crazyhorse
Anarchist
Says who?
Damn propoganda
Damn propoganda
-
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Who Destroyed Babylon 1, 2, & 3?
- Thread starter Dayton3
- Start date
crazyhorse
Anarchist
That sounds right.
GaribaldisHair
Regular
In the original script for WWEI Draal said quite clearly that the shadows were involved with the destruction of the first three Babylon stations.
In "In The Beginning" I believe Londo, in telling the story to the children mentions the total number of humans killed as about "a quarter million".
He also says that up to Sheridan & Franklins peace mission to the Minbari (which was just after the Blackstar was destroyed by Sheridan) that "50 or 60,000 humans had been killed".
He also says that up to Sheridan & Franklins peace mission to the Minbari (which was just after the Blackstar was destroyed by Sheridan) that "50 or 60,000 humans had been killed".
B5_Obsessed
Regular
Babylon 5 was located in a neutral location between the major known races.
That's why the symbolic American Eagle has an olive branch in one talon and arrows in the other. Be ready for anything.
Still, we're talking about several different administrations, over a period of 15 years from the Battle of the Line to Clarke's ascention. After the events of the E-M War, the Earthgov President would have easily been able to rally support for the project. Nothing gets a "yea" vote like near extinction. And in most cases, when an administration pledges some grand project, it carries over into successive administrations and is eventually completed, usually late and over budget. Up until Santiago, support was strong for B5. He even presented them with a full Starfury squadron and a weapons upgrade. But behind the scenes, the xenophobes like Clarke toiled away, and once they were in power they set their plans in motion, starting with the appointment of Sheridan as a deliberate slap in the Minbari's collective face. The goal was to sever any perceived ties and to reduce the alien influence on Earth culture. Of course, Sheridan wasn't quite the cowboy they expected, and the rest is history.
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
TYpo
But also a common mistake, since people often "hear" the word as MIMbari when watching the series and consistently type it that way until the error is pointed out to them.
As it is, the Minbari virtually destroyed Earths fleet, killed a quarter of million people, apparently chased the humans from most if not all their colonies and had Earth on the ropes. ,
Nope. They never touched Earth. They were on the verge of destroying Earth, but they never dropped a bomb, fired a shot at the place or took out any of the orbital or lunar defenses. A quarter of a million military fatalities may sound like a high number, but consider this: 1) The Human population of Earth alone was several billion, so as a percentage, this is negligible. 2) The nature of ship-to-ship space combat in the B5 universe is such that losing crews are more likely to be dead than merely wounded 3) The Minbari rarely took prisoners. In combat there are usually 3 to 5 combatants wounded or captured for every 1 killed outright. In the Minbari was only the wounded lucky enough to escape aboard reasonably intact ships or rescued later by friendly forces would have lived through a battle with the Minbari. As for Earth’s fleet and the degree to which it was “virtually destroyed”, see my comments on The Line, below.
...apparently chased the humans from most if not all their colonies and had Earth on the ropes.
It is explicitly stated in ItB that the Minbari are by-passing civilian colonies and attacking only military forces and bases on their drive for Earth. EarthForce theorizes that they plan to exterminate the defenseless colonies on their way back to Minbar, after the Human military forces have all been destroyed. Nobody was driven from any colonies.
No amount of reparations is going to change that. And its obvious from the series that the Minbari never gave Earth any advanced technology as a part of the reparations.
True, they didn't. But the physical damage to the Humans simply wasn't as great as you've implied. No colonies destroyed or abandoned, Earth untouched, all the ships that couldn't make it to Earth in time for the battle still around. With enough money Earth could repair a good deal of the physical loss and replace many of her pre-war ships with superior designs.
Why so High a cost?
Why so high a cost compared to what? We don't know any actual figures, but consider the cost of similarly complex things today - aircraft carriers, nuclear subs or space shuttles. Big technological projects designed for service in hostile conditions tend to be comparatively expensive whether they are wind-powered warships in the age of Nelson, or nuclear-powered carriers today. Something like B5 would have to cost the equivalent of many millions, perhaps several billion, of today's dollars or Euros.
