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Eighties ZomCom posted:The Vorlons weren't willing to stop the Minbari from wiping out the human race, even though they knew the humans were supposed to play an important part in the Shadow War. The Vorlons seemed to know as much as they needed to know since they got Delenn to act.
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Nov 12, 2025 00:41
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Hollismason posted:I am on Season 1 Episode 8 of my rewatch and drat is this show good. I mean sure the special effects are rough as poo poo but it doesn't matter. Earth's descent into fascism is clearly shown in the very first episodes of the show. Obviously the special effects never look amazing, but once we get into Season 2 everything looks much better because there's less Earth ships and more alien ships. The Earth ships never look great, but the alien ships tend to look really cool and everything looks better until we get to the second half of Season 4 and it's mostly Earth ships again. The Earth Destroyers have cool designs, don't get me wrong. The CGI just never really makes them look right. Also kind of funny that in 1995 it was silly for Earth's biggest capital ship to be called a Destroyer but now in 2025 there's not even cruisers being produced anymore so JMS was right about everything. MassRafTer fucked around with this message at 02:59 on Nov 12, 2025 |
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Nov 12, 2025 02:56
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Hollismason posted:When exactly did Psicorp gently caress with Garibaldi? I just watched the episode where Bester appears and I kind of wonder if thats the impetous they got to totally gently caress Garibaldi over or was Talia working on Garibaldi that whole time. After he's abducted in Z'ha'dum. Bester explains it to him in The Face of the Enemy. The reasoning was Garibaldi was in the command structure but also the most likely one to have a rebellious streak. If Talia didn't leave the show it would have led to her having a similar role to what Lyta was brought back to do. I know JMS explains it somewhere on his old usenet posts but I forget which episode the Lurkers Guide put it under.
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Nov 12, 2025 03:20
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Hollismason posted:It's wild to me that I just realize the show is now 29 years old. I remember watching it repeated on Television and being completely obsessed with it. I still love corn beef sandwiches with mustard on it because of this show. I have extremely bad news for you, the show is 32 years old and will be 33 in February. My big memory of watching it when it first aired was catching Point of No Return about halfway through and thinking the show seemed really cool, seeing Severed Dreams the next week and thinking holy poo poo, this is amazing. I believe I then saw one more episode before it went on mid-season break (or I had youth soccer or baseball or something that kept me from watching) and so I missed everything from there until Z'ha'dum which I saw the second half of. To this point I thought the show was about the Earth Civil War, so I had no idea why Sheridan was on some alien planet and figured it must not be a very important episode, some monster of the week stuff. I then missed everything until No Surrender, No Retreat, saw the rest of Season 4 and thought it was awesome, and was excited when Sci Fi picked up Season 5 and started airing reruns. It was at that point I discovered there had been another captain and the Shadows were a thing that existed and the show was not merely about the Earth Civil War. The nature of syndication and being a kid had just perfectly set it up so I never once saw one of the main plotlines, but was able to follow the other one pretty well.
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Nov 12, 2025 03:48
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Mustard Iceman posted:The naval terminology used within the show is never fully in-line with any sort of doctrine. In one battle, Sheridan calls for "carrier groups" but we never see a ship whose primary role is to serve as a carrier. Cruisers are somewhat consistent across the races (humans, Minbari, Centauri, Narn and Brakiri all have "cruisers"), but for some reason the Narn version is called a heavy cruiser without any real reasoning for how that distinguishes it from a non-heavy cruiser, and the Centauri cruisers are a fraction of the size of those of the other races (closer in size to the Vree saucers). Instead, the Centauri have those massive "battlecruisers" which are their main capital ships, while no race other than humans have a ship called a destroyer. I don't want to cause a hijack of a thread I just stumbled across because I wanted to tell a dumb naval joke, but I agree more that the show never has a really cohesive idea on how to define units or how combat operations should look. And that's fine, the show has a ton of cool ideas, the combat looks really cool and often has some ideas behind it. It's really varied, sometimes the capital ships act like capital ships and fight each other, sometimes they act more as carriers, sometimes stuff just flies in from hyperspace and does quick damage, it's all in service to whatever the story needs. Babylon 5 is basically the only sci-fi show that engaged me and part of it was because the battles were really unique even if some of the terminology was goofy. Hollismason posted:I mean it kind of sucks that Michael O'hare had his breakdown but I think the fact that they did change Captains and we got Sheridan was a good change. Like it fits so well. I'm not really clear. JMS did do the full talk after O'Hare's death, but I don't think if he ever made it clear when he realized he needed to make the call. Back in the day he made it seem like once the show was in production he realized he needed a Sheridan type character who would be introduced later no matter what. But who knows if that was him covering or if he does decide that early in the process and that just makes it easy to make the switch when it's clear O'Hare can't do this, and when that is. The change definitely works, and O'Hare coming back is one of the things that makes the show more memorable because his return is such a big deal and feels seamless if you haven't been exposed to the behind the scenes stuff.
