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adhuin posted:Minbari government is bit based on 3 estates, where tiny minorities of Nobles and Clergy held more say than the Peasants. Except for when Delenn changes it.
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Oct 23, 2021 00:51
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I mean the number of real world governments that have avoided authoritarianism is pretty low. It’s just something people prefer not to think about
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Oct 23, 2021 00:52
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CainFortea posted:Except for when Delenn changes it. She also condemned an entire race to death when she was mad one time, she is an alien of contrasts
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Oct 23, 2021 01:16
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Alhazred posted:It was explicitly said that everything that Sheridan did, including refusing the Nightwatch order, was illegal The Nightwatch order was illegal (technically if not in practice), that bit was fine if only short term Respect the chain of command
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Oct 23, 2021 01:35
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sebmojo posted:She also condemned an entire race to death when she was mad one time, she is an alien of contrasts To be fair, she has grown more as a human since then.
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Oct 23, 2021 03:24
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adhuin posted:
There was also, uh, that guy. Religious caste, went to Warrior in the war, had his funeral procession go through B5. Delenn stole his corpse. Still, you're right, not common. adhuin posted:To be fair, she has grown more as a human since then. 
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Oct 23, 2021 05:00
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I just finished reading the blind thread. Too bad Aardvark and The Doctor lost steam on watching/posting - it was fun to try to remember what they were responding to. I had to look up a couple synopses to remind myself.
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Oct 23, 2021 05:42
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We see a few rare cases of Religious -> Warrior and Warrior -> Religious but only in context where it is eyebrow-raising rare. I'm not sure if we can count Neroon's as anything other than the Minbari equivalent of a Ban Me post. We never see a worker -> warrior or worker -> religious. We see very little of the worker, but I think it's reasonable to think that warrior/religious -> worker would be a demotion that would be viewed as a humiliation.
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Oct 23, 2021 06:05
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What I've always wondered is to what degree the population of Minbar is split between the castes. Is it really a 33%/33%/33% split? Because if so, then the Workers are doing miracles to support the other 2/3rds of the population who aren't producing anything but need everything built for them!
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Oct 23, 2021 07:13
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It is almost certainly not an even split and I would expect something like 85 worker/10 warrior/5 religious, maybe even fewer of the last two.
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Oct 23, 2021 07:15
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jng2058 posted:What I've always wondered is to what degree the population of Minbar is split between the castes. Is it really a 33%/33%/33% split? Because if so, then the Workers are doing miracles to support the other 2/3rds of the population who aren't producing anything but need everything built for them! I think it was only mentioned a few times, if not only once, but the worker caste is something like at least 80% of the population.
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Oct 23, 2021 07:21
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The Minbari system isn't perfect by any means, but it certainly exposes the flaws in two-sides politics pretty starkly by contrast.
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Oct 23, 2021 09:00
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the top EA brass consider 33% of the minbari population as being devoted to war. londo does not correct them on their figure but on their terminology. i think there is mention in season 3 that between the religious and worker caste they control two-thirds of the minbari navy. so, it seems to be - as silly as it is - a 33/33/33 split. the minbari caste system has always been a bit shaky given that it's mentioned that the business of fighting war is exclusively warrior caste and that's why they don't like the rangers since it's basically the religious caste stepping on their turf, but then, as mentioned, apparently the religious and workers can just grab 2/3 of the minbari navy when delenn breaks the grey council. this is complicated by JMS' own posts that the castes are fiercely delineated (warriors do not do religious stuff, religious stuff do not do worker stuff.)Kibayasu posted:I think it was only mentioned a few times, if not only once, but the worker caste is something like at least 80% of the population. it isn't mentioned at all. the reason why delenn has nothing to do with proportional representation but the belief that the worker caste are the ones best suited to guide the minbari people, and something of an apology for the historical fact that the worker caste has been ignored and/or caught in the crossfire of the warrior/religious civil war. jng2058 posted:What I've always wondered is to what degree the population of Minbar is split between the castes. Is it really a 33%/33%/33% split? Because if so, then the Workers are doing miracles to support the other 2/3rds of the population who aren't producing anything but need everything built for them! minbari society is very rigid and very advanced. in the pilot, delenn has rings that can control gravity, and even if that's kinda disregarded by the rest of the show the minbari have gravity engines and whatever energy sources go beyond earth alliance fusion. it's no different to how fast JMS said starfuries travel: "as fast as the plot requires." how does the caste system work? however the plot requires.
