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SlothfulCobra posted:They have some kind of hyperspace coordinate system, giving psychics the Markab system is a lot cleaner than I expected assuming that the Markab have an acceptable biosphere for human life. Can't have a telepath problem if you don't have any! But leaving Narns aside, did we see non-human telepaths apart from Minbari and Centauri? The Minbari cast system might very well be enough to handle telepaths, but Centauri are basically just feudal humans with funny hair and tentacle penises. And when I think of "feudal societies in which some people posses supernatural powers", my mind immediately settles on "mages". Which would make me suspect that in the power hungry Centauri society, telepaths should be a big deal.
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Jun 23, 2023 13:26
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a self sufficient telepath colony would never have worked, they'd run out shampoo and conditioner within the first week
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Jun 23, 2023 13:40
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Torrannor posted:Can't have a telepath problem if you don't have any! I don't think we ever saw them, but Sheridan did tell the League to bring telepaths with them when fighting the Shadows.
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Jun 23, 2023 13:52
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Eighties ZomCom posted:I don't think we ever saw them, but Sheridan did tell the League to bring telepaths with them when fighting the Shadows. As I recall, he specifically said that the races that did have telepaths would lend some to the ones that didn't. So it's not universal, but it's common.
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Jun 23, 2023 13:56
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SlothfulCobra posted:They have some kind of hyperspace coordinate system, giving psychics the Markab system is a lot cleaner than I expected assuming that the Markab have an acceptable biosphere for human life. I assumed the coordinate system relied heavily on the existence of beacons.
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Jun 23, 2023 14:21
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V-Men posted:I assumed the coordinate system relied heavily on the existence of beacons. It relies on it almost entirely. Someone (the Centauri? I can't remember) go around taking out jumpgate beacons and they freak out because it endangers the entire Hyperspace travel system.
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Jun 23, 2023 15:08
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SlothfulCobra posted:They have some kind of hyperspace coordinate system, giving psychics the Markab system is a lot cleaner than I expected assuming that the Markab have an acceptable biosphere for human life. I mean, there’s several potential issues with using the Markab homeworld. Given that no other major power moves in to claim it, either the habitability is an issue for reasons related to Markab infrastructure—the mass deaths may mean massive releases of radiation or other breakdowns in their systems—or for reasons relating to the Drafa plague. 100% infectuous and 100% fatal and able to mutate and jump species? Even assuming Franklin spread data about the cure freely and to everyone, do you really want to take a risk that there’s a mutation that targets your species and can’t be cured in the same way? No doubt the system got put under quarentine/interdict and colonizing it would make the associated power a pariah in the interstellar community. I expected the Markab homeworld would come up at some stage during Crusade. And it wouldn’t surprise me if the Drahk or some other Shadow minions had moved in, unconcerned about the plague because it was Shadow-designed. From the telepaths’ perspective, this wouldn’t be a big coup, either. Being given Markab is a lose-lose and an insult. You’re isolated, there’s things of value on the planet that invite looters and pirates, and as a gesture of generosity it’s roughly equivalent to saying “you want your own country? Fine, you can live here in Chernobyl.”
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Jun 23, 2023 15:31
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The show is pretty explicit that them blowing the jumpgate means you can't go there any more, so I don't think it was really an option even if someone wanted to do it.
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Jun 23, 2023 15:51
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Q_res posted:The show is pretty explicit that them blowing the jumpgate means you can't go there any more, so I don't think it was really an option even if someone wanted to do it. Except that we see plenty of ships that can open their own jump points (White Stars, Cortez, Minbari warships, etc.). And besides, the gates had to be built in the first place somehow. If there was a need for a lot of traffic to go to Markab again, there's no reason it wouldn't be possible to build a new one.
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Jun 23, 2023 16:00
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Powered Descent posted:Except that we see plenty of ships that can open their own jump points (White Stars, Cortez, Minbari warships, etc.). And besides, the gates had to be built in the first place somehow. If there was a need for a lot of traffic to go to Markab again, there's no reason it wouldn't be possible to build a new one. It's not finding a ship that can open a jump point, as you noted (though it seems like only mostly government vessels are the ones equipped with jump engines), it's that with the gate gone, can people even find the Markab homeworld in hyperspace again?
