The Taelons – Friend or Foe

Since Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict first aired, one question has run through my mind. "Are the Taelons friend or foe?" That question has never really been answered, at least not clearly.

When we first saw them Da’an (portrayed by Leni Parker), the Taelon “American Companion”, was set to arrive in some unnamed city in the Midwest and make some special announcement about a brand new project they were embarking on with a major industrial company run by the “eccentric billionaire” Jonathon Doors (portrayed by veteran actor David Hemblen).

Doors was later “presumed” killed in a botched attempt on Da’an’s life, while they stood on the platform. Throughout that first episode, entitled “Decision”, the Taelons were portrayed as thoughtful, intelligent and mysterious visitors from another planet who came to earth to “help humanity.”

In “Decision”, the Taelons were also portrayed as being deceitful murderers in the eyes of the resistance, who fought the ever-expanding control the Taelons have over the people of Earth. The resistance claimed the Taelons had arranged the death of Kate (portrayed by Lisa Ryder), the wife of Police Captain William Boone (portrayed by Kevin Kilner).

They weren’t far from the truth, the killer was the Taelon's right hand man, FBI Agent Ronald Sandoval (portrayed by Von Flores), who killed Boone’s wife to ensure his loyalty to the Taelons.

For all intents and purposes, the Taelons seemed to offer humanity their friendship, goodwill and a peaceful co-existence. But, what secrets do they hide? In some ways the Taelons remind me of the Visitors from one of my all-time favourite series V.

On the outside, the Visitors supposedly offered the same thing the Taelons did, "peace and friendship", but in the end they had a different agenda they were hatching behind the closed doors of their “Mothership.” They, like the Taelons, were mysterious and they reeked of unknown and untold conspiracies.

And like the Visitors, the Taelons have a complex language and cultural base. The most interesting part of the Taelon language is that they adopted the word “Eunoia”, which roughly means “beautiful thinking,” as a word they use most often when talking about native tongue with humans and they use the same word for the universe as they do for language.

An enemy of the Taelons has in the past few seasons taken on a big role in the plotlines of Earth: Final Conflict. The Taelons say that the Jaridians want only to conquer and destroy, but the Jaridians say the same thing about the Taelons.

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