Could parts not be made on Earth or another place, taken through hyperspace and stuck together?
That is almost certainly how it was built. How else could it be built? By an on-site factory? How would the factory get there?
We know the jump gate can take some big ships so why not even a 50% station to be completed?
What would constitute a "50% station"? The front half? Most of the internal skeleton? How does moving a 2.5 mile long "half" or a 5 mile long skeleton make the transport problem any easier? (And don't forget, for the first four stations those dimensions would be about doubled.) Both are far larger than anything we've ever seen come through a jumpgate. There is also the question of whether or not such an object would have the structural strength to hold together while being moved.
It is the same reason they had to destroy B5 in place rather than haul it away intact. It wouldn't have survived the journey even if it could have made it through the gate, and you would have needed a fleet of tug boats to move it. B5 was the mostly cheaply built of the stations, and unlike its predecessors had no engines and wasn't designed to be moved. So that meant a lot of internal bracing and structural support could be abandoned - saving lots of money, weight and transport costs.
One might also wonder why the particular location for Babylon-5 was chosen at all.
All of the other races, and the Minbari in particular, would have been consulted in the process of choosing a site. The Humans wanted to administer the place, and wanted it able to defend itself, but it was always intended as a "U.N. in space" and they always intended for their to be a Babylon Council and input from the aliens. They also at least established enough of a connection with the Vorlons to extend an invitation and get the aliens to consider the idea.
Either the Vorlons or the Minbari (or the Vorlons acting through the Minbari) could have insisted on having the stations built in sector 14, and then approved moving the site of the final station three light-hours away to orbit around Epsilon 3. (This is a point of slight confusion. According to "Babylon Squared", Sector 14 is where Babylon 4 disappeared, and therefore presumably where it was built, since we have no record of its being moved. Sinclair says that tachyon emissions are being detected in the exact spot where B4 vanished. But at the end of In the Beginning we see a station (presumably the Babylon Station) being built in orbit around Epsilon 3.
Either way, the Babylon stations were always intended to be built in the general vicinity of the time rift in Sector 14, and that was not a coincidence.
Was it ever mentioned anywhere that the location was particularly accessible to all the major alien races?
Yes, any number of times.
Londo notes that it was built in neutral territory in his opening narration to The Gathering and I think there is a mention of the place being built on the borders of the five major powers. Sheridan, of course, repeats the "neutral territory" line during the opening titles of every 2nd season episode. In her speech announcing that the Senate had approved funding for the Babylon Station, the Earth President said it would be located, "...in neutral space, between several major governments." And there were other references throughout the series and in many of JMS's posts over the years.
Note, if the location of the Babylon stations was so centralized it would make an excellent military staging for operations against any of the alien races in the future.
It would also make an easy target if any two of them decided to take it out - or seize it and operate it themselves. Obviously a major part of the Babylon treaty would require that all parties respect the area's status as neutral territory.
When I talk about the Earthgov being "xenophobic" I refer to evidence including the speed at which Sinclair was replaced for being to tight with the Minbari with Sheridan who was hated by the Minbari.
You talk about EarthGov being "xenophobic" at the time the Babylon Project was conceived and built, when it wasn't under the control of Clark, so your comment is anachronistic. And Sheridan was chosen by President Santiago to replace Sinclair if anything should happen to the station's first commander. Santiago knew Sheridan's character better than Clark did. Clark followed Santiago's written recommendation and approved Sheridan in the mistaken belief that he'd be less accommodating to the aliens. Besides, doing something to tweak the Minbari in particular still doesn't constitute evidence of a generalized "xenophobia" (Although other elements of Clark's program certainly do.)
And the Minbari asked for a permanent Human Ambassador at this time and asked for Sinclair. (Because of prophecy.) So arguably Clark had nothing to do with any of it. He just said "yes" when the Minbari asked and went to the next name on Santiago's list because in both cases that fit with his overall plan anyway. Also remember that especially in the days immediately after Santiago's death, "Clark" didn't equal "EarthGov". He was just one guy and he didn't set all policy. He'd need over a year to gather most of the power into his own hands.