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Jun 23, 2023 17:30
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I think the point was that looters were just showing up in whatever and blowing up the jump gate ended that. Yeah there are ships that can make their own jump points, but those are major high-tech ships, not junky haulers that go graverobbing.
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Jun 23, 2023 17:33
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Grand Fromage posted:I think the point was that looters were just showing up in whatever and blowing up the jump gate ended that. Yeah there are ships that can make their own jump points, but those are major high-tech ships, not junky haulers that go graverobbing. Which is why it would seriously suck to be graverobbers who were there when the gate got blown up. They'll probably have a nice long stay before anyone arranges a rescue.
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Jun 23, 2023 17:46
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Powered Descent posted:Which is why it would seriously suck to be graverobbers who were there when the gate got blown up. They'll probably have a nice long stay before anyone arranges a rescue. Oh dear, how sad. Moving swiftly along...
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Jun 23, 2023 18:27
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Powered Descent posted:Except that we see plenty of ships that can open their own jump points (White Stars, Cortez, Minbari warships, etc.). And besides, the gates had to be built in the first place somehow. If there was a need for a lot of traffic to go to Markab again, there's no reason it wouldn't be possible to build a new one. I think the Cortez can even build jump gates, but even that ship can get lost in hyperspace. So even for a ship that can open its own jump gate, you can't just plop one open wherever in hyperspace and hope for the best, for whatever reason. If even a ship that charts unexplored space and builds new jump gates can get lost without a beacon, it really makes you think how hyperspace was first "discovered" and hyperspace travel "invented". But since it's Babylon 5 you can pretty easily hand-wave that away that it was the First Ones that figured it out billions of years ago and has since been passed down from race to race. In contrast to something like Star Trek where Warp Drive is purely a technology that you can invent from whole cloth.
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Jun 23, 2023 19:44
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FISHMANPET posted:But since it's Babylon 5 you can pretty easily hand-wave that away that it was the First Ones that figured it out billions of years ago and has since been passed down from race to race. I think JMS did say something to this effect at some point.
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Jun 23, 2023 21:40
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There are scout ships that can open hyperspace gates without a pre-existing gate, Catherine Sakai had one, Lyta and G'kar exit the series on one. When Sheridan's friend got lost in hyperspace, it was because his own ship was malfunctioning, not because it was out of range of the network. Space exploration is definitely a thing even if it's harder to get around without jumpgates. What was significant about the pirates was both that jumpgate-producing vessels are more expensive and the fact that they had a wholeass carrier ship to take a bunch of fighters into battle. Narsham posted:I mean, there’s several potential issues with using the Markab homeworld. Given that no other major power moves in to claim it, either the habitability is an issue for reasons related to Markab infrastructure—the mass deaths may mean massive releases of radiation or other breakdowns in their systems—or for reasons relating to the Drafa plague. 100% infectuous and 100% fatal and able to mutate and jump species? Even assuming Franklin spread data about the cure freely and to everyone, do you really want to take a risk that there’s a mutation that targets your species and can’t be cured in the same way? No doubt the system got put under quarentine/interdict and colonizing it would make the associated power a pariah in the interstellar community. There were worries that the plague could jump to non-Markab hosts, but I think the show was pretty definitive about the fact that it wasn't hitting any non-Markabs at all. Delenn was totally surrounded by infected Markab as they all died around her and came out smelling like daisies. Not to mention the fact that the plague might've died out now that there are no surviving hosts. Stay away from the polar ice caps I guess if you're worried. I think a real-world perspective on disease is that it should actually be a pretty big danger on Babylon 5 because a lot of bad real-world diseases come from a pathogen jumping from one species to another and something that could be benign to one host is deadly and dangerous to another, but B5 hasn't really thought through the implications of that. Some sci-fi just says it'll neutralize all pathogens on people, but that gets really weird because human bodies have some kind of symbiotic relationship with a biosphere of microbiological fauna and you can't just kill off all the non-human DNA microbes in a person or you'll mess up their gut. Gnome de plume posted:a self sufficient telepath colony would never have worked, they'd run out shampoo and conditioner within the first week This is the big reason. Markab had no hair, no facilities for making more.
