JacobkoshGamble a stamp.I can show you how to be a real man!Moderatormod
edited August 2018
To touch on the earlier discussion about the Vorlon and Shadow conflict:
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
Also, I don't think there's really that much to infer about the technological development of the Minbari 1000 years ago. We get a glimpse of two of their spaceships.
The original Babylon stations were a collaboration between the various involved worlds, and Babylon 4 was the biggest and best of them all. It may not have been purely Earth technology.
But even if it was, it's not like the station is the only thing that came back to the past: there was also a dude who'd been living on present-day Minbar for years and could well have brought back a bunch of knowledge with him.
To touch on the earlier discussion about the Vorlon and Shadow conflict:
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
It definitely could have been done better. Though I do feel like a lot of the incongruity there can be made up in the clear differences between Kosh and Ulkesh. Kosh is basically Vorlon Jesus meanwhile Ulkesh hasn't 'gone native' and simply demands obedience and following whatever plan the Vorlons have for you even if they work in mysterious ways.
To touch on the earlier discussion about the Vorlon and Shadow conflict:
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
It definitely could have been done better. Though I do feel like a lot of the incongruity there can be made up in the clear differences between Kosh and Ulkesh. Kosh is basically Vorlon Jesus meanwhile Ulkesh hasn't 'gone native' and simply demands obedience and following whatever plan the Vorlons have for you even if they work in mysterious ways.
I always took it as Kosh did something which Vorlons normally don't do at all - he got involved. And he got killed for it. The Vorlons are basically immortal, so in this grand ideological fight this is a big deal and Ulkesh represents the collective panic of the Vorlon government over what the escalation is going to mean. All of which manifests, notably, when the Shadows and Vorlons target everyone else's planets but not each other.
+2
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
One thing about the Vorlon system is that by the time we see them everything they're doing has been bent towards the goal of getting the Shadows to admit they're wrong. They want peace and diplomacy I guess, but what they really want are the Shadows to show up and for the entire galaxy to hate them. So having everyone perceive them as angels while the Shadows look like spiders with the creepy screaming ships fits.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
To touch on the earlier discussion about the Vorlon and Shadow conflict:
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
It definitely could have been done better. Though I do feel like a lot of the incongruity there can be made up in the clear differences between Kosh and Ulkesh. Kosh is basically Vorlon Jesus meanwhile Ulkesh hasn't 'gone native' and simply demands obedience and following whatever plan the Vorlons have for you even if they work in mysterious ways.
I always took it as Kosh did something which Vorlons normally don't do at all - he got involved. And he got killed for it. The Vorlons are basically immortal, so in this grand ideological fight this is a big deal and Ulkesh represents the collective panic of the Vorlon government over what the escalation is going to mean. All of which manifests, notably, when the Shadows and Vorlons target everyone else's planets but not each other.
The Vorlons also suppress some technology and push advancement towards their own ends.
There was the episode with an immortality serum. The catch being that to make the immortality serum you had to kill some other sentient being and use their brain juices, which would have plunged the galaxy into war as each race sought to kill the others to make themselves immortal. B5 let the person go, only to have a Vorlon ship show up and blow the ship apart before it could hit the jump gate.
Vorlons are responsible for telepaths among the humans, and it's implied among all of the other races as well. Sure, it was just to use them as anti-Shadow weapons, but it's still Vorlon development along the ordered path they chose for you. Other than that, they also advanced Mimbari weapon tech in the Whitestars, shaped Mimbari culture for the past 1000 years through Valen forming the Rangers and the Grey Council.
The Vorlon influence on cultures seems much more subtle and restrained than the Shadows, but it also seem more pervasive.
To touch on the earlier discussion about the Vorlon and Shadow conflict:
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
It definitely could have been done better. Though I do feel like a lot of the incongruity there can be made up in the clear differences between Kosh and Ulkesh. Kosh is basically Vorlon Jesus meanwhile Ulkesh hasn't 'gone native' and simply demands obedience and following whatever plan the Vorlons have for you even if they work in mysterious ways.
I always took it as Kosh did something which Vorlons normally don't do at all - he got involved. And he got killed for it. The Vorlons are basically immortal, so in this grand ideological fight this is a big deal and Ulkesh represents the collective panic of the Vorlon government over what the escalation is going to mean. All of which manifests, notably, when the Shadows and Vorlons target everyone else's planets but not each other.
