Babylon 5/Recap/S01/E00 The Gathering

Season 1, Pilot:

The Gathering

I was there at the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind. It began in the Earth year 2257, with the founding of the last of the Babylon stations, located deep in neutral space. It was a port of call for refugees, smugglers, businessmen, diplomats and travelers from a hundred worlds. It could be a dangerous place, but we accepted the risk because Babylon 5 was our last, best hope for peace. Babylon 5 was a dream given form, a dream of a galaxy without war where species from different worlds could live side by side in mutual respect. Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. This is its story.

—Londo Mollari

Babylon 5 is online and ambassadors are arriving from all the major races: the Minbari, the Narn, the Centauri and even the reclusive Vorlons. However, the Vorlon ambassador Kosh is attacked on arrival, and when the station's commercial telepath, Lyta Alexander, reads Kosh's mind to learn who attacked him, she identifies the assassin as Jeffrey Sinclair, the EarthForce Commander in charge of B5. As Sinclair navigates the political minefield of the station, all the while protesting his innocence, it's up to Security Chief Michael Garibaldi to find the real culprit before Babylon 5's mission is scuppered before it even begins.

Tropes featured in The Gathering include:

• Artificial Gravity: Delenn owns a set of rings which project and control artificial gravity fields. They don't appear in the series proper, but serve here to demonstrate that Minbari technology is more advanced than the average.
• As You Know: It's hard to justify Lyta Alexander not knowing the history of the Babylon Project, and needing to ask Sinclair why the station is Babylon Five. We just have to brush it off as clumsy exposition.
• Clear My Name: Commander Sinclair.
• Early Installment Weirdness: Most famously, Delenn's gravity rings, but many various changes to costuming and makeup (most prominently that of Delenn and G'Kar), and other minor elements, plus no less than three major supporting characters who were replaced with Suspiciously Similar Substitutes in the regular series.
• Foreshadowing: "You have a hole in your mind!"
• Fridge Brilliance: the Fake!Lyta attacks Dr Kyle using what will later be shown to be a common Minbari pike fighting move, hinting at the assassin's true identity.
• The Mole: Never revealed in the plot itself, but according to Word of God, it was Lt. Commander Takashima.
• You Look Familiar: Via Retroactive Recognition: One of the Bridge Bunnies is played by Ed Wasser, who would later gain fame amongst the fandom for playing Smug Snake Mr. Morden, one of the show's recurring villains.