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Jun 23, 2023 21:48
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SlothfulCobra posted:I think a real-world perspective on disease is that it should actually be a pretty big danger on Babylon 5 because a lot of bad real-world diseases come from a pathogen jumping from one species to another and something that could be benign to one host is deadly and dangerous to another, but B5 hasn't really thought through the implications of that. That was specifically the job Franklin was transitioning to in Season 5, I thought.
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Jun 23, 2023 22:06
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SlothfulCobra posted:There were worries that the plague could jump to non-Markab hosts, but I think the show was pretty definitive about the fact that it wasn't hitting any non-Markabs at all. Delenn was totally surrounded by infected Markab as they all died around her and came out smelling like daisies. Not to mention the fact that the plague might've died out now that there are no surviving hosts. Stay away from the polar ice caps I guess if you're worried. By the middle of the episode it had made a cross-species jump to the Pak'ma'ra, because they had a special type of blood cells analogous to what the disease attacked in the Markab. Other species didn't, so the jump might have been impossible or merely just very unlikely. I assume Franklin's vaccine was distributed to the Pak'ma'ra and any other species whose biology made them a likely victim, and the knowledge to make it would have been shared with every other race just in case the Drafa did manage another cross-species infection and outbreak.
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Jun 23, 2023 22:45
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SlothfulCobra posted:There were worries that the plague could jump to non-Markab hosts, but I think the show was pretty definitive about the fact that it wasn't hitting any non-Markabs at all. Delenn was totally surrounded by infected Markab as they all died around her and came out smelling like daisies. Not to mention the fact that the plague might've died out now that there are no surviving hosts. Stay away from the polar ice caps I guess if you're worried. Early on not repopulating the Markab homeworld might have been down to politics. That could still be true under the ISA, but they'd also have reasons to wonder if the Drafa plague was Shadow designed. Especially after A Call to Arms, I don't think I'd allow a colony on a planet which could still have a Shadow-tech virus weapon hanging around on it. That there isn't more cross-species disease may have something to do with the biological differences between species developed on different planets is much greater than the difference between, say, humans and other mammals. The Centauri biology is radically different, for example, despite the superficial similarities. The Gaim are insects. Consider too that while humanity is new to the stars, some of the other species involved in the B5 project were spacefarers for over 1000 years. The Minbari may not have been willing to share all their medical secrets with Franklin and Earthforce, but that doesn't preclude sharing air filtration technology or even screening tech that can pick up on various diseases. Another possibility is that the Vorlons actively manipulated the immune systems of various species to make cross-species contamination unlikely between starfaring races. Disease seems to be very clearly coded as part of the Shadows' toolkit.
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Jun 24, 2023 00:19
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SlothfulCobra posted:When Sheridan's friend got lost in hyperspace, it was because his own ship was malfunctioning, not because it was out of range of the network. If that was the case then they wouldn't have had the issue with the Starfuries helping each other find the way back to the beacon. (JMS also specifically called it a narrow-beam signal back on usenet.)
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Jun 24, 2023 18:26
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How many named characters from the minor races were there? You had Dr. Lazarenn from the Markab ("Confessions and Lamentations"), N'grath from a few season 1 episodes, two Hyachs from "Secrets of the Soul", and that's about it. Were there any named Drazi characters?
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Jun 24, 2023 23:52
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ultrafilter posted:How many named characters from the minor races were there? You had Dr. Lazarenn from the Markab ("Confessions and Lamentations"), N'grath from a few season 1 episodes, two Hyachs from "Secrets of the Soul", and that's about it. Were there any named Drazi characters? Yeah, I'm pretty sure the Drazi and Brakiri ambassadors get named off-handedly. Vidak and Lethe, if I remember right.
