The Telepath War

[Satai with Punsch]

As the Telepath War popped up at one of the B5 Facebook pages I thought I should raise the issue here as well. I did find a rather old thread on failed B5 project in the backlog of old posts, but unfortunately the link to an article on the subject was dead. So I'll start a thread on the Telepath War here ...

And it might be a wee bit spoilerific regarding the fates of some characters.



The Telepath War have become somewhat of a mythic movie that never happened, sometimes also referred to as the Telepath Crisis. And it was set up during season 4 and 5, as well as influencing both how the B5 novels could be written and the set up of Crusade. But the movie it self is still very absent. And I for one would very much like to have seen it made.

To find out what was actually said about it I turned to the Index of the JMS scriptbooks which points us in a few directions.

The TV movies book, in the Questions about the Legend of the Rangers section, tells us what happens to Lennier and Lyta during the War as an explanation to what G'kar mean with "She's gone now". Sadly the book does not give any information about where the questions originated from or if it is actually JMS who answer them. It also contains a short premise on Wars of the Mind, a Psi-Corps feature film about the war.

The Artifacts from Beyond the Rim book gives us more information in the Editor's note to the: Babylon 5 motion picture treatment. (Perhaps that is you Jason?). It tells us that JMS worked on an idea about the Telepath war in 1996, which appears in the TV-movie book. And that a new version, in 1998 perhaps?, borrows an premise that appeared in the early treatments for Crusade (see the What the Hell happened book).

But most interesting I found the statement that: Sadly, Warner Bros. chose not to pursue the concept and this storyline was abandoned when JMS briefly partnered with other producers to develop Babylon 5: The Memory of Shadows ...

That is an interesting clue indeed. And it would be fun to look into this more, but this post is way to long already, so I'll stop for now. Perhaps someone here have a lot more insight in the question?

[JasonDavis]

Sadly the book does not give any information about where the questions originated from or if it is actually JMS who answer them.

The questions were submitted by fans who subscribed to the B5 Books mailing list. JMS answered them.

The Artifacts from Beyond the Rim book gives us more information in the Editor's note to the: Babylon 5 motion picture treatment. (Perhaps that is you Jason?).

Yes, that was me.

[Satai with Punsch]

The questions were submitted by fans who subscribed to the B5 Books mailing list. JMS answered them.

Aha, that is good to know. As a B5 fan I love the scriptbooks and bow to the enormous effort you guys must have put in to them. And as a academic I see an great potential for study and future work on the making of B5. But from that perspective there are also a few minor things that bother me regarding the source material. There are some instances where the books do not state where it comes from. Like this example or some of the interviews which can not be back-tracked to the original source. This is a bit problematic if they are to be used for scholarly work, unfortunately. But, this is nit-picking from a very narrow perspective, and the books are still probably the best thing done for any tv-show when it comes to mapping its creation and development.

Yes, that was me.

Great! Many thanks for solving some of the mysteries around B5 for us
As well as creating a few new what ifs.

I was surprised to see that the Telepath War movie was around, so to speak, so long as untill TMoS-time. Do you know if it ever developed beyond the few treatments you have in the books?

[Jan]

Aha, that is good to know. As a B5 fan I love the scriptbooks and bow to the enormous effort you guys must have put in to them. And as a academic I see an great potential for study and future work on the making of B5. But from that perspective there are also a few minor things that bother me regarding the source material. There are some instances where the books do not state where it comes from. Like this example or some of the interviews which can not be back-tracked to the original source. This is a bit problematic if they are to be used for scholarly work, unfortunately. But, this is nit-picking from a very narrow perspective, and the books are still probably the best thing done for any tv-show when it comes to mapping its creation and development.

I'm pretty sure that a call went out for submission of questions, didn't it, Jason? But it could be that the information about the source of the questions was in the sales copy rather than in the book? I don't recall....

[JoeD80]

Yes! I submitted a question (about Sinclair in Thirdspace), but I don't think it was credited anywhere in the book to who asked what.

[JasonDavis]

I was surprised to see that the Telepath War movie was around, so to speak, so long as untill TMoS-time. Do you know if it ever developed beyond the few treatments you have in the books?

As far as I can tell, the version of the theatrical film focusing on the Telepath Crisis fell out of favor some time during the production of season four (or possibly early season five). It's mentioned on a page of JMS's ideas for spinoff material that was reprinted in Artifacts from Beyond the Rim and then there was the partial treatment published in the TV Movie book. That's it for that notion.

JMS obviously skipped the Telepath Crisis when he decided upon the temporal setting of Crusade and he also sidestepped it when outlining the Psi Corps trilogy for Del Rey. I can only assume he still had some interest in exploring it as late as 1999, but he'd obviously moved on when it came to movie premises by then.

