Babylon 5 Exposes The Truth About Why Politicians Can Never Be Trusted

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 13 seconds ago

Sabotage, blackmail, extortion, it’s all another day at the office for the political representatives onboard Babylon 5. The intergalactic space station is supposed to be a neutral zone for trade, commerce, politics, negotiations, and all manner of diplomatic activity, but early on during Babylon 5’s run, viewers learned how dirty politics can get in the 23rd century.

“Born to the Purple,” the third episode of Season 1, is the first of many episodes to focus on the Centaurian Ambassador, Londo Mollari (Peter Jurasik), this time, he’s fallen for the classic spy move: the honeypot. 

Women Were Always Londo’s Greatest Weakness

It’s a classic move in real-world espionage that exploits sexual relationships for the purposes of blackmail and information gathering. In “Born to the Purple” Londo finds himself smitten by a gorgeous Centauri dancer, Adira Tyree (Fabiana Uderno), to the point that he’s abandoned diplomatic duties, including the crafting of a peace treaty with the Narn and his future best friend forever, G’Kar (Andreas Katsulas).

That’s an unintended side effect of her attention. The plan hatched by Adira’s owner Trakis (Clive Revill, the original voice of Star Wars Emperor Palpatine) is to steal the Purple Files and blackmail the Centauri into doing everything he wants. 

The Purple Files contain information on the highest ranks of the Centauri government, including secrets that very powerful, very important individuals don’t want to be made public. Londo is, allegedly, an important Centauran, and also an easy mark.

Adira manages to scan his brain while he’s sleeping off the drugs she slipped him, gets the information, and then has a change of heart and betrays Trakis. Trakis responds by convincing Londo she’s really a Narn agent and uses the lovestruck fool to help track down where she’s hiding. 

While Londo and Sinclair infiltrate the Dark Star club, G’Kar and Talia Winters (Andrea Thompson) meet with Tarkis to verify that he has the Purple Files. Talia uses the old psi-corp trick of saying, “don’t think of what I’m about to tell you,” and gets the location of where he kept Adria. The ability to read minds feels like a cheat code in a world of political espionage. 

Adira is eventually recovered, and her ownership papers are taken from Trakis, allowing her to stay, as a free woman, with Londo onboard Babylon 5. She breaks his heart when she decides to go to a Centauri planet instead. One day, she’ll return for Londo. 

The Honeypot Has Been Used Throughout History

“Born to the Purple” is the first hint at the incredible chemistry between Londo and G’Kar when they give the exact same advice to their subordinates at the negotiating table: “Don’t give away the home world.”

It’s a glimpse into the depths that hide beneath Londo’s foppish appearance and his unique view on the world of love. As a standalone episode, there’s not a lot connecting it to the rest of Babylon 5 outside of the fantastic character moments that would eventually define the series. Not every episode has to push the mythology arc forward, something that creator J. Michael Straczynski was well aware of, and the episode’s writer, Larry Ditillio, helped lay the foundation for the revelations of later seasons. 

Honeypots like Adria were used in actual, real-world espionage and popularized by Russia during the Cold War. Watch The Americans, and you’ll quickly realize most of their spy work involved pretending to be in relationships with the target.

An argument could be made that poor Anne Boleyn from The Tudors is an early historical example. If anyone on board Babylon 5 would fall head over heels for the honeypot, it would be Londo, and if anyone could eventually convince a honeypot to come back to him, it’s also Londo.