The
Alien Healing Device is a device that has the
ability to transfer the life force from one being to another, and
is featured in three episodes of the science fiction TV series
Babylon 5.
The alien healing device (referred to in some references as the
"lifegiver"<ref name=zero1>
Article from Voltayre's
Encyclopedia Xenobiologica, an online reference to the Babylon 5
milieu</ref>; this may or may not have any canonical
basis) was created by an unknown race, and was originally used as a
form of
capital punishment on the world it was
created on. The device had the ability to transfer life force from
one living being to another, as capital punishment it would be used
to completely drain the life force of a murderer to a mortally
wounded victim, thus killing the murderer and using his life force
to restore his victim to full health, working under the "an eye for
an eye" philosophy.
In the series, the device is first used by a
Dr. Laura Rosen, who had determined that she could safely transfer
small amounts of her own life force into patients. When attacked by
an escaped mass murderer demanding to be healed of plasma burns,
she reversed the connections, killing the mass murderer while
curing herself of a terminal, degenerative disease. In disgust for
what she had done, she turned the machine over to
Dr. Stephen
Franklin.
It is later used by Dr. Franklin and
John Sheridan to heal
Michael
Garibaldi, who is in a coma, during the first couple of
episodes of season two.
Finally, towards the end of season four,
Marcus Cole uses
the device to heal the mortally wounded
Susan Ivanova, at the
expense of his own life. His dying words to her are "I love
you."
Sources and notes
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