Babylon 5: Reboot and Zooty

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Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

Rappaport posted:

Yeah, it's Methuselah's Children. I have some paper-back version with, uh, Revolt in 2100 attached, so I'm guessing this is the later version of the story that I've read.

The Jockaira or whatever the name of the dog aliens was are indeed presented as domestic animals, and that's what gets our protagonist so upset, because Heinlein really had a bee up his bonnet about "thinking people" being all about 'freedom' and self-interest rather than serving anyone else. Which fits in with the narrative that telepathy is ultimately harmful or dangerous, since it gives a leg up on the other guy.

I've been trying to remember, but I don't think Clarke ever touched telepathy, did he? The Monolith does have weird powers and all that, but it's not depicted in the way of Babylon 5 telepathy as far as I can recall.

It's not the most prominent feature of the book, but it is a part of Childhood's End, the powers that the nearly-transcended last born generation of humans have.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2023 15:33

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:31

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

Dr. Gargunza posted:

Theodore Sturgeon wrote a novel in 1953 called More Than Human that sort of explored telepathy, but more from the POV of small communities of people with varying abilities coming together to form a "gestalt" consciousness. Very weird and a bit dated, but a fun read.

Joe Haldeman's followup-but-not-a-sequel to Forever War, the predictably named Forever Peace, also explores this idea.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2023 19:43

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

Midjack posted:

Forever Free is the direct sequel to Forever War that covers that. Forever Peace is the one about drone warfare and mutual jacking. They're all thematically linked though.

I never read Forever Free, but doesn't Forever Peace also have group-mind stuff in it? The people running the drone units form some kind of mind-link, although not quite a gestalt consciousness.

I may very well be misremembering. It's been a lot of years.

# ¿ Jul 1, 2023 01:44

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

ultrafilter posted:

Kosh wasn't fighting back because he knew his life was the price to pay for breaking the detente between the Vorlons and the Shadows.

This. Earlier in the episode when Sheridan deliberately pisses off Kosh the station control registers a massive "non-localized" energy surge, and Kosh was just smacking down an uppity human. If he'd wanted to he could have put up one hell of a fight.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2023 15:33

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

As I understand it, the story they've both settled on most recently is that when it was coming down to the line as they found out they were going to actually have a Season 5 her agent decided to play hardball without her permission and found out that the studio could swing harder.

Christian and JMS both claim that the agent and the studio were telling each other and each of them different lies and that if there had been time enough for the two of them to talk personally it would all have gotten cleared up, but there were hard feelings for a long time until they were able to do just that years later.

How much of that you choose to believe is up to you.

# ¿ Jul 24, 2023 23:53

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

SlothfulCobra posted:

I don't blame her for being weird about it. Reportedly JMS is a big weirdo on an interpersonal basis, and she's had one very, very bad fan interaction.

Jesus, yeah. In her place I don't know if I'd even be able to meet fans anymore after that.

# ¿ Jul 25, 2023 02:50

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

At a couple points you can see him mouth the other actor's lines along with them to keep the timing right. It's not uncommon for actors to do that anyway but it's something you see especially with actors who are deaf or hard of hearing and it sometimes slips in to the final cut.

# ¿ Jul 27, 2023 21:55

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

Powered Descent posted:

Also "Woo...hoo?" is funny

Eh.

# ¿ Jul 28, 2023 06:20

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

I still like Midnight Nation but I don't know if I'd say it's good.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2023 16:09

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

M*A*S*H comes close.

# ¿ Sep 5, 2023 04:22

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

McSpanky posted:

It's not that it wasn't a good thing, it was a very good thing! It just wasn't the only thing. The point of season 5 is that, there's no "and then they all lived happily ever after." History doesn't end when the bad guy is defeated. All those things you fought for, all those people you fought to save? They're still there the next day, and their causes and their needs have to be met. Season 4 was about winning the war, season 5 is about winning the peace.

And how doing so completely and forever, happily ever after, is impossible.

# ¿ Sep 13, 2023 01:52

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

Pantaloon Pontiff posted:

Justin didn't work all that well for me. He is implied to be Sheridan's peer pulling all kinds of strings, but we don't see him actively doing anything before this episode. To me, he just reads as the human mouthpiece to talk about the Shadows' philosophy, not as someone important in his own right or driving anything. I also agree that the 'searching for you' bit didn't hit for me, he shouldn't need to search since Sheridan's location is public and his buddy Morden has visited exactly where Sheridan is. I like the scene as a whole, but I don't think of Justin as a real character in his own right and I think he was supposed to be. The Shadows' philosophy does seem to fall apart if you look too closely at it (they want beings to develop strength through evolution, but when Sheridan evolves a stronger way to do things they object and stop it), but I think that's deliberate and part of showing how Shadows and Vorlons have lost their way.

