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I feel like the presentation of the Vorlons would be something that might differ in the reimagining, if only because I think the original idea for the Vorlons as more generally weird and benign doesn't mesh neatly with what we learn in the series. Like, what do people know about the Vorlons? Very little, politically or otherwise. The Minbari might know enough to poison one, if you assume Kosh wasn't playing possum. People appear to assume they're vastly powerful and can generally do what they want, and are probably quite happy that the Vorlons keep to themselves and don't stick their nose into galactic affairs. But then you remember that the Vorlons disappear any ships that enter their space and basically go, yeah, there was an accident, big reactor leak, very unsafe, don't send more ships btw. And that's pretty terrible because it'd have to happen enough times to become that sort of commonly accepted wisdom! But what could anyone do? And people seem to have diplomatic channels to the Empire, because the Vorlons do occasionally issue statements (such as with the bombing of Narn) and I don't think anyone is that bewildered by it. And I don't know, I'm not sure B5 really captured that feeling of there being this dragon in one corner of the room that isn't sleeping so much as disinterested and/or ignoring you. And then one day one of them shows up on your space station and just kind of... hangs out, attends some of the meetings, says bizarre things if anything at all, vanishes for months at a time, and pokes their head out occasionally to do things like dropping a battleship out the jump gate to kill Space Cat Mengele. I feel like a remaining could do an interesting thing with that. More properly play up how ominous and vaguely threatening the Vorlons are. Get a little bit more into how they interact with the galaxy, if at all.
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May 8, 2023 03:45
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Asteroid Alert posted:https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/m...m_medium=social Absolutely not what I expected but, heck, it could be a lot of fun. And I think something a little weird and off-the-wall is probably a good thing for B5 to finish up with, at least in its original form.
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May 11, 2023 00:38
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It looks fun! The Franklin, Delenn and Zathras recasts sound fine, but G'Kar... not so much. But I'm sure he'll do just fine, he just has the hardest act to follow up on.
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Jun 15, 2023 23:22
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Small White Dragon posted:Them sitting around "admiring the view" when they lost the Shadow War seems... odd, although I guess the Shadows wouldn't simply eliminate every sentient species, that would probably be a failure of their edict. Is it? It depends on how TRH presents it, but I think it's pretty plausible that losing the Shadow War wouldn't result in an apocalypse and even people who acted against the Shadows could be left alive. It's a doctrinal conflict, after all, and I feel like both the Vorlons and Shadows would be the sort to 'rub it in.' It could just be a timeline where Sheridan never existed or died on Za'ha'dum and so the Army of Light was never formed or was wiped out. Kinda interesting that TRH seems to be committing to the vision of Babylon 5 being boarded and destroyed, right down to having Shadows phasing through the walls and echoing Garibaldi's lines during that sequence. Not sure about the thousands of them swarming around but, hey.
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Jun 16, 2023 11:10
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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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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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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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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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Gaz-L posted:I can see if being Morden, if the idea is that the only one he fulfils is the last. That's what Morella says, yes. He only needs to take the last one, surrendering himself to his greatest fear, if he's failed the others. Lady Morella posted:"You still have three opportunities to avoid the fire at the end of your journey. You have already wasted two others. You must save the (eye) that does not see; you must not kill the one who is already dead; and at the last, you must surrender to yourself to your greatest fear, knowing that it will destroy you. Now if you have failed all the others, that is your final chance at redemption." So he must not save the eye (G'Kar's eye), he must kill the one who is already dead (Morden), then he must surrender himself to his greatest fear. This is almost certainly being killed by G'Kar, but it could refer to also being implanted with the Keeper -- which would basically put him on the path to that death.
