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EpDis: Learning Curve
- Thread starter vacantlook
- Start date
hypatia
Regular
She sensed there was something between the two. And boy, it turns out she was right. 
I rather liked the application of terror bit. Nothing quite like seeing a violent bully being isolated and then forced to fight on equal grounds.
The only thing is: wouldn't it be better to wait until the patient healed a bit? The "as soon as he can walk" seems a bit over-the-top to me.
I rather liked the application of terror bit. Nothing quite like seeing a violent bully being isolated and then forced to fight on equal grounds.
The only thing is: wouldn't it be better to wait until the patient healed a bit? The "as soon as he can walk" seems a bit over-the-top to me.
Shaal Mayan
Regular
Voted excellant but I didn't really go for the Garibaldi storyline of him being suspicious of Lochley and the fact that it continued into the season.I loved the application of terror plot giving new insight into the minbari and the rangers .All in all a personal favorite in season 5.
Springer
Regular
Hmm, I'll have to watch it again maybe but I've always considered this to be one of the worst episodes of the series. The Rangers are almost like vigilantes out for revenge in this episode, above the law, which to me seems really wrong considering they are supposed to be akin to the interstellar police in the Alliance. Plus the revelation that Sheridan was married to Lochley is pure soap opera rubbish (though Garibaldi's reaction in the next episode is great - "how many wives has he got?!") and Turhan Bey is utterly wasted in this episode.
Springer
Regular
The incident took place on the station, so it would be the law on Babylon 5, which, although no longer part of Earth Alliance would still follow the rules of due process. That means arrest and trial.
Besides, I don't recall 'terror' being mentioned in the 'declaration of principles' that the Alliance is meant to hold so dear.
puzzle
Regular
Law is a funny thing. Some laws are definitely founded on sensible thoughts, but justice can be obtained without them. Notably, application of law (perhaps with the exception of contagious disease) has brought to people the greatest injustices in history.
Most institutions which try to enforce law, end up twisting it to their own practical ends. Sooner or later, law enforcement starts to mainly perpetuate the state and government writing law, everything else being a side effect.
Before it goes that far, multiple stages of decay can be observed, but that's where all known societies have always ended up. Unless another society cannibalized their state first, and imposed its own law... until it ran to ground.
At first glance, Rangers seem like a state agency. On closer observation however, they are peculiar. While they have a long history of being sponsored by the Minbari government, they have increasingly broken loose from the grasp of any particular state, and become a sovereign entity in their own right.
They have a fleet. They have a personnel department for crewing the fleet. They accept volunteers, and actually not everyone. What code of conduct they have, we the viewers learn preciously little about. Do they tolerate dissent? How far? Do they shape their policy by discussion? Do they consider their policy obligatory? In what extent? We don't know... but due to their military origin, we can assume as much: during battle, they do exhibit a chain of command, and expect their members to adhere to it. Mostly. Because we have seen some improvise a lot, and some retreat from battle, even if they got effectively demoted.
So in broad perspective, we don't know what code the Rangers adhere to (or pretend adhering to). Not even whether they are liberal or authoritarian. We do know they aren't totalitarian (so far good), but we also know they aren't anarchist either (well, that's not a big surprise).
They have an internal structure of control and feeback, presumably taking the form of a chain of command. It is doubtful if they have established customs for electing their leader. The current one (Delenn) was apparently nominated by the previous one (Sinclair), who was apparently nominated after consulting with the Minbari government by the previous one.
There has, however, been a pressure for development, and development responding to it. Rangers have been growing into a military arm of the Interstellar Alliance. That comes in handy for both (at least while the two organizations are headed by Delenn and Sheridan) since the Rangers, aside from a reluctant Minbari government, don't appear to have a predictable financing mechanism. They might take donations (reasonable), don't levy taxes (reasonable) but in environment where states do levy taxes, an organisation feeding from the leftovers of states' feast could arguably not play a similarly structured game in the same league for long.
While the Alliance has the necessary funding to sustain Rangers in their expanded role, it also has more sources of whim besides its leaders and Minbari traditions. The Alliance represents a whole bunch of species/planet/faction governments, and several pieces of paper. Most prominent among those, stands the declaration of principles, but while it's an eloquent statement of what is desired and held in regard, fishing clarifications out of it sounds like a difficult job. So perhaps one should say, that the Alliance is in the process of building up its formal operating principles from scratch, and doesn't have them yet?
