Babylon 5 notes

[jack]

* From JMS. "When they needed those scientific and nanobiological answers in 24 hours, why didn't they ask one of the older races? Why not ask Kosh?" "Would you really want to ask Kosh for technical information? He'd day something like 'The heart does not sing with its parts', and that's probably not specific enough"

* Who is Kosh? How about, how Lawrence of Arabia is seen? He has a profound and mostly positive effect on us, yet his own reasons for being there are dragging us into a massive ideological conflict which we'd rather not be in and are massively outgunned in.

* Midwinter did mention this, but it still bugs me just a little. When they go searching amongst the command staff for a hidden psychic trigger, Garibaldi fakes them out, pretending to collapse, and then saying "boo". Which is great. But I still felt like it was going to be a ruse on behalf of the newly uncovered subconscious personality. (Of course, Lyta would have been able to tell, they could have mentioned that if they'd thought of it and had time.)

* Sheridan is kidnapped by a race of aliens looking to investigate different alien species and find ones vulnerable to exploitation. This seemed ridiculously impossible. However, if you image space in 2260 similar to sea in 1800, it tracks. The Hornblower books feel consistent, and you can certainly imagine Hornblower leading an important off-ship mission in some far quarter of the world, being kidnapped by a minor naval power, which was then intimidated into dust by the Royal Navy and allies.

* I found Earth's new Ministry of Peace "or minipax as we like to call it round the office" way too unsubtle. Until I saw 1984 ministry names being used in real life :(

* When Sinclair found out he was going to be Valen, did he ever get to eat any of those portions of flarn set aside at traditional minbari meals for him?

* Fairly often I see a science fiction story, and say "Why do they go to all this trouble? Why did they never try dropping an asteroid on" whatever-it-was. In this case, the Centauri do take this approach. Londo, watching the bombardment, is one of the few things that regularly moves me to tears. (Perhaps because for many English people it's easier to empathise with a middle class social climber present at a genocide, than a victim.)

* When Ivanovna taunts the Sigma 957 first ones into supporting the army of the light, she plays on their resentment of the Vorlons. At the time, this seemed like a standard hey-look-the-transcendant-beings-have-emotions-too joke. Now, we know very precisely what their gripe is. The Vorlons were left out of the transcendence, and fell to dicking about with the younger races for their own amusement, and now Ivanovna and earth, being taken for a fucking ride by the Vorlons, come here and throw it right in the first ones' faces. No wonder they were cross!

Comments

[nameandnature]

I've always thought the Nightwatch would be a good nickname for the Department of Homeland Security, myself.

Watching B5 when I was a Christian and liking the episode where Kosh leaves his encounter suit, I remembered being a bit disappointed when it didn't turn out that the Vorlons were angelic goodies and the Shadows the demonic baddies. It seems like the Vorlons/Shadows arc is an allegory for growing out of religion (among other things).

You can tell the authors have spoken to real scientists when the characters start dropping kinetic harpoons on each other (why would you bother with nukes to bombard a planet?) I do wonder why nobody tries the Lensmen series trick of dropping rocks with massive velocities out of jump gates (unless there's some trick to the physics that means you can't do that). That sort of thing could really ruin B5's day, as it's sat on top of one and isn't able to move fast.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I remembered being a bit disappointed when it didn't turn out that the Vorlons were angelic goodies and the Shadows the demonic baddies.

I've made this comment before. That I think they did too good a job setting that up. When you read JMS's comments through seasons 2 and 3, you constantly see exchanges like this:

Q. Hang on. Kosh is supposedly this angelic saviour, right? Then why is he acting like such an entitled elitist cowardly condescending asshole?
A. Well spotted.

But they did such a good job setting up the mystery of the vorlons, and we're so used to inconsistent mentor-figures in fiction who are according the story acting for everyone's own good when they seem ranodm and inconsistent, for good reasons explained later that don't really make sense from within the story. So when we see Kosh being less-than-perfect, we assume B5 is messing up, and forgive it, rather than spotting what's actually supposed to be going on.