Finally, it is easy to convince people of things when you control the means of coummiincations. Clarked seized power by force when the Senate moved ahead with their investigation of Santiago's assissination. At that time he took over ISN and presumably most local Earth media. Armed forces communications were already in the hands of people he had been quietly slipping into position for years.
Most members of EarthForce would not know Sheridan personally or even know anyone who did. A dozen years before he had been a war hero, but people change. If you're an EarthForce officer who has never been asked to shoot a civiian or carry out any other illegal order, who is told the Sheridan is a traitor by your commanding office and who sees that charge confrimed on the TV news why wouldn't you believe it.
I think when you say "EarthGov xenophobic", you're really implying that Humans are xenophobic, and I don't think that follows either. It is certainly true that a segment of the Human population generally hates and mistrusts all aliens. Others bear a particular grudge against the Minbari because of the war. Still others hae nothing against aliens per se, but they worry about the economic effect of alien trade on human jobs, or feel that Earth culture is being dilluted by alien influence. Clark's policies aer certainly geared to tap into these atttudes and enough people belong to each of those groups to add up to a decent sized political bloc that would support some of the same policies - especially the early, mild ones that apear rational. Hitler didn't turn Gemany into a police state and start murdering people in wholesale lots the day he took power, either. He gradually introduced policies that were popular even with people who didn't hate the Jews,and who would certainly not support exterminating them, but who nonetheless kept ceding more and more power to the Nazis until they no longer needed consent or support to do what they wanted. Clark was doing much the same thing during his first year. But it would be a mistake to lump all the groups I mentioned under the heading of "xenophobes" because it simply isn't an accurate label.
As well as the speed in which Clark was able to turn his tyranny on Earth as being "against the aliens" and make seasoned military personnel believe that Sheridan was controlled by the Minbari.
It took years of careful plotting, putting his own people in place in EarthForce, working with Psi Corps and secretly getting aid from the Shadows before he was able to make his move. That didn't start the day Santiago was murdered, that was just the start of the final phase of his operation. I still don't see how plotting the overthrow of the government, murdering your way into the top job and then threatening and intimidating your fellow senators and officers into submission before finally killing and jailing them is evidence of the government benign xenophobic - especially retroactively xenophobic ten years earlier.
In the original script for WWEI Draal said quite clearly that the shadows were involved with the destruction of the first three Babylon stations.
But in the final aired version he didn't. Since that would have been JMS's decision, it is hard to argue that what "really" happened is something not supported by anything that aired and which flatly contradicts numerous internet posts.
Numbers on The Battle of the Line are all over the place. Some say that 20,000 or 25,000 Humans participated and that only 200 (or 207) survive. Others say 250,000, which strikes me as high Sometimes the same account includes both figures or several sets of them. (Wikipedia, for instance, which in turn is a source for a great many others.) Some give a breakdown of 20,000 Starfuries and 1,000 other ship. If most of the other ships were large vessels, with crews in the hundreds, then the 250,000 figure becomes plausible. But nothing we see in the series suggests that there were anything like 1,000 capital ships engaged at the line. Also I think what came to be remembered as "The Battle of the Line" only referred to the front line units in the areas where the Minbari actually engaged Human forces before they surrendered. There would certainly have been additional forces and mobile reserves held back to reinforce threatened areas or exploit local successes. The initial screen of fighters would have had the job of softening up the Minbari fleet, weakening their ships so the big guns of the destroyers and cruisers could have maximum impact. I don't think that more than a handful of larger ships, got involved in the fighting, and therefore that the figure of 25,000 for The Line and roughly 250,000 for the entire war seem more likely to me. A number of sources, including Wiki, support the 250,000 total killed figure as well.
We see one earlier station – presumably the original Babylon Station itself. I’ve been through this section virtually frame-by-frame and it is clear that we’re seeing different angles on the same station being destroyed by a series of explosion. The station is mostly skeletal framing, except for a partially enclosed rear area where the reactor would be, and the forward sphere, presumably completed early in the process to provide living and working space for the construction crew. The station is red in all of the shots. There are a few angles where the light from explosions, etc. makes parts look a different color, in both the first shot and the shot of the (nearly intact) sphere being blasted away from the wreck, the color is red.