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Jun 27, 2023 00:26
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:For all of the people saying that they think the prophecy refers to saving G'kar's eye, can you explain what Londo should have done to save G'kar's eye, and how that would cause events to play out differently? I don't see anything that he could do to save G'kar from having his eye put out that would lead to the Drakh and Shadows off of Centauri Prime without a grudge. The 'consensus view' may be G'kar's eye, but I've never seen someone who takes that view explain what saving G'kar's eye would look like and how saving it would save Londo. I'm not saying 'write me an episode long script or I won't believe you', just a line or to like I did explaining how I think sparing Refa and Morden would lead to a significantly different outcome. It's impossible to say. To me, had Londo spoken up then it would've been, essentially, an act of faith. It'd also come back to that idea that Babylon 5 espouses pretty consistently that standing up for the right thing, in the dark, alone, where no one will ever know, when it comes down to you saying something regardless of the personal cost, is the most important thing a person can do. It's exactly what G'Kar/his conscience castigates Londo for when he's dying. Maybe Cartagia would've seen the light and undone things. Maybe Londo would've been killed, and that changed everything and allowed him to escape that fate. We can't know, and I think that's at the core of Babylon 5's thoughts regarding what heroism. Londo says it wouldn't change anything, and his mental G'Kar says: "It doesn't matter if they'd stop! It doesn't matter if they'd listen! You had an obligation to speak out!" It's also not the 'consensus view', really. I think it's the only aspect of the prophecy that JMS has explicitly addressed.
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Jun 27, 2023 01:10
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The thing about Bester (and the Psi Corps) is that JMS seems to genuinely view telepathy as an existential threat to humanity, one that will flip a switch in people and turn them into monsters. So, Bester is Hitler, and Hitler can be pretty charming and personable. Except Bester isn't Hitler. The Earth Alliance's role in creating Psi Corps and enforcing its mandate in subjugating telepaths-by-telepaths is, with the exception of I think a single line from Garibaldi in Season 5, never actually talked about. Psi Corps isn't an arm of the Earth Alliance, one subjected to laws created by mundanes and overseen by a mundane, but this tumor of malfeasance that just seemingly sprung up out of nowhere and is cartoonishly evil. I think just about every antagonist from the Shadows to Lord Refa get a bit more sympathy than Bester and the Corps does. And then you've got guys like Edgars making an outright genocide virus. Edgars even says that there's a secret cabal of capitalists who are the real power in the Earth Alliance, and they've decided that telepaths need to be taken care of... because they're worried about telepaths taking control of the Earth Alliance. JMS just has a weird blind spot, and I feel like that's part of the reason the Telepath War has never really been detailed because the idea of the Psi Corps just... launching a coup of the Earth Alliance is a little silly. And also immediately runs into the problem that not every single person in the Psi Corps is an Alfred Bester.
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Jun 29, 2023 02:27
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Seemlar posted:Admittedly I haven't read anything secondary like the novels about the Telepath War so I don't know what they had to say about it, but from what little Crusade got into it, things seemed like they were headed in a circular direction - from memory, the Psi Corp was abolished and telepath segregation ended so they could be private citizens or join Earthforce like anyone else, but there was a new telepath oversight body in place (civilian? can't remember) and when they show up in an episode it's as villain of the week abusing their powers and violating boundaries so they're pretty much Psi Cops with a new badge EarthGov basically deciding that the issue with Psi Corps was that it had a PR problem and all they had to do was rebrand it somewhat, while reducing the power of telepaths as a bloc in the process, is really quite perceptive, honestly. The Metasensory Regulatory Authority is worse than the Corps in some ways, such as how monthly loyalty scans are now mandatory.
