Of Chaos and Shadows: Mr. Morden.
By Starkiller.
Introduction.
“Babylon
5” was a five-year story arc set in the twenty third century and written
largely by J. Michael Straczynski. It was considered groundbreaking at the
time, for being one of the first series on television to have a complete story
arc from start to finish, with a definite end and a definite beginning. Most
television shows in the sci-fi genre follow the model set out by “Star Trek”
and its franchise, and do not stick to such strict narrative guidelines, and it
was this that made “Babylon 5” such a landmark of television.
Mr. Morden is a very minor character created as the agent
between one of the two warring factions of ancient races in the show – The
Shadows. Little is known in canon about Morden, where he came from, what his
life was like prior to his first appearance in episode thirteen of season one:
‘Signs and Portents.’ What we do learn of his character is gleaned from episode
sixteen of season two: ‘In the Shadow of Z’ha’dum.’ In this episode we learn
that he was working for Interplanetary Expeditions and was on board a ship
named The Icarus, the same ship as the station captain’s wife, Anna. No further
mention of his background is made in the show, and the rest of the information about
Morden is gleaned from the tie-in novel, ‘The Shadow Within’ by Jeanne
Cavellos.
Background.
Morden is introduced to us as the enigmatic, smiling,
charming and helpful individual who asks the seemingly innocuous question,
“What do you want?” In his first appearance in ‘Signs and Portents,’ he visits
each of the major race Ambassadors upon the Station, asking them all the same
question. G’Kar of the Narn finds him annoying and irritating, Delenn of the
Minbari senses immediately the true nature of Morden and his question, while
Londo of the Centauri provides the most fitting answer to the question, though
it isn’t revealed to the viewers until later why that answer is so apropos.
Upon arriving on Babylon
5, Morden presents himself as a pleasant man, someone who is likeable and
charismatic. He smiles often, and appears to be nothing more than what his
identicard says – an archaeologist returned from a dig out on The Rim. His real
purpose is far more insidious. He is on Babylon
5 carrying out a mission for his Associates, The Shadows, who are beginning to
move into play in the grand scheme of things in the story. When Morden visits
Delenn in her quarters to ask her what becomes his trademark question, she sees
him shrouded in shadow, and a triluminary appears on her forehead. She covers
the mark with her hand as she orders Morden to leave, and the viewer is given
the first hint that nothing is as it seems as regards this man. Her comment,
“They’re here,”
indicates that she is aware of what is going on.
It is not until Morden and the Vorlon Ambassador, Kosh meet
each other in a deserted corridor that the viewer is given a second hint about
his true nature. The lights switch off, and Kosh tells Morden to leave, that Babylon 5 is not for him.
Though Morden says nothing to the Vorlon, at face value, Kosh’s words seem
directed at him – after all, he’s alone, and so whom else would he be speaking
to? As it turns out, Morden is never alone, and Kosh’s words are directed to
Morden’s Associates, The Shadows.
In meeting Londo Mollari and having his own question asked
of him before he gets a chance to ask it himself, Morden finds what it is he is
looking for. He helps Londo retrieve a stolen Centauri artefact – The Eye –
without asking for anything in return for his service. This act does, however,
put Morden in a position to be close to Londo, to influence him and nudge him
in the direction the Shadows wish him to go.
Episode twenty-two of season one, ‘Chrysalis,’ gives another
hint of Morden’s modus operandi. While Delenn prepares the chrysalis for
herself, Morden visits again with Londo, offering help with his ambitions and
goals. In response to questioning, Morden replies, “I’m here to be of service,
Ambassador,” and he
presents himself as persuasive and sympathetic to the aims of Londo, which the
Centauri perhaps believes to be the aims of the Centauri people themselves,
rather than his own. Morden does not want credit for the favours his Associates
do for Londo, and tells him that there is no price for his assistance, just
that one day in the future, he may go to Londo and ask him for a favour. It’s a
very attractive and very innocuous seeming proposition, and to someone in
Londo’s situation, too good to pass up.
