Letters to my Granddaughter #10 — Wait, Are There Two?
What if there are two dark forces at play on Earth?
Maybe the TV series Babylon 5 got it right.
Granddaughter, assuming in your time you’ll have access to a gargantuan AI large language model where you’ll be able to look up J. Michael Straczynski, aka Joe. He has to be one of the greatest writers of all time. I never read his newspaper articles or listened to his radio programs, but I’ve seen all Joe’s shows and movies and read some of his comics. Babylon 5, Jeremiah, Sense8, Twilight Zone, Murder She Wrote, The Real Ghostbusters, World War Z, Thor, Changeling… and that’s just a partial list of his Hollywood credits. Then there’s Joe’s Comics, Marvel Comics, and DC Comics. Talk about prolific and multi-talented. Whoa.
As amazing as Sense8 and World War Z were, Babylon 5 was my favorite of them all. The first TV series written with a five season arc. Strong, raw, badass women characters in command positions. I could go on and on about the show. Instead, I’ll invite 2024 readers who don’t know the story to learn more on Wikipedia, or one of the many fan sites and social media groups. For fans, if you’ve not yet experience this man’s amazing life journey, check out his autobiography, Becoming Superman. If you haven’t seen the Babylon 5 series yet, for God’s sake, get to work!
The Vorlons and the Shadows made Babylon 5 the epic series it was. Two ancient races, one which appeared to stand for the light, meditated and sang lovely songs, and imposed order and obedience. The other, which appeared to represent the darkness, shrieked in a way that rocked your soul to the core, thrived on creating chaos. And just for fun, they attached creepy little buggers onto their minions to control them. Both races vied for control of human and alien affairs indirectly, manipulating the younger races to fight on their behalf.
Does any of this sound familiar?
When I look at what’s happening on Earth now, I think of those two races. Which political party would the Vorlons back? Would we find the Shadows behind the climate change agenda or big oil? Which race would support totalitarianism or fascism?
Looking back on letter #2, “Polarization,” I wonder if the Vorlons and the Shadows — or their real-life interdimensional counterparts — are behind the mess that we’re in. Lately, I had perceived and believed there was a singular dark force. Maybe only one of the two is messing with my life. And the other one’s messing with someone else.
Now, my man Billy Carson lays down a different point of view that makes sense to me, too. On his recent socials, he characterizes the right and left as “two wings on the same bird.” Billy’s recent interview with Joe Rogan adds cred to what I’ve been writing about in these letters. But what if this metaphorical bird only represents one of the two forces? And it’s tricking those of us who think we’re smarter than everyone else into yet another false narrative? And then where is the second force hiding?
Whether it’s one or two dark forces, enough of this nonsense. I’m ready for our modern day Captain Sheridan to show up right about now. “Get the hell out of our galaxy!” he said. Lydia’s right there with you, Captain.
Lydia Taylor is a fictional character from a forthcoming novel series by Author Jeffrey Griffith.
