BtVS: Just Another Day - 6.14 Dilemma
I finished Farscape season 1 last night. Good stuff. I just have one question: What the hell happened to Stark? They rescued him from the base, they took him onboard Moya, by all accounts it seemed like he was going to become another crew member - and then in the second to last episode he just kind of vanished. "Yeah, we're going on a suicide mission, guess we'd better not tell Stark what we're doing or even act as though he's on our ship at all." That happens to me all the time when I'm GMing ("Hey, what happened to NPC X who we picked up 4 sessions ago?" "Ummmmm...he disappeared one day"), but I'm shocked it happened in a TV show. When that happens in gaming we call it "falling down a plot hole" - which just deepens my belief that Farscape is the show that is the most like a roleplaying game of any show I've ever seen, including Record of Lodoss War. I hope he comes back in the second season (well, I know he does, cause I've seen some of season 2 already, but I hope he comes back soon then), cause Stark is pretty cool.
Or maybe Stark was drunk in the wagon?
Speaking of gaming, it's high time I gave you good people a Buffy summary to read on what's left of your weekend.
Previous episode here.
In the company of Simon and his until-recently-estranged family members, Ally takes the train to New Jersey to visit Simon's grandmother Lydia in a nursing home, hoping that she can help track down Jack's soul. At first, the visit does not seem especially promising; Grandma Lydia seems pretty out of it, and Simon's parents' ominous warnings about the need to avoid magic use so that "we don't have to move Grandma again" suggests to Ally that not a lot of real help is going to come out of this. But once Simon's family gets into Grandma Lydia's room and away from anyone else, Grandma Lydia immediately becomes lucid and says to Ally, "There's a ghost following you around. I think he wants to talk to you." Surprised, Ally says she wants to hear from the ghost as well, and Simon's family quickly bands together to perform a clandestine ritual that will allow the ghost to materialize in the physical world and tell Ally what he wants.
When the ritual is completed, a tough-looking ghost with swastika tattoos up and down his arms stands before Ally in the nursing home room. He says that his name is Rath, and that he's speaking to Ally in response to her call for help in the spiritual realms. He knows where Jack's soul is because both of them were once in the same dimension together, and that he can tell Ally where to find it - for a price. Rath admits to being a white supremacist gang member in life, but claims he was trying to get straight when a person named Michael Reilly ended his life. Rath believes in an eye for an eye, and says he'll tell Ally where Jack's soul is if she will kill Michael Reilly on his behalf. No matter how much she may want Jack's soul back, Ally knows better than to agree to this deal without verifying the details for herself first, so she tells Rath she'll check out his story and get back to him soon. Rath, it seems, will be tagging along to make sure that Ally doesn't try to con him in any way, which Ally permits. Then she and Simon head out to get started.
Back in Teffelsburg, Joey is leaving Kirsten's workplace after lunch with her when he sees something rather unusual on a nearby street corner - an Initiative agent in full regalia, holding an assault rifle and apparently keeping a close eye on everything that's going on around him. Joey is rather concerned about this turn of events, and so calls Teresa, who as it turns out has also seen Initiative agents standing guard in the area around Art-Mental. The two of them meet up in the back room of Art-Mental and discuss what to do about this. The first step is for Joey to call Nokia, who assures him that the soldiers are just there for protection since she has reason to believe that "something big is going to happen soon". Rather ominously, Nokia also tells Joey that the time may come soon when she needs to call upon him for a favor, which would be only fair after everything she's given him, and that she hopes she can count on him when that time arrives. Joey remains noncommittal, and if anything ends up even more worried about whatever Nokia might be planning.
Since the Slayer fragments seem unlikely to get any answers out of Nokia, Teresa decides to take matters into her own hands by working up a tracking spell that will let her follow the movements of at least one of the Initiative soldiers. Although the spell is completed and delivered without a hitch, something strange happens when it's over - Teresa tries to teleport her staff away and it won't go. The illusory covering that usually hides the Eye has also disappeared and cannot be replaced. Teresa freaks out a little bit and does her best to hide the Eye inside her purse, but she knows this is just a temporary measure if she really wants to keep it hidden. After a bit of discussion, Teresa and Joey decide to head back to the Slayer house and get some input from the others.
