Alfred Bester (Babylon 5)
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Alfred Bester is the name of a fictional character in the television series Babylon 5, played by Walter Koenig. The character was named in honor of science-fiction author Alfred Bester.
Bester is a senior Psi Corps agent who appears to be linked to the sinister alien race called The Shadows and the conspiracy which led to the seemingly accidental death of former Earth President Santiago.
The similarity of Bester's name to that of the science fiction writer is no coincidence. Psi powers were a recurring theme in the real Bester's work, and Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski named the character in his honor.
The birth, life and death of Alfred Bester is chronicled in the Psi Corps Trilogy by Gregory Keyes. In this, we learn that the fictional Alfred Bester was named after the real science fiction author by his grandfather, Kevin Vacit, in the context of the Babylon 5 universe.
His parents were Matthew and Fiona Dexter, who were both leaders of the first resistance against the Psi-Corp and had been killed by the Psi-Corps whose director, Kevin Vacit, was father to Fiona. Following their deaths, he was raised as a member of the psi-corps in cadre prime where the corps became both mother and father.
Being a P-12 he was able to join the metasensory police and soon after was able to apprehend and kill Stephen Walters, an associate of his parents and his godfather, who revealed to him his true heritage which only caused him to go berserk and empty his PPG at the man and caused one of his hands to go numb for the rest of his life.
During his career as a member of the psi-corps, he was responsible for retaking the post of director of the psi-corp from the mundanes by assassinating the director of the psi-corp.
Bester initally agreed to work with Sheridan in the Shadow War. Eventually he turned against Sheridan, and subjected Michael Garibaldi to intense reprogramming. He then used Garibaldi as a sleeper agent to uncover a plot against the corps, and also to capture Sheridan. Eventually Garibaldi was released from his programming, but Bester still left blocks in his mind that kept Garibaldi from killing him.
Following the telepath war, Alfred Bester was wanted for war crimes that he committed. He spent several years on the run before moving to Paris, France. He fell in love with a local businesswoman named Louise. But Michael Garibaldi eventually tracked him down. Bester was brought before the war crimes trial, and was tried in France for his crimes. He was sentenced to life in prison and subjected to the Sleeper drugs that deprived him of his telepathic abilities. During that time, a statue was even made of the lost child of Fiona. He then spent the next 10 years in a maximum security prison, and died shortly after the death of John Sheridan in 2281.fr:Alfred Bester (Babylon 5)