The Vorlons also suppress some technology and push advancement towards their own ends.
There was the episode with an immortality serum. The catch being that to make the immortality serum you had to kill some other sentient being and use their brain juices, which would have plunged the galaxy into war as each race sought to kill the others to make themselves immortal. B5 let the person go, only to have a Vorlon ship show up and blow the ship apart before it could hit the jump gate.
Vorlons are responsible for telepaths among the humans, and it's implied among all of the other races as well. Sure, it was just to use them as anti-Shadow weapons, but it's still Vorlon development along the ordered path they chose for you. Other than that, they also advanced Mimbari weapon tech in the Whitestars, shaped Mimbari culture for the past 1000 years through Valen forming the Rangers and the Grey Council.
The Vorlon influence on cultures seems much more subtle and restrained than the Shadows, but it also seem more pervasive.
I think view the immortality serum thing as suppressing technological advancement for it's own sake or anything. That does not seem to be part of their agenda. Rather, in retrospect, the serum would probably help demonstrate that the Shadows are right. The results are antithetical to Vorlon philosophy about how one should act. So, in their paternalistic way, they stop it to make our lives better.
To touch on the earlier discussion about the Vorlon and Shadow conflict:
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
It definitely could have been done better. Though I do feel like a lot of the incongruity there can be made up in the clear differences between Kosh and Ulkesh. Kosh is basically Vorlon Jesus meanwhile Ulkesh hasn't 'gone native' and simply demands obedience and following whatever plan the Vorlons have for you even if they work in mysterious ways.
I always took it as Kosh did something which Vorlons normally don't do at all - he got involved. And he got killed for it. The Vorlons are basically immortal, so in this grand ideological fight this is a big deal and Ulkesh represents the collective panic of the Vorlon government over what the escalation is going to mean. All of which manifests, notably, when the Shadows and Vorlons target everyone else's planets but not each other.
I think Kosh goes native. Ulkesh embodies and follows the standard Vorlon philosophy. Kosh kinda likes the younger races and eventually Sheridan browbeats him into coming around and joining the younger race's side. After he dies, he gets replaced by a Vorlon who sticks to the company line.
To touch on the earlier discussion about the Vorlon and Shadow conflict:
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
It definitely could have been done better. Though I do feel like a lot of the incongruity there can be made up in the clear differences between Kosh and Ulkesh. Kosh is basically Vorlon Jesus meanwhile Ulkesh hasn't 'gone native' and simply demands obedience and following whatever plan the Vorlons have for you even if they work in mysterious ways.
I always took it as Kosh did something which Vorlons normally don't do at all - he got involved. And he got killed for it. The Vorlons are basically immortal, so in this grand ideological fight this is a big deal and Ulkesh represents the collective panic of the Vorlon government over what the escalation is going to mean. All of which manifests, notably, when the Shadows and Vorlons target everyone else's planets but not each other.
The Vorlons also suppress some technology and push advancement towards their own ends.
There was the episode with an immortality serum. The catch being that to make the immortality serum you had to kill some other sentient being and use their brain juices, which would have plunged the galaxy into war as each race sought to kill the others to make themselves immortal. B5 let the person go, only to have a Vorlon ship show up and blow the ship apart before it could hit the jump gate.
Vorlons are responsible for telepaths among the humans, and it's implied among all of the other races as well. Sure, it was just to use them as anti-Shadow weapons, but it's still Vorlon development along the ordered path they chose for you. Other than that, they also advanced Mimbari weapon tech in the Whitestars, shaped Mimbari culture for the past 1000 years through Valen forming the Rangers and the Grey Council.
The Vorlon influence on cultures seems much more subtle and restrained than the Shadows, but it also seem more pervasive.
I think view the immortality serum thing as suppressing technological advancement for it's own sake or anything. That does not seem to be part of their agenda. Rather, in retrospect, the serum would probably help demonstrate that the Shadows are right. The results are antithetical to Vorlon philosophy about how one should act. So, in their paternalistic way, they stop it to make our lives better.
