custody of their daughter and/or uses the media to draw attention to inequality in how Earth and Mars citizens get treated in the courts and effect some positive change other people who have been in her situation.)

Comments

[flo_nelja]

Oooh, super-interesting question, thanks!

[justanorthernlight]

Thank you!

[vysila]

Oh my goodness, what fabulous thought-provoking questions! The whole Telepath arc was treated rather haphazardly and inconsistently in so many ways and it would be great to get some more background there. In the meantime, that's what fanfic is for, yes?

You know, I wondered about Lise's daughter as well, she just disappeared after that one announcement and we never saw Lise indicate how much she missed her, or anything.

Hmmm, I've never written in B5 but these questions have set my mind whirling. Maybe I need to rewatch the series.

[justanorthernlight]

I love the telepath subplots, but the season 5 arc was definitely a little... sloppy. I keep meaning to read the Psi Corps trilogy (picked them up at a used book store for ~$5 years ago) for more background, but something else always grabs my attention more!

A couple of years ago I started a fic about Lise's daughter (I think her name is mentioned as Deborah) finding her real birth certificate and figuring out the family secrets, then running away to go to college on Mars & agonizing over whether to reach out to Lise (there was a lot of angst over Lise being one of the richest people in the solar system and having a new family), but since I'm not so good at writing I got bogged down in how the Drakh plague would have affected her childhood and never made much progress advancing the plot...

I definitely find B5 always has new angles to enjoy every rewatch! It's been about 2 years for me, but I need to rewatch for a vid I'm planning anyways.

[vysila]

I don't remember the details. So the ex took the daughter and returned to Earth? The Drakh plague would definitely interfere with any travel after that.

[justanorthernlight]

Yes, in Season 4 Lise tells Garibaldi what happened: the ex left her for another woman and the courts allowed Lise to basically be erased from the daughter's life because the ex was from Earth and Lise is from Mars, and that they can legally pretend the step-mom is the daughter's bio-mom and Lise can't have any contact with her.

However, since the dynamic between Earth and Mars changes drastically after Season 4, I think it would be an interesting plot to explore a renewed legal battle on the subject. Then, of course the Drakh plague hits and nobody can leave Earth for however long it lasted...

[colls]

The telepath arc really felt like it could use its own spinoff in some ways. So much detail unexplored!

[justanorthernlight]

JMS based some of the Psi Corps worldbuilding (and also the Byron arc, lol) on his own experiences in a cult, which I've always found uncomfortably resonant. I have the Psi Corps trilogy tie-in novels on my to-be-read pile, I was hoping to glean some detail from them for fic purposes but they're a little hard to get into!

[vysila]

JMS based some of the Psi Corps worldbuilding (and also the Byron arc, lol) on his own experiences in a cult

I had no idea about this bit of backstory. Whoa indeed.

[justanorthernlight]

Yeah, and the episode where Franklin gets stabbed and hallucinates is also based on JMS's own experience getting knifed in San Diego while walking around late at night due to insomnia (this is also why San Diego is a nuclear wasteland in the B5 universe 😂 the guy absolutely hates San Diego)!

A couple of years ago a web community was doing an organized rewatch and one of the comment moderators had some of the script books with JMS's commentary and shared a bunch of excerpts, it was very illuminating!

(Sorry if this is oversharing, but my parents actually met in a cult and I was in it until about middle school, so I found the portrayal of the Corps very resonant with my on experience as well.)

[vysila]

This is fabulous background information (about San Diego). He built so much personal experience into B5 - one reason it is so extraordinary.

I see there are several B5 communities here on DW. I have subscribed to them but so far have done little aside from just reading posts and following an occasional fic link.

Not oversharing, but what an experience to have to draw on. I hope your memories of that time of your life are not too awful. It gives you a deeper understanding that escapes some of us.

[justanorthernlight]

B5 fandom definitely has its lulls between flurries of activity! The rewatch comm wasn't on Dreamwidth, it was Mark Watches. But as a disclaimer I have some mixed feelings about Mark's content in general, there were some controversies and drama when he was reading Discworld, among other issues.

My memories aren't that awful, as far as cults go it wasn't a violent place or anything. I was pretty young when we quit and even that wasn't really dramatic, my parents just kind of started coming out of the fog. Before that it was just the normal life I was used to, and it's only in hindsight and with the benefit of my exposure to the outside world that I compare my old "normal" to most everyone else's normal and realize how weird my baseline was. I'm 30 now, and we left when I was about 9 or 10, if I remember correctly, so I've had a lot of time to unlearn things.

[vysila]

So, yeah, that's interesting that you can now look back and recognize how different your childhood 'normal' was compared to most others. I really don't know what made it weird but it definitely makes me sad that you were in such a circumstance through no fault of your own. I'm really glad your parents got out and you had the opportunity to move forward and get different experiences.

[hamsterwoman]

his is also why San Diego is a nuclear wasteland in the B5 universe 😂

Haha, I knew about the Franklin stabbing being based on JMS's own experience, and what that experience was, but had failed to make a connection to San Diego being nuked in B5 canon. Amazing XD

[hamsterwoman]

JMS based some of the Psi Corps worldbuilding (and also the Byron arc, lol) on his own experiences in a cult,

Ooh, I didn't know that! (I think, unless I knew it and forgot...) I've read Becoming Superman, so I know about the cult, but never made the PsiCorps connection, although that makes a lot of sense.

[justanorthernlight]

It was definitely a case of "write what you know" there!

[hamsterwoman]

These are really interesting questions! I found the PsiCorps fascinating, but did not really like the season(s) that engaged most deeply with telepath stuff, so there's definitely a lot of things left to ponder along those lines!

Are they ever pressured into doing some kind of liaison job between the Corps and the rest of human civilization?

That would be my guess for what the PsyCorps wants to happen with them -- like, seed various agencies with people who have some transitive loyalty to the Corps because they were raised with its dogma while being non-telepaths themselves and therefore being unregulated.

[justanorthernlight]

Yeah, I wasn't a huge fan of the execution of the Byron arc (the production issues really show through), but both Lyta and Talia's arcs (and Ivanova's) really drew me in!

I feel like the Corps might want loyal non-telepaths, but getting them would be rather hit-or-miss. Some might grow up loyal, but others might strongly reject the Corps because they recognize the abuse or grow to hate all telepaths out of resentment for their perceived rejection.

[shipperslist]

There are SO many unanswered questions about the telepaths and Psi Corps. Inquiring minds demand to know!

Are there support groups for kids whose entire families are members of the Psi Corps, who are perpetual outsiders with both the Corps and the world of the Mundanes? Do those kids get put straight into foster-care or are they raised in the Corps? Are they ever pressured into doing some kind of liaison job between the Corps and the rest of human civilization? Do they run away and form their own communes?

And think about all the mental strain and feeling like an unworthy cast-out sub-human? I can sort of see the story of a non-telepath kid nurturing that bitterness inside them and going after the Psi Corps and--

Ssshhiit. I'd really like to read that.

[justanorthernlight]

I can sort of see the story of a non-telepath kid nurturing that bitterness inside them and going after the Psi Corps and--

Or getting involved with experiments to try to activate their latent telepathic power, getting addicted to Dust, or maybe that's the backstory for that serial killer who targeted telepaths Lyta talked about tracking down as an intern with the Psi Cops!

[shipperslist]

Ohhhhh right!

[silveradept]

That's a very good question. I would have assumed that the Corps would get rid of non-telepaths, but there might be eugenics values involved where skipping a generation means the next one will be stronger, or something.

[justanorthernlight]

Yeah, the Corps does spend quite a bit of time on experiments to create more and stronger telepaths (Dust, Jason Ironheart, etc). I'm sure even if they aren't raised in the Corps they keep a close eye on those kids and their descendants!