The Deconstruction of Falling Stars
Encyclopedia
"The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" is the final episode of the fourth season of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5
. This was the final episode of Babylon 5 to air on PTEN
.
; the Rangers
are a significant force within the Alliance). Meanwhile, the other side is a neo-Orwellian fascist regime of the kind Clark tried to establish, which is xenophobic and hates all "alien influences". Human territories are divided, with each side controlling different colony worlds as well as divided regions on Earth itself. The anti-alien fascist faction is trying to set up forged holographic records to show that the heroes of Babylon 5 were in fact war criminals opposed to Earth, i.e. showing a holographic Dr. Franklin horrifically experimenting on human children using alien organs, having Sheridan make a passionate speech saying he and his alien masters will conquer Earth, before shooting human and alien prisoners, etc.
The anti-alien faction will use this propaganda to whip its population up into a jingoistic frenzy, so that they will be ready to go to fight the pro-alien faction. As the anti-alien faction's propaganda creator Daniel explains, the anti-alien faction is about to launch a sneak attack against the pro-alien faction as the opening move of an all-out war, and with the advantage of this sneak attack (directed at civilian population centers to shock the pro-alien faction into submission) the anti-alien faction will win the war. However, the computer-generated holographic images of the Babylon 5 crew are based on historical data and recorded memories of the original crew, so they still think and act just like Babylon 5's original crew, who the anti-alien faction has foolishly underestimated.
Right before Daniel can shut the recreations off, the holographic version of Garibaldi, as characteristically skeptical and mistrustful of others as his true self was, stalls him long enough to figure out his plan: practically the moment he was recreated, he had, without Daniel noticing it, hacked into the computer network of the military base the propaganda holovideos are being filmed in and hence gained information of the general situation and the conflicting factions. The holographic Garibaldi finally tells Daniel that he has sent out a signal warning the pro-alien faction of the impending sneak attack, and they have got the drop on Daniel's faction, launching their own sneak attack first, giving them the advantage in the upcoming war. Garibaldi tells Daniel not to worry, as the pro-alien faction is more humane than Daniel's, and will probably only target military bases and not civilian population centers as Daniel's faction planned to do..."but, this wouldn't happen to be a military installation, would it?" Garibaldi says with a smirk, as Daniel runs away in terror. Garibaldi, heroic even 500 years after his death, looks at the other frozen holograms of his crew, and says "rest easy, friends, rest easy" as the entire base explodes.
s (except with two glowing "eyes" instead of one) and leaves Earth right before Sol goes nova.
Sol apparently goes nova long before the Sun should naturally grow into a red giant: it is implied by J. Michael Straczynski
to indeed not be a natural occurrence. http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/088.html Straczynski has confirmed in later interviews that New Earth is in fact Vorlon homeworld. According to Straczynski, the Minbari
have also evolved into non-corporeal beings. The Narn
and Centauri
have not done so, however: those races have not died out, but rather simply have not evolved to First One-like status.
approached the creators of the show with an offer of cable distribution and funding for a fifth season.
The show's creator, J. Michael Straczynski, insisted that the final episode ("Sleeping in Light
") not be seen prematurely. As a result, a new fourth-season finale had to be composed. The episode was filmed as part of the fifth-season production run, and hurriedly composed for airing in its proper place before the switchover from PTEN
to TNT
. This is the reason that Claudia Christian
, who had left the show prior to the fifth season, appears in the series finale.
The form of this episode is substantially different from most episodes of Babylon 5. All other episodes were shot as unified storylines; however, "Deconstruction" exists as a series of vignettes examining society's views of the events of the series from increasingly distant future viewpoints: one year, one hundred years, five hundred years, one thousand years, and eventually one million years in the future.
The episode ends with a dedication:
On CIS, J. Michael Straczynski described this message thus:
's A Canticle for Leibowitz
. While writing the episode, series creator J. Michael Straczynski
noted the similarities:
Babylon 5
Babylon 5 is an American science fiction television series created, produced and largely written by J. Michael Straczynski. The show centers on a space station named Babylon 5: a focal point for politics, diplomacy, and conflict during the years 2257–2262...
. This was the final episode of Babylon 5 to air on PTEN
Prime Time Entertainment Network
The Prime Time Entertainment Network was a United States television network launched in 1993 by the Prime Time Consortium, a joint venture between Warner Bros. Domestic Television and the Chris-Craft group of independent stations...
.