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Jun 25, 2023 00:28
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There were loads of named League ambassadors - Kalika (Abbai), She'lah (Gaim), Vlur/Nhar (Pak'ma'ra), etc. Sadly the best database of obscure character names (Mahasamatman's Babylon 5 CCG website) has been offline for some time and, given it was last updated in about 2002, is likely never coming back
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Jun 25, 2023 08:20
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ultrafilter posted:How many named characters from the minor races were there? You had Dr. Lazarenn from the Markab ("Confessions and Lamentations"), N'grath from a few season 1 episodes, two Hyachs from "Secrets of the Soul", and that's about it. Were there any named Drazi characters? Do purple and green count as names  The show does revolve around a small, fixed (somewhat) cast, but the League races do feature in some episodes, even if just played for laughs sometimes (like Sheridan's big YES moment). Do Zathras count as minor races?
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Jun 25, 2023 09:29
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Rappaport posted:Do Zathras count as minor races? Yes, they're Zathrans from the planet Zathras.
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Jun 25, 2023 14:25
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There was the lady with a dorsal fin on her head, the mantis mob boss, the slaver that owned Londo's girlfriend, and at least one of those TKO aliens must've had a name. The minor races end up having anemic worldbuilding, which in part is probably from the fact that the series focuses so much on the main ones (the B5 galaxy is tall instead of wide), but there's also some story of JMS getting territorial about another writer trying to build out the minor races.
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Jun 25, 2023 16:07
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Q_res posted:Yes, they're Zathrans from the planet Zathras. No, that’s Zathras.
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Jun 25, 2023 16:21
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MrL_JaKiri posted:If that was the case then they wouldn't have had the issue with the Starfuries helping each other find the way back to the beacon. (JMS also specifically called it a narrow-beam signal back on usenet.) Script book has the captain say this: "We lost our homer lock-on and our nav board is out. We have power, but we can't fix our position." Losing the navigation system might make opening a jump point impossible. It's also quite possible that hyperspace has "depth" and that it's only possible to open a jump point if you aren't too "deep." Higher-tech jump drives might support more depth as well as greater precision in terms of positioning: we know both Minbari and Shadow ships can jump/exit hyperspace right on top of B5, while other ships (like the damaged Narn vessel) aren't so precise and have to jump in some distance away or use the jump-gate. Presumably they also have superior navigation while in hyperspace. A Distant Star doesn't seem too interested in explaining the details, but either the Cortez can't open its own jump point because of its location in hyperspace or it can't open its own jump point because doing so when you're lost is too dangerous or doesn't help you find your way back onto the network. What is clear is that each gate on the network has a narrow beam going between it and other gates on the network. Staying "on beam" takes you between existing gates. What is not clear is how one can "explore" and expand the gate network under those circumstances. My best guess would be that explorer ships can configure an existing gate to send out a narrow-beam signal in the direction of desired travel, essentially having the ship's own systems act as the "anchor" end of the beam, and then navigate until they detect mass in real-space that's worth investigating, or until their "lifeline" starts getting too long. Presumably all of those systems would be tied into the nav computer, so losing that also killed all their options. They can't exactly establish a lifeline link to a gate when they have no idea what direction any of the gates are in. A much more sophisticated ship might be able to use dead reckoning in hyperspace, especially if it can "read" even small objects in space from hyperspace. But space is really big; depending on how much smaller hyperspace is and to what degree hyperspace distances don't map precisely onto real space, your odds of finding something looking randomly might be minimal. Whether it's possible to sit by a gate in normal space, pick a nearby star, and then try to get close to it in hyperspace via a single narrow-beam link to that gate isn't 100% clear. OTOH, the Excalibur in Crusade seems to be able to navigate hyperspace with much less difficulty, presumably thanks to Vorlon tech.