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Nov 12, 2025 04:41
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:I just figure the different terminology is due to translation difficulties and don't worry about it too much, pretty much no TV is going to get military terminology right. I'm sure the miniatures space battle game has an explanation for how the different classes fit together if someone really wants an explanation, but it's good enough not to grate on me when I'm watching. It's sometimes interesting to speculate on what specific names mean, like the country names, but it's the kind of thing I only pay attention to if it's interesting. (ie Do the Narns call themselves a 'regime', or is that a name the Centauri used that stuck? Do the Vorlons have imperial subjects in their Empire? What is the Minbari Federation a federation of?) The Centauri still calling themselves a Republic thousands of years into their monarchy is one of my favorite touches on the show. And more tremendous since as you say they are basically the only ones who really do focus on that.
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Nov 12, 2025 04:54
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SlothfulCobra posted:I was under the impression that they kind of oscillate between power being in the hands of the emperor and the power being in the hands of the Centaurum legislation. Maybe they shifted away from being a full empire as they started to pull back from territory? They're mostly a constitutional monarchy. It was my impression that the Centaurum isn't elected and is just an extension of the aristocracy. Either way, with their head of government being the emperor they wouldn't be a republic, so I always took it as a fun nod to the Centauri being a nostalgic, contradictory people who would call themselves a republic even if they really aren't.
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Nov 12, 2025 06:09
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Ravenson posted:There's plenty of stuff from lots of worlds, but not much from Earth. Mostly Zima. It's a great place for Christmas shopping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be9jVRRfEzE
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Nov 14, 2025 04:24
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:They also have Sharlin cruisers crewed by the religious caste, which is a bit more odd to me than the secret Ranger fleet. You'd think the warrior caste would control all of the military forces, or at least all of the major combatant ships, but they clearly don't. It's not quite like the way that during WW2 the US Army actually operated more ships than the US Navy did, because in that case the US Navy was the only one operating surface combatants, the Army just handled most of it's own transport and support (And those are both what I'd think of as 'warrior caste' anyway). JMS explained each caste has its own military forces as a check on the Warrior caste and I believe it's explicitly said (I think during Severed Dreams when the council is broken) that the other castes control 2/3s of the military forces. I believe it is said in another episode that by tradition these forces are ceded to the warrior caste until then.
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Nov 14, 2025 23:36
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Realized today it has been 4 years since I watched the series so I'm watching Messages from Earth-Point of No Return-Severed Dreams to try to fight the urge to just watch the whole show again.
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Nov 15, 2025 02:02
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Seemlar posted:I don't have it handy to check, but I believe it's in Grey 17 where this tension gets addressed, where Neroon mentions that the Warriors had actively been looking the other way while the Religious Caste reactivated and even armed the Rangers because while distasteful it basically registered as a novelty while it was under the leadership of a human, but Delenn breaking the Council then assuming personal command of this substantial military force represented an actual threat to them The Minbari Civil War ends up being rushed but Neroon is one of those characters I wish got more time to develop. There's some interesting seeds there but he just pops up a couple times, then the Minbari are fighting and then he's gone. A good gimmick would be to make stuff up and attribute it to episodes like Grey 17, TKO, Grail and Infection that people don't like and won't be willing to double check. But it wouldn't work because I like Grey 17 and TKO and would just rewatch them. MassRafTer fucked around with this message at 06:22 on Nov 15, 2025 |
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Nov 15, 2025 06:14
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Just Another Lurker posted:John Vickery popped up on Crusade for a few episodes, a very different character. I completely forgot that not only did he play Mr. Welles but that the character returned on Crusade. God I wish we got the rest of that season, the unfilmed scripts are so good. neongrey posted:yeah and you just can't trust a nerd to not watch something out of spite to settle an argument. The A plot of Grey 17 is so loving goofy and dumb and I love it. It makes absolutely zero sense and could have been done in other ways but I love B movie poo poo. Same with TKO. Believers is definitely one of the really good episodes I don't particularly love watching.