In the early episodes of season two, we get a definite sense
of growing unease in the Babylon
5 universe. In season one, the main concern was about raiders, essentially
space pirates, who would attack cargo transports and steal goods, sell and
trade on the black market. In season two, the viewer begins to understand that
the raiders really are unremarkable in the grand scheme of things. In
‘Revelations,’ episode two of season two, Morden first appears as genuinely
smug. As Londo jokes about the Narns and killing them, we get the first hint of
the darkness surrounding Morden. As he flatters Londo, he manages to get the
Ambassador to agree to pass on any information regarding The Rim to him. This
leads to the destruction of a Narn vessel sent to examine a world called
Z’ha’dum. It is also the first hint that G’Kar gives about the ancient enemy as
he calls them, having returned to their places of power.
“Unlike Anna, he seemed to have little fear of dying; it
seemed to be almost desired.”
This is the first hint we have of Morden’s distant past, long before he
journeyed to Z’ha’dum onboard The Icarus. The novel ‘The Shadow Within,’ covers
the back story of Morden and Anna leading up to season two of ‘Babylon 5.’ Morden is
portrayed as a solitary, sad man, mourning a dead wife and child, killed in a
terrorist attack on the jump gate at Io. His character is given more depth and
dimension in the novel and one can begin to understand the motivation behind
his choices and his decisions to serve the Shadows.
For Morden, it appears that the choice between two opposing
forces – The Vorlons and The Shadows – is not what he chose between. While many
viewers were shocked into discovering that their own personal ideologies
coincided with The Shadows mandate -- the revelation that their personal
beliefs aligned with a race that had previously been identified as being evil
-- Morden appears not to have made his choice for the same reasons as John
Sheridan did. In ‘Z’ha’dum,’ episode twenty-two of season three, the true
nature of Morden’s Associates is revealed. They serve Chaos and Evolution –
believing that true growth only comes through conflict. The Vorlons serve Order
and Obedience – believing that growth comes from doing what you are told. The
Shadows are essentially the Darwinian ideal of evolution while the Vorlons are
more aligned with traditional Biblical interpretations of evolution – do what
you are told, the will of God is all that matters.
Cavellos tells of Morden’s becoming the agent of the Shadows
as something to be regretted:
“Every light carries a shadow,
the pillars read. And this was Morden’s shadow, the one he couldn’t escape.
‘Free them,’ Morden said, ‘I’ll serve you willingly, happily, with all the
skills at my command.’”
This, then makes Morden’s character that much more tragic.
If Cavellos’ interpretation is accepted at face value, then Morden’s choice was
a choice of saving the memory of his dead family, not a choice between
Darwinian theory and Bible theory. His choice was based on self-sacrifice in
order to save those he loved above all others, those he believed dead, or
believed to be held in stasis for use by The Shadows. It is only in these
novels by Cavellos that such an idea is put forward. Many fen have speculated
about the canonical nature of these novels, and whether or not they can be taken
as a true companion to canon. J. Michael Straczynski himself has said on UseNet
that there is more to Morden than meets the eye, though he has not explained
himself in detail, and none of the television tie-in novels are published or
written without his input and approval. With this information, then, it is
reasonable to assume that the novels by Cavellos can be used as a secondary
source for reading of the primary source material, the text that is ‘Babylon 5’ itself.
Morden and Sheridan.
Up until midway in season two, Morden’s primary interest on Babylon 5 seems to be
Londo Mollari. He is manipulating the Ambassador for the purposes of his
Associates, to begin to sow the seeds of chaos and evolution, promoting growth
through war and conflict. In ‘In The Shadow of Z’ha’dum,’ however, another
dimension is added to both his character and that of John Sheridan. When Sheridan is going through
his dead wife’s effects, he finds an old file about the crew of The Icarus.
Garibaldi recognises Morden from the data on the file, and Sheridan is immediately on a single-minded
hunt for the former associate of his deceased wife.
In an interrogation between Morden and Sheridan, the first
cracks in Morden’s calm façade appear. He is always charming, always polite,
always soft voiced, even in the face of rising anger and confrontational
attitudes from Sheridan, but it isn’t until Sheridan calls him a liar
that we see that calm façade break.