I would think that Immortality is right up the Vorlon's ideological alley. What could be more stable and ordered than a galaxy where the races didn't age or change or grow or develop?
But, because the serum itself required death to work, it would have sparked massive wars, development of slave races to harvest for immortality, chaos on a galactic scale. The process to get to immortality is antithetical to Vorlons, but not immortality itself (otherwise, why would the Vorlons have allowed themselves to become immortal?).
It wouldn't be surprising to learn that the immortality serum itself was based on Shadow tech based on the chaos and war it would inevitably cause among the younger races, even if they chose not to use it themselves because the kind of ordered stagnation that immortality would impose on their race is just as antithetical as the chaos caused by getting there would be to the Vorlons. But I don't think the possible Shadow origins for the serum where ever hinted at, let alone confirmed.
0
ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
To touch on the earlier discussion about the Vorlon and Shadow conflict:
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
It definitely could have been done better. Though I do feel like a lot of the incongruity there can be made up in the clear differences between Kosh and Ulkesh. Kosh is basically Vorlon Jesus meanwhile Ulkesh hasn't 'gone native' and simply demands obedience and following whatever plan the Vorlons have for you even if they work in mysterious ways.
I always took it as Kosh did something which Vorlons normally don't do at all - he got involved. And he got killed for it. The Vorlons are basically immortal, so in this grand ideological fight this is a big deal and Ulkesh represents the collective panic of the Vorlon government over what the escalation is going to mean. All of which manifests, notably, when the Shadows and Vorlons target everyone else's planets but not each other.
The Vorlons also suppress some technology and push advancement towards their own ends.
There was the episode with an immortality serum. The catch being that to make the immortality serum you had to kill some other sentient being and use their brain juices, which would have plunged the galaxy into war as each race sought to kill the others to make themselves immortal. B5 let the person go, only to have a Vorlon ship show up and blow the ship apart before it could hit the jump gate.
Vorlons are responsible for telepaths among the humans, and it's implied among all of the other races as well. Sure, it was just to use them as anti-Shadow weapons, but it's still Vorlon development along the ordered path they chose for you. Other than that, they also advanced Mimbari weapon tech in the Whitestars, shaped Mimbari culture for the past 1000 years through Valen forming the Rangers and the Grey Council.
The Vorlon influence on cultures seems much more subtle and restrained than the Shadows, but it also seem more pervasive.
I think view the immortality serum thing as suppressing technological advancement for it's own sake or anything. That does not seem to be part of their agenda. Rather, in retrospect, the serum would probably help demonstrate that the Shadows are right. The results are antithetical to Vorlon philosophy about how one should act. So, in their paternalistic way, they stop it to make our lives better.
I would think that Immortality is right up the Vorlon's ideological alley. What could be more stable and ordered than a galaxy where the races didn't age or change or grow or develop?
But, because the serum itself required death to work, it would have sparked massive wars, development of slave races to harvest for immortality, chaos on a galactic scale. The process to get to immortality is antithetical to Vorlons, but not immortality itself (otherwise, why would the Vorlons have allowed themselves to become immortal?).
It wouldn't be surprising to learn that the immortality serum itself was based on Shadow tech based on the chaos and war it would inevitably cause among the younger races, even if they chose not to use it themselves because the kind of ordered stagnation that immortality would impose on their race is just as antithetical as the chaos caused by getting there would be to the Vorlons. But I don't think the possible Shadow origins for the serum where ever hinted at, let alone confirmed.
Kosh doesn't say humanity or the younger races shouldn't be immortal, he just states "you are not ready". He doesn't even comment on why that path to immortality would be horrible, just that humans or Minbari or likely all the younger races are not yet sufficiently advanced to handle living forever.
I doubt the Vorlons or Shadows or any of the old ones had to rely on a murder serum for immortality, it wouldn't make any sense for biological immortality to be reliant on sapping life goo out of one of your fellow aliens and shooting it into yourself.
To touch on the earlier discussion about the Vorlon and Shadow conflict:
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
Most sci-fi writers tend to go on the fritz when they try to create, "angelic" forces, because they don't really have a firm concept of what they're supposed to be. Other than either galactic killjoys or freedom hating tyrants.
