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babylon 5 - How could Talia Winters help the rogue telepaths against Bester?



In the Babylon 5 season 2 episode "A Race Through Dark Places", Bester comes to Babylon 5 to hunt rogue telepaths. The rogues kidnap Talia Winters and convince her to help them. At the end of the episode she and the rogue telepaths manage to create a false memory in Bester. They make him believe she betrayed the rogues and the two of them (Talia and Bester) shot all of them.


However, later in the season, in the episode Divided Loyalties, we learn that Talia Winters has been a spy for the Psy Corps, which secretly planted an alternate personality in her brain.


Since her true personality was loyal to the Psy Corps, why would she help the rogue telepaths trick Bester? And even if she wasn't aware of the alternate personality spying for the corps, how could she help the rogues without that alternate personality finding a way to report to the corps about the rogue telepaths still being alive?



Answer



This was addressed by Babylon 5 showrunner J. Michael Straczynski. In short, burrowing into the 'underground railroad' and potentially compromising their entire network was a dream opportunity, even if it meant that she would occasionally seem to be working counter to PsiCorp's interests.



JMS: The real Talia was becoming more and more disenchanted with PC, and this was in time going to pull her into resistance activities, which Talia v2.0 would only be --thrilled-- about. The self-protection mechanism only kicks in when the personality's existence is threatened.


Midwinter Lurker's Guide - Divided Loyalties - JMS Speaks



Note that her core "Control" personality only surfaces when she's directly at risk of discovery/danger. Unless ordered to do so, she wouldn't compromise herself, even to share this interesting tidbit of info.



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