1 Work in Milla (Babylon 5)
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Summary
In Paragon of Animals, former Psi Cop Byron Gordon stands up to Garibaldi:
"Do you know what a telepath has to do in order to avoid picking up stray thoughts? We have to kick down our natural abilities. Run rhymes and little songs through our heads, round and round. All that to keep from picking up what you're broadcasting loud enough to be heard halfway down the hall. ... Mundanes want us to fill our heads with noise and babble so we won't hear what you're shouting at the top of your minds."
To be a telepath in the mundane world is like living in the never-ending hell of Kurt Vonnegut's Harrison Bergeron, sometimes with physically dangerous consequences. Bester finds this out the first time he leaves Academy grounds.
After all, as it says in Deadly Relations, p. 58, when Al is attacked by a normal for the second time in two days, and this time decides to fight back: "Al came to the painful decision that he would have to break a regulation. He probably had already - [telepathically] pushing a normal, even in self-defense."
Series
- Part 9 of Behind the Gloves