“Mind War” is episode six of season one of Babylon 5.
An Earth Alliance fighter squadron is hailing a stolen transport telling it to stand down, when the transport is enveloped in some sort of energy field and disappears – and appears elsewhere.
Commander Sinclair is still seeing Catherine, who he become acquainted with once more in the previous episode, “The Parliament of Dreams”. She is going to a meeting with a megacorp about surveying a planet. Sinclair is meeting with the Construction Guild. Catherine then utters the fateful words ‘What could go wrong?’ Now, that’s just asking for trouble. The transport from the beginning the arrives at the station.
Garibaldi is talking to Talia about telepaths when two Psi Cops arrive on the station. One of them, Alfred Bester, is played by Walter Koenig, Chekhov from Star Trek. They are here to hunt down rogue telepaths, and the one they are after is not just any telepath. The man, who was on the transport, is Jason Ironheart. Talia’s instructor at the Psi Corps Training Academy. Instructors are rated P10; Psi Cops, who have to hunt down telepaths, are rated P12.
Bester says that Ironheart was reassigned to Earth Force Military Intelligence, and he has information that could endanger many covert operatives, information that he could sell to the highest bidder. Bester wants to scan Talia to see if she has been in contact with Ironheart. She hasn’t.
Afterwards, Ironheart does contact Talia. He had waited until after the scan. The story he tells is different to that Bester gave – and he can’t led the Psi Cops take him back, even if it means his own death, as Ironheart claims that millions of lives are at stake. According to Ironheart, a year ago he volunteered for an experiment designed to make telepaths more powerful. Telekinesis is extremely rare, and the experimenters wanted to create a stable telepath. The experiment was successful beyond anyone’s expectations, but Ironheart was able, as a result, to find out what people like him were really wanted for, and it he decided he couldn’t let them.
Ironheart is becoming more powerful, but he’s also unstable as his power increases, which affects the station. Sinclair is really not happy when he discovers that Bester lied to him, even if it was under orders – and it seems Bester is still not being entirely truthful.
Catherine’s mission is to Sigma 957, a planet that has some useful, and very rare, resources. It’s also in contested space, and another party needs to agree to allow the survey – Ambassador G’Kar. G’Kar tells Catherine not to go, for there have been problems reported at the planet, and that it isn’t safe. She assumes that he has an ulterior motive, but G’Kar insists that it’s a sincere warning. Catherine manages to go anyway – and it seems that G’Kar was telling the truth.
At one point, Bester makes an unusual salute and says ‘Be seeing you.’ The salute, and the phrase, come from The Prisoner.