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Jun 25, 2023 19:43
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Well, this thread got me to finally spend  on these dead comedy forums, when the history threads weren't enough to drag me in.I first watched the series some back when it came out on broadcast TV, then got into it heavily when I has able to record episodes (I think it was on either TNT or Sci-Fi channel at that point). I did a rewatch sometime in the early 2000s, but hadn't watched it since then, though I really should have during early covid. I've read the technomage, Centauri, and Psi-Corps trilogies, and think I still have all of the books around so I'll probably reread them too. I just started a rewatch of the DVD version and I'm enjoying it. Some general observations: My interpretation of what the options are in Londo's prophecy doesn't seem to be shared by anyone, I haven't seen anyone else floating my theory on what 'the eye that does not see' over the years of poking into B5 discussions. 1,2: The two that happened before Lady Morella are likely refusing to engage Morden initially and not having the shadows attack to start the Narn-Centauri war. 3: "You must save the eye that does not see" I think this one means that once Refa becomes the Shadows' contact, Londo needs to not kill Refa, and instead convince him that the Shadows are dangerous. There's a specific comment he makes to Refa about how Refa 'doesn't see' how dangerous working with the Shadows is, and Refa responds that they're keeping the Shadows at arms length and using them for advantage. Refa also mentions at some point that while Cartagia is completely insane, Refa's family in the Royal Court is manipulating him and keeping him under control. By killing Refa and discrediting his family, Londo removes the Shadows' current point of contact opening the door to them directly working with easily-manipulated Cartagia and removes the main check on Cartagia indulging his own insanity. There's no way Refa and his faction would allow the Shadows to set up bases on the Centauri homeworld, so Refa being alive is enough to prevent the Shadows setting up bases and sending the Drakh for direct infiltration, and if Londo actually did 'save' him by convincing Refa that the Centauri needed to distance themselves from the Shadows, it would be even better. I've seen people argue that this has something to do with preventing Cartagia from putting out G'Kar's eye, but I don't see how any reasonable way that he does that stops the chain of events that leads to Londo on the throne with the Drakh controlling him, while there is a fairly obvious chain of events set in motion by Refa's death that leads to the disaster at the end. 4: "You must not kill the one who is already dead." I think Morden is the one who is already dead. Killing Morden (and his Shadow bodyguards, and blowing up the Shadow island base) was a temporary setback for the Shadows, but also was viewed as a major betrayal by the Drakh. Without the betrayal, after the war Centauri would just be another former Shadow ally and the Drakh would have no reason to target them or Londo specifically for revenge. Als note that, while Londo doesn't know this, blowing up the shadows didn't cause the Vorlons to spare the Centauri homeworld, the planet destroyer didn't change course until it was recalled for the major fight, so it served no purpose. 5: "You must surrender yourself to your greatest fear," is letting G'kar strangle him in the end, which lets Sheridan escape and the Drakh be fully defeated in the end. I always considered In the Beginning as showing the story Londo is telling, not the actual events that happened. So the problem of "why don't the main characters remember each other" or "why do all of these people happen to be involved with each other briefly ten years before the series" goes away, since it didn't really happen that way. Like Franklin wasn't really involved, it was just some human doctor, but since Londo doesn't know anything about the actual doctor (and probably doesn't remember his name since it's obscure trivial history that even non-drunk Londo probably doesn't care about), he puts the human doctor that he does know into the story instead. Other people in this thread seem to like that too. I think Bester is a much more sympathetic character than most people do. He's a member of a persecuted minority who's put in the role of policing his own kind under threat of all telepaths being wiped out if he doesn't. He (and others in psi-corps) manage to infiltrate and partially control the majority group oppressing them, he's not acting out of a desire for power for it's own sake, personal power, wealth, or status, but basic survival. I sympathize a lot more with the minority who wants to be in charge so the majority will stop hurting, killing, and persecuting the minority than with someone like Londo who just wants to be on top of a slave-holding imperialist war machine for the sake of glory (even if he does eventually turn away from that). He's certainly not a nice person, and certainly does some very bad things, but I don't think he's nearly as 'black' on the moral scale as a lot of other people do. I liked to imagine a parody where Kosh is replaced by Beavis in an encounter suit, but everyone still reacts to him the same way. Like him telling Sinclair "huh-huh... there is a hole in your butt hehehe" instead of the real line, or when Sinclair comes into the room and he's watching human history scenes on a viewscreen, they're all porn from different eras instead of historical scenes. I'm partway through S1 at this point, and will probably keep posting impressions. Some things hit really differently now, since there's been a lot of real-world history, more than 2 decades of experience, and knowing a bunch of the reveals. Delenn comes off as really sanctimonious and hypocritical in S1 knowing that she personally ordered the genocide of the human race and only backed down much later. During the War Prayer she makes a comment to Sinclair about the nasty human propensity towards violence based off of the Home Guard branding her friend, but I think stabbing and branding one person (both of which are easily treatable with the medical tech available) is a bit less severe than deciding to wipe out an entire species and culture based on one accidental incident between warships. (Especially when the incident was caused by Minbari approaching with gun ports opened while hitting the Earthforce ship with scanners strong enough to disable the Earthforce ship's own scanners). Psi-Corps is a really insidious idea by Earth Alliance. Back when I originally watched, I missed the implication of Ivanova hating the Psi-Corps for what they did to her mother. After seeing the whole series and reading the Telepath books, it's clear that the Psi-Corps was created by the Earth Alliance and mandated to force telepaths to be members (and follow certain rules about power use and wearing distinctive outfits) or to take sleeper drugs, with the threat 'if you can't control your people, we'll start the death camps back again'. But because EA made the Corps its own organization, people blame the Corps itself for things that happen instead of the government they voted in that actually made it happen. It's really the mundane-run Earth Alliance, who's military Ivanova proudly serves in, that's responsible for her mother's death by mandating sleeper drugs, but Ivanova (and presumably people like her) put the blame on psi-corps instead of the government they voted in and fight for.