Babylon 5 in turn, while being formally an Earth colony, effectively became an independent (partly) Human settlement during civil war. While it hasn't held serious debate regarding applicable customs ("laws", or perhaps switching over to anarchy ), it seems reasonable from the viewpoint of everyone onboard that pre-civil-war Earth laws would apply, mostly (except those enacted past the point when Earth government was considered to have been misappropriated, and those changes introduced on Babylon 5 which nobody challenged or protested). Or that someone might expect them to apply, even if no law really does.
Now, formal background being somewhat clearer, from the viewpoint of consistency between the Rangers' actions and pieces of paper (and traditions without a corresponding piece of paper), one might assume one of many viewpoints, including but not limited to:
- it could be quite consistent with the Minbari traditions and pieces of paper which Rangers used to follow
- it could contradict many of the Alliance worlds' laws, and almost certainly some
- whether it would contradict Earth laws, would be arguable depending on many details and technicalities
- the latter might include whether Security was summoned at ealiest opportunity after making the arrest, whether the arrested were explained what was going on, and whether they were given opportunity to peacefully wait for Security to arrive
Now, all that is interesting, but being of persuasions which treat law as merely an indicator of prevailing governmental attitudes, I'll prefer to additionally widen the range of questions by asking:
- whether reasonable selectivity was present, to ensure retribution would befall only those who provoked it
- whether reasonable care was taken, to avoid needless escalation of fighting beyond the level of harm which retribution was being carried out for
- whether bystanders who hadn't wronged the Ranger (if any) and expressed disinterest in waiting for (or rejected the authority of) Security were permitted to leave, if their claims of not being involved sounded credible (otherwise it might follow that they might produce weapons and use those) except if they were recognized as most definitely lying (in which case one would have to accept escalation and still stop them)
- whether the intent wasn't doing to anyone, what they hadn't previously done to others
- whether the outcome wasn't doing to anyone, what they hadn't previously done to others
- whether the outcome wasn't forcing anyone who hadn't intended so to fight
- whether the risk of the last two outcomes was low or high
Basing on those, I would say the response was fairly ill-adjusted, typical of what one might expect from Minbari traditions. However, ill-adjustedness taken account for, it wasn't totally stupid either.
To argue well about its exact level of stupidity, we'd have to possess detailed knowledge about how much the Rangers precisely knew. If they knew a lot and avoided risks, the tally of stupidity might come out shorter than foreseen. If they didn't know what the fuck they were starting, and hoped "they'll greet us with flowers, and hopefully there won't be any bystanders in the way", we'd have to open another page for the stupidity subtotals.
Most institutions which try to enforce law, end up twisting it to their own practical ends. Sooner or later, law enforcement starts to mainly perpetuate the state and government writing law, everything else being a side effect.
Before it goes that far, multiple stages of decay can be observed, but that's where all known societies have always ended up. Unless another society cannibalized their state first, and imposed its own law... until it ran to ground.
At first glance, Rangers seem like a state agency. On closer observation however, they are peculiar. While they have a long history of being sponsored by the Minbari government, they have increasingly broken loose from the grasp of any particular state, and become a sovereign entity in their own right.
They have a fleet. They have a personnel department for crewing the fleet. They accept volunteers, and actually not everyone. What code of conduct they have, we the viewers learn preciously little about. Do they tolerate dissent? How far? Do they shape their policy by discussion? Do they consider their policy obligatory? In what extent? We don't know... but due to their military origin, we can assume as much: during battle, they do exhibit a chain of command, and expect their members to adhere to it. Mostly. Because we have seen some improvise a lot, and some retreat from battle, even if they got effectively demoted.
So in broad perspective, we don't know what code the Rangers adhere to (or pretend adhering to). Not even whether they are liberal or authoritarian. We do know they aren't totalitarian (so far good), but we also know they aren't anarchist either (well, that's not a big surprise).
They have an internal structure of control and feeback, presumably taking the form of a chain of command. It is doubtful if they have established customs for electing their leader. The current one (Delenn) was apparently nominated by the previous one (Sinclair), who was apparently nominated after consulting with the Minbari government by the previous one.