The Vorlons are ok, but conceptually its easier to for viewers to grasp something like the Shadows, which are about survival of the fittest. Rather than try to portray a benevolent, but sometimes misguided precursor race.
Written by Straczynski, the reboot revolves around John Sheridan (played by Bruce Boxleitner in the original series), an Earthforce officer with a mysterious background, who is assigned to Babylon 5, a five-mile-long space station in neutral space, a port of call for travelers, smugglers, corporate explorers and alien diplomats at a time of uneasy peace and the constant threat of war. His arrival triggers a destiny beyond anything he could have imagined, as an exploratory Earth company accidentally triggers a conflict with a civilization a million years ahead of us, putting Sheridan and the rest of the B5 crew in the line of fire as the last, best hope for the survival of the human race.
The network understands the uniqueness of Babylon 5 and is giving me a great deal of latitude with the storytelling. As noted in the announcement, this is a reboot from the ground up rather than a continuation, for several reasons. Heraclitus wrote --
-- “You cannot step in the same river twice, for the river has changed, and you have changed.” In the years since B5, I’ve done a ton of other TV shows and movies, adding an equal number of tools to my toolbox, all of which I can bring to bear on one singular question:
if I were creating Babylon 5 today, for the first time, knowing what I now know as a writer, what would it look like? How would it use all the storytelling tools and technological resources available in 2021 that were not on hand then?
How can it be used to reflect the world in which we live, and the questions we are asking and confronting every day? Fans regularly point out how prescient the show was and is of our current world; it would be fun to take a shot at looking further down the road.
So we will not be retelling the same story in the same way because of what Heraclitus said about the river. There would be no fun and no surprises. Better to go the way of Westworld or Battlestar Galactica where you take the original elements that are evergreens and --
-- put them in a blender with a ton of new, challenging ideas, to create something fresh yet familiar. To those asking why not just do a continuation, for a network series like this, it can’t be done because over half our cast are still stubbornly on the other side of the Rim.
How do you telling continuing story of our original Londo without the original Vir? Or G’Kar? How do you tell Sheridan’s story without Delenn? Or the story of B5 without Franklin? Garibaldi? Zack?
The original Babylon 5 was ridiculously innovative: the first to use CGI to create ships and characters, and among the very first to shoot widescreen with a vigorous 5.1 mix. Most of all, for the first time, Babylon 5 introduced viewers accustomed to episodic television to --
-- the concept of a five-year arc with a pre-planned beginning, middle and end…creating a brand new paradigm for television storytelling that has subsequently become the norm. That tradition for innovation will continue in this new iteration, and --
-- I hope to create additional new forms of storytelling that will further push the television medium to the edge of what’s possible.
Let me conclude by just saying how supportive and enthusiastic everyone at the CW has been and is being with this project. They understand the --
-- unique position Babylon 5 occupies both in television and with its legions of fans, and are doing everything they can to ensure the maximum in creative freedom, a new story that will bring in new viewers while honoring all that has come before.
(edit: I have also updated the youtube link in the OP; at some point in the last few years it expired.)
Tamin on
0
RingoHe/Hima distinct lack of substanceRegistered Userregular
Kudos for somehow finding this Babylon 5 thread and not the one on the first page
What's this? Why, it's a spiffy new variation on the #Babylon5 logo. It can't be for the reimagining 'cause that's on hold pending WGA issues, so what could it *possibly* be for? Hmm. Maybe we'll find out more one week from today.
Not that I'd complain in the least about a remastered release, but we just finished rewatching the entire series (almost done with Crusade).
Whelp. Guess we'll be rewatching again....
"Let's take a look at the scores! The girls are at the square root of Pi, while the boys are still at a crudely drawn picture of a duck. Clearly, it's anybody's game!"
To touch on the earlier discussion about the Vorlon and Shadow conflict:
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
It definitely could have been done better. Though I do feel like a lot of the incongruity there can be made up in the clear differences between Kosh and Ulkesh. Kosh is basically Vorlon Jesus meanwhile Ulkesh hasn't 'gone native' and simply demands obedience and following whatever plan the Vorlons have for you even if they work in mysterious ways.