In New Jersey, Rath has given Ally and Simon an address for Michael Reilly with which to get started, but nobody seems to be home. Rather than wait around for the inhabitants to come back, Ally and Simon decide to hit up public records and try to confirm Rath's story in that way. Soon they arrive at the courthouse and get to researching. They find out that Rath's legal name was Kurt Schneider, and Michael Reilly was one of the police officers responsible for arresting him. Rath was standing trial after shooting and killing several members of a rival gang, but he maintained that he did it in self-defense. Officer Reilly's testimony was largely responsible for Rath being convicted on three counts of murder and ultimately executed. The facts of Rath's case are consistent with what he told them, but is killing Reilly still the moral thing to do? In order to be absolutely certain, Ally needs to talk to Reilly, so back to his house they go.
After work, Teresa goes back to the Slayer house and tells Jake and Joey about her problems with the Eye. After some prodding, they agree to take her to a sporting goods store to get a golf club cover to put over the Eye and disguise it. The Eye creates a major scene in the sporting goods store when it starts telekinetically tugging merchandise off shelves, but Teresa manages to get out before too much damage is done. But the biggest thing that happens at the sporting goods store is that while Joey is helping Teresa, Jake gets a mental message from Nokia in which she asks him to honor the pact that Tran made with her by helping her to lay claim to Teresa's Eye of Alerion. Nokia says that the Eye is clearly too dangerous for Teresa to continue hanging on to it, and pleads with Jake to give it to her and let her use it to do some good, such as seeing Alerion's plans. Jake isn't too convinced until Nokia says that if he completes this one task, he'll release him from his servitude. Now Jake is paying attention - but he also tells Nokia that without the chance to talk to the others, he can't make any promises.
Jake, Joey, and Teresa return to the Slayer house from the sporting goods store - but before they get very far, they hear Jack screaming in the basement. The Slayer fragments rush downstairs to find out what's going on. They are shocked to see Jack tied to his bed with three stake-wielding vampires preparing to attack him. The Slayer fragments have no idea how these vampires might have even gotten into the Slayer house, and immediately attack. Right away the battle gets a little weird when the Eye randomly shoots out a ray of cold that freezes Jack's bed solid, and Jake gets frustrated when Teresa tells him not to kill any of the vampires, lest Jack vamp out as a result. But despite Teresa's warning, while Jack is wrestling with one of the vampires, it still dusts somehow and the Alerion fragment gets past Teresa's shield. Jack is holding on to his own personality, but just barely - and when another one of the vampires deliberately falls on her own stake, the Slayer fragments realize what's up and wrestle the third vampire to the ground before it can stake itself as well.
Teresa is worried about Jack, but when she checks on him he's okay - it seems that her shield held for the second salvo, although it also succeeded in deflecting the fragment of Alerion into Joey and making him rather depressed. The Slayer fragments try to get the remaining vampire to talk, but don't get very far - he only responds to questions with, "Sorry, I can't tell you that, I guess you're going to have to kill me." Of course, the Slayer fragments don't intend to do anything of the sort, but nor are they willing to give up the potential source of information that the vampire represents. Since Joey is depressed and Jake is still brooding over Nokia's offer, it falls to Teresa to try to get information out of the vampire by tying him up, playing girly music, and trying to give him a makeover.
Back in New Jersey, Ally and Simon ring Officer Reilly's doorbell and ask to speak with him under the pretense of being community college students writing a paper about the Kurt Schneider case for their criminal justice class. Reilly turns out to be a good man and a good cop, who is fairly self-effacing about his role in sending Rath to prison and doesn't seem to hold any grudge against him because he thinks he was just doing his job. Reilly does not paint a particularly complimentary picture of Rath, calling him an unrepentant gang-banger who was just trying to save his own skin, but more importantly than that Ally can tell that Reilly is a genuinely good man. Within fifteen minutes, she's made her decision. She thanks Officer Reilly and heads back to the nursing home.
