“Walkabout” · Season 3
In this episode: Michael Garibaldi (2), G'Kar (2), John Sheridan (1), Susan Ivanova (1), Stephen Franklin (1)
Breen! You've managed to import breen from Homeworld! How?
It, uh...isn't actually breen.
The smell, the taste--!
It's an Earth food. They are called Swedish meatballs. It's a strange thing, but every sentient race has its own version of these Swedish meatballs! I suspect it's one of those great universal mysteries which will either never be explained, or which would drive you mad if you ever learned the truth.[N]
[Franklin explains the principles of "walkabout" to Garibaldi.]
You know, as a Foundationist, I was always taught that if you're not careful, you can lose yourself in the world. You get too busy with things, not busy enough with yourself! Spend your days and nights living someone else's agendas, fighting someone else's battles, and you're doing the work you're supposed to be doing, but every day there's less and less of you in it all! Till one day, you come to a fork in the road, and because you're distracted, you're not thinking. You lose yourself. You go right, and the rest of you, the really important part of you, goes left! And you don't even know you've done it till you realize, you finally realize, that you don't have any idea who you are when you're not doing all those things!
Stephen...you don't really believe there are two of you, do you?
[chuckles] No, it's a metaphor! All right, there isn't literally another me walking around the station. But the principle is real! I realized I didn't have any idea who I was when I wasn't being a doctor, and I think I was using the stims to avoid facing that. Now I gotta fix it.
How?
By going walkabout. You just leave everything, and you start walking. I mean, the Foundation adopted the idea from the Aborigines back on Earth. The theory is, if you're separated from yourself, you start walking and you keep walking until you meet yourself. Then you sit down, and you have a long talk. Talk about everything that you've learned, everything that you've felt, and you talk until you've run out of words. Now, that's vital, because the real important things can't be said. And then, if you're lucky, you look up, and there's just you. Then you can go home.
It's easy to fight when you've got a lot of ships to work with. The real crunch comes when you're down to almost nothing! Then you either play it safe and you probably lose it all, or you take a chance! After what we've been through with your people, Sheridan was crazy to send our pilots out to fight for your ship! They didn't want to go, they didn't want to get blown out of the sky and leave B5 defenseless, and they sure as hell didn't want to die! But they did it because Sheridan told them to do it and because it was right!
This time it is possible he could be wrong.
Yeah, it's possible. But you don't follow an order because you know for sure it's gonna work out! You do what you're told! Because your CO has the moral authority that says, "You may not come back! But the cause is just and fair and necessary!" That's why Sheridan is out there, and damn it, that's where that cruiser should be, too! It's not Na'Kal's decision, G'Kar. He doesn't see the big picture--you do! So in my book, and your book, that makes it your responsibility! Deal with it!
[Sheridan and Ivanova meet the new Vorlon ambassador, Kosh's replacement]
Your government neglected to tell me your name. How should I refer to you when we're alone?
Kosh.
Ah, yes, I understand that's how we're to refer to you publicly, but privately?
Kosh.
Ambassador Kosh is…dead.
We are all Kosh. [he leaves]
Well, he's a Vorlon, all right.
Yep.
These quotes come from Wikiquote's Babylon 5 pages and are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.