I always took it as Kosh did something which Vorlons normally don't do at all - he got involved. And he got killed for it. The Vorlons are basically immortal, so in this grand ideological fight this is a big deal and Ulkesh represents the collective panic of the Vorlon government over what the escalation is going to mean. All of which manifests, notably, when the Shadows and Vorlons target everyone else's planets but not each other.
The Vorlons also suppress some technology and push advancement towards their own ends.
There was the episode with an immortality serum. The catch being that to make the immortality serum you had to kill some other sentient being and use their brain juices, which would have plunged the galaxy into war as each race sought to kill the others to make themselves immortal. B5 let the person go, only to have a Vorlon ship show up and blow the ship apart before it could hit the jump gate.
Vorlons are responsible for telepaths among the humans, and it's implied among all of the other races as well. Sure, it was just to use them as anti-Shadow weapons, but it's still Vorlon development along the ordered path they chose for you. Other than that, they also advanced Mimbari weapon tech in the Whitestars, shaped Mimbari culture for the past 1000 years through Valen forming the Rangers and the Grey Council.
The Vorlon influence on cultures seems much more subtle and restrained than the Shadows, but it also seem more pervasive.
I think view the immortality serum thing as suppressing technological advancement for it's own sake or anything. That does not seem to be part of their agenda. Rather, in retrospect, the serum would probably help demonstrate that the Shadows are right. The results are antithetical to Vorlon philosophy about how one should act. So, in their paternalistic way, they stop it to make our lives better.
I would think that Immortality is right up the Vorlon's ideological alley. What could be more stable and ordered than a galaxy where the races didn't age or change or grow or develop?
But, because the serum itself required death to work, it would have sparked massive wars, development of slave races to harvest for immortality, chaos on a galactic scale. The process to get to immortality is antithetical to Vorlons, but not immortality itself (otherwise, why would the Vorlons have allowed themselves to become immortal?).
It wouldn't be surprising to learn that the immortality serum itself was based on Shadow tech based on the chaos and war it would inevitably cause among the younger races, even if they chose not to use it themselves because the kind of ordered stagnation that immortality would impose on their race is just as antithetical as the chaos caused by getting there would be to the Vorlons. But I don't think the possible Shadow origins for the serum where ever hinted at, let alone confirmed.
Kosh doesn't say humanity or the younger races shouldn't be immortal, he just states "you are not ready". He doesn't even comment on why that path to immortality would be horrible, just that humans or Minbari or likely all the younger races are not yet sufficiently advanced to handle living forever.
I doubt the Vorlons or Shadows or any of the old ones had to rely on a murder serum for immortality, it wouldn't make any sense for biological immortality to be reliant on sapping life goo out of one of your fellow aliens and shooting it into yourself.
To touch on the earlier discussion about the Vorlon and Shadow conflict:
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
It definitely could have been done better. Though I do feel like a lot of the incongruity there can be made up in the clear differences between Kosh and Ulkesh. Kosh is basically Vorlon Jesus meanwhile Ulkesh hasn't 'gone native' and simply demands obedience and following whatever plan the Vorlons have for you even if they work in mysterious ways.
I always took it as Kosh did something which Vorlons normally don't do at all - he got involved. And he got killed for it. The Vorlons are basically immortal, so in this grand ideological fight this is a big deal and Ulkesh represents the collective panic of the Vorlon government over what the escalation is going to mean. All of which manifests, notably, when the Shadows and Vorlons target everyone else's planets but not each other.
The Vorlons also suppress some technology and push advancement towards their own ends.
There was the episode with an immortality serum. The catch being that to make the immortality serum you had to kill some other sentient being and use their brain juices, which would have plunged the galaxy into war as each race sought to kill the others to make themselves immortal. B5 let the person go, only to have a Vorlon ship show up and blow the ship apart before it could hit the jump gate.
Vorlons are responsible for telepaths among the humans, and it's implied among all of the other races as well. Sure, it was just to use them as anti-Shadow weapons, but it's still Vorlon development along the ordered path they chose for you. Other than that, they also advanced Mimbari weapon tech in the Whitestars, shaped Mimbari culture for the past 1000 years through Valen forming the Rangers and the Grey Council.
The Vorlon influence on cultures seems much more subtle and restrained than the Shadows, but it also seem more pervasive.