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Nov 15, 2025 19:49
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I was curious if JMS had said anything about the inspiration for the Dilgar back in the day. He usually wouldn't say what inspired something but if he was asked he'd usually confirm or deny. He did not, but there was this comment from the Deathwalker episode which I'd completely forgotten:quote:Abbut was not - repeat, NOTan imitation of Harlan, as some have suggested. It was originally written for Gilbert Gottfried, who we later learned was unavailable.
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Nov 16, 2025 22:23
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I think Delenn's hair bone looks pretty good after a few episodes but going back to Midnight on the Firing Line to do a rewatch it's always funny how G'Kar looks slightly more evil in Season 1 and his makeup gets revised a bit and then he becomes not evil.
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Nov 19, 2025 18:38
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ConfusedUs posted:I’m unsure if the Koshes had second names or titles, but they could fit the bill. I don't know if it is ever on screen but good Kosh's last name is Naranek. The Minbari in an episode or two have their family/house names referenced. Delenn is Delenn of Mir, I forget what Lennier's is but I think his comes up too.
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Nov 19, 2025 23:17
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ultrafilter posted:The other Vorlon is named as Ulkesh Naranek in some of the EU materials. A missed opportunity for his name to be Kosh Whatever and "We are all Kosh" to be literal, but their first name is just a universal family name at this point.
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Nov 20, 2025 01:45
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Hollismason posted:I've just been marathoning B5 and got to season 4 and honestly I know he had a 5 year plan and sped things up for Season 4 but I really think it works. It does make Season 4 very action packed but Intersections in Real Time would have been a really crazy cliff hanger.
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Nov 27, 2025 01:17
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:The 'we have representatives of the 4 standard D&D classes' bit was always weird to me, especially the creation of a Thief's Guild on Babylon 5 that had never been seen in the main series. The Assassin's Guild implies the existence of a Thief's Guild but hopefully not a sex crimes guild.
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Nov 29, 2025 00:35
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Jedit posted:I suspect he's thinking of a Rapists Guild and trying to be coy. Unfortunately this gives the impression that he thinks sex work is a crime. I had just seen this and it was on my mind when I was thinking about the criminal guilds. It's not any deeper. 
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Nov 29, 2025 17:59
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SlothfulCobra posted:Lennier beeing an incel crushing on his boss wasn't a great development of the character, but it's not like they were doing anything else with the character, so why not. Lennier basically got the funniest B Plots in Season 1 and they involved him getting extremely horny so it makes sense he'd go incel.
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Nov 30, 2025 18:18
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The weirdest horny character moments are Dr. Franklin in the Long Dark where he's immediately petting the patient when she wakes up from cryogenic sleep and is 100% instigating the romance in his quarters but it's written more like she is. Lennier's horniness is directed at normal things, motorcycles and strippers.
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Nov 30, 2025 18:35
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Rappaport posted:Vir had it easy, he was just handed a lovely wife. I had completely forgotten about this plot.
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Dec 1, 2025 21:54
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I've seen this show so many times but it wasn't until this watch through that I really felt the impact of G'kar's turn in Season 2. Coming into the show originally in Season 3 he was always just such a heroic, and often funny character. So when Delenn says how evil he'd been and how he would just go for revenge when the Centauri it never felt authentic, because he was just such a good guy. This time I really understood it more than in the past, and so the scenes in The Coming of Shadows and Acts of Sacrifice hit harder. And the Lumati being so impressed by Down Below being a tool of eugenics remains incredibly funny.
