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The Logical Choice
- Thread starter QMCO5
- Start date
Ninja_Squirrel
Regular
Wow, a very nice offer. However, the important question is... How many bathrooms do you have?
B5obsessive
Member
I have always thought that turning B5 into the HQ would have been sensible. They would have plenty space if the remodeled the commercial areas and Brown sector. Also, the station would be serving its original purpose as a centre of peace, and on top of that it would have meant Earth never had any reason to BLOW IT UP!!
deaded
Regular
Damn.
You're right. My bad. Sorry.
~I have always thought that turning B5 into the HQ would have been sensible. They would have plenty space if the remodeled the commercial areas and Brown sector. Also, the station would be serving its original purpose as a centre of peace, and on top of that it would have meant Earth never had any reason to BLOW IT UP!!~
I agree. B5 would have been the PERFECT place for the IA HQ imho. Plus the whole 'blow it up' thing at the end was really stupid. Especially the excuse they gave; that it was a hazzard to navigation?! WTF?!? You can actually SEE and avoid a 5 mile long space station from hundreds of miles away!! But a thousand million pieces of debris floating in close proximity to a jump gate?!? Uh... DUH!
KoshFan
Regular
Actually, there are a lot of inconsistencies in the whole thing. On the one hand, it's a hazard to navigation; on the other hand, trade routes have shifted so no one goes there any more. It's too weakly armed to defend itself, but pirates want to steal the guns.
Let's face it, folks, JMS wanted to end on a big explosion.
Let's face it, folks, JMS wanted to end on a big explosion.
Galahad
Regular
Perhaps one of the reasons it is a danger to navigation is because it is no longer visited anymore. If a ship in distress set course for the nearest jumpgate as it's last best hope... err sorry... and it jumped in to B5 space, they'd be stuffed because no-one would be around to render aid. It's probable that the EA would want to recycle the jumpgate materials, as Quantium 40 is quite rare, so they'd need to remove B5 to stop people having a reason to use the gate.
As to the defence and tech stealer issue. It's very likely that the reason B5 is undefendable isn't technological but budgetary. With so few people using the gate and station facilities, the station staff would have been reduced to a minimum... certainly not enough to mount an effective defence against a substantial hostile force.
Flounder
Regular
Navies would scuttle war ships rather than let them fall into the hands of the enemy. Though there were fewer raiders, it's possible that they might try to break in.
Then there's the possibility of it losing its correct orbit and falling into the planet or taking up its own orbit in the star system.
Still, I think it would have been kept running, with its history and possible use as a tourist destination or emergency port. Ah, well.
Then there's the possibility of it losing its correct orbit and falling into the planet or taking up its own orbit in the star system.
Still, I think it would have been kept running, with its history and possible use as a tourist destination or emergency port. Ah, well.
KoshFan
Regular
Or perhaps we're looking at this from the wrong end.
Sheridan tells the station that they are bound together. If he's right, and if Sheridan's about to die, then perhaps it is just simply the force of history that is compelling EarthForce to blow up the station. That would explain the incoherent reasons given: they don't even know why they're doing it! They just know they have to.
Sheridan tells the station that they are bound together. If he's right, and if Sheridan's about to die, then perhaps it is just simply the force of history that is compelling EarthForce to blow up the station. That would explain the incoherent reasons given: they don't even know why they're doing it! They just know they have to.
Galahad
Regular
They didn't blow up any jump gate, did they?
I thought it was just B5 that got blasted into little pieces.
I didn't mean to imply they did blow the gate, merely pointing out that such a valuable commodity would be needed elsewhere. It would be wasteful to leave it behind with a redundant station, even more so once the station is gone.
sleepy_shadow
Regular
But in hyperspace... the beacon is drifting about. Unless there is something in normal space which the beacon can observe *across* the hyperspace-normalspace barrier... would the beacon not inevitably drift away from its supposed location?
I personally suspect it works like this:
-- The beacon broadcasts a signal in hyperspace (towards other beacons, and thusly incoming ships). This signal is highly directed, but can reach far.
-- The jump gate also broadcasts a signal, in normal space... but this signal is designed to penetrate the spatial barrier, and reach hyperspace. Sending it is fairly costly, and it reaches hyperspace in rather weak form.
-- The beacon floats almost exactly "on top" of the gate in hyperspace, and automatically maintains its proximity to the gate. If it wandered too far, it would no longer hear the gate.
Thus, to have a beacon... you would generally need a gate. One without the other would be of very limited use.
Galahad
Regular
I wasn't suggesting they would blow it up, just dismantle and re-use the Quantium 40 in a place where it would be more useful in terms of interstellar travel. I thought the reasons the gates were treasured so much was because Quantium 40 was such a rare mineral deposit, and without a ready supply it would be difficult to replace/maintain the gate network. That's why i believe there would be a need to optimise the network... making sure redundant ones are recycled and used elsewhere.