I think view the immortality serum thing as suppressing technological advancement for it's own sake or anything. That does not seem to be part of their agenda. Rather, in retrospect, the serum would probably help demonstrate that the Shadows are right. The results are antithetical to Vorlon philosophy about how one should act. So, in their paternalistic way, they stop it to make our lives better.
I would think that Immortality is right up the Vorlon's ideological alley. What could be more stable and ordered than a galaxy where the races didn't age or change or grow or develop?
But, because the serum itself required death to work, it would have sparked massive wars, development of slave races to harvest for immortality, chaos on a galactic scale. The process to get to immortality is antithetical to Vorlons, but not immortality itself (otherwise, why would the Vorlons have allowed themselves to become immortal?).
It wouldn't be surprising to learn that the immortality serum itself was based on Shadow tech based on the chaos and war it would inevitably cause among the younger races, even if they chose not to use it themselves because the kind of ordered stagnation that immortality would impose on their race is just as antithetical as the chaos caused by getting there would be to the Vorlons. But I don't think the possible Shadow origins for the serum where ever hinted at, let alone confirmed.
Kosh doesn't say humanity or the younger races shouldn't be immortal, he just states "you are not ready". He doesn't even comment on why that path to immortality would be horrible, just that humans or Minbari or likely all the younger races are not yet sufficiently advanced to handle living forever.
I doubt the Vorlons or Shadows or any of the old ones had to rely on a murder serum for immortality, it wouldn't make any sense for biological immortality to be reliant on sapping life goo out of one of your fellow aliens and shooting it into yourself.
You've just described eating.
Things eaten don't have to be other sapient beings. That was a deliberate inclusion by Deathwalker, because she was The Worst.
Posts
We get to see how the Shadows operate: we see Morden making deals, we understand from a very early point that they're fomenting galactic war, even if we don't know why. Learning that it's an ideological battle makes sense and is congruent with what we've seen before.
But from what we see in the show, the Vorlons champion order by...making primitive societies believe in angels? I guess? And once those primitive societies advance to spaceflight, the Vorlons clam up and stop speaking to you unless you're Minbari or a TV show protagonist. You'd think the natural counterbalance to the Shadows' plan would be for Kosh to try to champion peace and diplomacy in the council meetings, but instead he's mostly AWOL. We learn that the Vorlons created telepaths, but that's a tool to fight the Shadows, not their ideology.
It's an incongruity that bugs me in the final episodes of the war arc. It's suggested that the Vorlons represent suffocating stasis (Sheridan literally talks to a block of ice!) but that makes me feel like I missed a chapter of the book, because the ground work hasn't been done to set that up. It feels like the Vorlons go from pointedly uninvolved and not really active drivers of the plot to genocidal in the space of about fifty minutes. It's not a big deal but it's a speed bump that makes me think JMS's ideas about the Vorlons changed and mutated as the show went on.
And Zathras. But nobody listens to poor Zathras.
Delenn was Manbari.
It definitely could have been done better. Though I do feel like a lot of the incongruity there can be made up in the clear differences between Kosh and Ulkesh. Kosh is basically Vorlon Jesus meanwhile Ulkesh hasn't 'gone native' and simply demands obedience and following whatever plan the Vorlons have for you even if they work in mysterious ways.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
I think you mean Zathras, not Zathras.
Xathras used to people arguing over spelling his name more than actually talking to him
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
I could also use a Bester minifig.
I met him a decade or so ago, and could not believe how small he is. I mean, I didn't think he was huge, but damn.
Miracles of television.
I always took it as Kosh did something which Vorlons normally don't do at all - he got involved. And he got killed for it. The Vorlons are basically immortal, so in this grand ideological fight this is a big deal and Ulkesh represents the collective panic of the Vorlon government over what the escalation is going to mean. All of which manifests, notably, when the Shadows and Vorlons target everyone else's planets but not each other.
Carry on.
XBL:Phenyhelm - 3DS:Phenyhelm
The Vorlons also suppress some technology and push advancement towards their own ends.
There was the episode with an immortality serum. The catch being that to make the immortality serum you had to kill some other sentient being and use their brain juices, which would have plunged the galaxy into war as each race sought to kill the others to make themselves immortal. B5 let the person go, only to have a Vorlon ship show up and blow the ship apart before it could hit the jump gate.