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Dec 2, 2025 02:06
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I've never interpreted that episode as Bester knowing vs it just being fortunate the scanning he was doing freaked out the ship. I checked the Lurker's Guide to see if JMS said anything at the time and he didn't even hint at it.
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Dec 4, 2025 03:09
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Looks like Netflix will own Babylon 5 soon, time for JMS to dust off his reboot scripts.
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Dec 5, 2025 14:35
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Sheridan is understandably shocked and conflicted when Anna shows up but he clearly knows what he's going to do when he goes to Z'ha'dum. Dr. Franklin showing up after he's left to go "But wait, I told him she's actually evil!" makes it completely clear beyond the nukes and how he interprets what Delenn told him on Centauri Prime that he is gonna nuke the Shadows, 100%.
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Dec 5, 2025 22:58
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Of all of the non-arc episodes I think Convictions is my favorite. Londo being annoying in Medlab is very funny but Londo and G'kar being stuck in the elevator is the funniest stuff in the show's run. It's an obvious set up for two enemies working together but no, G'Kar realizes this is his chance to see Londo die. The little voice he uses to say "I hear you" as Londo is calling for help kills me.
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Dec 8, 2025 03:51
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Zaroff posted:Same for thinking Bureau 13 still has some relevance. Not sure of dates but here's what he said: quote:No, the Bureau 13 rpg precedes our show; we weren't aware of it at the time we did the episode.
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Dec 8, 2025 17:53
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neongrey posted:Yeah, it's kind of a weird situation. I agree it added some texture and I don't think that in and of itself is bad, but it wasn't super thoughtfully used. Show Sheridan as more than just a meathead, that's great but yeah the "I collect secrets" thing just rings false. I'm sure there's a way it could have been done but oh well I guess. It was especially funny because the follow up to it was Sheridan believing in the Coventry bombing conspiracy theory.
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Dec 9, 2025 04:39
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I forgot about the AI chat bot assistant subplot in Ceremonies of Light and Dark. For as much of the show reflects our time a plot about an AI that doesn't really pose a threat to anything but is incredibly annoying resonates the most. Also it is really easy to tell why Earth fared so poorly in the Minbari War when our troops were spending 7 days to kill Minbari.
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Dec 12, 2025 02:11
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With this weekend's snow storm I ended up watching more B5 than I expected, finishing Season 3 last night. I was going to read in bed but decided to watch the Hour of the Wolf, and got so captivated by Cartagia and Lorien that one episode became three. Hard to believe neither guy got more acting work. Wayne Alexander especially, he was great in every role he had on the show.
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Dec 15, 2025 15:46
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Chevy Slyme posted:Cartagia got like… 200 episodes worth of soap opera work over the 80’s and 90’s. That's very good work for the year or two he had it for, but unfortunately not enough to sustain a career. I love the soaps... well Y&R basically and would love to have seen more actors with small B5 parts popping up there. I would have loved those two to just have bigger careers in general because what they do on the show is so good. Now, after having gotten through Into the Fire tonight, I am left thinking about how The Long Night is actually the best episode in the Season 4 run of Shadow War episodes. Bryan Cranston certainly had a great career after this and he adds a lot here, especially when he's asked to make the sacrifice and Sheridan listening to the actual mission audio. I also had never noticed the JMS note that the killing of Cartagia was originally to be written for Londo but as he actually wrote it he switched. quote:Which character has surprised you the most? Just a great episode and I love ending with the Tennyson poem Sinclair had left behind. Into the Fire is great, but it doesn't push some of the emotional buttons The Long Night does. MassRafTer fucked around with this message at 05:54 on Dec 16, 2025 |
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Dec 16, 2025 05:47
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Mustard Iceman posted:Got past Into The Fire and now my rewatch has stalled from 2-3 episodes per night to 1 every other night or so... I really just don't like the Minbari civil war and Garibaldi stuff in season 4. I had this basic thought last night and was kind of relieved because I only want to watch one episode a night and the show being too good means I don't have time to read. Hell maybe I'll even wait a day or two before I get to The Illusion of Truth because it kind of stinks.