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Jun 25, 2023 20:20
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:I think Bester is a much more sympathetic character than most people do. He's a member of a persecuted minority who's put in the role of policing his own kind under threat of all telepaths being wiped out if he doesn't. He (and others in psi-corps) manage to infiltrate and partially control the majority group oppressing them, he's not acting out of a desire for power for it's own sake, personal power, wealth, or status, but basic survival. I sympathize a lot more with the minority who wants to be in charge so the majority will stop hurting, killing, and persecuting the minority than with someone like Londo who just wants to be on top of a slave-holding imperialist war machine for the sake of glory (even if he does eventually turn away from that). He's certainly not a nice person, and certainly does some very bad things, but I don't think he's nearly as 'black' on the moral scale as a lot of other people do. Exactly! It's some really interesting worldbuilding, although I think a lot of it stems from JMS's belief that telepathy represents an existential threat to our society (and maybe it does, who knows) and Keyes picking up on it and just running with it. Someone who goes by Pallasite over on AO3 did a really interesting series of essays that they basically posit as a defense of the Psi Corps and, specifically, Bester and they're really interesting if you want to explore these ideas further. It points out small things that Bester was aware of the Shadow weakness to telepaths before anyone in the main cast was and how the MRA is seemingly nicer than the Corps, it actually annihilates telepath culture and prevents them from organizing as they did within the Corps (while subjecting them to worse violations such as monthly loyalty scans.) Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Jun 26, 2023 |
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Jun 26, 2023 00:13
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Exactly! It's some really interesting worldbuilding, although I think a lot of it stems from JMS's belief that telepathy represents an existential threat to our society (and maybe it does, who knows) and Keyes picking up on it and just running with it. I think part of that in the B5 universe is that there's no technological help against telepathy. There are machines that can probe into someone's mind, hyperspace gives telepaths a big jump, and IIRC there are some telepathy boosting devices, but there are no thought screens that you can put on a person or ship to shut out telepaths and the ability for mundanes to block telepaths is very limited. If you have battery-powered electronic or mechanical thought screens like the Lensman universe has, then it's a lot easier for people to exist around telepaths. Also some of the worldbuilding falls flat - for example I find the use of telepath for scanning business deals really odd (and did back on first watch). quote:Someone who goes by Pallasite over on AO3 did a really interesting series of essays that they basically posit as a defense of the Psi Corps and, specifically, Bester and they're really interesting if you want to explore these ideas further. It points out small things that Bester was aware of the Shadow weakness to telepaths before anyone in the main cast was and how the MRA is seemingly nicer than the Corps, it actually annihilates telepath culture and prevents them from organizing as they did within the Corps (while subjecting them to worse violations such as monthly loyalty scans.) I've read some of his essays and they're interesting, but I don't really buy what he's selling. There's a number of places where he's exaggerating something from the books or shows wildly, and some of his interpretations are suspect - for example, at one point he says that scans being inadmissible in court implies that telepaths can't testify against normals, which just doesn't follow. I have read some of it and will probably eventually read it all, but I don't really think of it as a reference, he goes a bit too far and seems overconfident in his conclusions (too much 'it is this way' and not enough 'it might be this way, but also might be this less drastic interpretation). I feel like he's the kind of writer that you have to double-check before you rely on his conclusions.
