Warner Bros Tv/Kobal/ShutterstockSpace rebellions are old hat. Even before Star Wars taught a generation that being part of the Rebel Alliance could turn you into a hero, Robert A Heinlien’s Revolt in 2100 told of humankind rising up against a dictatorship, while the famous Doctor Who serial “The Dalek Invasion of Earth” (later remade as the 1966 film Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D.) established that humans fighting against an occupying alien force could be as exciting as it was horrifying. But what if Earth itself was the enemy? What if humanity turned on itself? Technically speaking, everything in the original Star Wars is a civil war, but it hits a little differently when the combatants are Earth against everyone else.In 1996, during the week of April 1, Babylon 5 Season 3 aired what was, up until that point, its most pivotal episode. The civil war between Earth and its colonies had been brewing for quite some time, but in “Severed Dreams,” the main characters of the show actively decided to break away from Earth, and in doing so, completely changed the game for what a weekly sci-fi TV series could accomplish. An Earthforce destroyer under attack in Babylon 5’s “Severed Dreams.” | Warner BrosAs has been well-documented elsewhere, Babylon 5 was a pioneer of primetime TV serialization, especially in sci-fi series. Concepts only mentioned in Season 1 of Babylon 5 paid off big time in Season 3, and beyond. And one of those ideas was the notion that an accident that claimed the life of Earth President Santiago at the end of Season 1 was not an accident at all, but instead, part of a coup d'état planned by then-Vice President Clark. By the time we get to the middle of B5 Season 3, with “Severed Dreams,” Clark’s authoritarian style of governance has pushed several factions of the Earth Alliance into open rebellion, which, before, was a top-secret thing. The undercurrent with all of this is that Clark’s unconstitutional takeover of the Earth is actually just one piece of a larger intergalactic struggle; an ancient race called the Shadows is gathering dark forces during this time, so oddly enough, the moment that Babylon 5 breaks away from Earth Alliance actually frees up the rest of Season 3 to focus on battling the Shadows, across time and space.This isn’t to say that the idea of B5 seceding from Earth was taken lightly in this episode. Far from it. In fact, the moment Captain Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) decides that the space station will become an independent state was shocking at the time, because you couldn’t imagine another sci-fi franchise doing the same thing. Sheridan saying that B5 was no longer part of Earthforce would be like if Picard (Patrick Stewart) left Starfleet in The Next Generation, or if Sisko (Avery Brooks) joined the Maquis in Deep Space Nine.“Severed Dreams” treats this moment with the gravity it deserves by reminding us that in an actual civil war, things would get messy on a personal level really fast. Major Ryan (Bruce McGill) bemoans a victory against an enemy ship early in the episode, noting that he actually knew the captain of the ship that was just blown up. And, ahead of a communications blackout between B5 and Earth, Sheridan has a tender moment with his father, over a quick video call. (Of note, Sheridan’s dad is played by Rance Howard, real-life father of Ron and Clint, in a really great, tender performance, and his first of three B5 cameos.)Today, “Severed Dreams” is perhaps best remembered for the final act, in which Delenn (the late, great Mira Furlan) arrives with a fleet of Minbari ships to turn the tide against the Earthforce attack against B5. Delenn famously threatens the Earth ships, “If you value your lives, be somewhere else.” But what perhaps gets forgotten is that Delenn’s entire journey in this episode is telling people to get out of her way: The only reason she has the firepower to support B5 at the end of the episode is that she tells the Grey Council to get their sh*t together earlier in the episode. Again, Babylon 5 was pushing boundaries, and by upending various tropes, Delenn dissolving the Grey Council was a bit like the Babylon 5 version of someone telling all the Elves in The Lord of the Rings to stop sitting around and ordering other people to destroy the One Ring. “Severed Dreams” is about B5 leaving the Earth Alliance, but it’s also about deepening the ad-hoc fellowship between various species in their larger fight against the Shadows.What goes without saying is that “Severed Dreams” is a massive battle episode: There are space battles outside the station, and a siege with ground groups inside the station in which human B5 security forces team up with the Narn to fight other humans. Essentially, the Narn, who were drafted into service a few episodes prior, are fighting and perishing for humans in an effort to protect the sovereignty of the space station more broadly. It’s heavy stuff, and again, relative to other sci-fi of the time, very unflinching. While the episode ends with a technical victory for the crew, the creator of the show, J. Michael Straczynski, didn’t want the audience to feel too good about it. In 1996, Straczynski noted that “I hate leaving the audience feeling cocky,” and pointed out that at the time, a lot of shows would have faded out when Sheridan ordered all the ships to return to base.But Babylon 5 showed us what came next: Bloodied and wounded humans and Narn, on both sides of the fight, struggling to breathe and survive after the shooting stopped. The following episode would find Sheridan and the crew struggling with how they could even justify wearing the same uniforms after leaving Earthforce. This idea led to a subtle reboot for the show, but in this moment at the end, “Severed Dreams” attempted to remind audiences that space rebellions weren’t cool, but deadly serious. Babylon 5 is available for rent or purchase on Apple TV, Prime Video, and elsewhere.