There has, however, been a pressure for development, and development responding to it. Rangers have been growing into a military arm of the Interstellar Alliance. That comes in handy for both (at least while the two organizations are headed by Delenn and Sheridan) since the Rangers, aside from a reluctant Minbari government, don't appear to have a predictable financing mechanism. They might take donations (reasonable), don't levy taxes (reasonable) but in environment where states do levy taxes, an organisation feeding from the leftovers of states' feast could arguably not play a similarly structured game in the same league for long.
While the Alliance has the necessary funding to sustain Rangers in their expanded role, it also has more sources of whim besides its leaders and Minbari traditions. The Alliance represents a whole bunch of species/planet/faction governments, and several pieces of paper. Most prominent among those, stands the declaration of principles, but while it's an eloquent statement of what is desired and held in regard, fishing clarifications out of it sounds like a difficult job. So perhaps one should say, that the Alliance is in the process of building up its formal operating principles from scratch, and doesn't have them yet?
Babylon 5 in turn, while being formally an Earth colony, effectively became an independent (partly) Human settlement during civil war. While it hasn't held serious debate regarding applicable customs ("laws", or perhaps switching over to anarchy
), it seems reasonable from the viewpoint of everyone onboard that pre-civil-war Earth laws would apply, mostly (except those enacted past the point when Earth government was considered to have been misappropriated, and those changes introduced on Babylon 5 which nobody challenged or protested). Or that someone might expect them to apply, even if no law really does. Now, formal background being somewhat clearer, from the viewpoint of consistency between the Rangers' actions and pieces of paper (and traditions without a corresponding piece of paper), one might assume one of many viewpoints, including but not limited to:
- it could be quite consistent with the Minbari traditions and pieces of paper which Rangers used to follow
- it could contradict many of the Alliance worlds' laws, and almost certainly some
- whether it would contradict Earth laws, would be arguable depending on many details and technicalities
- the latter might include whether Security was summoned at ealiest opportunity after making the arrest, whether the arrested were explained what was going on, and whether they were given opportunity to peacefully wait for Security to arrive
Now, all that is interesting, but being of persuasions which treat law as merely an indicator of prevailing governmental attitudes, I'll prefer to additionally widen the range of questions by asking:
- whether reasonable selectivity was present, to ensure retribution would befall only those who provoked it
- whether reasonable care was taken, to avoid needless escalation of fighting beyond the level of harm which retribution was being carried out for
- whether bystanders who hadn't wronged the Ranger (if any) and expressed disinterest in waiting for (or rejected the authority of) Security were permitted to leave, if their claims of not being involved sounded credible (otherwise it might follow that they might produce weapons and use those) except if they were recognized as most definitely lying (in which case one would have to accept escalation and still stop them)
- whether the intent wasn't doing to anyone, what they hadn't previously done to others
- whether the outcome wasn't doing to anyone, what they hadn't previously done to others
- whether the outcome wasn't forcing anyone who hadn't intended so to fight
- whether the risk of the last two outcomes was low or high
Basing on those, I would say the response was fairly ill-adjusted, typical of what one might expect from Minbari traditions. However, ill-adjustedness taken account for, it wasn't totally stupid either.
To argue well about its exact level of stupidity, we'd have to possess detailed knowledge about how much the Rangers precisely knew. If they knew a lot and avoided risks, the tally of stupidity might come out shorter than foreseen. If they didn't know what the fuck they were starting, and hoped "they'll greet us with flowers, and hopefully there won't be any bystanders in the way", we'd have to open another page for the stupidity subtotals.
PillowRock
Regular
The Rangers were not talking about terror in terms of applying "terror" to the criminal.
They were talking about the "terror" that had been created in the mind of the Ranger and his need to face / confront that terror so that he would not be reacting from a phobic mindset in the future.
The important part was for him to come face-to-face with what had terrorized him so that he could have som measure of control, mostly in terms of mental control of himself, in such situations. It was more a coincidence of the circumstances of his particular incident that dictated that this involve a violent confrontation with a criminal, not some requirement of "terrorizing" violent criminals. If he had been burned in a fire, then that application of "terror" would have involved him going into or through a burning room or something similar.
Even if he had lost the fight, he still would have faced the situation with some measure of control and would likely not have as irrationally phobic of a response to similar situations going forward. That was the point, not giving "terror" to the guy who had beaten him.
puzzle
Regular
Some additional points, after having several more moments of idle time to proceed wearing out a perfectly good keyboard:
- It seems the Ranger didn't commence with fighting that guy before he picked up the staff. I don't recall the episode well enough to remember whether anyone suggested, or didn't suggest that he pick it up. In any case, the consequence of picking up a weapon you are offered, seems pretty obvious without use of explanatory language. It's fighting.