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Jun 26, 2023 04:10
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:I've read some of his essays and they're interesting, but I don't really buy what he's selling. There's a number of places where he's exaggerating something from the books or shows wildly, and some of his interpretations are suspect - for example, at one point he says that scans being inadmissible in court implies that telepaths can't testify against normals, which just doesn't follow. I have read some of it and will probably eventually read it all, but I don't really think of it as a reference, he goes a bit too far and seems overconfident in his conclusions (too much 'it is this way' and not enough 'it might be this way, but also might be this less drastic interpretation). I feel like he's the kind of writer that you have to double-check before you rely on his conclusions. Yeah, a lot of it is building huge arguments over single lines that obviously have a simpler meaning (there's one where the writer claims that Bester's Black Omega furies engaged the Shadows near Io which is... almost certainly something that didn't happen) but the general gist is pretty solid.
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Jun 26, 2023 06:12
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:There's a number of places where he's exaggerating something from the books or shows wildly, and some of his interpretations are suspect - for example, at one point he says that scans being inadmissible in court implies that telepaths can't testify against normals, which just doesn't follow. It's actually explicit text that unapproved telepathic scans are inadmissible as evidence - Talia says as much at one point. It's the same as how in the real world evidence obtained without a warrant is inadmissible. The court can order you to submit to a scan if there are sufficient grounds, and you can waive your rights and volunteer to be scanned, but a telepath can't just go digging. From this we can definitely deduce that it's at least very hard for telepaths to testify against normals, as a defence lawyer would simply demand that their testimony be thrown out as either it was obtained illegally or it's perjury.
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Jun 26, 2023 08:26
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The whole telepath situation is messed up in the B5 universe, but I'd still say Bester is a villain, pure and simple. We can pity him, since he's a product of a hosed up system, but he's gleefully become a villain in a pursuit for power. Of course the pursuit of power is tangled with some form of assuring an existence for "his people", but Bester the man has internalized a lot of the bull-poo poo over his life and he's not exactly a freedom fighter to root for, IMO. Isn't he the one who makes the quip about wanting to slice Talia to ribbons for "science"? Londo has the raw charisma of Peter Jurasik having the time of his life, but he's also a monster. We empathize with him over Adira (Adeera? His lady friend), and Londo is perpetually contrasted with characters like Refa and Cartagia, who are either just more evil or purely insane monsters, so Londo doesn't seem as bad. But Londo's sidekick Vir is a kind of nice person, or wants to be, he's horrified by his monstrous arranged-marriage-wife, and he's genuinely upset when he has to assassinate Cartagia personally. Londo is present for all the awful poo poo that happens on Narn, and while he may have some qualms about it on-screen, he actually doesn't either manage or even try to stop the poo poo until it benefits his plan of destroying Cartagia. And maybe saving G'kar, they're kind of buddies at this point. Londo even has a meeting with a Narn representative at some point after the planet is occupied and he asks about how the death camps are doing. All that said, Londo isn't exactly played for a villain in the show's presentation, he's buddies with Sheridan and Delenn and eventually even G'kar, and we're meant to care about the core cast. I think I'm #teamlondo! Rappaport fucked around with this message at 09:41 on Jun 26, 2023 |
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Jun 26, 2023 09:38
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Rappaport posted:The whole telepath situation is messed up in the B5 universe, but I'd still say Bester is a villain, pure and simple. We can pity him, since he's a product of a hosed up system, but he's gleefully become a villain in a pursuit for power. Of course the pursuit of power is tangled with some form of assuring an existence for "his people", but Bester the man has internalized a lot of the bull-poo poo over his life and he's not exactly a freedom fighter to root for, IMO. Isn't he the one who makes the quip about wanting to slice Talia to ribbons for "science"? I feel like that remark was clearly a deliberate attempt to provoke Garibaldi (or the others) into having an extreme emotional response and therefore can't necessarily be thought of as conclusive to anything. I don't know if it's that scene or another, but the point is raised that a telepath can more easily scan/detect strong emotional bursts.
