[3] She accepted the promotion because of the tragic events that happened on Babylon 5 at the very end of the Earth Alliance Civil War, in which she played a major role, including the death of Marcus Cole, who sacrificed his own life for hers.

As a military leader she is brave to the point of recklessness, has the ability to think and act quickly in a crisis, and she can be creative and original in coming up with ways to resolve any situation she finds herself in.

While most of the major Earthforce characters have flown combat missions against raider fighters, Susan Ivanova is "the one most consistently on the front lines of battle.

She chases raiders and single-handedly destroys a small fleet",[4] although other commentators note that she fires without a warning in Believers prompting author Andy Lane to ask, "Is this standard Earthforce procedure -- shoot first and ask questions afterwards?

[6] Her mother, Sophie, is established to have committed suicide when Susan was a child, which Ivanova blames on the Psi Corps.

Sophie was a telepath who refused to join the Psi Corps and, as a result, was forced to take telepathy-inhibiting drugs regularly.

Susan Ivanova eventually reveals that she is a latent telepath herself and lives in fear of discovery by the Psi Corps.

He was a fighter pilot aboard the Earth Alliance warship Lexington and was killed in the battle with the Black Star, the Minbari's flagship.

[8] In the first season her relationship with Winters gets off to a rocky start, and her inherent distrust of anyone in Psi Corps leads Ivanova to behave rudely towards Talia.

Ivanova is clearly hurt by the revelation that Talia is actually a "sleeper" Psi Corps agent who had been sent to spy on the command staff of Babylon 5.

The death of Marcus leads her to leave Babylon 5 and become captain of the newly commissioned Warlock class destroyer EAS Titans.

Although she is not openly religious, Ivanova is established as ethnically Jewish when she sits Shiva after her father's death in season one, and is seen also lighting a menorah.

An old friend of her family, a man she refers to as "uncle" who is a rabbi, visits her after her father's death and she comes to accept her faith, if only in private.

However, she keeps other aspects of her religious beliefs largely to herself, such as how strictly she follows the Jewish dietary laws, since in the episode "Messages from Earth", Marcus procures a freshly prepared plate of bacon and eggs for her as a surprise to which she does not overtly object; bacon being generally avoided by observant Jews as it comes from pigs, which are specifically listed in the Torah as an unclean animal, and thus not kosher.

Their story comes to a tragic ending in the year 2261, when she is gravely injured in an epic battle to liberate Earth from the dictatorship of President Morgan Clark, aboard the White Star, the Minbari doctors determine that her injuries are too severe for her survival.

They speculate on the reasons she left, mentioning contract and pay disputes and Marcus and his sacrifice before finally concluding that they will not ever know the true story.

The world that created the device Cole used to heal Ivanova (and kill himself in the process) has been discovered, and enough additional information has been found to revive him.

The character of Susan Ivanova has been subject to several literary analysis that focus on her feminine identity,[11] or her military career and LGBT-related coming out[12] or her Jewish background.