Synopsis
This episode takes place after the events of the rest of the series. It shows the effect that the Interstellar Alliance had on history from the point of view of the far future. The episode shows certain pivotal events 100, 500, 1,000, and one million years after the founding of the Alliance.2262
Almost as soon as President Clark is dead and Earth is liberated, pro-Clark elements who aided his fascist rise to power try to paint Sheridan as a madman trying to take over the government, as they are afraid of losing political standing in the next election. Others view Sheridan as a hero; with the outer colonies and Mars in particular hailing the B5 forces as liberators. A third view also emerges which treats Sheridan in a neutral fashion as just a man who did what needed to be done. As seen in the immediately preceding episode "Rising Star", there were many politicians who secretly hated Clark, but who were powerless to stop him, and ultimately made no real contribution to the downfall of Clark's fascit regime. Out of a mixture of guilt and wounded pride, many (such as now-President Luchenko) have embraced the fantasy that they were capable of overthrowing Clark on their own, and were just biding their time. This causes politicians like Luchenko to criticize Sheridan's liberation of Earth using Babylon 5's allied forces for making a violent mess of their own plans to remove Clark, though in reality those "plans" were aspirational at best. These three viewpoints are debated in an ISN broadcast.2362
This advances to the point that by 100 years later, we see a live televised debate between several historians whose interpretation of history is grossly inaccurate, as they all mistakenly believe that the role of Sheridan and Babylon 5 in the war against the Shadows and in overthrowing Clark has been exaggerated over time. Their opinions range from generally negative views of Sheridan, to at best, one historian saying that the movement against Clark was due to a broad range of social factors and that saying that one man was responsible for the successful overthrow of Clark was verging on romanticism. She also declares that Sheridan was a megalomaniac. However, an extremely old (over 140) Delenn then makes a surprise entry to the debate, saying that Sheridan was a good, kind, and decent man who cared about the world even when the world didn't care about him, the historians are visibly shamed by her criticism that they are fabricating "facts" to fill in the gaps of their knowledge.2762
The action then switches to 500 years after the events of the series: the anti-alien, xenophobic sentiment that began after the Earth-Minbari War and which Clark capitalized on and expanded (and which we saw growing in the last segment) has now divided the Earth Alliance to the brink of civil war once again. One side (possibly stemming from Mars and the outer colonies, which were pro-Sheridan, as well as some elements on Earth) believes in co-existing with alien races as part of the Interstellar Alliance (therefore allies of the RangersRanger (Babylon 5)
Rangers are a fictional class of warriors that play a prominent role in the science fiction television series Babylon 5.-History:...
; the Rangers
Ranger (Babylon 5)
Rangers are a fictional class of warriors that play a prominent role in the science fiction television series Babylon 5.-History:...
are a significant force within the Alliance). Meanwhile, the other side is a neo-Orwellian fascist regime of the kind Clark tried to establish, which is xenophobic and hates all "alien influences". Human territories are divided, with each side controlling different colony worlds as well as divided regions on Earth itself. The anti-alien fascist faction is trying to set up forged holographic records to show that the heroes of Babylon 5 were in fact war criminals opposed to Earth, i.e. showing a holographic Dr. Franklin horrifically experimenting on human children using alien organs, having Sheridan make a passionate speech saying he and his alien masters will conquer Earth, before shooting human and alien prisoners, etc.
The anti-alien faction will use this propaganda to whip its population up into a jingoistic frenzy, so that they will be ready to go to fight the pro-alien faction. As the anti-alien faction's propaganda creator Daniel explains, the anti-alien faction is about to launch a sneak attack against the pro-alien faction as the opening move of an all-out war, and with the advantage of this sneak attack (directed at civilian population centers to shock the pro-alien faction into submission) the anti-alien faction will win the war. However, the computer-generated holographic images of the Babylon 5 crew are based on historical data and recorded memories of the original crew, so they still think and act just like Babylon 5's original crew, who the anti-alien faction has foolishly underestimated.
Right before Daniel can shut the recreations off, the holographic version of Garibaldi, as characteristically skeptical and mistrustful of others as his true self was, stalls him long enough to figure out his plan: practically the moment he was recreated, he had, without Daniel noticing it, hacked into the computer network of the military base the propaganda holovideos are being filmed in and hence gained information of the general situation and the conflicting factions. The holographic Garibaldi finally tells Daniel that he has sent out a signal warning the pro-alien faction of the impending sneak attack, and they have got the drop on Daniel's faction, launching their own sneak attack first, giving them the advantage in the upcoming war. Garibaldi tells Daniel not to worry, as the pro-alien faction is more humane than Daniel's, and will probably only target military bases and not civilian population centers as Daniel's faction planned to do..."but, this wouldn't happen to be a military installation, would it?" Garibaldi says with a smirk, as Daniel runs away in terror. Garibaldi, heroic even 500 years after his death, looks at the other frozen holograms of his crew, and says "rest easy, friends, rest easy" as the entire base explodes.