Regards,
Joe
But also a common mistake, since people often "hear" the word as MIMbari when watching the series and consistently type it that way until the error is pointed out to them.
As it is, the Minbari virtually destroyed Earths fleet, killed a quarter of million people, apparently chased the humans from most if not all their colonies and had Earth on the ropes. ,
Nope. They never touched Earth. They were on the verge of destroying Earth, but they never dropped a bomb, fired a shot at the place or took out any of the orbital or lunar defenses. A quarter of a million military fatalities may sound like a high number, but consider this: 1) The Human population of Earth alone was several billion, so as a percentage, this is negligible. 2) The nature of ship-to-ship space combat in the B5 universe is such that losing crews are more likely to be dead than merely wounded 3) The Minbari rarely took prisoners. In combat there are usually 3 to 5 combatants wounded or captured for every 1 killed outright. In the Minbari was only the wounded lucky enough to escape aboard reasonably intact ships or rescued later by friendly forces would have lived through a battle with the Minbari. As for Earth’s fleet and the degree to which it was “virtually destroyed”, see my comments on The Line, below.
...apparently chased the humans from most if not all their colonies and had Earth on the ropes.
It is explicitly stated in ItB that the Minbari are by-passing civilian colonies and attacking only military forces and bases on their drive for Earth. EarthForce theorizes that they plan to exterminate the defenseless colonies on their way back to Minbar, after the Human military forces have all been destroyed. Nobody was driven from any colonies.
No amount of reparations is going to change that. And its obvious from the series that the Minbari never gave Earth any advanced technology as a part of the reparations.
True, they didn't. But the physical damage to the Humans simply wasn't as great as you've implied. No colonies destroyed or abandoned, Earth untouched, all the ships that couldn't make it to Earth in time for the battle still around. With enough money Earth could repair a good deal of the physical loss and replace many of her pre-war ships with superior designs.
Why so High a cost?
Why so high a cost compared to what? We don't know any actual figures, but consider the cost of similarly complex things today - aircraft carriers, nuclear subs or space shuttles. Big technological projects designed for service in hostile conditions tend to be comparatively expensive whether they are wind-powered warships in the age of Nelson, or nuclear-powered carriers today. Something like B5 would have to cost the equivalent of many millions, perhaps several billion, of today's dollars or Euros.
Could parts not be made on Earth or another place, taken through hyperspace and stuck together?
That is almost certainly how it was built. How else could it be built? By an on-site factory? How would the factory get there?
We know the jump gate can take some big ships so why not even a 50% station to be completed?
What would constitute a "50% station"? The front half? Most of the internal skeleton? How does moving a 2.5 mile long "half" or a 5 mile long skeleton make the transport problem any easier? (And don't forget, for the first four stations those dimensions would be about doubled.) Both are far larger than anything we've ever seen come through a jumpgate. There is also the question of whether or not such an object would have the structural strength to hold together while being moved.
It is the same reason they had to destroy B5 in place rather than haul it away intact. It wouldn't have survived the journey even if it could have made it through the gate, and you would have needed a fleet of tug boats to move it. B5 was the mostly cheaply built of the stations, and unlike its predecessors had no engines and wasn't designed to be moved. So that meant a lot of internal bracing and structural support could be abandoned - saving lots of money, weight and transport costs.
One might also wonder why the particular location for Babylon-5 was chosen at all.
All of the other races, and the Minbari in particular, would have been consulted in the process of choosing a site. The Humans wanted to administer the place, and wanted it able to defend itself, but it was always intended as a "U.N. in space" and they always intended for their to be a Babylon Council and input from the aliens. They also at least established enough of a connection with the Vorlons to extend an invitation and get the aliens to consider the idea.
Either the Vorlons or the Minbari (or the Vorlons acting through the Minbari) could have insisted on having the stations built in sector 14, and then approved moving the site of the final station three light-hours away to orbit around Epsilon 3. (This is a point of slight confusion. According to "Babylon Squared", Sector 14 is where Babylon 4 disappeared, and therefore presumably where it was built, since we have no record of its being moved. Sinclair says that tachyon emissions are being detected in the exact spot where B4 vanished. But at the end of In the Beginning we see a station (presumably the Babylon Station) being built in orbit around Epsilon 3.