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Oct 23, 2021 09:22
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I mean there is probably a reason she disbanded the Grey Council during season 3, and then one season later reinstated it with a 55/22/22 % split in favor of the Workers. I wouldnt say its inconsistent.
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Oct 23, 2021 09:50
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Vavrek posted:There was also, uh, that guy. Religious caste, went to Warrior in the war, had his funeral procession go through B5. Delenn stole his corpse. Still, you're right, not common. Branmer.
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Oct 23, 2021 10:25
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This is inconsequential, but doesn't someone point out that Earth Force has to use those big rotating thingies on their warships, but the Minbari have artificial gravity? I think it comes up with the White Star, but I'm not sure now.
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Oct 23, 2021 10:31
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Narsham posted:This whole discussion started in and has been going in some directions I don't really understand. Sheridan did not actually overthrow Clark, although he certainly arrived with that intention: if Clark had not killed himself, he would have been arrested by Senator Crosby, taken into custody, and investigated. Sheridan is careful not to "crown" the next EA president, and he spends most of the episode after "Endgame" under arrest. Again like I said, I don't think that Sheridan is a fascist, I'd just argue that there are some authoritarian elements in his personality as well as in the story which isn't surprising considering the setting and his role/"job". You shouldn't view that as an attack on the characters or their morality in general, benign kings and generals did exist in history and I'd consider people like Sheridan and Delenn as such. quote:I am depressed by your somewhat hateful and false depiction of Delenn. Minbari caste systems are not fixed (we witness a conversion on Neroon's part and all he has to do is make a public declaration), it is unclear how their leadership is chosen but they appear to have at least a somewhat representative system, and Delenn turns down multiple leadership positions over the course of the show. I find it disheartening that Clark and ISN's transparent propaganda smearing Sheridan in part through racial animus directed at the Minbari generally and Delenn specifically has somehow crept into your post as valid. There's a lot of valid concerns about Delenn, and the show highlights several, but this is not worthy of you. Slow down there, I wasn't attacking Delenn in any way, it is obvious that she is a very progressive member of her species and extremely open minded in general (she went as far as becoming half human...) but that doesn't change the fact that she derives her power from a certain political system and that the minbari are anything but egalitarian (also not opposed to some casual genocide) which might be okay for them because I don't even want to apply human standards but the story and the Minbari DO influence the human side so some authoritarian elements are leaking over. And yes if you want to avoid authoritarinism then it is kinda a requirement that your whole population is involved in the political process and enjoys certain freedoms and to answer your question: Few real-world governments have avoided authoritarinism and until modern history none at all and there are many failed democracies or "flawed" democracies around. I mean Russia for example is a "democracy" on paper but I think we can all agree that it's not a "real" democracy. Imo what we see in B5 is somewhat between a currently flawed US democracy and a "fake" Russian one. Earth's government and society has obvious fascist elements which are very powerful and seem to enjoy at least some public support, there is for example obviously support for xenophobia, certainly fueled by the Minbari war, and there are powerful individual political actors while we never get to see parties or other (bigger) "healthy" political structures so it's at least a democracy in decline and might be a bureaucratic-military regime (these often existed in real life after a failed liberal democracy like in latin america or nowadays Thailand) or a case like Singapore (which is also a democracy on paper but a one party system in reality. The way Mars is treated also speaks to a very imperialistic/authoritarian attitude (just like Earth is in general portrayed as very expansionist). And like I mentioned there are also pretty much no civilian voices in B5, even diplomacy is often handled through the military and the few times we have government people or something like that those are pretty much always in opposition to our heroes, corrupted or just incompetent. It's also not like B5 (JMS) is totally unaware of this, I mean we have episodes about the fact that after Sheridan and Delenn are gone Earth (the galaxy?) descends into literal fascism. Maybe it's a bit harsh to write that but you could argue that they didn't leave behind the necessary (political) structure to prevent this and instead the "peace" relied on their individual charisma and brilliance. Both might be great "Philosopher kings", like a certain Plato imagined, but it is noteworthy that both always stayed at the top of any hierarchy and literally had a personal army (the Rangers) at their disposal. So they were benign rulers but rulers they definitely were. PS: Agree on the name, I wasn't sure tbh, repeated the spelling of the previous poster. 
LinkesAuge fucked around with this message at 11:05 on Oct 23, 2021 |
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Oct 23, 2021 11:00
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Clark/Clarke is easy mistake to make as they're both real similar names. It's harder to understand using Minibars and Zorlons. That's my hard line.
