308: Messages From Earth

Garibaldi and Marcus help smuggle Dr Mary Kirkish aboard the station.  She tells the War Council that seven years ago, on Mars, her archaeology team excavated a Shadow vessel that had been there for at least a thousand years.  Soon after the discovery was reported to EarthGov, the ship was recovered by a similar vessel, and the incident covered up.  But now, another ship has been discovered on Ganymede, and EarthGov has no intention of returning it.

Risking the suspicions of the increasingly influential Nightwatch, Sheridan takes the White Star to Ganymede to discover that the vessel has been activated - and is out of control.  He lures it into Jupiter's atmosphere where it cannot escape the gravity and dies.  The Agamemnon arrives to give chase also but Sheridan, rather that fire upon his own ship, opens a jumpgate inside Jupiter's atmosphere to escape.  Zack is pressured by Nightwatch to discover through Garibaldi where Sheridan has been.  President Clark, suspecting an alien government conspiracy against Earth, declares Martial Law on Earth and all its colonies...

Notes: Dr Mary Kirkish's arrival was anticipated in the previous episode, Exogenesis.  The Shadow ship on Mars had been there for one thousand years - dating back to the time of the first Great War, and implying that the Shadows (and the Vorlons) were present on or near Earth at that time. Garibaldi's recollection of the Shadow ship on Mars, and the involvement of Psi Corps, is from the comic strip Shadows Past and Present (see also Infection, and the novel Deadly Relations).  A tracking device secreted on the Shadow ship directed the humans to Z'ha'dum, the Icarus being the ship despatched to investigate (see Revelations, In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum and the novel The Shadow Within)   G'Kar, still incarcerated, has started to write a book of his experiences, something that resurfaces in Point of No Return and The Ragged Edge.  Delenn watches Sheridan sleep aboard the White Star, a significant moment recalled in Shadow Dancing and Atonement.  The culmination of the research on Shadow technology is seen in Between the Darkness and the Light.

Guest Cast: Nancy Stafford (Dr Kirkish).