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Jun 30, 2023 15:13
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Rappaport posted:I honestly can't remember now, do any of the minimovies or the show discuss Vorlon societal order at all? We see two of them prominently; Kosh is nice (sort of) but doesn't really engage or tell anyone anything that's meaningful until after the fact (except JUMP, NOW! I guess), and the second one is mean and angry. Nope. All we really get is from JMS' various statements which is basically that Kosh is old for a Vorlon and represented a faction with a particular set of views, and Ulkesh (Kosh 2) represented a more prominent faction who gained power with the death of Kosh as they saw it as Kosh's methods failing. Vorlons apparently rarely die and the race as a a whole was symbolized as a woman in a block of ice, so, the general vibe is of a state that's exists in a form of stasis and even one death appeared to be pretty traumatizing. Also, doing a re-watch alongside a friend who is watching it for the first time. Seems like there's a goof in Midnight on the Firing Line. When Ragesh 3 is attacked by the Narn, G'Kar states that Ragesh 3 was actually a Narn colony before the Centauri conquered it, and this appears to be enough that the Minbari recognize it. But... as we'll learn later on in the series, and what JMS has stated in a few posts, the Narn were a primitive, agrarian people who didn't have space travel prior to the Centauri arrival.
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Jul 10, 2023 12:32
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:Where did you get that they were *primitive*? I know that they describe themselves as a *peaceful*, agrarian people, but I don't recall hearing or reading the primitive part. Relatively primitive, I suppose is the better way of putting it. I'd need to hunt down JMS' postings on it, but he specified they were not spacefaring when the Centauri conquered them the first time and might've mentioned they were specifically pre-industrial. Londo says similarly in Season 2, but we can allow for that it's Londo (But what about the Narn usage of phrases like "they came to our world" which implies singular? And I think even G'Kar says they were specifically agrarian at some point prior to the Centauri arrival.) It also wouldn't be the first time in B5 where JMS has provided dates that don't fit with previously established ones. But the idea that Narns were taken to colonies like Ragesh 3 as slaves does tie it off neatly, although I'd still question why the Minbari would be the ones to legitimize the claim. While writing this post, I found two of them: "Given that the Narns were agrarian prior to the arrival of the Centauri, and were under their heel, and got most of their tech FROM the Centauri leftovers, no, they're not more advanced. It's a lot like the Russian situation, seemingly this tremendous power, but once you look deep, not as well off as they'd like you to think." "The Narn were not out in space prior to the Centauri arriving." Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 06:24 on Jul 13, 2023 |
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Jul 13, 2023 06:15
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The Ragesh 3 claim could be way more intriguing if it wasn't one hundred years but one thousand. Like if G'Kar came in and mentioned ancient Narn artifacts and Londo is all, bah, absurd, but then Delenn recognises it. Because that'd then line up with the First Shadow War stuff, and then maybe make you wonder on another viewing why the Minbari were saved but the Narns were not.
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Jul 14, 2023 04:21
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I believe the second book of the Technomage trilogy includes Kosh's death from his point of view. From memory, he doesn't fight back, the Shadows are worried about why he isn't fighting back (wondering if it's a trap), and the damage they do to him involves introducing disorder into his essence. I think it mentions energy tendrils from their eyes?
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Jul 24, 2023 15:59
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Road Home is... odd. The White Star looks great in this style, but I never those big brown blocks on top of B5 were hollow, and the jump gates look really weird. Some of the humor is way off, and some of the writing is, too (did everyone really know that about the end of the Shadow War and the specific context of it?) Was it just my stream or was the intro really as sudden and jarring with the music cutting off? Mispronouncing pak'ma'ra was also really obvious. Franklin's angst about not telling Sheridan he died three years before, when Sheridan knew he only had twenty years ever since 2261? Sheridan says he took over Babylon 5 in 2258, but it had to be 2259 because the events of Chrysalis took place on New Year's Eve 2258. The Cobra Bays are weird, the Starfury sounds are all off. B5 has the upgraded defence grid (but I think it's before it happened?) Starfuries have four cannons around the cockpit. Garibaldi lassos a Shadow fighter with his fury's grappling hook. The Shadows just... in general. A lot of the editing feels weird. I don't know, I'm not sure I can finish this. If you'd told me JMS had nothing to do with it, or it was some Youtube fan effort, I'd believe you.
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Aug 12, 2023 06:03
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Yeah, that was basically awful. I regret my purchase and even just extending my benefit of the doubt to it and the forthcoming reboot. The new cast members were all really good, especially Delenn. The Vorlons being sore losers was a nice sequence, and strangely answers old fandom questions about their planet killer, but the rest of it just... Really disappointing.