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Oct 23, 2021 11:10
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sebmojo posted:She also condemned an entire race to death when she was mad one time, she is an alien of contrasts We did kind of murder their equivalent of Jesus so tbf it's a pretty fair response
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Oct 23, 2021 12:53
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DeafNote posted:I mean there is probably a reason she disbanded the Grey Council during season 3, and then one season later reinstated it with a 55/22/22 % split in favor of the Workers. yeah, she disbands the council because they won't intervene in the shadow war. it's explicitly said during severed dreams. then, her reasoning for changing the make-up of the council is also explicitly stated in moments of transition. the invention of a silent majority (lol) worker caste and that the grey council make up is more representative of minbari society is fanon (you'd think delenn would mention that sort of historic representation issue instead of the argument that the ethos of the worker caste, building the future, is better to lead society.) a perfect 33 split doesn't make sense? well, neither does the green-purple method of assuming leadership among the drazi. rigid adherence to a bizarre tripartite system is far more closer to the minbari culture as depicted by the show than an attempt to reimagine it as a full automated space gay communism moment.
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Oct 23, 2021 13:32
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McCloud posted:We did kind of murder their equivalent of Jesus so tbf it's a pretty fair response Nah, they nearly did that on the line
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Oct 23, 2021 13:49
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Rappaport posted:This is inconsequential, but doesn't someone point out that Earth Force has to use those big rotating thingies on their warships, but the Minbari have artificial gravity? I think it comes up with the White Star, but I'm not sure now. Everybody but Earth figured out artificial gravity by the start of the show.
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Oct 23, 2021 16:25
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I thought Narns also had to be strapped into their ships.
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Oct 23, 2021 16:28
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Nah, mostly just the Minbari and the Centauri
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Oct 23, 2021 16:29
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Cormack posted:I thought Narns also had to be strapped into their ships. This is my understanding as well.
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Oct 23, 2021 16:52
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Groetgaffel posted:Nah, mostly just the Minbari and the Centauri Depending on to what degree you want to take into account the secondary material as canon, then the all the First Ones (including the Shadows and Vorlons), the Minbari, Centauri, Vree, Abbai, Hyach, Tal'kona'sha, and Brakiri do have artificial gravity, while the Humans, Narn, Gaim, Markab, Llort, and Drazi do not. The Dilgar had it before they all got blown up, but their tendency to self-destruct their crippled ships rather than let them get captured kept EarthForce from getting intact gravity generators to study during the Dilgar War. Most of the races that the Dilgar wiped out didn't have it either, since they were targeted because they were easy prey.
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Oct 23, 2021 16:56
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I was thinking they stole it from the Centauri but maybe I remember wrong. Minbari don't have a monopoly in any case, and Earth apparently gets it from the Minbari sometime near the end of the show.
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Oct 23, 2021 16:57
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Babylon 5 did really well with all the mixups to its cast. The rotating cast means that for so much of the show, there's somebody new on the station to recap the state of things. In season 1 it's Ivanova after the pilot actors didn't return, and in season 2 it's Sheridan. You can also see JMS's intention to try to not treat the new characters as just interchangeable with the old ones. Ivanova and Garibaldi sort of switch roles between season 1 and 2. In Season 1, Garibaldi is the trusted confidant for the captain and Ivanova is the aggressive rogue one making trouble and disobeying orders, but in Season 2 it's the other way around. I know why Section 13 specifically was dropped, but it's weird that Sheridan has a whole spiel about how he collects secrets, and yet there's no point in the rest of the show where he's pulling out classified information or hunting for truth. Maybe trying a bit too hard to pivot away from another aborted plotline. My mom has already caught on to the alien plots being much more interesting than the Earth stuff, and after a few telepath-heavy episodes, she commented that it makes plots "too easy", which I kinda understand. I wonder if in the possible remake the psychic plot may just be dropped entirely, since psychic powers have fallen out of the zeitgeist. Midjack posted:Everybody but Earth figured out artificial gravity by the start of the show. That was a point in the lore, but the show never really could show it much. I think that one time with the bomb is the only big low gravity scene (and come to think of it, how do people normally stand in the central train if there's not much gravity in the center of the station?) That's one big area that a remake could improve on. Although I think a lot of Babylon 5's realism was specifically meant to differentiate it from the heavier contrivances of Star Wars and Star Trek, so maybe with the Expanse being the hotness with all the realism-sci-fi-nerds, it might leave a little of that behind.
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Oct 23, 2021 20:28
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SlothfulCobra posted:I know why Section 13 specifically was dropped, but it's weird that Sheridan has a whole spiel about how he collects secrets, and yet there's no point in the rest of the show where he's pulling out classified information or hunting for truth. Maybe trying a bit too hard to pivot away from another aborted plotline. There was an espionage RPG also named Bureau 13 that threatened to sue, so rather than deal with it JMS just dropped the storyline.