Either way, the Babylon stations were always intended to be built in the general vicinity of the time rift in Sector 14, and that was not a coincidence.
Was it ever mentioned anywhere that the location was particularly accessible to all the major alien races?
Yes, any number of times.
Londo notes that it was built in neutral territory in his opening narration to The Gathering and I think there is a mention of the place being built on the borders of the five major powers. Sheridan, of course, repeats the "neutral territory" line during the opening titles of every 2nd season episode. In her speech announcing that the Senate had approved funding for the Babylon Station, the Earth President said it would be located, "...in neutral space, between several major governments." And there were other references throughout the series and in many of JMS's posts over the years.
Note, if the location of the Babylon stations was so centralized it would make an excellent military staging for operations against any of the alien races in the future.
It would also make an easy target if any two of them decided to take it out - or seize it and operate it themselves. Obviously a major part of the Babylon treaty would require that all parties respect the area's status as neutral territory.
When I talk about the Earthgov being "xenophobic" I refer to evidence including the speed at which Sinclair was replaced for being to tight with the Minbari with Sheridan who was hated by the Minbari.
You talk about EarthGov being "xenophobic" at the time the Babylon Project was conceived and built, when it wasn't under the control of Clark, so your comment is anachronistic. And Sheridan was chosen by President Santiago to replace Sinclair if anything should happen to the station's first commander. Santiago knew Sheridan's character better than Clark did. Clark followed Santiago's written recommendation and approved Sheridan in the mistaken belief that he'd be less accommodating to the aliens. Besides, doing something to tweak the Minbari in particular still doesn't constitute evidence of a generalized "xenophobia" (Although other elements of Clark's program certainly do.)
And the Minbari asked for a permanent Human Ambassador at this time and asked for Sinclair. (Because of prophecy.) So arguably Clark had nothing to do with any of it. He just said "yes" when the Minbari asked and went to the next name on Santiago's list because in both cases that fit with his overall plan anyway. Also remember that especially in the days immediately after Santiago's death, "Clark" didn't equal "EarthGov". He was just one guy and he didn't set all policy. He'd need over a year to gather most of the power into his own hands.
Finally, it is easy to convince people of things when you control the means of coummiincations. Clarked seized power by force when the Senate moved ahead with their investigation of Santiago's assissination. At that time he took over ISN and presumably most local Earth media. Armed forces communications were already in the hands of people he had been quietly slipping into position for years.
Most members of EarthForce would not know Sheridan personally or even know anyone who did. A dozen years before he had been a war hero, but people change. If you're an EarthForce officer who has never been asked to shoot a civiian or carry out any other illegal order, who is told the Sheridan is a traitor by your commanding office and who sees that charge confrimed on the TV news why wouldn't you believe it.
I think when you say "EarthGov xenophobic", you're really implying that Humans are xenophobic, and I don't think that follows either. It is certainly true that a segment of the Human population generally hates and mistrusts all aliens. Others bear a particular grudge against the Minbari because of the war. Still others hae nothing against aliens per se, but they worry about the economic effect of alien trade on human jobs, or feel that Earth culture is being dilluted by alien influence. Clark's policies aer certainly geared to tap into these atttudes and enough people belong to each of those groups to add up to a decent sized political bloc that would support some of the same policies - especially the early, mild ones that apear rational. Hitler didn't turn Gemany into a police state and start murdering people in wholesale lots the day he took power, either. He gradually introduced policies that were popular even with people who didn't hate the Jews,and who would certainly not support exterminating them, but who nonetheless kept ceding more and more power to the Nazis until they no longer needed consent or support to do what they wanted. Clark was doing much the same thing during his first year. But it would be a mistake to lump all the groups I mentioned under the heading of "xenophobes" because it simply isn't an accurate label.
As well as the speed in which Clark was able to turn his tyranny on Earth as being "against the aliens" and make seasoned military personnel believe that Sheridan was controlled by the Minbari.