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Aug 12, 2023 08:12
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Rappaport posted:It was definitely different from the original series, but I liked the goofiness. There was no way this was going to be anything but fan service, so why not have fun with it? The thing is, if that was the case, then I don't think it really went far enough with it. Like, give us some Kosh (you even made an asset for him!), give us a timeline where Morden was working with G'Kar, a timeline where Sinclair died at the Battle of the Line, a timeline where JMS shows us scenes from the infamous joke script where Londo marries G'Kar or whatever it was, an inexplicable timeline where Vir is Emperor of the Known Universe, a timeline where President John Sheridan meets Captain Jane Sheridan, a timeline where everyone looks like they do in the Babylon 5 series pitch, a glimpse of the telepath war, a timeline where Psi Corps and Clark won. The timelines we see are, like... 1. The original as of Objects at Rest. 2. Perhaps the same timeline, but in 2284, three years after Sheridan's death. 3. Perhaps the same timeline, but in 2257, during the Icarus mission to Za'ha'dum. 4. The War Without End 'bad' timeline where the Shadows board Babylon 5. 5. A timeline where the heroes lost the Shadow War. This one is a little strange because it appears that the Vorlons were allied with the Army of Light, only to turn about and begin purging the galaxy when they started losing. Which feels exactly like what they'd do. 6. A timeline where everyone is on B5, and IPX never woke up the Shadows because they went bankrupt. Admittedly, they probably had a very limited budget, but I mean... Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Aug 12, 2023 |
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Aug 12, 2023 09:40
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Rappaport posted:I have no objections to a full season of animated "What if?" but Babylon 5. The movie did start out slow, but production cowards probably figured there'd be potential viewers who don't re-watch the series annually like the participants of this thread. To cover all the stuff you mentioned and have some time with all of it, you'd need more than 90 minutes, IMO. Yeah, we don't know the production side of things. For all we know, Warner Bros was like, hey, we're doing a B5 animated film, you get first refusal to write it, but it has to have a multiverse element because that's hot right now, and it should be open to people who've never seen it before because we've got that reboot brewing...
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Aug 12, 2023 11:28
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cmdrk posted:One thing I didn't understand about the end was where we are now. Young Sheridan says that he's been the commander of Bab5 for 2 years, and hasn't heard anything about a Shadow War or Za-Ha-BOOM. We never change perspective back to a non-alternate Sheridan as far as I know. It's a timeline where the Shadows never woke up on Z'ha'dum because the Icarus never went there because IPX went bankrupt. Yeah, it doesn't make much sense.
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Aug 14, 2023 04:25
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cmdrk posted:Yeah, which makes me wonder if something like the Drazi Inter-Purple Expeditions will be the ones to agitate the shadows in the new show I believe JMS has said that the reboot will not be set in that timeline, but any further animated things might be. Honestly, the problem with that timeline is the person who says Icarus woke the Shadows up was Anna Sheridan, and the Shadows did what they did because they were vulnerable and afraid. To say this is an unreliable account is an understatement. Additionally, there's plenty of material that suggests the Shadows were already awake and active (the Minbari expedition to check on Z'ha'dum was infamously waylaid by the EAS Prometheus, for example. So the Icarus would likely not have been the cause of the Shadow War as TRH implies.