Vorlons are responsible for telepaths among the humans, and it's implied among all of the other races as well. Sure, it was just to use them as anti-Shadow weapons, but it's still Vorlon development along the ordered path they chose for you. Other than that, they also advanced Mimbari weapon tech in the Whitestars, shaped Mimbari culture for the past 1000 years through Valen forming the Rangers and the Grey Council.
The Vorlon influence on cultures seems much more subtle and restrained than the Shadows, but it also seem more pervasive.
I think view the immortality serum thing as suppressing technological advancement for it's own sake or anything. That does not seem to be part of their agenda. Rather, in retrospect, the serum would probably help demonstrate that the Shadows are right. The results are antithetical to Vorlon philosophy about how one should act. So, in their paternalistic way, they stop it to make our lives better.
I think Kosh goes native. Ulkesh embodies and follows the standard Vorlon philosophy. Kosh kinda likes the younger races and eventually Sheridan browbeats him into coming around and joining the younger race's side. After he dies, he gets replaced by a Vorlon who sticks to the company line.
I would think that Immortality is right up the Vorlon's ideological alley. What could be more stable and ordered than a galaxy where the races didn't age or change or grow or develop?
But, because the serum itself required death to work, it would have sparked massive wars, development of slave races to harvest for immortality, chaos on a galactic scale. The process to get to immortality is antithetical to Vorlons, but not immortality itself (otherwise, why would the Vorlons have allowed themselves to become immortal?).
It wouldn't be surprising to learn that the immortality serum itself was based on Shadow tech based on the chaos and war it would inevitably cause among the younger races, even if they chose not to use it themselves because the kind of ordered stagnation that immortality would impose on their race is just as antithetical as the chaos caused by getting there would be to the Vorlons. But I don't think the possible Shadow origins for the serum where ever hinted at, let alone confirmed.
William Morgan Sheppard did last week. He played the Soul Hunter, as well as G'Sten.
Sorry.
Oh god
Do the Spin Gravity Decks spin?[/spoiler]
Awww. He was awesome in such a small role. In terms of one-off's, I think it's him, and Sebastian*, that I always remember.
Condolences to his family.
Which includes one of the best "genre" actors of the current generation.
* Yes, I'm aware Wayne Alexander (Sebastian) had multiple appearances on the show, but only one as Sebastian (and the only one sans prosthetics).
Kosh doesn't say humanity or the younger races shouldn't be immortal, he just states "you are not ready". He doesn't even comment on why that path to immortality would be horrible, just that humans or Minbari or likely all the younger races are not yet sufficiently advanced to handle living forever.
I doubt the Vorlons or Shadows or any of the old ones had to rely on a murder serum for immortality, it wouldn't make any sense for biological immortality to be reliant on sapping life goo out of one of your fellow aliens and shooting it into yourself.
Most sci-fi writers tend to go on the fritz when they try to create, "angelic" forces, because they don't really have a firm concept of what they're supposed to be. Other than either galactic killjoys or freedom hating tyrants.
The Vorlons are ok, but conceptually its easier to for viewers to grasp something like the Shadows, which are about survival of the fittest. Rather than try to portray a benevolent, but sometimes misguided precursor race.
I have nothing to add at this time, so here's the marketing copy (courtesy of Deadline); and a tweet thread from JMS (courtesy of Dirtyboy)
(edit: I have also updated the youtube link in the OP; at some point in the last few years it expired.)
Edit: Though to be fair, the fact that Tamin's the OP makes it much easier to find an old thread...
One thread is renamed to "Who Are You?" and the other is named to "What Do You Want?"
Edit: Aw damn, the OP of the other thread hasn't been on the forums since 2015.
It sounds like some news will be coming next week?
You better not be jinxing things.
-- Commander Susan Ivanova, offering her unique perspective and *cough* cheerful optimism
Nintendo Network ID: AzraelRose
DropBox invite link - get 500MB extra free.
Whelp. Guess we'll be rewatching again....
You've just described eating.
Things eaten don't have to be other sapient beings. That was a deliberate inclusion by Deathwalker, because she was The Worst.
Except for Vorlon Jesus, aka Kosh.