It took years of careful plotting, putting his own people in place in EarthForce, working with Psi Corps and secretly getting aid from the Shadows before he was able to make his move. That didn't start the day Santiago was murdered, that was just the start of the final phase of his operation. I still don't see how plotting the overthrow of the government, murdering your way into the top job and then threatening and intimidating your fellow senators and officers into submission before finally killing and jailing them is evidence of the government benign xenophobic - especially retroactively xenophobic ten years earlier.
In the original script for WWEI Draal said quite clearly that the shadows were involved with the destruction of the first three Babylon stations.
But in the final aired version he didn't. Since that would have been JMS's decision, it is hard to argue that what "really" happened is something not supported by anything that aired and which flatly contradicts numerous internet posts.
Numbers on The Battle of the Line are all over the place. Some say that 20,000 or 25,000 Humans participated and that only 200 (or 207) survive. Others say 250,000, which strikes me as high Sometimes the same account includes both figures or several sets of them. (Wikipedia, for instance, which in turn is a source for a great many others.) Some give a breakdown of 20,000 Starfuries and 1,000 other ship. If most of the other ships were large vessels, with crews in the hundreds, then the 250,000 figure becomes plausible. But nothing we see in the series suggests that there were anything like 1,000 capital ships engaged at the line. Also I think what came to be remembered as "The Battle of the Line" only referred to the front line units in the areas where the Minbari actually engaged Human forces before they surrendered. There would certainly have been additional forces and mobile reserves held back to reinforce threatened areas or exploit local successes. The initial screen of fighters would have had the job of softening up the Minbari fleet, weakening their ships so the big guns of the destroyers and cruisers could have maximum impact. I don't think that more than a handful of larger ships, got involved in the fighting, and therefore that the figure of 25,000 for The Line and roughly 250,000 for the entire war seem more likely to me. A number of sources, including Wiki, support the 250,000 total killed figure as well.
We see one earlier station – presumably the original Babylon Station itself. I’ve been through this section virtually frame-by-frame and it is clear that we’re seeing different angles on the same station being destroyed by a series of explosion. The station is mostly skeletal framing, except for a partially enclosed rear area where the reactor would be, and the forward sphere, presumably completed early in the process to provide living and working space for the construction crew. The station is red in all of the shots. There are a few angles where the light from explosions, etc. makes parts look a different color, in both the first shot and the shot of the (nearly intact) sphere being blasted away from the wreck, the color is red.
Regards,
Joe
A_M_Swallow
Regular
The location of Babylon 4 was chosen nearly 1,000 years before it was built. I suspect that there was a Minbari telepath in room when the humans "thought" of the location.
darth_librarian
Regular
I still see itthat the Shadows had a role in the destruction of B1.2 +3, probably through various groups including Drakh and manipulation of the home guard. When B4 just disappeared after they failed to blow it up with a nuke, they just gave at let Babylon 5 be built.
vacantlook
Super Moderator
I can see the Shadows being involved, but not like the way we were shown they were actively trying to blow up Babylon 4. I imagine any Shadow involvement in the destruction of B1-3 would be more along the lines of a few human agents of the Shadows inserting themselves into various anti-alien terrorist groups and spurring the group into destroying the stations. If I remember what I read once upon a time correctly, at least one of the stations B1-3 was destroyed through purposed use of faulty building materials to cause the station itself to collapse under the force of it its own structure (ie not destroyed through use of explosives). I imagine that a Shadow agent could have had some level of influence over the granting of building and supply contracts for the Babylon Project or within the companies fulfilling those contracts.
Chilli
High Treason Prevention Officer
This gets you into the kind of logical paradoxes you'll generally get once time travel is involved in a story. I doubt a Minbari telepath would have been involved, as someone had to decide the location at *some* point.
That is .. if Babylon 4 traveled through time only, and not through time and space. Something that never was adressed IIRC.
IF JMS thought it all through - the DVD audio commentaries kind of suggest that he didn't really consider it too important - Babylon 4 must too have been somewhere in the inner Epsilon Eridani system, as it took starfuries 3 hours to get there, through normal space. We don't know how fast starfuries can get, but I doubt it's much faster than 1/10th the speed of light - an estimated limit of the speed that a ship with ion engines could reach. Which means that it would have to be somewhere within about 18 lightminutes of B5, at the given time. 18 lightminutes is twice the distance between Earth and the sun - not a very large distance, in astronomical terms.