3262
The scene then switches to Earth, 1,000 years after the events of the series. The war between pro-alien and anti-alien factions 500 years previously led to a disastrous nuclear war dubbed "the Great Burn" which caused massive destruction and reduced human civilization on Earth, even 500 years after the war, to medieval technological levels. Two monks in an abbey are discussing the half-legendary heroic figures from Babylon 5, and whether they were even real (they have since been stylized in illuminated manuscript images almost as if they were Arthurian figures). However, it is revealed to the audience that in secret, humans on the colony planets survived and human civilization continues off of Earth, where the pro-alien faction won. However, seeing as so many on Earth would be embittered about the destruction wrought on the planet, the pro-alien victors felt that if they immediately went back and tried to help rebuild, anti-alien isolationist sentiment would just cause people to turn on them again. Instead, they embarked on a slow, long-term plan to send the Rangers to Earth masquerading as monks, setting up abbeys across Earth which would "rediscover" new technology incrementally, which was actually dropped off by ships from space. 500 years after the Great Burn, Earth has only redeveloped up to the point that they're just starting to introduce gas-powered generators. However, the Rangers are convinced that "this time, we'll get it right" and are determined to rebuild Earth as slowly as it needs to be to make sure that an anti-alien, anti-technology backlash doesn't occur again, "even if it takes us another 2,000 years".One million years later
One million years after all these things happen, a man is watching archived footage thereof. He instructs his computer to transmit this footage to a planet identified as "New Earth" and ensure it arrives in time for the ceremony. The computer acknowledges his instruction, then warns him that the sun will go nova in five hours. The man acknowledges, and the computer transmits the archived footage. The man takes a moment to reflect on humanity's accomplishments, and then reveals his true form: an energy-based life-form. He enters an encounter suit similar to the ones used by the VorlonVorlon
A Vorlon is a member of a fictional alien species in the Babylon 5 television series and fictional universe. The Vorlon species is a member of the First Ones, a group made up of the earliest species to gain sentience in the galaxy...
s (except with two glowing "eyes" instead of one) and leaves Earth right before Sol goes nova.
Sol apparently goes nova long before the Sun should naturally grow into a red giant: it is implied by J. Michael Straczynski
J. Michael Straczynski
Joseph Michael Straczynski , known professionally as J. Michael Straczynski and informally as Joe Straczynski or JMS, is an American writer and television producer. He works in films, television series, novels, short stories, comic books, and radio dramas. He is a playwright, a former journalist,...
to indeed not be a natural occurrence. http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/088.html Straczynski has confirmed in later interviews that New Earth is in fact Vorlon homeworld. According to Straczynski, the Minbari
Minbari
The Minbari are a fictional alien race featured in the television show Babylon 5. The Minbari characters of Delenn and Lennier figure prominently throughout the series; Neroon, Draal, and Dukhat are less prominent Minbari characters....
have also evolved into non-corporeal beings. The Narn
Narn
The Narn are a fictional alien race in the universe of the Babylon 5 television series. Their homeworld is also called Narn.-Homeworld:Narn is the homeworld of the Narn and the Narn Regime. Its day is 31 hours long. Prior to the Centauri's first invasion, Narn was a healthy green planet. Now it...
and Centauri
Centauri (Babylon 5)
The Centauri are a humanoid species in the fictional universe of the Babylon 5 television series. They were the first alien species to make open contact with the human race. Their homeworld is Centauri Prime, a small Earth-like planet consisting of two large continents and several smaller islands...
have not done so, however: those races have not died out, but rather simply have not evolved to First One-like status.
Arc significance
- The footage with GaribaldiMichael GaribaldiMichael Garibaldi is a lead fictional character in the universe of the science fiction television series Babylon 5, played by Jerry Doyle.-Overview:...
and the telepaths foreshadows events in Phoenix Rising. - DelennDelennDelenn is a fictional lead character in the universe of the science fiction television series Babylon 5, played by Mira Furlan.-Overview:Delenn, an alien ambassador and leader from the planet Minbar, is one of the pivotal characters in Babylon 5....
is still alive 100 years after the events of Babylon 5, at which time she is extremely old even by MinbariMinbariThe Minbari are a fictional alien race featured in the television show Babylon 5. The Minbari characters of Delenn and Lennier figure prominently throughout the series; Neroon, Draal, and Dukhat are less prominent Minbari characters....
standards. - 100 years after the formation of the Interstellar Alliance, some events of SheridanJohn Sheridan (Babylon 5)John J. Sheridan is a lead character in the fictional universe of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5, played by Bruce Boxleitner. For most of the series, he is the commander of the Babylon 5 station; during the series' final season he is the President of the Interstellar...
