Babylon 5: Deathwalker

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

I'd lean towards "it needs to be the same species" for the immortality serum, which would add an extra dimension to her "Prove everyone else is just as bad as me" plot. Maybe the tissue needs to be harvested from specialized regions of the brain after they have sufficiently matured?

[TheLibrarian]

2. Evolution doesn't have a goal in Babylon 5, because the original evolved race was immortal. It's just that Vorlons and other energy based psychics "seeded" and grew races after that point. It's less like "The Chase" though because they seeded individual traits into pre-existing evolutionary races versus actually controlling evolution. I.e. Psychic Powers.

Right, it's not evolution, it's selective breeding. The Shadows pit sapient species against each other, so that the "strongest" (by whatever metrics let you win wars, I suppose) survive, while the Vorlons genetically tinker with them, introducing the telepath gene, etc.

[CharlesPhipps]

2. Evolution doesn't have a goal in Babylon 5, because the original evolved race was immortal. It's just that Vorlons and other energy based psychics "seeded" and grew races after that point. It's less like "The Chase" though because they seeded individual traits into pre-existing evolutionary races versus actually controlling evolution. I.e. Psychic Powers.

Right, it's not evolution, it's selective breeding. The Shadows pit sapient species against each other, so that the "strongest" (by whatever metrics let you win wars, I suppose) survive, while the Vorlons genetically tinker with them, introducing the telepath gene, etc.

In the Shadow's case, I think they assume conflict breeds technological development and competition.

The Vorlons also impersonate deities to influence religious and moral development. Which is awful if you're an atheist or theist.

I.e. both are kind of shitty systems.

[name_here]

I assumed that it wasn't necessarily technically impossible to find or synthesize a substitute for what was extracted from sentient beings, but Deathwalker wasn't much interested in helping and planned on the other species deciding not to wait; if it'd take a decade to reverse engineer the formula and find a suitable substitute, there's plenty of people in the galaxy who'd rather not age another decade. Given the concessions offered and the fighting involved in trying to secure the serum just in this one episode, it hardly seems implausible that a ruthless and elderly Centauri might launch a raid and swipe the current serum formula. So the Vorlons put a stop to that by obliterating her ship and all her records.

As for what was up with Talia, I figured it was Kosh basically getting an insurance policy to deter Talia from trying to scan him; the Vorlons early on seemed pretty intent on avoiding being scanned by telepaths. Most probably a Vorlon not in the process of dying of poison could make any telepath from the younger races regret their impudence rather decisively, but the attempt would end up revealing Vorlon capabilities they'd rather keep secret.

[Nevix]

One thing I never really understood was if the immortality serum needed a member of that person's race, or if any person worked. Either a slaughter of their own species for immortality, or a genocidal kidnapping of other races for the necessary ingredient.

The impression I got was that it required a sentient person to create the serum.

Mindless clones was not an option I had considered, but I also get the feeling that it would require a living person, just because J'Dour/Deathwalker WANTED the galaxy to tear itself apart for the death of the Dilgar species.

As a Christian, doing evil to get a good result is explicitly called out as wrong. Specifically in Romans, in the New Testament.

Benefiting from someone else' evil actions to ultimately do good is a mite hazy, like the subject of "kneecaps", but it's still a very gray/dark area, given the stance on directly benefiting from evil actions.

In the context of the episode, there's no remotely good way to create the immortality serum. Actually, there's a book series that discusses issues with having an Immortality Serum (Rejuvenation, which resets age to a person's early 20s.), and how that could affect the judgement of people in positions of power to ignore the short term because they're considering actions in the centuries scale, and ignoring the harm on "small" decisions.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Yeah. Also, for all I tire of the "we must learn to accept death" aesop, finite lifespans are a good way to make sure that no single tyrant or dictator can oppress the land forever.

[FaxModem1]

One thing I never really understood was if the immortality serum needed a member of that person's race, or if any person worked. Either a slaughter of their own species for immortality, or a genocidal kidnapping of other races for the necessary ingredient.

The impression I got was that it required a sentient person to create the serum.

Mindless clones was not an option I had considered, but I also get the feeling that it would require a living person, just because J'Dour/Deathwalker WANTED the galaxy to tear itself apart for the death of the Dilgar species.

As a Christian, doing evil to get a good result is explicitly called out as wrong. Specifically in Romans, in the New Testament.

Benefiting from someone else' evil actions to ultimately do good is a mite hazy, like the subject of "kneecaps", but it's still a very gray/dark area, given the stance on directly benefiting from evil actions.

In the context of the episode, there's no remotely good way to create the immortality serum. Actually, there's a book series that discusses issues with having an Immortality Serum (Rejuvenation, which resets age to a person's early 20s.), and how that could affect the judgement of people in positions of power to ignore the short term because they're considering actions in the centuries scale, and ignoring the harm on "small" decisions.

Yes, but was Ja'dur wanting to make all the races of the B5 verse tear themselves apart via civil wars, or via genocidal campaigns against other races that are considered 'other'.

For the Minbari mindset, this is a choice between Minbari shall not kill Minbari, one of their greatest laws, and why they stopped killing Earth, and a choice to pick on some other, militarily weaker race, and harvest them for immortality juice, something that they would pretty much shrug at, due to Minbari xenophobia.

The Centauri, as we see with the war against the Narn, Drazi and the rest of the League, would be okay with option 2, as they're very in favor of wars of conquest, while their sense of duty to the state and the good of the Centauri Republic might make them find it contentious to, say, harvest the peasant folk for the survival of the nobility. They might still be willing to do so if such a choice was given before Cartagia.

Earth Alliance might see such things advocated by people like Clark and Bester, and decried by people like Sinclair and Franklin. Imagine a scene where Earth Central orders them to clear out Down Below, as a Senator's family all want to live forever. This, in contrast to, say, Earth invading the Drazi because of their relatively weaker military And wanting to make all their troops immortal.

That's what I'm asking. Are we seeing crazy wars of people harvesting, or Internal vampiric elites taking advantage of their most weak citizens of their own race?

[Mickey_Rat15]

So, how was Deathwalker making her serum during her time with the Wind Swords? Were they providing her with "ingredients"?

I had wondered if the Vorlons had made the Dilgar star go nova, as a pre-emptive strike. If Jh'adur is typical of her species attitude, then they were a naturally Shadow aligned species.

If memory serves, for one of the meetings with Abbott, Kosh says that they will meet at the Hour of Scampering. Trying to imagine a Vorlon scampering.

[FaxModem1]

So, how was Deathwalker making her serum during her time with the Wind Swords? Were they providing her with "ingredients"?

If it can be any type of sentient person, this might explain what happened to some human POWs during the Earth-Minbari war.

[CharlesPhipps]

If it's not an energy-based serum, it's probably requiring a member of the species being made immortal.