It's also directly adressed in season 2 - Franklin tells G'Kar about the Minbari military approach when noticing that the Centauri's approach is resembling it quite closly - that the Centauri were just shooting right by the Narn colonies, heading straight for their homeworld.
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
I'm having trouble finding the post, but JMS has said that only B4 was far enough long in construciton to be identifiable as the station that went back in time, and that's the reason the Shadow's servants tried to blow it up. They would have ignored the first three stations just as they ignored B5, becasue destroying them would not have rescued them from defeat in the previous Shadow War. Once that shortcut to victory was off the table they had to find a more conventional way to win the war of the 2260s.
Regards,
Joe
Regards,
Joe
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
And it is possible that leaves turn color in the fall beause millions of elves hand paint then. You can't prove that isn't the case. (If you say you planted hidden camera in my orchard and they've never detected an elf, I'll just explain that my magical elves can't be photographed. ) However, you can say that it isn't damned likely. Ditto the Shadows and the first three stations given JMS's repeated statements that no, they were destroyed by Humans who objected to the proejct and the fact that when he wrote a line to that effect in a script, he ultimately cut it before the episode was filmed.
Regards,
Joe
You can't prove that isn't the case. (If you say you planted hidden camera in my orchard and they've never detected an elf, I'll just explain that my magical elves can't be photographed. ) However, you can say that it isn't damned likely. Ditto the Shadows and the first three stations given JMS's repeated statements that no, they were destroyed by Humans who objected to the proejct and the fact that when he wrote a line to that effect in a script, he ultimately cut it before the episode was filmed. Regards,
Joe
I think it might be stretching things to think that the Shadows had a hand in all the misfortune that befell the Babylon stations.
Just wondering.
Babylon-5 is supposed to be "the last of the Babylon stations".
Why?
Apparently, B-5 was a tremendous success both in peace and wartime to say nothing of diplomatically and even commercially.
The B-5 station itself only outlived its usefullness because the Interstellar Alliance was no longer headquartered there.
Wouldn't it make sense to build other large space stations in more accessible regions.
Or does the "last of the Babylon stations" mean something along the lines of "Babylon-5 was so famous and legendary, that we simply retired the name Babylon and named future stations something else".?
Just wondering.
Babylon-5 is supposed to be "the last of the Babylon stations".
Why?
Apparently, B-5 was a tremendous success both in peace and wartime to say nothing of diplomatically and even commercially.
The B-5 station itself only outlived its usefullness because the Interstellar Alliance was no longer headquartered there.
Wouldn't it make sense to build other large space stations in more accessible regions.
Or does the "last of the Babylon stations" mean something along the lines of "Babylon-5 was so famous and legendary, that we simply retired the name Babylon and named future stations something else".?
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
Apparently, B-5 was a tremendous success both in peace and wartime to say nothing of diplomatically and even commercially.
B5 was a commericially marginal endeavor that was never 100% self-supporting. It depended on subsidies from Earth for its first three years, and almost certainly received aid from the Minbari after it broke away from Earth. It failed in its primary mission of preventing war through diplomacy, its role in the Shadow War was largely unknown or misrepresented on Earth, and its role in both the Civil War and the Telepath Crisis made it controversial at best and an embarrassment at worst to EarthGov. That the Earth station was briefly taken over by an Alliance headed by a former "traitor" and which was overshadowing Earth's former leading position vis a vis the League and other alien races didn't sit well with a lot of people on Earth or in EarthGov, either.
Wouldn't it make sense to build other large space stations in more accessible regions.
Babylon 5 was neither the first nor the last "large space station", I'm sure. I'll bet Earth buit them, and I'm sure various alien governments did. What made B5 uniques was not that it was a big space station, it was its mission.
Or does the "last of the Babylon stations" mean something along the lines of "Babylon-5 was so famous and legendary, that we simply retired the name Babylon and named future stations something else"?
