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Absurd Alhazred posted:I really hope he doesn't bring back Penn & Teller for this. Penn and Teller, Scott Adams, all your favorites will be returning!
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Nov 29, 2021 12:44
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Milkfred E. Moore posted:Even Ivanova gets a jokey moment of anti-telepath "humor" when it's revealed she threw a telepath out a window but it's okay because he landed in a pool. Sheridan says, "I assume you knew that." Like, is that funny, really? There's a great moment in "Corps is Mother, Corps is Father", when Bester comes onboard B5 and tells Zack that he's pursuing a killer. And when Zack hears the guy he's after killed a Psi-Cop, he has the sort of comeback we've seen in every other Bester episode from Ivanova or Garibaldi, something along the lines of "That's bad because...?" Except this time we know the killer's not a heroic rebel, just a psychopath, and we've seen Bester comforting the victim's widow, and it just puts all those previous jokes into a new light, with Bester's protege horrified by the callous attitude of our 'heroes' towards telepaths.
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Jan 13, 2022 06:38
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At the same time, Bester is the product of a world that treats telepaths as either a threat or an expendable resource. Clark uses the Psi Corps to enforce his will, but is willing to trade telepaths to the Shadows for technology. Sheridan then uses the same telepaths as unwitting suicide bombers to bring down Clark. Edgars drat near succeeds in wiping out or enslaving telepaths, making it clear that he sees them as a bigger threat than Clark's dictatorship. It's not Bester who created that environment; he grew up in a culture where telepaths are socially and legally isolated from the rest of humanity, and where it's clear that the majority of humanity views the struggle between telepaths and normals as a zero-sum game. He's in a similar situation as G'kar - having grown up in an oppressive, hierarchical society, he's internalized some of its values and is determined to ensure that his people end up on top.
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Jan 14, 2022 06:27
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SlothfulCobra posted:I wonder what Dukat did to become the best, and most respected of the Minbari. Was it just growing a beard? When they say he was the greatest of all Minbari, they're being completely literal - he's the tallest Minbari we ever see!
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Mar 4, 2022 08:21
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I'd note that even in Season One, the Earth Government still aren't good guys - Clark's people didn't come out of nowhere. In season one, we've got the government wanting to make an example of striking workers, crushing rebels on Mars, and the only real mention of Santiago's policies are that he wants to 'focus on the needs of Earth'. We sort of assume in hindsight that Santiago was a good guy, but the difference between him and Clark might be closer to 'regular Republican vs Trump Republican' than anything else.
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Aug 25, 2022 16:25
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Given that the First Ones - and the Vorlons in particular - aren't exactly people you should be emulating, I choose to believe that it's the Narn and Centauri who turned out to be the most enlightened ones, finally breaking that cycle, while humans and Minbari keep making the mistakes of the past.
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Oct 12, 2022 04:50
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If there wasn't any theft going on, how do you explain such obvious similarities as both shows screwing over their female lead, causing them to be awkwardly written out for the last season?!
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Dec 14, 2022 10:41
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theblackw0lf posted:Friend of mine got into a discussion with me as how he thought it was weird that all the shadow entities would agree with their plan, especially since it puts their lives at risk. I don't think the Shadows themselves were ever at risk - they don't crew their own ships, after all.
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Dec 15, 2022 03:38
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IIRC, the Centauri refuse to sell weapons to Earth during the Minbari war for fear of provoking the Minbari. The Narn ware willing, but they sell Earth reverse-engineered Centauri weapons to try and frame them. I think it makes sense to assume most Narn technology is captured or reverse-engineered from the Centauri. Although they don't seem to have artificial gravity on their ships, while the Centauri do. But that might just be something they consider an unnecessary luxury and don't bother with - their ships seem to have a similar 'rough and ready' style to Earth ships.
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Mar 14, 2023 08:23
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I always felt the show should have done more with the idea that the anti-alien movement on Earth isn't just ignorant bigotry, but a fairly understandable reaction to narrowly surviving a war against a genocidal alien empire. I kinda feel the reporter in "And Now For A Word..." kinda had a point calling out Delenn's transformation as a pretty insulting gesture given what the Minbari had tried to do.
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Apr 4, 2023 06:59
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On the one hand, I do think it's a shame Talia left and never came back, but on the other, I think having Lyta worked out better storywise. Having the super-telepath be enhanced by the Vorlons rather than empowered by some guy we never see again tied everything together better, and it makes more sense that she's seen by everyone else as a bit of an outsider because she wasn't around for the first couple seasons.
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May 6, 2023 07:41
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I always thought it was weird how Shadow tech is treated as inherently corrupting and evil, but everyone's cool about Vorlon tech being used in the White Stars and other Alliance ships. I mean, sure, they don't use people as CPUs, but their own living ships that kill themselves when their duties are complete raise a bunch of ethical red flags as well.
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May 6, 2023 16:05
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At least it can't be worse than Legend of the Rangers! Right...?
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May 11, 2023 16:27
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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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Milkfred E. Moore posted: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. Edgars really moves Bester into "Magneto Was Right" territory - no matter how ruthless and evil the Corps actions are, it's hard to condemn them when they really are dealing with the threat of genocide against them. And Bester's actions in season four are a hell of a lot easier to justify than Sheridan using the Shadow teeps as suicide bombers.
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Jun 29, 2023 04:37
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mllaneza posted:Do not read his 1975 novel, The Computer Connection. Is hilariously awful and hosed up in many strange ways. It's one chapter full of "he did NOT just go there" after another. You have been warned. Bester wrote two great novels, a few good short stories, and everything else was the worst dreck I’ve ever read.
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Jul 1, 2023 16:31
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SlothfulCobra posted:I think that Franklin as another technical job that doesn't often really have much bearing on the politics of the day already struggles to make his way into episodes, to the point that it makes me wonder why it's such a regular fixture for Star Trek to always have a doctor character. I feel that a bunch of sci-fi shows, both Star Trek and otherwise, have found themselves stuck with a doctor character more because McCoy was such an integral part of the original series than because the show actually needs one, and a failure to realize that McCoy's role isn't to be 'the doctor', it's to be the down-to-earth regular guy.
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Feb 8, 2024 10:01
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Eighties ZomCom posted:I've gotten to TKO in my watch through. It's...fine I guess? The B plot with Susan dealing with the death of her father really helps it. Yeah, TKO sets up a human-vs-alien dynamic that doesn't really exist anywhere else in the show and doesn't make much sense given everything else seems to indicate that Earth actually has better relations with the minor worlds than most of the other great powers. I chose to believe the whole thing is actually an elaborate scam and the boxing aliens are just being belligerent to stop anyone looking too closely an their 'ancient tradition'. "We're not betting on a blood sport, it's a holy ritual of our people! And, um, of all these other species too!" "Wait, Mu-Tai? As in Muay Thai? That's just Thai boxing, that's not a religious ritual-" "oh crap, these are the guys we stole this sport from originally EVERYONE COME LOOK AT THE INTOLERANT HUMAN!"
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Feb 15, 2024 12:28
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