Grandma Lydia helps Ally to summon up Rath again, and she tells him that the deal is off. Although she does have an obligation to help spirits, as Rath points out, she doesn't have an obligation to do things that are immoral in order to achieve that. She doesn't believe that killing Reilly would be the right thing to do, so she tells Rath to get lost. Rath says that she's giving up her best chance to find Jack's soul, and Ally says that she knows she isn't - she just needs to find another path that won't force her to do anything immoral. Rath leaves promising to tell other spirits about how she wouldn't help him, but Ally doesn't much seem to care.
No sooner has Rath left than the room suddenly fills up with an almost blinding white light, and an ethereal-looking woman clad entirely in white appears out of nowhere in the place where Rath once stood. She introduces herself as Sharsein, a representative of the Powers That Be - which practically makes Ally's jaw hit the floor. She tells Ally that "you passed the test" - that is, when confronted with the choice to achieve her goal by doing something she believed to be immoral, Ally would not do it even though it was clearly going to make her goal that much harder. Because of that, Sharsein wishes to become Ally's patron and begin a partnership in the hopes of eventually defeating Alerion. Sharsein can find Jack's soul for Ally, but there's one catch - because of how closely the whereabouts of Jack's soul seem to be tied to Alerion, she needs the Eyes of Alerion to find it. Sharsein can obtain the Eye that the demoness Hessrina earned from Teresa on her own, but since one Eye is useless she needs the Slayer fragments to hand over the other Eye as well. It's a tall order, but Ally sees no reason not to trust Sharsein, and tells her she needs to talk to the others before she can make a final decision. Sharsein agrees that this is fair, and says that all Ally needs to do to contact her later on is speak her name.
On that note, it's time for Ally and Simon to get back to Teffelsburg. Simon's family is still a little bit starstruck from Sharsein showing up, but they regain their composure long enough to tell Ally that it was great to meet her and she's welcome back anytime - as is Simon. On the train ride back, Simon seems relieved and also surprised that the visit went as well as it did, and also that they were so accepting of Ally. Unfortunately, with Sharsein's appearance, it looks like it might be some time before Ally gets another relaxing weekend away from home.
When Ally and Simon get back to the Slayer house, everybody sits down to fill each other in on the respective events of their days. The rest of the Slayer fragments are quite shocked to hear that Ally has had an encounter with one of the Powers That Be ("What did it do? Did it try to smite you?") and are, for the most part, quite tempted by Sharsein's offer - until Joey's phone rings. It's Nokia, repeating her offer to Joey, but with the deal sweetened a little bit: Bring her the Eye, and she'll commit her Initiative troops to the fight against Alerion. Joey relays this to the others, and they ask to have Nokia put on speaker phone so that she can explain herself better. Nokia complies, and explains that although she is a powerful demon, she doesn't want Alerion to take over the world any more than the Slayer fragments do - because in a world where Alerion ruled over everything, there would be no space left for Nokia, her Initiative army, her private army, or anything else that she wanted to achieve. Even though their agendas may not always mesh, Nokia realizes that the Slayer fragments are probably the world's best hope for defeating Alerion, and because of that she's willing to lend her strength to theirs - but she can only do it with the Eye. Ally then asks Nokia to leave the Slayer fragments alone so that they can talk about their options, and Nokia complies.
There follows an extremely long conversation in which the Slayer fragments debate their three options - that is, giving the Eye to Sharsein, giving the Eye to Nokia, and keeping the Eye for themselves. Although Ally entertains the third option for a while, the others don't seem convinced that it's very feasible; the Eye is only going to continue to make them a target, and the strange powers it is displaying will probably only get worse as time goes on. There's also the fact that Alerion is clearly stepping up its targeting of the Slayer fragments by sending an apparent force of suicide commandos to attack Jack, so if the Slayer fragments are going to ally with a stronger force to take down the demon, the time to do it is now. That leaves two choices: ally with Sharsein, or ally with Nokia.
Ally is a strong supporter of Sharsein, and her passion is definitely beginning to win others over to her cause. Sharsein has a lot going for her; she's probably more likely to be able to get the second Eye away from Hessrina than Nokia is, and she's also not asking for the Eye out of greed but rather because she needs it. But Jake objects to the idea of giving the Eye to Sharsein, because he thinks that getting Jack's soul back is just dodging the real problem of Alerion gaining more power. Sure, getting Jack's soul back will prevent Alerion from using him as a vessel to get back to Earth, but it won't destroy Alerion forever. It'll just slow Alerion down while it figures out how to get another vessel. Jake doesn't want half-measures like this; he wants to do something that will address the root cause of Alerion's dominion over Earth, and he thinks that Nokia is more likely to be able to help the Slayer fragments address that in a timely fashion. There's also the fact that Ally's research can't turn up any information about Sharsein; Ally knows that this is reasonable because the Powers That Be are often very well-hidden from mere mortals, and also because Sharsein said that Alerion had repressed knowledge of her because she positioned herself against Alerion, but the fact remains that they have to take Sharsein's word that she is who she says she is and that she wants to do the right thing with the Eyes.
On the other hand, Nokia may be far less trustworthy than one of the Powers That Be, but at least her motivation is clear and she can provide immediate assistance right then and there. Ally and Jake are in serious disagreement about the value of her Initiative soldiers - Jake thinks they represent real, tangible support as opposed to vague promises of information and aid, whereas Ally isn't sure if they'll be of any use in the real fight against Alerion. But in the end, everyone agrees that the real decision needs to come down (at least in part) to Teresa, since she's the one who's carried the Eye for so long and taken care of it. Ultimately, Teresa decides that she wants Sharsein to put her money where her mouth is by presenting the second Eye before Teresa hands over the first. Sharsein says she can do it, but will need a day or so to get everything together. At least on the surface, it seems that the Slayer fragments have finally come to an agreement that they can all accept. It's getting late, so everyone heads to bed except for Ally, who along with Jack will stay in the library to guard the Eye overnight.
On his way out of the library, Jake thinks: "Nokia, you heard all that, right?"
"Of course I did, darlin'," responds Nokia telepathically.
"I'm going to honor my side of the bargain. You honor yours." Then Jake goes up to his room, scheming all the way.
Or maybe Stark was drunk in the wagon?
Speaking of gaming, it's high time I gave you good people a Buffy summary to read on what's left of your weekend.
Previous episode here.
In the company of Simon and his until-recently-estranged family members, Ally takes the train to New Jersey to visit Simon's grandmother Lydia in a nursing home, hoping that she can help track down Jack's soul. At first, the visit does not seem especially promising; Grandma Lydia seems pretty out of it, and Simon's parents' ominous warnings about the need to avoid magic use so that "we don't have to move Grandma again" suggests to Ally that not a lot of real help is going to come out of this. But once Simon's family gets into Grandma Lydia's room and away from anyone else, Grandma Lydia immediately becomes lucid and says to Ally, "There's a ghost following you around. I think he wants to talk to you." Surprised, Ally says she wants to hear from the ghost as well, and Simon's family quickly bands together to perform a clandestine ritual that will allow the ghost to materialize in the physical world and tell Ally what he wants.
When the ritual is completed, a tough-looking ghost with swastika tattoos up and down his arms stands before Ally in the nursing home room. He says that his name is Rath, and that he's speaking to Ally in response to her call for help in the spiritual realms. He knows where Jack's soul is because both of them were once in the same dimension together, and that he can tell Ally where to find it - for a price. Rath admits to being a white supremacist gang member in life, but claims he was trying to get straight when a person named Michael Reilly ended his life. Rath believes in an eye for an eye, and says he'll tell Ally where Jack's soul is if she will kill Michael Reilly on his behalf. No matter how much she may want Jack's soul back, Ally knows better than to agree to this deal without verifying the details for herself first, so she tells Rath she'll check out his story and get back to him soon. Rath, it seems, will be tagging along to make sure that Ally doesn't try to con him in any way, which Ally permits. Then she and Simon head out to get started.
Back in Teffelsburg, Joey is leaving Kirsten's workplace after lunch with her when he sees something rather unusual on a nearby street corner - an Initiative agent in full regalia, holding an assault rifle and apparently keeping a close eye on everything that's going on around him. Joey is rather concerned about this turn of events, and so calls Teresa, who as it turns out has also seen Initiative agents standing guard in the area around Art-Mental. The two of them meet up in the back room of Art-Mental and discuss what to do about this. The first step is for Joey to call Nokia, who assures him that the soldiers are just there for protection since she has reason to believe that "something big is going to happen soon". Rather ominously, Nokia also tells Joey that the time may come soon when she needs to call upon him for a favor, which would be only fair after everything she's given him, and that she hopes she can count on him when that time arrives. Joey remains noncommittal, and if anything ends up even more worried about whatever Nokia might be planning.
Since the Slayer fragments seem unlikely to get any answers out of Nokia, Teresa decides to take matters into her own hands by working up a tracking spell that will let her follow the movements of at least one of the Initiative soldiers. Although the spell is completed and delivered without a hitch, something strange happens when it's over - Teresa tries to teleport her staff away and it won't go. The illusory covering that usually hides the Eye has also disappeared and cannot be replaced. Teresa freaks out a little bit and does her best to hide the Eye inside her purse, but she knows this is just a temporary measure if she really wants to keep it hidden. After a bit of discussion, Teresa and Joey decide to head back to the Slayer house and get some input from the others.
In New Jersey, Rath has given Ally and Simon an address for Michael Reilly with which to get started, but nobody seems to be home. Rather than wait around for the inhabitants to come back, Ally and Simon decide to hit up public records and try to confirm Rath's story in that way. Soon they arrive at the courthouse and get to researching. They find out that Rath's legal name was Kurt Schneider, and Michael Reilly was one of the police officers responsible for arresting him. Rath was standing trial after shooting and killing several members of a rival gang, but he maintained that he did it in self-defense. Officer Reilly's testimony was largely responsible for Rath being convicted on three counts of murder and ultimately executed. The facts of Rath's case are consistent with what he told them, but is killing Reilly still the moral thing to do? In order to be absolutely certain, Ally needs to talk to Reilly, so back to his house they go.
After work, Teresa goes back to the Slayer house and tells Jake and Joey about her problems with the Eye. After some prodding, they agree to take her to a sporting goods store to get a golf club cover to put over the Eye and disguise it. The Eye creates a major scene in the sporting goods store when it starts telekinetically tugging merchandise off shelves, but Teresa manages to get out before too much damage is done. But the biggest thing that happens at the sporting goods store is that while Joey is helping Teresa, Jake gets a mental message from Nokia in which she asks him to honor the pact that Tran made with her by helping her to lay claim to Teresa's Eye of Alerion. Nokia says that the Eye is clearly too dangerous for Teresa to continue hanging on to it, and pleads with Jake to give it to her and let her use it to do some good, such as seeing Alerion's plans. Jake isn't too convinced until Nokia says that if he completes this one task, he'll release him from his servitude. Now Jake is paying attention - but he also tells Nokia that without the chance to talk to the others, he can't make any promises.
Jake, Joey, and Teresa return to the Slayer house from the sporting goods store - but before they get very far, they hear Jack screaming in the basement. The Slayer fragments rush downstairs to find out what's going on. They are shocked to see Jack tied to his bed with three stake-wielding vampires preparing to attack him. The Slayer fragments have no idea how these vampires might have even gotten into the Slayer house, and immediately attack. Right away the battle gets a little weird when the Eye randomly shoots out a ray of cold that freezes Jack's bed solid, and Jake gets frustrated when Teresa tells him not to kill any of the vampires, lest Jack vamp out as a result. But despite Teresa's warning, while Jack is wrestling with one of the vampires, it still dusts somehow and the Alerion fragment gets past Teresa's shield. Jack is holding on to his own personality, but just barely - and when another one of the vampires deliberately falls on her own stake, the Slayer fragments realize what's up and wrestle the third vampire to the ground before it can stake itself as well.