Sheridan’s
single mindedness in learning the truth behind Morden’s survival of an event
that apparently had no survivors leads him to trick the station’s resident
telepath, Talia Winters into scanning him as they pass each other in the
corridors. Talia sees Morden as Delenn did – shrouded in shadow, but more than
that, she sees the Shadows themselves and hears them in her mind. The
experience is a painful one, and she is obviously distressed by what she has
seen and felt that she slaps Sheridan
when she next sees him. This brief encounter between the telepath and the
Shadows and Morden himself suggests that the Shadows are powerful enough to be
the thing the telepaths would fear the most.
Morden informs Sheridan he is playing a dangerous game –
words that Sheridan ignores, until those words are reinforced again and again
by Garibaldi, Ivanova, Londo through Vir, Talia, and finally by Delenn and
Kosh. With what Sheridan
learns from Kosh about Morden, Z’ha’dum and his wife, he understands that he
has to let Morden go, though he does so reluctantly. It is when he sees the
Shadows and has the evidence that Delenn’s words are true, that Morden is never
alone, that he understands that he has to make a choice between personal
revenge and something greater than himself. Of course, this makes little
difference to Morden, who visits Babylon
5 seemingly on a whim over the course of the next season and a half. His
encounter with Sheridan
seems not to have affected him whatsoever.
“Morden knows that legally, Sheridan can’t touch him, and maybe it is
because he feels safe surrounded by his unseen Shadow masters. ‘It never really
feels like there’s a lot at stake for Morden,’ says the actor, Ed Wasser, ‘He’s
so cool, so collected, so in control.”
Despite the small cracks in Morden’s façade during the interrogation scene, it
is obvious from the way he carries himself while being moved between cells and
in the interrogation itself that he feels very little sense of threat from the
captain of the station. While Delenn points out to Sheridan that yes,
eventually, Morden will probably tell him what he wants to know, she adds that
in doing so, he would then be killed, as would Sheridan himself, and the
Shadows would move at that point in time, before the Vorlons and the Minbari
are ready for them.
The Shadows.
Who are these mysterious alien Associates of Mr. Morden?
Unlike the Vorlons, The Shadows have very little known about them that is not
at least a thousand years old. According to Anna, in ‘Z’ha’dum,’ the Shadows
actual name is one thousand characters long and unpronounceable. They were in
isolation until The Icarus landed on Z’ha’dum and a scouting party picked up an
energy spike and went to examine the causes for it. The viewer sees fragments
of The Shadows, usually in flashback sequences or brief visions via such
individuals as Talia Winters, but nothing concrete until the final episode of
Season Three. ‘Z’ha’dum’ answers a lot of questions that have gone before, but
also functions as the launching pad for more questions for season four. The
true nature of the battle being fought between the Vorlons and the Shadows has
been extrapolated to represent many things, some as fanciful as paralleling
Michael Moorcock’s ‘Eternal Champion’ cycle. In reality, the basis for the
conflict between order and chaos comes from Babylonian creation myth.
“The Vorlon/Shadow philosophical disagreement stems from
Babylonian creation myth, which says the universe was created through conflict
between order and chaos.” In
contemporary analogies, this comes back to the previously discussed idea of the
conflict between Darwinists and Biblicists. The Darwinists believe in the
theory of evolution, chaos, the ‘Big Bang’ that led to millions of years of
evolution and growth, while the Biblicists, to put it in its most simplistic
terms, believe in the creation of the universe by an omniscient force – not
necessarily the Christian God – and that human and sentient evolution only came
about through obedience to the dictates of that omniscient force.
Morden’s relationship to the Shadows is surprisingly
complex. On the one hand, we see a man who is devoid of feelings, who is
apparently serene and untouched by any anger or outwardly shows negative
emotions. He appears to be wholly committed to the Shadows cause, and within
the primary text, gives no indication whatsoever that he might be working for
them for any other reason than a one hundred percent agreement and belief in
the Darwinist ideal extrapolated by the Shadows own ideology. As Morden is an
archaeologist by training, it is reasonable to assume that this Darwinist
approach to evolution would hold far more appeal to the scientific and
analytical mind than the Biblicist mindset of the Vorlons, and that is the sole
reason for his choosing to ally himself with The Shadows.