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Jun 26, 2023 10:13
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And a big thing that comes up is that Bester isn't one of the movers and shakers within the Corps. He's respected, sure, and he has enough influence to set up small operations like Black Omega, but he's not setting policy. Things like the Talia project, Bureau 13, the alliance with the Shadows, that's all above his head. He didn't even have enough influence to save his girlfriend. I see no reason to doubt him when he says that what happened to Talia was a project he had no authority over.
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Jun 26, 2023 11:18
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Jedit posted:It's actually explicit text that unapproved telepathic scans are inadmissible as evidence - Talia says as much at one point. It's the same as how in the real world evidence obtained without a warrant is inadmissible. The court can order you to submit to a scan if there are sufficient grounds, and you can waive your rights and volunteer to be scanned, but a telepath can't just go digging. From this we can definitely deduce that it's at least very hard for telepaths to testify against normals, as a defence lawyer would simply demand that their testimony be thrown out as either it was obtained illegally or it's perjury. Like I said before, I don't see how you reach the end of that paragraph from the beginning. It's explicit that telepaths have other senses than telepathy - notably, Bester is still a capable investigator and combatant even when he's on sleeper drugs that shut off his telepathic abilities entirely, and there's nothing that indicates a fact or belief that their only sense is telepathy. In the real world the majority of evidence obtained without a warrant is admissible, it's only evidence obtained *from a search by the government* that *would not have been discovered without the illegal search* that's inadmissible without a warrant. If someone attacks me with a knife, my testimony that I saw them rush towards me while holding a knife and that I felt the knife stabbing into me is going to be admissible even though no court issued a warrant for me to observe it. If I enter a business deal with Bob, I can testify that he and I signed a contract, I can testify about what discussions we had, I can testify that I saw him collect cash but didn't see it go into the business bank account at the end of the day. A lawyer foolish enough to argue that my testimony should be thrown out because either it must have been obtained illegally or it's perjury would likely face sanctions for making frivolous motions, and there's nothing in the show or books to indicate that it would be different for a normal or telepath. Specific information obtained by telepathy like "I could see in his thoughts that he wanted to kill all teeps" or "Bob thought about how he was going to spend the money on a new Lambo" could be thrown out, but that doesn't lead to all testimony being thrown out, just specific testimony that could only come from a telepathic scan.
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Jun 26, 2023 14:17
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The one neat trick mundanes hate is to do a surface scan, find something out, find an alternate reason you could have known it, and use that to solve the case.
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Jun 26, 2023 14:34
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Angry Salami posted:And a big thing that comes up is that Bester isn't one of the movers and shakers within the Corps. He's respected, sure, and he has enough influence to set up small operations like Black Omega, but he's not setting policy. Things like the Talia project, Bureau 13, the alliance with the Shadows, that's all above his head. He didn't even have enough influence to save his girlfriend. He does approve of all the policy though, and he is implied to be a very important guy within the corps. What we definitely know he's directly responsible for is the psi-cops' initiation ritual of murdering normies. The psi-corps are heavily eugenicist, and while Bester has his fling with a blip because he doesn't emotionally click with his corps-appointed wife, he doesn't appear to really disagree with the concept. They are also a very racial supremacist organization, which I guess we don't really know how much of the psi-corps was decided by Earthgov regulating telepaths and how much was established by the corps itself, but it seems like the corps does its best to discourage relations between telepaths and muggles. Bester's really great at presenting himself as amiably as possible, but I think it's a front that he maintains mainly by not having any respect for the non-telepaths he's dealing with.
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Jun 26, 2023 14:54
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| # ? May 18, 2024 04:29 |
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Yeah, the telepaths may have gotten a raw deal from Earth society and Earthgov, but they sure didn't waste any time going full fash with their little gestapo club. Secret hyperspace bases, murder initiation rites, all manner of sleeper agents, routinely illegally scanning civilians, trapping people in endless psychic nightmares, eugenics programs... JMS himself said of seeing Bester's 'good side', "Even Hitler painted roses."
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Jun 26, 2023 17:48
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