“"That's why we're here. Because we're tired of being ordered around by those who cannot hear the song. Tired of being used as cannon fodder, as inquisitors, as executioners, and as bloodhounds."
- – Byron, 2262
Byron Gordon was a rogue human telepath and former Psi Cop whose name later would become a rallying cry of the Telepath War.
History
Early Life
Like many Earth telepaths, Byron was raised by the Psi Corps. Having tested as a strong P12, he was trained through the Corps' Minor and Major Academies before fully graduating as a MetaPol Psi Cop.[1]
In 2256, Byron was assigned to Black Omega Squadron under the command of Alfred Bester. Though Bester considered him somewhat young and naive, he still intended Byron to become one of his inner circle like Donne and Ysidra Tapia. On November 18th, Byron accompanied Bester and Tapia in pursuit of a transport supposedly carrying rogue telepaths which they tracked and captured near Jupiter. After a sensor scan showed that the ship was empty, Bester realized it was a trap set by Director Johnston and his cronies. The ship exploded , damaging Bester's Starfury. Escorting Bester back to the Black Omega transport, Byron and Ysidra then headed to Ganymede, docking at the secret Icehouse facility much to the surprise of base staff. After a brief encounter with a Mr. Morden from Earthforce New Technologies Division, the members of Black Omega bunked down for the night. Awoken by an explosion that rocked the facility, Byron found a wounded Bester near a flooded section of the base where the Director had been staying. Claiming that one of Johnston's guards turned on the Director during a late night meeting with the Psi Cop, Bester shot the guard in the leg before he set off a bomb. The damaged modular section quickly flooded and Bester had only just been able to escape before it auto-detached to save the rest of the complex, though the Director was not as lucky. Officially the bombing was blamed on the Telepath Resistance, playing out exactly as he claimed. Unknown to anyone besides Bester's inner circle, it was actually Bester who staged the assassination, spending years planting telepathic triggers in Johnston's aides.[2]
Sometime later, Psi Corps received word of a covert operation smuggling telepaths into Earth's outer colonies, where it would be harder for MetaPol to find them. Byron and the rest of Black Omega intercepted and surrounded another transport suspected of carrying telepaths, demanding the crew turn the telepaths over to them under or face deadly force, to which the mundane transport crew complied. As the last lifepod containing the telepaths was clear, Bester decided to send the underground a message, ordering Byron to lock all forward weapons on the transport and preparing to fire on his command. Byron protested at first, refusing to murder a ship full of unarmed civilians in cold blood. Intent on seeing if Byron had what it took to be in his inner circle, Bester moved to lock his own weapons onto Byron's fighter, telling Byron that either he carried out his orders, or face serious consequences. The other members of Omega Squadron followed Bester's lead. Knowing that they really would kill him, Byron pulled the trigger and destroyed the ship, since "after all, they were just mundanes."[2]
When he returned to base, Byron tried to file a report on the incident, but found that nobody wanted to know. Still haunted by the incident with the transport, in April of 2258 Byron managed to escape the Corps by faking his own death in pursuit of a rogue ship near Venus. Joining the underground, Byron swore to himself that he would never allow innocents be harmed like that again, and to find a better way for his people without violence, without preying on their own kind, or letting others prey on them.[1][2]
Finding a New Way
After nearly four years on the run, Byron and his followers arrived on Babylon 5 in January 2262. In search of a new home away from mundanes and the iron grip of the Psi Corps, they were granted sanctuary on the station by Interstellar Alliance president John Sheridan. They set up a small colony in Brown 3, a part of Down Below hoping to prove telepaths could be better than mundanes by not adopting their violent ways, as the Psi Corps had done.[3]
Soon many more rogue telepaths continued to travel to the station.[4] The small peaceful group of telepaths soon became entirely too large to manage, and incidents began to break out across the station.
In the meantime, Byron began a romantic relationship with Lyta Alexander, a fellow telepath who was living on Babylon 5. During an evening of lovemaking, Lyta allowed Byron into her mind and dropped her defenses, [5] not knowing that her enhanced abilities had inadvently projected her thoughts to the other telepaths in the colony and revealing to them that telepaths were created by the Vorlons to be used as tools to fight against the Shadows.[4] After this revelation, Byron and his followers came to believe that the mundanes owed them for this role, telling his people to follow the various ambassadors of the Alliance to find out their secrets. Storming a meeting of the Interstellar Alliance Council, Byron demanded a homeworld for his people, threatening to reveal the secrets his people had discovered if the Alliance did not bend to his wishes.[6] Following this, Byron began a hunger strike with Lyta and the majority of his followers, sealing themselves inside their colony. Shortly after the Psi Corps was called in to end the situation, Byron and a handful of his supporters committed suicide rather then being taken into custody, making a him a martyr for his cause.[1]
Lyta Alexander became the de facto leader of the remainder of Byron's resistance.
Notes
- The personnel files on the "Babylon 5: Season 5 DVD" special features lists Byron's homeworld as "Mars Dome".
Appearances
- TV Series
- "No Compromises"
- "The Paragon of Animals"
- "A View from the Gallery"
- "Strange Relations"
- "Secrets of the Soul"
- "In the Kingdom of the Blind"
- "A Tragedy of Telepaths"
- "Phoenix Rising"