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Oct 23, 2021 20:33
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The Bureau 13, Section 13, Warehouse 13 trilogy
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Oct 23, 2021 21:37
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SlothfulCobra posted:(and come to think of it, how do people normally stand in the central train if there's not much gravity in the center of the station?) There's stuff to hold on to
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Oct 23, 2021 22:14
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the bureau 13 had another thing going on, as it's put by JMS:JMS posted:Larry never pulled his punches, and that frankness requires stating that we did have our differences from time to time. Larry could be fractious, and I think he sometimes resented being brought on by me as a lieutenant. He was talented enough to be a show-runner on his own, and being constantly a second-in-command chafed to the point that he began carving out his own pocket universe in B5. He wanted to show that he could do what I was doing, which for me was never even a question, I just didn’t want him doing it when I was trying to tell a story in a straight line in a way that no one had ever done before. But things became increasingly difficult between us, the friendship strained and broke, and we parted ways after season two. the guy behind bureau 13 got "asked to leave." the threatened to be sued thing doesn't seem to have any evidence, although the crew admit they stopped using it immediately presumably out of worry of that. but it doesn't look like any threats were made.
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Oct 24, 2021 00:46
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jng2058 posted:Depending on to what degree you want to take into account the secondary material as canon, then the all the First Ones (including the Shadows and Vorlons), the Minbari, Centauri, Vree, Abbai, Hyach, Tal'kona'sha, and Brakiri do have artificial gravity, Basic rule of thumb: if the ship doesn't have any visible thrusters, it has a gravitic drive, which also means artificial gravity. The opposite is still mostly true, but some ships with a gravitic drive have supplementary reaction mass engines, white stars for example.
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Oct 24, 2021 01:03
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Horizon Burning posted:the bureau 13 had another thing going on, as it's put by JMS: Yeah you're right. I remembered there being a threat but it looks like they just dropped it pre-emptively to avoid it even coming up. In any case, it was because of the tabletop game.
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Oct 24, 2021 01:07
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One of the principles of the ISA was the sharing of technology between member races. It is explicitly mentioned that this includes artificial gravity systems, which is one of the carrots used to compel states like Earth to join. (The stick is that if you aren’t a member state, a potential foe may have superior technology because they are.) It seems unfair to me to blame the eventual fascist turn and nuclear war in the Sol system on Sheridan. He would indeed be a conqueror and authoritarian if he swept in with a fleet and completely restructured the Earth government, even if he didn’t assume a position at its head himself. By placing himself under the EA authority and working with the system to get amnesty for those who fought with him, Sheridan doesn’t entirely sidestep unfair accusations, but he does mostly cover them. The underlying rot in Earth government and society are left as ongoing problems; it’s unclear, but it looks like a combination of forces buried in the “black ops” structures of the EA military and private citizens like those behind IPX who drive Earth’s turn toward dystopia, although that war happens because there’s a substantial opposition that evidently perceives Sheridan and B5 as positive symbols and apparently has its own government and military. And opposing the show’s endorsement of the “Great Man” theory while insisting on blaming the “Great Man” for not fixing everything misses, I think, some of the ways that B5 complicates that very theory by suggesting that some problems take more than one lifetime to solve. The whole “Canticle” scene suggests that the IA sees its job as slowly helping Earth to recover and rebuild by influencing it without conquest or dictatorial force, and evidently IA places limits on its internal interference. The implication, consistent with JMS’ concerns across the series, is that the people of Earth needed to deal with their own authoritarian/fascist tendencies, failed, and now deserves help in constructing society and government along less corrupt lines. I note in passing a disturbing similarity to JMS’ Superman storyline where Superman suggests that people “over there” need to solve their own problems, but the intent is clearly anti-authoritarian, even if the overall message degenerates into something barely intelligible. There’s a broader argument to be made about how authoritarian and fascistic systems frequently employ methods that appear opposed to themselves in order to shore themselves up: for example, American libertarianism is so anti-government that its logical endpoint is somewhere between private citizens or communities policing themselves (effectively either an oligarchy or a plutocracy) and a government that people expect won’t be responsive to their needs and which they believe to be hopelessly corrupt, leaving them to complain while that government concerns itself only with the needs of the powerful and wealthy. Whether libertarianism can simultaneously support individual liberty alongside measures to ensure that some individuals don’t have a great deal more liberty than others is a question probably not suited for this forum; possibly everything in this paragraph is best discussed elsewhere. What is true is that the show works through aspects of these issues but often resists applying specific labels or (accurately) shows us fascist propaganda that labels enemies of the state as the real fascists and authoritarians.
