Drakh

[vacantlook]

Good catch though with the resemblence between the two backround aliens and the dead ship captain in "Ship of Tears".

I found another one. If one goes to 9:45 of the fourth season's "Whatever Happened To Mr. Garibaldi," as G'Kar's walking into the night club/bar, an alien of the same species as the dead and mutilated alien captain in question from "Ship Of Tears" stands in the midground of the shot taking up the right-most quarter of the screen.

 

[Lord Refa]

And I stand by my statement, the funky face of the alien brought in on the stretcher is the same species as two of the quite background aliens in the telepath-to-ship distribution scene. They have very large foreheads with a bit of an odd ribbed look and funky noses.

I just checked my tapes. Man, I had never even seen those aliens. Who are they?

But I don't think it the same one as on the stretcher.

I'm getting some comparison screencaps.

That would be nice, because vacantlook has got me doubting myself.

 

[vacantlook]

But I don't think it the same one as on the stretcher.

For me, it took quite a few viewings before I saw a similarity because when I see the mutilated alien on the stretcher, I tend to focus on its extremely sizable gaping chest wound and not its head/face area. But the large ribbed forehead is what caused me to see similarity between it and these background aliens.

 

[Recoil]

Which "background" aliens? Ones at the begining of Grey 17?

 

[KoshN]

And I stand by my statement, the funky face of the alien brought in on the stretcher is the same species as two of the quite background aliens in the telepath-to-ship distribution scene. They have very large foreheads with a bit of an odd ribbed look and funky noses.

I just checked my tapes. Man, I had never even seen those aliens. Who are they?

But I don't think it the same one as on the stretcher.

I'm getting some comparison screencaps.

That would be nice, because vacantlook has got me doubting myself.

Here are the screencaps:

And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place

Sorry for the horizontal lines in the first two images. The 9V battery in my Snappy is just about dead. Gotta buy some batteries.

Ship of Tears

No, I think vacantlook is correct. The resemblance between the AtRCONHP aliens and the SoT ship pilot is too close. Look at the bone structure above the eye socket, toward the outside of the skull. Look at the nose area. The acid probably dissolved the soft tissue of the proboscus seen in the AtRCONHP pictures. Zero retouching was done to those caps.



DRAKH (soldier type, not leader type):

Lines of Communication

The first head-on,decently large frame, with a low amount of blur effect.

A better. closer frame. Note the structure running up the sides of the neck. It's also in the Crusade shot below, but not all of the soldier Drakh in "War Zone" exhibited that neck structure. Must have been variations between masks, possibly an oversight. <shrug>

Crusade: War Zone

Hope this helps.

 

[vacantlook]

Which "background" aliens? Ones at the begining of Grey 17?

By background aliens, I meant both the ones that KoshN screencapped from "And The Rock Cried Out No Hiding Place" and, as I discovered watching season four eps this morning, from "Whatever Happened To Mr Garibaldi?".

 

[Zathras]

After seeing the screencaps, I must concur with Vacantlook. Good eye, my friend. The aliens in these two examples look VERY much alike.

So either...

1. A faction of this race is working with the Shadows (why not, we've seen it with the Humans - some are fighting the Shadows and some are working with them).

2. Though they look alike, these two examples are not of the same race. Again, we've seen this before with Humans and Centauri - they look alike with clothing on, but what is left unseen is that they are really very different.

3. Mistake in the props dept. that no one caught and/or no one thought the viewers would catch (this one isn't much fun to play with, though ).

 

[KoshN]

After seeing the screencaps, I must concur with Vacantlook. Good eye, my friend. The aliens in these two examples look VERY much alike.

So either...

1. A faction of this race is working with the Shadows (why not, we've seen it with the Humans - some are fighting the Shadows and some are working with them).

I tend to go with #1, except that it's not necessarily a faction, but could just be some individuals who were just doing a job for pay, similar to the Narn freighter crews in "The Passing of the Technomages" novels.

 

[vacantlook]

Yeah, I think the doing a job for pay or individual of its species that's been swayed to the way of the Shadow is probably the most likely story answer, though the whole prop and costuming department answer is probably the real-world answer.

 

[Recoil]

So either...

3. Mistake in the props dept. that no one caught and/or no one thought the viewers would catch (this one isn't much fun to play with, though ).

I think its probably #3. Remember them commenting on how they had "never seen an alien like this one before." If those other aliens were hoofing around the station, then they would have seen them. Its probably that they needed a weird looking alien, and realized that those in the background were never a major part of any episode, and that people probably wouldn't notice, so they just used their overall form for the dead one found on the transport. Thats my opinion anyway.

 

[Vonbloodbath]

Yeah, I think there can be little doubt that in "the real world" they are the same, or at least based off of the same model...

But the eyes are different; insectoid and "buggy" in the background alien, but receded and with "human" style eyes in the stretcher alien...so presumably in "B5 world" they aren't the same race.

Unless the background aliens are wearing Sci-fi shades, I suppose...

Vb.

 

[KoshFan]

Its probably that they needed a weird looking alien, and realized that those in the background were never a major part of any episode, and that people probably wouldn't notice, so they just used their overall form for the dead one found on the transport.

Thereby completely underestimating the fanaticism and perceptiveness of us, the Babylon 5 fans of the near future.

 

[vacantlook]

receded and with "human" style eyes in the stretcher alien

Unless the story-world reason for the slight differences in the eyes between the two is explained as the stretcher alien having taken damage that destroyed its eyes. It was, after all, vastly multilated in it's injuries. Perhaps it suffered severe burns which burned its eyes into a deteriorated state.

 

[KoshN]

receded and with "human" style eyes in the stretcher alien

Unless the story-world reason for the slight differences in the eyes between the two is explained as the stretcher alien having taken damage that destroyed its eyes. It was, after all, vastly multilated in it's injuries. Perhaps it suffered severe burns which burned its eyes into a deteriorated state.

Exactly.

 

[Lord Refa]

KoshN, nice job with the screenshots.
Vacantlook, you were right, the aliens in the background are the same as the pilot on the stretcher.

It got me thinking: maybe that race was working for the Shadows just like the Drakh and others. Could that mean they wore somehow spying on Garibaldi? From the scene in 'And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place', I can't be sure if they are just walking by or not. They could be trying to find out which races were to be supplied with Telepaths. It would be very interesting to find out.

 

[vacantlook]

The fun thing about undeveloped background aliens like these is that a viewer, given to joy of thought, could dream up all sorts of interesting ideas and explanations.

For example, perhaps the main bulk of this alien species does work for the Shadows similarly to the Drakh and whatnot and that's why we've seen so few of them. However, maybe the two that are receiving a telepath during the telepath distribution scene have defected after having grown disillusioned with the Shadow's philosophy of instigating chaos.

It's fun to ponder.