Babylon 5 Beeline: The War Prayer

You know what Babylon 5 has been missing so far? Racism. And hate crimes involving the stabbing and branding of alien poets. Humans are, of course, the responsible, hateful party. “The War Prayer” brings the first appearance of the Homeguard, a kind of Minutemen of the future, trying to guard Earth’s borders from the so-called alien invasion.

Even the reasons are the same. “THEY TAKE OUR JOBS!” “THEY POLLUTE OUR CULTURE!” The Minutemen’s night vision goggles have been replaced in the future with black light camouflage, which renders the wearer invisible.

I taught “The War Prayer“ by Mark Twain to my 11th grade American Lit class in 2001 when we were invading Afghanistan. My honors class had a really good discussion about it, but a lot of the kids in my standard classes accused me of being un-American and assured me that whatever was happening to the Afghan people at the hands of the United States Marine Corps, they had it coming.

B5's Redneck Sting's Cousin An Asian guy turns up as a hate crime suspect and you know he’s racist because he talks like a redneck, has three days facial hair growth and wears coveralls. (Yes, I know those things don’t automatically make someone a racist, but on Babylon 5, they do.) But, you don’t immediately recognize the racist ringleader because he has a British accent, is dressed well and looks like Sting.

OK, Sting’s second cousin. On a bad hair day. From a distance. Without my glasses.

“The War Prayer” also kicks off Susan Ivanova’s pattern of not gettin’ any. The British racist is an ex-boyfriend and they start to rekindle things, until she discovers his involvement with the Homeguard and participates in a sting operation to take him down.

That aspect of Ivanova is something I’ve always appreciated about her character. Not in an ultra-feminist, “I don’t bake cookies,” career before family kind of way. Rather because she wasn’t portrayed as one of those women who has it all. Ivanova is extremely successful in her military career and nothing else really goes right for her.

She doesn’t have a successful career, a successful relationship and a family at the same time. I think most women who do have all of that are either supported by a team or addicted to their kid’s ADHD meds.

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