BPP Psi Corps #3 – Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester

The Babylon Project Podcast

Here we are, ready to discuss the third novel in the Psi Corps trilogy. As with the other two, Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester was based on a script written by JMS, and are considered canon, and written by J. Gregory Keyes. As the story ends, we pick up with Mr. Bester approximately in the year 2250, and follow him until approximately 2281, around the time John Sheridan dies and the Babylon 5 station is decommissioned. The novel takes place on Earth, and primarily in the city of Paris.

As things kick off, we’ve moved forward in time and the Psi Corps as we knew it has ended. Bester had served as its commander, and was unsurprisingly ruthless in his pursuit of rogues, not to mention using the power of the Corps against “normals”. To be blunt, the book makes some correlations to his abusive authority on par with many of history’s most horrible rulers. Within the Corps, Bester’s hand was so heavy it bolstered a new (or renewed) resistance and a telepath civil war erupted—often referred to as the Telepath War. With the help of the Interstellar Alliance (and specifically President John Sheridan), the bloodshed ends, trials are held, and some were even declared war criminals, including Bester. A new Corps is formed, this time to hunt these criminals down and bring them to justice. Through the telling of the story in this novel, we see an overall shift has occurred, changing the longstanding friction between “teeps” and “normals (or Mundanes)” to something resembling a genuine balance of power between the two.

In this environment, Bester expertly fades into the background, hiding from the new Corps, and hoping to simply live his life out. He takes up residence in a small hotel in Paris under a false identity. The rest of the novel is really the story of Bester wrestling with himself, trying to resolve his views on life, his people (the telepaths), normals, etc. This is fueled primarily through a surprise relationship he finds himself in with the owner of the hotel. She was a normal and essentially trying to recover and live out her own life after a series of unrelated traumas when their paths cross. Neither was looking for the depth of friendship they found, and as the story unfolds, the genuine love that forms between them. All the while, he’s still on the run, doing his best to maintain the lie that is his cover, but dropping what were the best practices to ensure he remained the least vulnerable to being discovered. Bester has to face the actual life he’s living, and some ghosts from his past. He wrestles with things about himself that were new to him, in some cases renewed for him, or intentionally buried, and perhaps even a few things that were true surprises to him. It’s safe to say that as we watch the fate of Al Bester unfold, one of the things this novel does is expose the realization that teeps are human, and not some sort of superior race that Bester believed they were. The novel was this, but also so much more, and well worth the time to read. In the end, we were in agreement that while we continued to hate all that Bester was, and all that he did, with the humanity of Bester revealed, this book was the end of an incredible tragedy. The tragedy of Alfred Bester is on par with the tragedy of Londo Molari that we were shown through the original series. It appropriately ends with Alfred Bester’s death, around the same time as the emotional death of one of the Babylon 5 universe’s heroes: John Sheridan.

This final novel in the trilogy covers the shortest amount of time of the three: just over 30 years. It felt shorter, and while it was a “quieter” story, it didn’t lack in the ability to hold our attention. It was a wonderful and powerful end to the story of the Psi Corps and Mr. Alfred Bester. Our ratings were a 5, 4.5 and 5 (out of 5), giving us an overall Boom Scale rating of 4.83.

Next time we’ll discuss the first in the next set of books, often called the Centauri Trilogy, but officially known as “Legions of Fire” trilogy. The first novel in the set is called “The Long Night of Centauri Prime”. If you have a copy, dust it off. If you don’t have a copy, hunt one down . Read with us and join us for the discussion.