Crusade: S01E06: The Well of Forever

Nothing starts the day like a Psi Corp inquisition, or as its now call the Board of Telepath Integration. Just ask Matheson. As per the new telepath rules, all teeps working with normals have to undergo periodic scans to show that they aren’t abusing their powers. And just to keep it from getting too personal, all the inquisitors are named Mr. Jones.

So while Matheson is getting his head checked, the rest of the command staff are discussing their next destination. No body can think of any other place nearby worth visiting, so they decided to move on to another sector. That is until Galen shows up. Galen pulls out a glowing piece of crud an explains to the crew that this shall be their next destination. Good job Galen! But soon he does a little pallor trick and crud emits a holographic map, to a destination deep in hyperspace.

The destination is the Well of Forever. He claims its a sort of a universal “Great Library of Alexandria”. The crew is unimpressed. They use liberal amounts of sarcasm to tell him to sod off. Gideon explains that its too deep in Hyperspace for them to navigate safely. Galen is quick to counter, by saying that his ship can navigate the currents of hyperspace, but cannot travel through them. He offers to up his ship to the Excalibur to help navigate to that location.

Gideon reluctantly agrees, under the condition that if they get to the coordinates, and there’s nothing there, that they will leave immediately. Galen agrees. Secretly though, Gideon is using this opportunity to find out more about Galen’s ship and its technologies. But back to Matheson. Mr. Jones is laterally picking his brain. Without authorization he does a deep scan on Matheson. He digs up lots of dirt on the first officer, in reality its more like dust. Matheson hasn’t really done anything wrong, but its just enough to get more then a wrist slap.

While he’s in there, Jones also finds out about their destination in hyperspace, the Well of Forever. Matheson interjects, claiming that its duty related information, but Jones just comes up with so bs excuse for his prying. After the interview, Matheson reports the security breach to Gideon.  Hours later, the Excalibur encounters its first foreign objects in hyperspace. They’re colossal jellyfish, that Galen and the technomages call the Fen, and they’re barely sentient. They are however the first life-form encountered in hyperspace, ever. Galen says that they are mostly harmless and that if the Excalibur stops its engines, it can glide through that school unharmed.

It doesn’t work. The Fen are attracter to bright shiny objects and a one starts to lash on the top fin of the ship. It then starts banging away at the Excalibur. Gideon suspects its trying to eat the ship, and asks Galen for confirmation. He unleashes a sly smile, and Gideon replies with a “NO IT’S NOT!!”. The Fen is attracted to the Excalibur and is tring to mate with it! He orders the ship to fire its thrusters. Galen replies with “Captain, your giving it all the wrong signals”. Soon after the ship escapes the Fen school. Gideon yells, “Galen if that thing got anything on my ship I’m gonna…” , but Galen knew to get the f$%k outta there and ran off the bride before he could finish. As the Excalibur approaches the coordinates, it scans the area and finds nothing there. Galen intercepts the conversation that they intend to go back home.

He decides to keep that from happening and takes control of the ships navigation and makes sure that the Excalibur will find the Well of Forever. Gideon is pissed, but is forced to go along with Galen’s voyage, for now. To releave his tension. Gideon seeks out Mr Jones. And tries to get him to layoff Matheson’s few breaches of protocol. He has no luck, he might as well have tried to get Galen to give him back control of his ship! Speaking of Matheson, he is trying to hack Galen’s ship to gain back control, but he too is having no luck either. But none of that matters, because soon afterward they arrive at the Well of Forever.

Preliminary scans reveal tera-tonnes of precious metals, gems, alloys and quintillions in unnamed valuables. Eilerson is having a wet dream. He’s frothing at the mouth at the find they’ve discovered. While he’s conning Matheson into sending down a probe, Gideon is chasing after Galen who already departed for the surface. Down on the Well of Forever, we learn that it isn’t a repository of knowledge but a burial ground for departed kings, wisemen, and great figures. Galen has hijacked the ship and betrayed Gideon so that he could spread the ashes of his precious Isabelle to rest. To help keep his last promise to her.

The promise to bring her here. Gideon understands his devotion, but that doesn’t make up for his betrayal. After performing a death rite, the two make back for the Excalibur. As soon as they return, Gideon orders the ship to depart, much to Eilerson’s dismay. In the next scene, Dureena gets on a bullet car with Mr. Jones. Jones naturally begins to scan Dureena, and finds something disturbing. He rushes off the car, and into Gideon’s office.

He exclaims that she hid a bomb behind the jump engines and that she intends to kill everyone. Gideon is unphased, as he set this up with Dureena before hand. He then asks Jones how he knows about the bomb, and soon after Jones realizes he’s caught. Gideon blackmails him into to forgetting what he saw in Matheson’s head. The wanna-be psi-cop reluctantly agrees. To conclude the episode Galen comes as close to ever to apologizing (ever) to Gideon. He reaffirms that this was something he had to do.

Gideon still rightly feels betrayed, but Galen tells him that he will never betray his trust again, and that is a promise. Then like always, Galen takes off in his ship. But before doing so, he invades the ships computers once again, and deletes all information about the Well of Forever. Thus thwarting Eilerson’s plans to mine the sacred spot.

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This Crusade review is © 2004 Ryan Bechtel.
Not for reproduction without the authors express permission

The BABYLON 5 names, characters and everything else associated with the series are the property of J. Michael Straczynski, TNT and Warner Brothers, a division of Time Warner Entertainment Company. All rights reserved.