I think that's an awkward line for the production to walk, of course. I think it'd be better if there'd been earlier mutterings making explicit that in-character, Kosh might not be as perfect as all that. But partly that's because we've read too many stories with badly-written gandalfs in, and is that B5's fault? Even if they don't get everything perfect themselves? :)

It seems like the Vorlons/Shadows arc is an allegory for growing out of religion (among other things).

Very explicitly.

You can tell the authors have spoken to real scientists when the characters start dropping kinetic harpoons on each other

Yeah. Of course, they don't always -- or even necessarily most of the time -- get the science right. I've made peace with physicists of my acquaintance, but now the biologists are pointing out that no-one ever gets their stuff right at all... And some of the more mystical stuff bothered me.

But they do get lots of stuff right, that isn't normally got right. (Also with military structure, so I hear.)

I do wonder why nobody tries the Lensmen series trick of dropping rocks with massive velocities out of jump gates (unless there's some trick to the physics that means you can't do that)

Oh, that's a notion. I hadn't thought of it.

As I say, there's lots of questions not addressed specifically enough to have good answers.

In this case, maybe the jumpgate isn't facing the right way? That would make sense.

And yes, the idea of trying to steer a big rock through hyperspace sets of my queasy-detectors. Hyperspace is just generally freaky, it might be a good idea not to play tricks with it. And there's some sort of presence on the other side to transmit the beacons, so they may detect you. But on the other hand, is there any reason you couldn't do the same trick in normal space? Even if they see you coming, as you say, B5 isn't exactly designed for dodging, can it even move aside at all?

[robhu.livejournal.com]

In this case, maybe the jumpgate isn't facing the right way? That would make sense.

And yes, the idea of trying to steer a big rock through hyperspace sets of my queasy-detectors. Hyperspace is just generally freaky, it might be a good idea not to play tricks with it. And there's some sort of presence on the other side to transmit the beacons, so they may detect you. But on the other hand, is there any reason you couldn't do the same trick in normal space? Even if they see you coming, as you say, B5 isn't exactly designed for dodging, can it even move aside at all?
IIRC the bigger capital ships (and some of the more advanced smaller ships like the White Star fleet) had jump drives that could open their own jump points. Couldn't they drag a big asteroid, spend a few weeks in hyperspace speeding up so that there is a ridiculous amount of energy in the asteroid, then exit in to normal space at a position that would make the asteroid fly straight in to B5?

I got the impression they didn't enter normal space in a random position (although maybe it wasn't accurate enough for this kind of plan to work)

(insert standard it's just a work of fiction disclaimer here)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough, JMS decided elsewhere that ship-based jump points could only encompass the ship, not expand enough to take something else through. (Specifically a capital ship couldn't bring fighters through a jump-point, only a jump-gate.) But you might be able to build a special ship to do so.

Come to think of it, sometimes ships do jump out of hyperspace right on top of B5, so that's apparently possible.

I was going to suggest they saw things coming in hyperspace. I think they could, but apparently they don't, since they're normally surprised by new ships coming through the jump-gate.

Perhaps you can't leave hyperspace at high velocities, it's the only consistent thing i can suggest.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

The other thing I was thinking of after I left that comment was that hyperspace isn't like normal space, you can't just fly around really fast in a straight line. IIRC you had to follow special hyperspace buoys, and it was really easy to get lost forever if you weren't very very careful about what you were doing. Going from A to B through Hyperspace took a certain amount of time, presumably because you could only go at a certain speed because you had to keep changing course all the time to ensure you didn't get lost, a bit like submarines going through trenches have to do so carefully and slowly. If that's the case then you could only build up speed on the last straight bit of the route, which we could easily assume is never all that long, and so you can't build up very much speed.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

So have you seen it all now?

Have you seen the bit in my icon?

I loved that bit.

I need to download B5. I had all the DVDs but lost some of them and others got badly damaged :'(

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I've seen all the series 1-5 + crusade, but not some of the movies, and none of the comics or other supporting moments.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen Crusade. Should I?

[robhu.livejournal.com]

Damn, now I want to watch it all again. Now look what you've done. I already had plans for the first quarter of next year...