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Aug 14, 2023 04:31
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SlothfulCobra posted:Something I've never understood: that Mark Twain lookin' guy that Sheridan meets at Kazaad Dum. What was his deal, and what does he mean by "same group, different department"? I think it's basically what RocknRollaAyatollah said. Back when Sheridan has his weird Kosh dream, he was told two things: "The man in between is searching for you" and "You are the hand." Delenn points out that these two things might be related, and the man in between is therefore Sheridan's equal and opposite. Justin identifies himself as "a sort of middleman." That is to say, a man in between two things. Sheridan is the guy who is bringing people together as an ordered coalition, whereas Justin is the voice of chaotic evolution. And I'm not sure how well it works, because while Justin comes across as Sheridan's opposite (old versus young, intense vs frail, known vs unknown, both like tea), I don't think he really comes across as his equal, nor exactly why he's looking for him/doesn't know where he is prior to that point. The other thing that complicates is that when I think "a sort of middleman" for the Shadows, I think of Morden. That's not to say Morden was ever intended to take the Justin role or anything, but just that Justin's position within the Shadow entity is really unclear. Morden is the guy who goes around covertly and has people make deals with the devil, Anna was in a Shadow ship until a few days prior. But what the heck does Justin even do? Was he the Morden to Clark's Londo? Either way, it feels like the deaths of Justin and Sheridan could be why the Shadows and Vorlons both go into open battle -- their chosen generals have failed, time to go direct. It's also complicated by the fact that there is an explicit Shadow conspiracy back on Earth, and it's a pretty prominent plot point. I feel like JMS dropped the ball a little on whatever was intended for that idea of Sheridan's equal and opposite among the Shadows.
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Nov 12, 2023 10:19
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F_Shit_Fitzgerald posted:It makes a whole lot of sense to me. At the heart of all the Shadows' evil is a banal little man, not really different than someone who might be the CEO of a defense contractor in the US, who is pulling the strings. I've always enjoyed how the scene comes across like a weird business proposal - because it is! It's such a good scene. I've always drawn a mental connection between him and Edgars for much of what you said.
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Nov 13, 2023 00:12
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mossyfisk posted:The religious caste having a fleet built and a military was a major part of the civil war, they're not supposed to do that. And the worker caste build everything: I think you're confusing two things. In Severed Dreams, Delenn says "Between the Worker Caste and the Religious Caste, we control two thirds of our forces." And I think it's either later in the third season, or in the fourth season, the Warrior Caste concern is that the Religious Caste built and crewed the White Star fleet without their knowledge or consent.
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Feb 11, 2024 01:45
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I like to wonder if John and Delenn ever talked about the war. Did Delenn ever tell him she cast the deciding vote?
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Feb 14, 2024 10:34
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:FYI it's made clear in the Technomage Trilogy* that Morden was never put into a ship the way Anna was. His wife had died from a cash in a jump gate, and the shadows convinced him that her soul or ghost was stuck in between life and death, but they could free her and would do so if he worked for them, so he voluntarily worked with the shadows. They did put some kind of control implants, device, or psychic mods on him to help with their control later on, but the initial decision was his. The shadows took everyone from the Icarus willing to work for them as volunteers, so only people who resisted like Anna were turned into ship pilot things. I think that was The Shadow Within. But yes, a jump drive incident had trapped his wife (supposedly) in a hyperspace pocket between life and death and the Shadows put her out of her misery in exchange for his servitude.
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Apr 3, 2024 07:07
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:I think it's significant that the Shadows just told him they'd do that, we don't see any kind of objective evidence that they did. I remember reading a lot of fan theorizing back in the day about what the Shadows were actually planning to do for him when they offered Cartagia godhood, and I think it all just means 'the Shadows are fine with lying and making wild but unverifiable promises to people to get them to do what they want. The fan speculation about what the Shadows were going to do to empower Cartagia always struck me as strange, I thought Morden's tone made it clear that the Shadows were just playing along with crazy delusions to get what they want. I think we (the reader through Anna) see a vision of a Shadow warship destroying the ship his wife is trapped on, but that's hardly objective evidence. It's been a while but I think Anna even says it could be a lie and it's just what he wants to see. Guess that was Morden's answer to 'what do you want?'
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Apr 4, 2024 09:23
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My understanding is that pretty much any Babylon 5 memorabilia is pretty rare, especially these days. I've got a bunch of the novels, but I've never seen anything else 'in the wild.' Cool find, cool dad!
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Apr 28, 2024 13:06
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