No, "the last of the Babylon Staions" means it was the last of the stations built as part of the Human's Babylon project with the mission of promoting peace among the species. Again, it is not the name or the size that defines the place, it is the mission. When the mission was over, there could be and were no more Babylon stations. (And besides, JMS wanted to foreclose the possibility of anybody ever doing a Babylon 6.)
Regards,
Joe
B5 was a commericially marginal endeavor that was never 100% self-supporting. It depended on subsidies from Earth for its first three years, and almost certainly received aid from the Minbari after it broke away from Earth. It failed in its primary mission of preventing war through diplomacy, its role in the Shadow War was largely unknown or misrepresented on Earth, and its role in both the Civil War and the Telepath Crisis made it controversial at best and an embarrassment at worst to EarthGov. That the Earth station was briefly taken over by an Alliance headed by a former "traitor" and which was overshadowing Earth's former leading position vis a vis the League and other alien races didn't sit well with a lot of people on Earth or in EarthGov, either.
Wouldn't it make sense to build other large space stations in more accessible regions.
Babylon 5 was neither the first nor the last "large space station", I'm sure. I'll bet Earth buit them, and I'm sure various alien governments did. What made B5 uniques was not that it was a big space station, it was its mission.
Or does the "last of the Babylon stations" mean something along the lines of "Babylon-5 was so famous and legendary, that we simply retired the name Babylon and named future stations something else"?
No, "the last of the Babylon Staions" means it was the last of the stations built as part of the Human's Babylon project with the mission of promoting peace among the species. Again, it is not the name or the size that defines the place, it is the mission. When the mission was over, there could be and were no more Babylon stations. (And besides, JMS wanted to foreclose the possibility of anybody ever doing a Babylon 6.)
Regards,
Joe
By the way, why did the Minbari agree to help fund the Babylon-5 station after apparently having little interest in the first four?
It would seem to me that the Minbari would've had good information from the last Shadow War about the Babylon-4 station that ultimately became their base which made the difference against the Shadows.
Given that the first Babylon station was obviously eventually going to look like Babylon-4 shouldn't the Minbari have been eager to support building a station they knew would ultimately be used by them?
It would seem to me that the Minbari would've had good information from the last Shadow War about the Babylon-4 station that ultimately became their base which made the difference against the Shadows.
Given that the first Babylon station was obviously eventually going to look like Babylon-4 shouldn't the Minbari have been eager to support building a station they knew would ultimately be used by them?
vacantlook
Super Moderator
Dayton3 said:
Except the modern day Minbari apparently didn't know what B4 looked like (and I doubt the Minbari of 1000 years ago refered to the B4 as Babylon 4, so name identification is out) going by Delenn's exposition in "War Without End Part 1": the video record of B4 she showed was given to her by Draal shortly before they left B5, recorded by the Great Machine. I would think that she, being of the Grey Council, would have known of B4 before then, but her reaction seemed to me to be an indication that she didn't know that the station Valen gave to the Minbari was B4 until she viewed the Draal-acquired video record right before leaving B5 for the mission.
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Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
Because they weren't asked to contribute to the first four. Earth did not solicit alien funding for the first four attempts to build in the station - in part because none of them before Babylon 4 came anywhere close to being completed - and therefore relatively little of the money and material budgeted for the station was actually expended before the station was destroyed.
As noted, the Minbari had very little information from the last war. (The Minbari are fond of central-planning and have an almost Soviet tendency to build One Big Facility. They did this with their records facility for the most recent Shadow War - which was destroyed very late in the conflict.) Combine that with the fact that none of they were not involved in the Babylon Project until after Babylon 4 vanished, it is hardly surprising that the Minbari did not connect the Babylon Project with Valen's station until Delenn's arrival. (She says in "WWE" that she had seen images of Valen's station and that she recognized the siimilarties in the designs when she took up her post on B5 - which she had never see before, even in pictures. But neither she nor anyone else had any idea what it all meant, even when her research proved that Valen's station was, indeed, Babylon 4. She knew it had something to do with prophecy and Valen's war, but until she received Sinclair's 900 year old letter and the recording from Draal, she didn't have anything like the full picture.)
Regards,
Joe
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