The Corps is Mother The Corps is Father (B5)

[Steve]

B) Sheridan's clearly more than just a Secretary-General of the UN given the UN SecGen doesn't have an elite force with the most powerful ships in known space at his or her disposal,

the rangers don't work for the I.A., or its president; they live and die for The One. using them to supplement and support the I.A. is one thing, using them to to violate the laws of a member-state is completely different. if sheridan were to abuse his position as a minbari religious leader in order to overstep his lawful bounds as president, it would invalidate everything he said at the end of the civil war about being there to liberate, rather than conquer, and validate the xenophobic policies and propaganda of the clark administration.

beyond that though, every other member-state in the I.A. would take notice, because if he'll abuse his power and force his personal whim upon his on homeworld, he can just as easily do it to any of them. there's no way they'd stand for that, sheridan would either be impeached (assuming he didn't decide to use the rangers to prevent that), or the alliance would simply crumble.

That's a good explanation. I just wish the episode brought it up. It's not that Sheridan doesn't help them against Bester, it's that the show never really explains why he's just leaving it to Lochley. We're left to guess these things.

I actually remember finding the telepaths sympathetic up until the blackmail came up. I didn't care much about Byron either way, though. Granted, I was watching S5 while watching TNT's airing of the rest of the series every weekday, when I could (Season 5 was on at 10pm on a school night at a time when I was being woken up at 5am to go to school, thankfully the reruns were at 7pm), so I probably didn't have the same annoyance at this sudden new character who wasn't that good.

[CareerKnight]

I was having some trouble with them being sympathetic before then due to the fact they also bought into Psicorps "We are superior to mundanes" propaganda. You're not automatically a better person just because you can do something others can't, the real world equivalent would be thinking you were inherently better than a blind or deaf person.

[FaxModem1]

Byron was Genosha era Magneto. Still an utter bigot, but now convinced that the proper course of action was to remove themselves from the dirty stinking humans.

Presentation also made siding with Byron's group hard for the audience.

I had put some comparisons on the old forum about the difference between the Telepaths who were part of the Underground railroad, and the ones in Byron's group. The railroad members were from all walks of life, of all ages, and looked like they went through a lot, and seemed like actual refugees.The Railroad members

Byron's group were all dressed to the nines, had nice nice furniture in down below, and seemed to have an unlimited supply of shampoo and conditioner. This meant we weren't​ seeing 'oppressed refugees on the run', we were seeing 'rich trust fund babies slumming it'. It didn't help that all members of Byron's group were at most, in their early thirties. Byron's members

It's hard to feel sympathetic for people who don't actually need your sympathy.

[MadAmosMalone]

I'm glad you resurrected these comparisons because I must have missed them before. Good observations. I really wish B5 had treated telepathy the way the cancelled series (also partially a JMS project) Sense8 did. That is they can't read "normals" but can communicate with each other.