's life and death are often dismissed as legend. - 500 years after the events of Babylon 5, an expansionist faction of humans attempts to break away from the Alliance, leading to a civil war that devastates Earth.
- 1,000 years after the events of Babylon 5, the RangersRanger (Babylon 5)Rangers are a fictional class of warriors that play a prominent role in the science fiction television series Babylon 5.-History:...
are still trying to rebuild a devastated Earth. - One million years after the events of Babylon 5, humanity is depicted as having finally evolved beyond its "physical" bodies, and into beings similar to the Vorlons. They appear to wear encounter suits almost identical to the Vorlons, except for the head, which instead of being a block-shaped head, is closer to the shape of the human head. Humanity leaves for New Earth, as the Sun goes novaNovaA nova is a cataclysmic nuclear explosion in a star caused by the accretion of hydrogen on to the surface of a white dwarf star, which ignites and starts nuclear fusion in a runaway manner...
. The encounter suit and ship seen most prominently in this sequence both bear the emblem of the RangersRanger (Babylon 5)Rangers are a fictional class of warriors that play a prominent role in the science fiction television series Babylon 5.-History:...
.
Episode peculiarities
The episode has an unusual history. During the filming of the fourth season, the show appeared destined for cancellation. As a result, plotlines were shortened and resolved ahead of schedule. After the completion of the final episode, but before its airing, the cable network TNTTurner Network Television
Turner Network Television is an American cable television channel created by media mogul Ted Turner and currently owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner...
approached the creators of the show with an offer of cable distribution and funding for a fifth season.
The show's creator, J. Michael Straczynski, insisted that the final episode ("Sleeping in Light
Sleeping in Light
"Sleeping in Light" is the final episode of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5. The episode was nominated for the 1999 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation.-Plot:...
") not be seen prematurely. As a result, a new fourth-season finale had to be composed. The episode was filmed as part of the fifth-season production run, and hurriedly composed for airing in its proper place before the switchover from PTEN
Prime Time Entertainment Network
The Prime Time Entertainment Network was a United States television network launched in 1993 by the Prime Time Consortium, a joint venture between Warner Bros. Domestic Television and the Chris-Craft group of independent stations...
to TNT
Turner Network Television
Turner Network Television is an American cable television channel created by media mogul Ted Turner and currently owned by the Turner Broadcasting System division of Time Warner...
. This is the reason that Claudia Christian
Claudia Christian
Claudia Ann Christian is an American actress, writer, singer, musician, and director, best known for her role as Commander Susan Ivanova on the science fiction television series Babylon 5.-Career:...
, who had left the show prior to the fifth season, appears in the series finale.
The form of this episode is substantially different from most episodes of Babylon 5. All other episodes were shot as unified storylines; however, "Deconstruction" exists as a series of vignettes examining society's views of the events of the series from increasingly distant future viewpoints: one year, one hundred years, five hundred years, one thousand years, and eventually one million years in the future.
The episode ends with a dedication:
"DEDICATED TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO PREDICTED THAT THE BABYLON PROJECT WOULD FAIL IN ITS MISSION. FAITH MANAGES."
On CIS, J. Michael Straczynski described this message thus:
"...for the reviewers and the pundits and the critics and the net-stalkers who have done nothing but rag on this show for five years straight, it is also a giant middle finger composed of red neon fifty stories tall, that will burn forever in the night."
Monastery sequence
The vignette that takes place one thousand years later in a monastery bears some similarities to Walter M. Miller, Jr.Walter M. Miller, Jr.
Walter Michael Miller, Jr. was an American science fiction author. Today he is primarily known for A Canticle for Leibowitz, the only novel he published in his lifetime. Prior to its publication he was a prolific writer of short stories.- Biography :Miller was born in New Smyrna Beach, Florida...
's A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz
A Canticle for Leibowitz is a post-apocalyptic science fiction novel by American writer Walter M. Miller, Jr., first published in 1960. Set in a Roman Catholic monastery in the desert of the southwestern United States after a devastating nuclear war, the story spans thousands of years as...
. While writing the episode, series creator J. Michael Straczynski
J. Michael Straczynski
Joseph Michael Straczynski , known professionally as J. Michael Straczynski and informally as Joe Straczynski or JMS, is an American writer and television producer. He works in films, television series, novels, short stories, comic books, and radio dramas. He is a playwright, a former journalist,...
noted the similarities: