Edwards Air Force Base
Detailed Involvements
Events with rich location context
Edwards Air Force Base is cited for scrambling interceptors to achieve visual on the rogue F-16, enabling cockpit assessment and landing orders in the tactical escalation.
High-desert scramble hub pulsing with response urgency
Interceptor deployment base for pursuit
Counterforce to rogue deviation from chain
Secure military test facility
Edwards Air Force Base functions as the imminent rendezvous and landing site Bartlet tells Toby to go to. It is the practical destination where Toby can be present for the shuttle's recovery and for his brother's arrival.
Technically charged and procedural in imagination — a locus of readiness and watchful waiting.
Rendezvous point and emotional center for family contact and technical verification.
A grounding point — where abstract orbital danger meets human arrival and accountability.
Military airfield protocols imply restricted access to authorized personnel and family escorted by officials.
Edwards Air Force Base is named as the physical rendezvous point for the shuttle's landing; Bartlet orders Toby to go there to 'meet the thing when it lands,' making it the immediate locus of action and witness.
Not present visually in the scene but invoked as urgent, practical, and starkly functional — a place where technical resolution and human waiting converge.
Designated landing/meeting point where Toby must go to confront the reality of the mission and its consequences.
Embodies practical duty and witnessing — where abstract fear becomes concrete responsibility.
Implied restricted/military airfield access; requires official clearance and travel.
Events at This Location
Everything that happens here
President Bartlet and Leo enter the Situation Room, where military officers brief them on an F-16 pilot from Cannon Air Force Base who has deviated from formation without communication. Bartlet …
In Toby's office at night, President Bartlet cuts through technical jargon and Toby's private terror with a concise, humanizing briefing: redundancy in the shuttle's RCS, Atlantis on the pad, and …
In a quiet, tense moment in Toby's office President Bartlet confronts Toby's private panic. Bartlet translates technical contingencies into blunt reassurance — RCS redundancy, Atlantis on the pad, 'a five‑dollar …