Lyta Alexander

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Lyta Alexander
Babylon 5 character

Affiliated with	Psi Corps
Race	Human
Home planet	Earth
First appearance	Babylon 5: The Gathering
Last appearance	Objects in Motion
Portrayed by	Patricia Tallman

Lyta Alexander, played by Patricia Tallman, is a fictional character from the television science fiction drama Babylon 5. Lyta appeared in the pilot episode The Gathering, as the station's Psi Corps-assigned telepath, but did not appear in the first season. A new telepath, Talia Winters was introduced in the first episode. Lyta returns as a guest character in season 2, to replace Talia, and again from season 3 as a regular.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Lyta Alexander was born on December 10, 2225. She was a sixth-generation telepath, a lineage beginning with her great-great-great grandmother, Desa Alexander. Lyta's grandmother was Natasha Alexander, aide to Psi Corps's then director Kevin Vacit.

Lyta was trained by the Psi Corps. She briefly interned with the Psi Cops division. After an incident whilst accompanying Alfred Bester she transferred to commercial work. Originally, Alexander was a P5, or a telepath of average strength. In 2257, she was assigned as Babylon 5's first commercial telepath. Soon after arriving at the station, she scanned Vorlon Ambassador Kosh, in violation of the wishes of the Vorlon government, in order to try to discover the identity of his attacker.

The experience permanently changed her; she was recalled from her assignment a few weeks later and questioned regarding her experience with Kosh. Interrogated for months by the Psi Corps, she eventually escaped and joined the Mars Resistance. While underground, she uncovered information regarding a mole among the Babylon 5 command staff, and returned to the station in late 2259.

After revealing Talia Winters as an unwitting mole for secret forces in EarthGov, Lyta travelled to the Vorlon homeworld, one of the few known humans to do so and live. There, she was modified by the Vorlons, given gill-like implants to allow her to breathe in a Vorlon environment, the ability to "carry" a Vorlon consciousness, and given tremendously increased telepathic and psychokinetic powers. Even she did not initially realize the potency of her new abilities.

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She returned to Babylon 5 and served as an aide to Ambassador Kosh and his successor. After the Vorlons left known space in early 2261, she found herself purposeless and unwelcomed; she ultimately had to strike a deal with Psi-Cop Alfred Bester in order to maintain employment.

In early 2262, Alexander became romantically involved with Byron, the leader of a colony of rogue telepaths offered sanctuary aboard Babylon 5. Although Byron was hunted down by the Psi Corps and eventually committed suicide rather than be captured, Alexander was inspired by his cause to create a homeworld for telepaths and became the leader of a movement sponsoring violent resistance against the Corps.

Arrested aboard Babylon 5 by John Sheridan (whose contact with Vorlons gave him immunity to her Vorlon-enhanced telepathic abilities) in late 2262, Alexander struck a deal with Michael Garibaldi: He would use his contacts, gained both when he was the Head of Covert Intelligence for the Interstellar Alliance, and those from his current position as the head of Edgars Industries, to help her avoid prosecution, as well as provide funding for her cause. In return, Lyta would remove a telepathic block placed in his mind by Alfred Bester. Former Narn Ambassador G'Kar was leaving Babylon 5 at the same time, and took her with him on a mission of exploration.

She returned approximately two years later and her actions set off the events which led to the Telepath War of the mid-2260s, in which she was killed.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Lineage

The matriarchal tradition amongst families of telepaths was that the mother's unmarried name was carried forward to the children, this explains why generations of female telepaths, such as Lyta Alexander and Talia Winters all carry their surname down the generations.