It's possible that the Shadows and Justin - and maybe even the Vorlons post-Kosh - think that Sheridan is Justin's counterpart in that sense, that he's a mouthpiece and figurehead for the Vorlons and their client species in the upcoming proxy war. But (perhaps thanks to Kosh's unorthodox tendencies and coaching) Sheridan is more of an independent factor than anyone planned, in a unique position to alter the entire course of the conflict and eventually bring it to an end.

# ¿ Nov 15, 2023 20:44

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

That Anna is not the Anna that loves Sheridan, just a marionette with a constructed personality and a mission. She's not desperate to save his life, but to avoid failure. Presumably if he agrees she gets to stay with him, if he gets Keepered then she isn't needed to keep him in line and goes back into a Shadow ship. And they don't seem like the type to make sure that's a pleasant prospect.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2023 16:19

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

Timby posted:

Not quite. Gerrold--who was a writer on The Original Series--was deeply involved in the conceptualization, creation and development of TNG, to the point that he worked, extensively, on the original writers' bible (to the extent that he had to threaten to sue in order to get credit). During the first season, he worked on a few scripts--I think he was credited as a consultant--but there was no "writers' room" and he quit about two-thirds of the way through the first season because he was ready to kill Gene Roddenberry's lawyer.

He'd have saved a lot of people a lot of headache if he'd just gone ahead and beaten Leonard Maizlish to death with a typewriter. I bet half the production staff would have given him an alibi.

# ¿ Jan 20, 2024 02:45

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

Eighties ZomCom posted:

One thing I've noticed in this watch through is that there are a lot of Minbari in the background wearing orange and grey jumpsuits. They're presumably worker caste but I don't think that's ever stated, or why there's so many working on B5.

You know, for as long as I've been a fan of the show I don't think I've ever noticed this before, and I can't search up an image. Would it be possible for you to post a screenshot? I'm very curious, given that otherwise the Minbari Worker Caste gets nearly completely ignored up until the civil war arc.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2024 19:11

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

Eighties ZomCom posted:

Okay so looking more closely it's less of a jumpsuit and more of an apron. There's more of them in previous episodes too.

Edit:

From Mind War, and a second one passes by a couple of seconds later but I can't get a good screenshot of them.

From Parliament of Dreams

Thank you!

# ¿ Feb 9, 2024 02:01

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

Pantaloon Pontiff posted:

What episode do they say that the religious caste was not supposed to have any ships (or where are you getting that)? I don't recall the religious caste having warships as ever being called a problem, and like Milkfred pointed out the religious and worker caste controlling their own forces is treated as something normal. The warrior caste gets pissed about the White Star fleet specifically, but the religious and worker caste manning ships isn't (AFAIR) mentioned as a problem, just the secret development.

The "When our two sides fight..." bit is from a political speech pointed at flattering the worker caste, I don't think it's a statement of fact. I interpret that as more like the way American politicians talk about how small farmers are producing the food that feeds the US and the world and preserve important values, even though food production is really mostly huge agri-business concerns that only value profit. I see that line as being similar to when Bill Clinton (president for most of B5's run) said in a speech "Our farm communities feed our Nation and much of the world. They also nourish the values on which our country was born and which have led us now for over 220 years, hard work and faith and family, devotion to community and to the land. We simply can't flourish if we let our rural roots shrivel and decline." - it's extreme hyperbole designed to flatter the group you're talking about, not a statement of fact.

It's not just the White Star fleet but also the Rangers, which in the last Shadow War had been made up only of Warrior Caste Minbari.

Gray 17 is Missing posted:

Delenn: "You chose not to act. Someone had to."
Neroon: "Perhaps. That is why we let you have them in the beginning. Even allowed Sinclair to train them. Even though it meant diluting their purity by allowing humans to join alongside our own people. We were quite tolerant of your activities. But now that their training is complete they require new leadership. By right of tradition, the warrior caste should be given command of the Rangers. That was the law, as set down by Valen. Three castes: worker, religious, warrior. They build, you pray, we fight."

(Bolding mine)

Back in the CompuServe days JMS answered a similar question about whether only the Warrior Caste had warships:

JMS posted:

Each caste populates the ships in their jurisdiction with their own people. Which is why those on the Minbari warships that came in, which we'll see shortly, are religious caste, no warriors among them...but even the religious caste is well trained in combat, as part of their education in temple. We've seen some of this already in Lennier's abilities in a fight.

fan posted:

Does this mean that there are Warrior and Worker Caste Minbari doing Religious duties in the temples and Warrior and Religious Caste Minbari doing Worker Caste duties as well?

JMS posted:

No, those aspects are kept absolutely separate and caste-specific. It's only when you get into the warships that, by tradition, some Warrior Caste have been involved with the others, mainly as a courtesy.

Lemniscate Blue fucked around with this message at 00:17 on Feb 12, 2024

# ¿ Feb 12, 2024 00:08

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# ¿ Apr 29, 2024 07:31

Lemniscate Blue: Apr 21, 2006; Here we go again.

It'd be nice, but at this point I'll believe it when I see it.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2024 03:55

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Babylon 5: Reboot and Zooty

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