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Dec 16, 2025 19:42
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Mustard Iceman posted:I actually enjoy that one a bit more than the others that sit in between Into the Fire and NSNR. I was on Rumors Bargains and Lies last night and ugh. The best scene is Londo's throwing shade at Rebo and Zooty. The rest of it is just the Religious Caste and the entire League being entirely engulfed by the idiot ball. I liked The Illusion of Truth when I first saw it but after watching the whole series it came off as a much lamer version of And Now for a Word. ANfaW delivers the message of media spin in a more interesting way and doesn't make our heroes look as stupid as they do in the Illusion of Truth.
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Dec 16, 2025 23:16
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Eighties ZomCom posted:So I just watched the episode of Crusade where they introduce the uniform change, and was thinking that Mr Welles looked familiar (other than the actor also playing Neroon). He then made a comment about surviving regime change and I looked it up, and he was the Ministry of Peace guy trying to recruit Ivanova into the Nightwatch. So it seems like some of Clarke's staffers have survived well into the next presidency. Surely that is the only shadow of that administration hanging around!
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Dec 18, 2025 15:13
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I haven't read much of the non-spoiler thread but seeing Flowers for Algeria watch Into the Fire and list Bureau 13 in the unresolved plot threads for the rest of the series has me looking forward to Endgame. Clearly Season 5 is about Bureau 13! And it's perfectly fair since even when the theatrical movie was in pre-production and clearly not about the Telepath Crisis so many fans like me would just think "this is definitely about the Telepath Crisis." MassRafTer fucked around with this message at 17:06 on Dec 19, 2025 |
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Dec 19, 2025 17:02
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:Kosh putting pieces of himself into another living being fits with the ship actually being 'another living being' that's there to be used. That's similar to how they treat Lyta - she contacts Kosh, who implants an urge to visit the Vorlon homeworld, where they modify her and use her as a tool. Kosh is actually the nice one, when she gets passed to Ulkesh he treats her more roughly and inflicts punishments on her (like 'you are not allowed any possessions') just because he can. I think anything Delenn says about Vorlons would be heavily whitewashed, I'd expect her not to question anything Kosh told her about Vorlons and not to pick up or repeat any dark implications. She clearly idolizes them and has been raised and trained to revere (if not worship) them for her whole life, notably even after the Vorlons have started destroying entire planets she doesn't have the same revulsion for them that she does for Shadows. So her saying that the ship is part of Kosh doesn't really rule any of that out. JMS was pretty specific that the Vorlon transports are linked to their owners and the larger ships are manned by Vorlons rather than anything the Shadows do, so what Delenn is saying is accurate.
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Dec 20, 2025 20:11
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Pantaloon Pontiff posted:So JMS has said nothing that contradicts my theory? I didn't say that Vorlon transports are not linked to their owners, or that larger ships are not manned by Vorlons, so I'm not really sure why this was posted as a response to me. You don't even need out-of-show statements to get 'Vorlon transports are linked to their owners', it's explicitly shown onscreen. There's nothing in-show or from JMS's statements that I'm aware of that says how the consciousness of the personal ship is formed and particularly whether it is a willing servant of the Vorlon or mind controlled into obeying like Lyta. Because he contradicts you and says nothing to indicate what Delenn says should be doubted. From the Lurker's guide JMS speaks section: quote:About Kosh's ship
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Dec 21, 2025 23:11
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SardonicTyrant posted:Do the Vorlons have swedish meatballs as well? No but guess what Swedish people see when they see a Vorlon.
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Dec 22, 2025 05:38
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SardonicTyrant posted:No Minbari had ever died of thirst before, but... It also helps if you like oranges. It never really occurred to me that G'Kar is finishing the Book of G'Kar when Londo meets with him in No Surrender, No Retreat. I always thought he was being a dick (for good reason) and doing busy work to insult Londo, but on top of wanting to insult Londo it looks like he's writing his book which is doubly more important than Londo. But even with that in mind there are few characters I feel worse for in a little moment like that than Londo saying "I see" and walking off.
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Dec 23, 2025 01:59
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