However, to look deeper into the characters background, particularly
as described by Cavellos, there is more to Morden’s alliance with The Shadows
than pure science or Darwinist ideals. He is a man troubled by the memories of
his wife and daughter, and of their deaths. He is incapable of moving beyond
those memories and gathering himself together in order to move forward and
create a new life for himself. In essence, it is as if some part of him died
when his family were killed. By using the imagery of his wife and child
screaming for help, projecting the idea that somehow they were being held by
the Shadows, Cavellos suggests that Morden’s basis for allying himself with his
Associates stems from his inability to let go.
In examining the text and the secondary sources, it is more
apropos to say that Morden is a combination of both these ideas rather than one
over the other. Certainly in the text he exhibits no emotion and little to no
background story is provided him, but what we do see of his demeanour and what
we glean from secondary sources suggest that his character and reasons for
allying himself with the Shadows comes from both reasons presented – Darwinist
ideals and the desire to save his family from the perceived stasis they are
held in, projected to Morden by the Shadows themselves.
Conclusion.
“He watches people; he lets them go where they’re going, and
then he plays them like a fiddle,’ says Ed Wasser. ‘Morden knows everything.
But he’s not evil. He thinks what he’s doing is for the good of all. He
believes the Shadows are the winning team…Emotionally he’s somewhat vacant; he
has the whole picture, but can’t tip his hat to what really makes him tick…It’s
very iced, very controlled. The more I understand him, the more I understand
his emotional mechanism and know that I can’t let it out.”
The role of Morden within the arc of ‘Babylon 5’ is a small but pivotal one.
Without his presence as the liaison between his Associates and the rest of the
sentients on the station, the Shadows would not have been as mysterious as they
were. The use of the pleasant and charming Mr. Morden to instigate
communications and make deals for them allowed for the Shadows to move far more
quietly and in the background than their opposites, the Vorlons. While many fen
to this day still discuss the Shadows versus Vorlon debate, the role of Mr.
Morden within that debate is inescapable. He has gone from being a minor
character to an important character, becoming the human face of the Shadows and
their ideology.
Bibliography.
Primary sources:
Stracyzinski, J. M. S, Babylon
5, Series One to Four, Warner Brothers, 1994 – 1997.
Secondary sources:
Bassom, David, The A – Z Guide to Babylon
5, Dell Publishing, New York,
1997.
Brown, Anthony, The SFX Guide to Babylon
5, Future Press, London,
1997
Cavelos, Jeanne, The Shadow Within, Del Rey, New York,
2002.
Killick, Jane, Babylon
5 Season By Season: Signs and Portents, Boxtree Books, London, 1997.
Killick, Jane, Babylon
5 Season By Season: The Coming of Shadows, Boxtree Books, London, 1997.
Killick, Jane, Babylon
5 Season By Season: No Surrender, No Retreat, Boxtree Books, London, 1998.
Nazzaro, Joe, Ambassador of Shadows, Starlog Yearbook
1997, Starlog Communications International, New York, 1997.
Nazzaro, Joe, Z’ha’dum, Babylon
5: The Official Monthly Magazine, Titan Press, London, 1997.
Internet sources:
Bray, Brandon, The
Babylon 5 Technical Manual, USA, 1996-2004, http://www.b5tech.com/index.htm
Grimm, Steve, The Lurkers
Guide to Babylon 5, 1992-2004, USA,
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/lurker.html
Kandis, The Ed Wasser
Official Site, USA,
1995-2004, http://www.wasser.com/
King, Larry and Carlson, Marc I., The
Babylon 5 Timeline, 1994-2003, USA,
http://www.chronology.org/b-five/
Murphy, Becky, The Babylon 5 Spoiler Junkies
Site, USA, 1996-2004, http://www.visi.com/~wildfoto/spoilers.html
Strazcynski, J. M. S., Usenet,
AOLnet posts, USA,
1995-1996, http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/resources/online.html
Unknown, The Shadows
Information Office, USA, 1997-2004, http://www.planet-zhadum.com/b5_sio.html
Vex, Encyclopedia
Xenobiologica: Dr. Morden, Russia, 1995-1998,
http://www.frostjedi.com/vex/html/dr._morden.htm