-Bah, fear of losing a fight is natural, but the preferable way to deal with having lost a fight, is not always getting into the next one straight away. Then again, if the person who caused grief is still within reach, and is the kind of person for whom it's awfully justified to cause some grief in return, and one's healthy enough to go causing it... the proposition of "why not, let's try again, but this time if you fail, we'll handle him anyway" certainly sounds more sensible.
- It seems the Ranger didn't commence with fighting that guy before he picked up the staff. I don't recall the episode well enough to remember whether anyone suggested, or didn't suggest that he pick it up. In any case, the consequence of picking up a weapon you are offered, seems pretty obvious without use of explanatory language. It's fighting.
-Bah, fear of losing a fight is natural, but the preferable way to deal with having lost a fight, is not always getting into the next one straight away. Then again, if the person who caused grief is still within reach, and is the kind of person for whom it's awfully justified to cause some grief in return, and one's healthy enough to go causing it... the proposition of "why not, let's try again, but this time if you fail, we'll handle him anyway" certainly sounds more sensible.
PillowRock
Regular
Sure, fear is a natural, good thing.
However, there is a difference between reasonable fear that stops you from doing suicidal things ...... and the kind of irrational phobic fear that tends to be caused by a traumatic event, which blocks out the ability to think analytically and rationally. The one tends to keep you safer while the other just makes it more likely that you will get yourself (or your comrades) killed with an unreasoned response somewhere down the line.
The Rangers were practicing a form of "get right back on the horse ...." before a full blown phobia has a chance to take root.
And, he had not just "lost a fight". He had been beaten into a near coma (or was it actual short erm coma?).
Jan
Regular
Pillow Rock makes good points.
In script book #12, JMS makes it clear that this is one of the episodes he wishes would drop off of a pier someplace. The story of how he came up with the story of the Ranger facing his terror, though, is a part of his personal history. He was mugged when he was young and almost died of his injuries. Upon leaving the hospital, before anything else, he needed to go back to that site and face his fear.
I never had a problem with the Mor'a'dum (sp?) because we already knew from Marcus that the Rangers teach their people "...terror. How to use it and how to face it." Anyway, if this is part of the Minbari tradition, it's not against the law for them. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking of the Minbari by human values but it's still supposed to be an alien culture.
Jan
In script book #12, JMS makes it clear that this is one of the episodes he wishes would drop off of a pier someplace. The story of how he came up with the story of the Ranger facing his terror, though, is a part of his personal history. He was mugged when he was young and almost died of his injuries. Upon leaving the hospital, before anything else, he needed to go back to that site and face his fear.
I never had a problem with the Mor'a'dum (sp?) because we already knew from Marcus that the Rangers teach their people "...terror. How to use it and how to face it." Anyway, if this is part of the Minbari tradition, it's not against the law for them. It's easy to fall into the trap of thinking of the Minbari by human values but it's still supposed to be an alien culture.
Jan
Galahad
Regular
Which kind of makes you wonder what terror Marcus faced (I can't remember if it was covered in "To Dream in the City of Sorrows". I'd wager it had something to do with returning to Mars or observing a shadow attack on a colony to face the loss of his brother... because as far as we know, that was the most traumatic thing he had experienced prior to meeting him.
vacantlook
Super Moderator
Galahad said:
I can't remember: what happened to Marcus on Mars?
A_M_Swallow
Regular
Marcus dated Number One and spotted the creature on Captain Jack's shoulder.
Garibaldi comes from Mars and it keeps trying to kill him.
Galahad
Regular
I got a little mixed up.
Marcus spoke of being from a colony and I misheard Mars (A Late Delivery from Avalon), his early life and the event I was referring to (the Shadow attack that killed his brother, the place he worked and a woman he was particularly fond of), happened on a different colony - Arisia:
My bad.
The point I was making was that in all likelihood, the event that caused him most terror was probably the one that led to him joining the rangers in the first place. Certainly, Turval was aware of it in the episode we are discussing... and he obviously saw it as a cause for concern.
I suppose for Lennier, terror would be facing up to his actions/inaction with regard to Sheridan in "Objects at Rest".
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