Teresa is worried about Jack, but when she checks on him he's okay - it seems that her shield held for the second salvo, although it also succeeded in deflecting the fragment of Alerion into Joey and making him rather depressed. The Slayer fragments try to get the remaining vampire to talk, but don't get very far - he only responds to questions with, "Sorry, I can't tell you that, I guess you're going to have to kill me." Of course, the Slayer fragments don't intend to do anything of the sort, but nor are they willing to give up the potential source of information that the vampire represents. Since Joey is depressed and Jake is still brooding over Nokia's offer, it falls to Teresa to try to get information out of the vampire by tying him up, playing girly music, and trying to give him a makeover.
Back in New Jersey, Ally and Simon ring Officer Reilly's doorbell and ask to speak with him under the pretense of being community college students writing a paper about the Kurt Schneider case for their criminal justice class. Reilly turns out to be a good man and a good cop, who is fairly self-effacing about his role in sending Rath to prison and doesn't seem to hold any grudge against him because he thinks he was just doing his job. Reilly does not paint a particularly complimentary picture of Rath, calling him an unrepentant gang-banger who was just trying to save his own skin, but more importantly than that Ally can tell that Reilly is a genuinely good man. Within fifteen minutes, she's made her decision. She thanks Officer Reilly and heads back to the nursing home.
Grandma Lydia helps Ally to summon up Rath again, and she tells him that the deal is off. Although she does have an obligation to help spirits, as Rath points out, she doesn't have an obligation to do things that are immoral in order to achieve that. She doesn't believe that killing Reilly would be the right thing to do, so she tells Rath to get lost. Rath says that she's giving up her best chance to find Jack's soul, and Ally says that she knows she isn't - she just needs to find another path that won't force her to do anything immoral. Rath leaves promising to tell other spirits about how she wouldn't help him, but Ally doesn't much seem to care.
No sooner has Rath left than the room suddenly fills up with an almost blinding white light, and an ethereal-looking woman clad entirely in white appears out of nowhere in the place where Rath once stood. She introduces herself as Sharsein, a representative of the Powers That Be - which practically makes Ally's jaw hit the floor. She tells Ally that "you passed the test" - that is, when confronted with the choice to achieve her goal by doing something she believed to be immoral, Ally would not do it even though it was clearly going to make her goal that much harder. Because of that, Sharsein wishes to become Ally's patron and begin a partnership in the hopes of eventually defeating Alerion. Sharsein can find Jack's soul for Ally, but there's one catch - because of how closely the whereabouts of Jack's soul seem to be tied to Alerion, she needs the Eyes of Alerion to find it. Sharsein can obtain the Eye that the demoness Hessrina earned from Teresa on her own, but since one Eye is useless she needs the Slayer fragments to hand over the other Eye as well. It's a tall order, but Ally sees no reason not to trust Sharsein, and tells her she needs to talk to the others before she can make a final decision. Sharsein agrees that this is fair, and says that all Ally needs to do to contact her later on is speak her name.
On that note, it's time for Ally and Simon to get back to Teffelsburg. Simon's family is still a little bit starstruck from Sharsein showing up, but they regain their composure long enough to tell Ally that it was great to meet her and she's welcome back anytime - as is Simon. On the train ride back, Simon seems relieved and also surprised that the visit went as well as it did, and also that they were so accepting of Ally. Unfortunately, with Sharsein's appearance, it looks like it might be some time before Ally gets another relaxing weekend away from home.
When Ally and Simon get back to the Slayer house, everybody sits down to fill each other in on the respective events of their days. The rest of the Slayer fragments are quite shocked to hear that Ally has had an encounter with one of the Powers That Be ("What did it do? Did it try to smite you?") and are, for the most part, quite tempted by Sharsein's offer - until Joey's phone rings. It's Nokia, repeating her offer to Joey, but with the deal sweetened a little bit: Bring her the Eye, and she'll commit her Initiative troops to the fight against Alerion. Joey relays this to the others, and they ask to have Nokia put on speaker phone so that she can explain herself better. Nokia complies, and explains that although she is a powerful demon, she doesn't want Alerion to take over the world any more than the Slayer fragments do - because in a world where Alerion ruled over everything, there would be no space left for Nokia, her Initiative army, her private army, or anything else that she wanted to achieve. Even though their agendas may not always mesh, Nokia realizes that the Slayer fragments are probably the world's best hope for defeating Alerion, and because of that she's willing to lend her strength to theirs - but she can only do it with the Eye. Ally then asks Nokia to leave the Slayer fragments alone so that they can talk about their options, and Nokia complies.
There follows an extremely long conversation in which the Slayer fragments debate their three options - that is, giving the Eye to Sharsein, giving the Eye to Nokia, and keeping the Eye for themselves. Although Ally entertains the third option for a while, the others don't seem convinced that it's very feasible; the Eye is only going to continue to make them a target, and the strange powers it is displaying will probably only get worse as time goes on. There's also the fact that Alerion is clearly stepping up its targeting of the Slayer fragments by sending an apparent force of suicide commandos to attack Jack, so if the Slayer fragments are going to ally with a stronger force to take down the demon, the time to do it is now. That leaves two choices: ally with Sharsein, or ally with Nokia.
Ally is a strong supporter of Sharsein, and her passion is definitely beginning to win others over to her cause. Sharsein has a lot going for her; she's probably more likely to be able to get the second Eye away from Hessrina than Nokia is, and she's also not asking for the Eye out of greed but rather because she needs it. But Jake objects to the idea of giving the Eye to Sharsein, because he thinks that getting Jack's soul back is just dodging the real problem of Alerion gaining more power. Sure, getting Jack's soul back will prevent Alerion from using him as a vessel to get back to Earth, but it won't destroy Alerion forever. It'll just slow Alerion down while it figures out how to get another vessel. Jake doesn't want half-measures like this; he wants to do something that will address the root cause of Alerion's dominion over Earth, and he thinks that Nokia is more likely to be able to help the Slayer fragments address that in a timely fashion. There's also the fact that Ally's research can't turn up any information about Sharsein; Ally knows that this is reasonable because the Powers That Be are often very well-hidden from mere mortals, and also because Sharsein said that Alerion had repressed knowledge of her because she positioned herself against Alerion, but the fact remains that they have to take Sharsein's word that she is who she says she is and that she wants to do the right thing with the Eyes.
On the other hand, Nokia may be far less trustworthy than one of the Powers That Be, but at least her motivation is clear and she can provide immediate assistance right then and there. Ally and Jake are in serious disagreement about the value of her Initiative soldiers - Jake thinks they represent real, tangible support as opposed to vague promises of information and aid, whereas Ally isn't sure if they'll be of any use in the real fight against Alerion. But in the end, everyone agrees that the real decision needs to come down (at least in part) to Teresa, since she's the one who's carried the Eye for so long and taken care of it. Ultimately, Teresa decides that she wants Sharsein to put her money where her mouth is by presenting the second Eye before Teresa hands over the first. Sharsein says she can do it, but will need a day or so to get everything together. At least on the surface, it seems that the Slayer fragments have finally come to an agreement that they can all accept. It's getting late, so everyone heads to bed except for Ally, who along with Jack will stay in the library to guard the Eye overnight.
On his way out of the library, Jake thinks: "Nokia, you heard all that, right?"
"Of course I did, darlin'," responds Nokia telepathically.
"I'm going to honor my side of the bargain. You honor yours." Then Jake goes up to his room, scheming all the way.