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Oct 24, 2021 15:19
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Narsham posted:I note in passing a disturbing similarity to JMS’ Superman storyline where Superman suggests that people “over there” need to solve their own problems, but the intent is clearly anti-authoritarian, even if the overall message degenerates into something barely intelligible. JMS has a tendency to avoid moralizing to a fault, resulting in storylines that are all high-minded philosophy and no heart. Grounded was one of those, and though most specific B5 episodes avoided this pitfall, the general arc of the series as presented in Deconstruction is kind of like this too. He's so opposed to even the barest streak of authoritarianism that the answer seems to be "let evil burn itself out and then slowly rebuild a better society in its place", which is great, unless you're one of the billions who are in that millennia-long burning and rebuilding phase. That level of long-term thinking starts to look a lot like the kind of soulless, clinical disregard for humanity it's supposed to be fighting against. If the Third Age of Mankind is when no one and nothing else stands above us and we're free to make our own choices, then who owns the consequences of the choice to hold back the helping hand and let us (nearly, but very much potentially) destroy ourselves? The show's answer seems to be "eh, time heals all wounds" -- cold comfort to the wounded.
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Oct 24, 2021 17:16
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MrL_JaKiri posted:Nah, they nearly did that on the line Which was at the end of the earth-minbari war that got started because earth killed Dukhat during first contact, and where Delenn cast the deciding vote to start the war, so yes actually, it was because humans killed minbari jesus
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Oct 24, 2021 18:30
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McCloud posted:Which was at the end of the earth-minbari war that got started because earth killed Dukhat during first contact, and where Delenn cast the deciding vote to start the war, so yes actually, it was because humans killed minbari jesus The issue being contested is whether Dukhat should be called minbari jesus. He was a highly respected leader, and the leader of the Grey Council, but I never got the civilization-defining semi-divine feel from Dukhat. Closer maybe to a Gandhi? Deeply respected and holy, but also just a regular person.
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Oct 24, 2021 18:43
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Sinclair is Minbari Jesus, or will be in negative a few thousand years. Sinclair nearly got killed at the Line. The Line happened because humans started the Earth-Minbari war. Thus, through a long causal chain, humans nearly killed Minbari Jesus. This has been today's installment of  .
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Oct 24, 2021 18:56
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Narsham posted:One of the principles of the ISA was the sharing of technology between member races. It is explicitly mentioned that this includes artificial gravity systems, which is one of the carrots used to compel states like Earth to join. (The stick is that if you aren’t a member state, a potential foe may have superior technology because they are.) Good comment and I might want to add that a lot of the "problems" in regards to B5's politics come down to a somewhat limited perspective. Literally everything is seen through the eyes of the military and those in positions of great power. There isn't much to "ground" the story in that area and like I wrote previously we never get to see Earth in any detail, especially the civilian side (you even get a better idea about Narn culture than what is going on with Earth). A lot of the accusations/ criticisms people bring up against Sheridan/"our" characters would have been solved if there had been a storyline that shows "resistence" within Earth, a civilian population and politicians that aren't onboard with what is happening. That way Sheridan and co. would have had a lot more (moral) legitimizations, something from which to build their "rebellion" and would look less like just a military coup and it would also have given him options in handling Earth after the civil war that just didn't seem to exist. I understand that JMS tried to give Sheridan and co. their legitimizations through Clark's coup but that always ignored the underlying rot too much and also makes the rest of humanity look like simpletons while it's only our heroes who "get it" and know that there is a big government conspiracy going on (that's something that also might not play particulary well in 2021). Having said this... I'm generally curious how new SciFi will deal with topics like media, propaganda and misinformation. B5 for example just took modern day media (TV) and simply put it pretty much 1:1 into the future (Space CNN...) but nowadays that obviously looks and feels very dated so the question is what would the media/communication in general really look like in a futuristic scifi setting. You certainly can't just do it like in the 90s, it'd feel out of touch with reality and is imo the one thing that dates all SciFi stories more than anything else. I think I have yet to read SciFi that could really imagine how throughly technology would impact the way we communicate and share information on a very basic level and what that does to society, our politics etc. though I'm sure we will see more SciFi takes of this in the future (and I obviously don't claim that such stories don't exist, I simply haven't come across anything that seems to fit to this extent).
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Oct 24, 2021 20:27
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