SUMMARY: When an unidentified spacecraft hurtles toward Babylon 5 on a collision course, Sinclair takes out a fighter and safely captures the craft.
The station's new medical officer, Dr. Stephen Franklin, Michael Garibaldi inspect the injured alien pilot and his ship. Delenn is horrified to see that it's a Soul Hunter, a feared enemy who captures and collects the souls of dying aliens.
Delenn begs Sinclair to kill the evil stranger, but Sinclair doesn't agree with her religious fears--until he witnesses the Hunter's chilling behavior at the exact moment when a man dies elsewhere inside the station.
The Hunter can literally see the man's soul leave it's body--and he reacts with ecstasy.
To calm the intense fears of the aliens aboard the space station, Sinclair orders the Soul Hunter to leave Babylon 5.
Before he departs, Delenn confronts the Soul Hunter, demanding the location of his "collection" - the assortment of trapped souls he always carries. The Soul Hunter recognizes Delenn as being from the Minbari's highest ruling class. Why, he asks, is she posing as a mere diplomatic
ambassador aboard Babylon 5? He escapes from Garibaldi's security guards, retrieves his collection pouch from his ship and hides in a deserted construction zone of the station.
A second Soul Hunter arrives in pursuit, revealing to Sinclair that his colleague is a fanatical renegade who murders aliens instead of waiting for them to die.
As the Soul Hunter kidnaps Delenn and slowly drains her blood to preserve her soul without trauma, Sinclair and Garibaldi find his hiding place. Sinclair turns the Soul Hunter's soul-stealing machine against the Soul Hunter and encases him in one of the "soul stones."

BRASH REFLECTIONS:
I can remember when I saw this episode for the first time. I can remember thinking, "Why can't they do more with the Soul Hunters?" Guess what? Stick around for November 8 1998.

Does that second Soul Hunter remind of a certain annoying neggotiator? (See "By Any Means Neccasary").

Brillant episode and I loved the spiritual lesson that the ending provided to the viewers. I
thought this was one of the best Babylon 5 episodes that I ever read.

Have ever seen.

Sorry, have to express my opinion here. This episodes ranks as one of the worst ever on Science Fiction that agrees with the first season of Babylon 5 being absolutely awful. Not that I don't like B5, I actually quite enjoyed it once it picked up, but I think this is where it hit rock bottom. The episode had so many inconsistencies and was tremendously boring.

Soul Hunters? Boring? I had too many chills running down my back for me to be bored.

Anonymous - be a true Nitpicker and tell us what the inconsistencies were!

To me this is an episode that when you see it for the first time, doesn't seem toi have much to stand on. When you tie it in to he arc, it makes a lot more sense. Knowing about the arc, IMHO, makes it more enjoyable to watch.

Also, seeing Delenn in such a fury is shocking. We later find out that Delenn can be very pi**ed off, but at this early stage this is a shock.

Notice the solder sucker used to drain Delenn's blood.

After the second soul hunter comes aboard, Sinclair wants him to demonstrate his sensibities to find Delenn. The soul hunter pinpoints the location on a panel with a small layout of the station.
There are 2 problems with scene. First, how is he supposed to show a exact location on a 2-D map? Second, when the shot changes, his finger jumps from top to bottom of the green segment of the map.

As one ship leaves the station, Ivanova tells it, “Confirmed, Epsilon 3”. That’s the same name as the planet they’re in orbit around. Couldn’t that be a bit confusing? [Actually, this ship called ‘Epsilon’ turns up a couple more times in future episodes.]

The Lurker's Guide outright stated that Franklin did not believe in the concept of souls. This seems erroneous to me. The impression I got was that he considered the idea that someone's actual soul could be captured in a little glass ball to be absurd.

That's the impression I got too, Gordon.

Show Premises

- President's doctor is Dr. Kyle (stephen said he ran into him on Io on his way to Earth.

- Jeff's star fury is designated DF-1004 in this episode. The marking is on the upper left wing. I'll be curious if I see such markings later in the series.


Ruminations

A different type of science fiction that people might be used to. Given that there is a bigger connection to the spiritual than you'd find in Star Trek.

Speaking of Star Trek, the idea of taking someone's soul and encasing it in some sphere is really not much different than the Vulcan katras and the Katrac arks that we learn about in ENT.

...and Gul Dukat... boy, does he get around!

Soul Hunter: "Before I came here, I visited Feraginar to steal the soul of Grand Nagus Zek... and sample the clothing styles.
The soul hunter wears a head garment that looks like what some of the Ferangi wear.

NITS

What is Delenn being restrained with? It looks like she's being held down by duct tape covered with tin foil.

I enjoyed the sequence in which the Starfury had to sync its movements with that ship hurtling toward the station in order to stop it. I first read about that scene in a Wikipedia article on the show that mentioned how the series would take actual outer space physics into account.

Otherwise, I was bored by this episode. I didn't see why "souls" were being treated as something scientific, or how the conflict in this episode impacted on a thematic or character level.