[JasonDavis]

I'm pretty sure that a call went out for submission of questions, didn't it, Jason?

I believe there was a solicitation for questions. By the time the project fell in my lap, there was a list of questions for each movie, but there were no names attached to them.

[JoeD80]

As far as I can tell, the version of the theatrical film focusing on the Telepath Crisis fell out of favor some time during the production of season four (or possibly early season five). It's mentioned on a page of JMS's ideas for spinoff material that was reprinted in Artifacts from Beyond the Rim and then there was the partial treatment published in the TV Movie book. That's it for that notion.

I assume the idea was still there in season five; Lochley is listed in the "Wars of the Mind" short outline in the TV movie book.

[JasonDavis]

I assume the idea was still there in season five; Lochley is listed in the "Wars of the Mind" short outline in the TV movie book.

I'd forgotten that Lochley was in the outline fragment. That would certainly extend the viability of Wars of the Mind into Fall 1997.

(On a tangential note, I recently read an early draft of "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" written prior to the great contract debacle of Blackpool. While I was hoping for some great alternative version, it was effectively the same as the episode as produced; the only difference was Ivanova speaking some lines in the teaser that were later handed off to Garibaldi and a reference to "Captain Ivanova" during the telepath hostage clip.)

[Satai with Punsch]

... But it could be that the information about the source of the questions was in the sales copy rather than in the book? I don't recall....

That is one of my nit-picks. In the book you never get any information about the questions. If they are JMS FAQ's, if they are picked from the B5 magazine or, as in the actual case, answers to email questions specifically made for the book. So the book is actually the primary source for them

[Satai with Punsch]

JMS obviously skipped the Telepath Crisis when he decided upon the temporal setting of Crusade and he also sidestepped it when outlining the Psi Corps trilogy for Del Rey. I can only assume he still had some interest in exploring it as late as 1999, but he'd obviously moved on when it came to movie premises by then.

That is one of the things that make the Telepath Crisis such a tease ...
Both Crusade and the Psi Corps books hint at it a lot, and in the end nothing happened. At least not yet, but who knows?

As you say, it is rather obvious that JMS had plans for it and I guess what really put it on hold was the same things that put Crusade out the airlock.

[Ubik]

That is one of the things that make the Telepath Crisis such a tease ...
Both Crusade and the Psi Corps books hint at it a lot, and in the end nothing happened. At least not yet, but who knows?

As you say, it is rather obvious that JMS had plans for it and I guess what really put it on hold was the same things that put Crusade out the airlock.

Part of me wonders how interesting a yarn it really would have been. I've never really had a burning desire to see it played out. The one chunky telepath-centric story we did get (Byron, etc) wasn't exactly awe inspiring. I think it's one of those 'untold' things that's best left alluded to, just so it provides some extra depth to the B5 universe. Same as the Vorlon homeworld, perhaps it's best left off screen?

[Satai with Punsch]

... I think it's one of those 'untold' things that's best left alluded to, just so it provides some extra depth to the B5 universe. Same as the Vorlon homeworld, perhaps it's best left off screen?

You have a great point there. Few things can beat what we imagine or our idealized version of what the movie should be.

In my mind though it has very much of a cold war spy thriller, lots of sleeper personalities, reprogram camps and so on, with occasional horrific outbursts of killings and witch hunts (think The Manchurian Candidate, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy combined with Hotel Rwanda and The Year of Living Dangerously).

After all everything will be very messy. Psi corp going after mundanes and non corp telepath alike, throw in a lot of Clark era xenophobia with added unresolved conflicts after Sheridans civil war, Earth - Mars conflict and so on. The mundanes will go after everyone they consider telepath, alien, Marsie and some other minorities for good measure ... Terrible times all around.

[Jan]

I think there may be a misconception here. The telepath war was telepath against telepath, not telepaths against normals - though I'm sure some of them got caught up in it. The teep vs mundanes happened when telepaths were first discovered, leading to the formation of the Psi Corps (as shown in the Psi Corps trilogy). The telepath war that we haven't seen yet was sparked by Byron's death and led by Lyta.

[JasonDavis]

I tend to agree with Ubik.

I used to imagine the Clone Wars that Obi-Wan Kenobi referred to as times of great intrigue when one's closest allies might be replaced with genetic replicas and only the Jedi could discern the subtle differences, eventually restoring order to the Republic.

Then George Lucas gave us Attack of the Clones.

I prefer my Telepath Crisis...which does extensively involve normals. Nobody's gonna blow up a building as big as that North American Psi Corps facility in "The Path of Sorrows" without the rest of humanity having an opinion.