History Recap / BabylonFiveS02E01PointsOfDeparture

!Points of Departure

On Babylon 5, Ivanova is in a bind as Commander Sinclair has been recalled to Earth for no apparent reason, and the cornucopia of problems the station has are now falling on her. Garibaldi is still in critical condition, G'Kar is missing, no one knows where he is, and Delenn is still in her chrysalis. Ivanova is pulled from the mess by the general calling her. He informs her that Sinclair will not be returning to the station as he has been assigned as the first human ambassador to the Minbari. Captain Sheridan will be taking command of Babylon 5 now. Ivanova has worked with him before, but she says it's going to be controversial, but the decision has already been made.

In Delenn's quarters, Lennier continues his vigil when Hedronn, one of the Grey Council comes in. He looks at the chrysalis and comments that they told her to wait, but now they are committed to the path. He tells Lennier that the ''Trigati'', the rogue cruiser, is in the area and if it comes he is to tell the humans what he knows.

Sheridan's tour ends in his quarters, which, he is delighted to learn includes a running water shower. Ivanova asks why he was chosen, and he tells her that he was apparently President Santiago's second choice. Next they talk about the president's death barely a week ago. Crew morale has been down and Ivanova herself has never felt so helpless. They resolve to make the best of it, and Sheridan says he's going to get ready for his good luck speech.

Hedronn is somewhere on the station, when the Minbari who arrived earlier walks past him. He recognizes him as Kalain and is surprised to see him there. He tries to follow, but Kalain grabs him and holds a spiked weapon to his throat. Kalain demands to know why Sheridan the Star Killer has been put in command, and Hedronn tells him the Minbari protested but Earth ignored them. When Kalain asks if Delenn ignored him as well, Hedronn is further surprised. Kalain tells him he has his own supporters in the Grey Council. He also knows Sinclair is on Minbar, but doesn't believe him being ambassador is the whole story. He warns Hedronn to leave then walks off.

Having him here isn't going to make the Minbari happy; he was the only human captain who faced a Minbari warcruiser and lived to tell the tale, when he mined an asteroid field with nukes then lured the Minbari flagship, the ''Black Star'' into it and destroyed it. It was their only real victory in that war and he's not willing to apologize for it. He realizes that Kalain feels betrayed by his people, he figures that he might try to strike at their representative. He orders security to Delenn's quarters.

* BatmanGambit: Sheridan sends a signal to a Minbari ship that he presumes is hiding nearby, because it would make sense for the Minbari to have a ship discretely searching the area to find the ''Trigati'' once it began to be sighted in the area. If he had signaled for the ''Agamemnon'' instead, it could have started a war. It's not clear what would have happened if the Minbari ship wasn't actually around, however.

* InnocentlyInsensitive: When Sheridan thanks the Minbari [[TheCavalry calvary]] for helping deal with the threat of the ''Trigati'', he makes a dumb move not offering his condolences for that ship's renegade crew committing suicide to the Minbari.
* MaybeMagicMaybeMundane: Lenier explains to Sheridan and Ivanova why the Minbari surrendered at the Battle of the Line: after taking Sinclair prisoner and interrogating him with, among other things, a Triluminary, they discovered he not only had a Minbari soul, but the soul Valen himself. Capturing other human combatants verified that Minbari souls were being reborn, in whole or in part, in human bodies. Minbari believe that every new generation of Minbari is comprised of the souls of a previous generation of Minbari, and that over the last thousand years their have been fewer Minbari born, and those that are born don't measure up to their ancestors, so humans having Minbari souls explains this for them. Of course, one need only look at Real Life to see how each human generation tends to believe the ones succeeding it aren't as great as they were, and it's entirely possible the Trilumunary isn't detecting a soul, but DNA, with Sinclair being Valen and the humans who have full or partial "Minbari souls" being closer or more distant genetic relatives. Sheridan and Ivanova don't believe the Minbari's claim. . . but they do believe the ''Minbari'' believe it, and have no proof to the contrary.

* MundaneLuxury: Sheridan is giddy over the prospect of getting his hands on some fresh fruit for the first time in years. Finding out that his quarters have an actual shower in them have him positively ''swooning.''

* TechnologyMarchesOn:[[invoked]] {{Averted}}. When Sheridan sees the Minbari fighters are showing up clear as day on the targeting sensors of [=B5=] and its Starfuries, he asks what fire control systems they're using. Ivanova rattles off a model number, Sheridan recognizes it as the same system in use during the war, and thus that Minbari ships ''shouldn't'' be so easily locked on to.

** Sheridan says that he destroyed the ''Black Star'' in the Asteroid Belt "between Jupiter and Mars" (which would put the ''Black Star'' very close to Earth indeed, twelve months before the Battle of the Line). This specific location isn't referenced again, and when the event is shown in the movie ''[[Recap/BabylonFiveFilm01InTheBeginning In the Beginning]]'', it seems more like they were in a random asteroid field somewhere outside of Earth's solar system.

* GuileHero: Sheridan. He's the only Earth officer to defeat the Minbari in battle, and it's indicated that he used very underhanded tactics to accomplish it - though this is largely the Warrior Caste being sore losers, since trying to destroy what appears to be a crippled ship sending a distress signal isn't exactly honorable. In this crisis, he quickly figures out the ploy the ''Trigati's'' crew is attempting, and foils it by having his forces stand down and signalling for Minbari support that he presumes to exist nearby, despite the Minbari keeping their presence in the area secret, based entirely on the assumption that it would make sense for them to have a ship nearby.

* GuileHero: Sheridan. He's the only Earth officer to defeat the Minbari in battle, and it's indicated that he used very underhanded tactics to accomplish it. In this crisis, he quickly figures out the ploy the ''Trigati's'' crew is attempting, and foils it by having his forces stand down and signalling for Minbari support that he presumes to exist nearby, despite the Minbari keeping their presence in the area secret, based entirely on the assumption that it would make sense for them to have a ship nearby.

* HistoricalDomainCharacter: Per [[WordOfGod JMS]], John Sheridan is a descendant of General Phillip Sheridan, a Union officer in the UsefulNotes/TheAmericanCivilWar.

** Sheridan says that he destroyed the ''Black Star'' in the Asteroid Belt "between Jupiter and Mars" (which would put the ''Black Star'' very close to Earth indeed, a significant amount of time before the Battle of the Line). This specific location isn't referenced again, and when the event is shown in the movie ''[[Recap/BabylonFiveFilm01InTheBeginning In the Beginning]]'', it seems more like they were in a random asteroid field somewhere outside of Earth's solar system.

** Sheridan says that he destroyed the ''Black Star'' in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter (which would put the ''Black Star'' very close to Earth indeed, a significant amount of time before the Battle of the Line). This specific location isn't referenced again, and when the event is shown in the movie ''[[Recap/BabylonFiveFilm01InTheBeginning In the Beginning]]'', it seems more like they were in a random asteroid field somewhere outside of Earth's solar system.

** Lennier states that other human pilots were captured after Sinclair and also shown to have Minbari souls when scanned. This isn't shown in ''In the Beginning'' either, and while later episodes imply that the Minbari may have only thought Sinclair had a Minbari soul because he ''was'' Valen, this wouldn't apply to other humans.

** Sheridan says that he destroyed the ''Black Star'' in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter (which would put the ''Black Star'' very close to Earth indeed a significant amount of time before the Battle of the Line). This specific location isn't referenced again, and when the event is shown in the movie ''[[Recap/BabylonFiveFilm01InTheBeginning In the Beginning]]'', it seems more like they were in a random asteroid field somewhere outside of Earth's solar system.

** [[Recap/BabylonFiveS01E17Legacies Delenn mentioned Sineval]], the commander of the ''Trigati'', and how he committed suicide rather than obey the order to surrender at the Battle of the Line.

** Sheridan says the he destroyed the ''Black Star'' in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter (which would put the ''Black Star'' very close to Earth indeed a significant amount of time before the Battle of the Line). This specific location isn't referenced again, and when the event is shown in the movie ''[[Recap/BabylonFiveFilm01InTheBeginning In the Beginning]]'', it seems more like they were in a random asteroid field somewhere outside of Earth's solar system.

** Sheridan says the he destroyed the ''Black Star'' in the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter (which would put the ''Black Star'' very close to Earth indeed). This specific location isn't referenced again, and when the event is shown in the movie ''[[Recap/BabylonFiveFilm01InTheBeginning In the Beginning]]'', it seems more like they were in a random asteroid field somewhere outside of Earth's solar system.

* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The voiceover for this season is spoken by Bruce Boxleitner in-character as John Sheridan. However, when it was originally recorded, Boxleitner had nothing but the text to work from. When the footage was put together for the opening credits, Boxleitner asked to re-record the speech to better match the action on the screen, and to do it with more feeling. The improvement between the two takes in incredible.

* TechnologyMarchesOn: {{Averted}}. When Sheridan sees the Minbari fighters are showing up clear as day on the targeting sensors of [=B5=] and its Starfuries, he asks what fire control systems they're using. Ivanova rattles off a model number, Sheridan recognizes it as the same system in use during the war, and thus that Minbari ships ''shouldn't'' be so easily locked on to.

* ChekhovsGun: The ''Agamemnon'' is shown early in the episode, along with some dialogue about sightings of a renegade Minbari warcruiser. There's also an easily-missed line about the Minbari government sending a cruiser of their own to look for it. When the renegade shows up, one might expect the ''Agamemnon'' to similarly turn up to save the day. Instead, it's the other Minbari ship that arrives.

* AuthorsOfQuote: Sheridan is a big fan of UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln, and we get our first sample at the end of this episode.

* OutOfFocus: Three months after the previous episode, G'Kar is still unaccounted for, Garibaldi is still in a coma, and Delenn is still in her cocoon. They don't do much in this episode...though we do see a {{Flashback}} involving Delenn at the Line. Jerry Doyle joked that this was his favorite episode, as he got a full paycheck just for lying on his back.

* WrittenInInfirmity: of the PutOnABus type. Michael O'Hare's departure from the show was characterized only as "mutual and amicable." Many years later, JMS revealed that he asked to be written out of the show on account of paranoid delusions from not-entirely-controlled mental illness. Though JMS offered to put ''B5'' on hiatus so that he could receive treatment, O'Hare -- AFatherToHisMen -- refused to jeopardize the show's future or his castmates' jobs in this way. He asked only that JMS keep the story private until after he had already passed away, which he did on 28 September 2012.