Babylon 5: Geometry of Shadows

[FaxModem1]

BTW, I like the music outros. Chuck does them well and they're always fitting. The Man From Earth is one of my favorites.

[Beastro]

This episode's title is quintessentially Babylon 5. Its the kind that the show always brings to my mind.

If that's true, it goes to show that the Shadows didn't get the hint that this sort of thing clearly DOESN'T lead to much advancement or progress.

It could be that the Shadows have a narrower view on progress and advancement, that selection on an evolutionary level is more important than anything civilization has to do with, so it's better to make a reason for the Drazi to weed out the weak than to make a sensible political system while it's the Vorlons that look toward improving both it and civilization.

Civilization when it comes down to it is an archetype of order.

I don't like that kind of tie-in though. Always pisses me off when a world has everything tied into the central story as things become small and incestuous. See Star Wars.

I'd rather look on that sort of thing as some typically weird cultural inheritance of the Drazi. Like if Western Civilization has inherited more from Sparta than from Athens, an through there we spread across the world voting via which side can yell the loudest wins, rather than through the casting of ballots.

[Eishtmo]

The second technomage trilogy novel "Summoning Light", by Jeanne Cavelos based on JMS outlines, actually attributes it to the Shadows. Their agents caused the "beat the shit out of each other every five years" cultural practice to come into play.

If that's true, it goes to show that the Shadows didn't get the hint that this sort of thing clearly DOESN'T lead to much advancement or progress.

It did work though, in many areas. The Drazi aren't presented as the brightest of the various races, so maybe it didn't really stick as well as the Shadows would have liked. Or maybe they're as advanced as they are BECAUSE of this craziness. We can't say because we don't know.

Conflict does lead to some advancements, but too much can cripple as much. It's why the Shadows went through cycles rather than constantly beating down the younger races, to give them time to develop. Then when the Shadow war came, the best would survive, and the rest would vanish.

Anyway, the point is they weren't WRONG, but merely part of a whole process. It's when that part became dogma that things went off the rails. Didn't help that the Vorlons had the same issue from the other direction.

[Yukaphile]

Hell, look at my sig! I'm sure you'll guess what my stance on that is. Conflict can be very self-revealing about what kind of a person or a society and a people you are. Especially if you're let unrestrained, so that basically it just comes down to your morals, if nothing's stopping you.

That being said, having advanced as far as I have into B5, can we conclusively say the Vorlon/Shadows conflict parallels the Jedi vs. Sith wars in Star Wars? At least to a degree. Hell, perhaps Star Wars Legends, the old EU, was inspired by B5 at the time in their constructing of the universe they were building.

[Jonathan101]

I mean, to a point, but the Jedi/Sith conflict is fundamentally different. It's much more clearly Good vs Evil while Vorlon/Shadows are more Order vs Chaos.

The Jedi would never destroy entire worlds just to purge them of Shadow influence, either, especially if the point was less to destroy the Sith and more to get the Sith to realise that their way is RIGHT. The Jedi are more about Peace and Harmony than they are about Order.

The Shadows aren't out to set themselves up as rulers of the galaxy because they think they are just plain better than everyone. Both they and the Sith believe that Conflict is a positive thing, but the Sith are much more egotistical and self-serving about it; a true Sith doesn't give a sh*t about anyone but themselves.

I don't think they were inspired by B5, because the Jedi/Sith conflict was first really talked about in the "Tales of the Jedi" comics which came out in 1993, and other than a pilot the actual Babylon 5 TV series wouldn't come out until 1994, the Vorlon / Shadow conflict later still. The Star Wars stuff came out first, and much of Sith philosophy can be comfortably traced back to the movies anyway.

[Yukaphile]

I guess, but given the reasonable and near-honorable Sith we've encountered over the years (at least in Legends) and the questionable things the Jedi have done (again, in Legends, as far as I know), one could argue it's less about good vs. evil and more about order vs. chaos. I've debated elsewhere the Jedi are Communists and the Sith are Fascists. That's the basis for their philosophy.

True, but the Jedi acted very similar to the way the Feds do when adhering dogmatically to the absolute letter of the Prime Directive, and let whole species die through inaction while patting themselves on the back. Again, refer to the Mandalorian Wars of Legends. And they can be ruthless when hunting down dark siders, to the point you begin to wonder if they're the same thing, just from the opposite side of a spectrum.

[FaxModem1]

I guess, but given the reasonable and near-honorable Sith we've encountered over the years (at least in Legends) and the questionable things the Jedi have done (again, in Legends, as far as I know), one could argue it's less about good vs. evil and more about order vs. chaos. I've debated elsewhere the Jedi are Communists and the Sith are Fascists. That's the basis for their philosophy.

True, but the Jedi acted very similar to the way the Feds do when adhering dogmatically to the absolute letter of the Prime Directive, and let whole species die through inaction while patting themselves on the back. Again, refer to the Mandalorian Wars of Legends. And they can be ruthless when hunting down dark siders, to the point you begin to wonder if they're the same thing, just from the opposite side of a spectrum.

Part of the problem with such a view is that the Jedi do actively work to help others, show compassion, and the whole part of being light side is that you do what you can to stay a good person. Sith plot the down fall of others, to the point of violent extermination of anyone who gets in your way, whether they be Jedi, soldiers, civilians, your beloved wife who is pregnant with your unborn children, etc.

Trying to advocate for Sith is like trying to advocate for the hillbilly cannibals from horror movies. Sure, they have a way of life, but that way of life is hostile to all others, and leads to death for all concerned.

Remember, the reason they have the Rule of Two in the first place is that if there's more than a master and apprentice, they start killing each other willy-nilly for power. That goes beyond even fascism, it's pure sadism.

[TheStarWarsTrek]

And they can be ruthless when hunting down dark siders, to the point you begin to wonder if they're the same thing, just from the opposite side of a spectrum.

Only in the terribly written parts of the EU. *cough Karen Traviss cough*

[Yukaphile]

Qui-Gon was prepared to kill Xanatos. And Mace Windu flat-out said it was too dangerous to let Palpatine live.

They seem to be of the philosophy "hunt it down and kill it at all costs."

But let's not get off topic.

[Jonathan101]

You might begin to wonder if being ready and willing to kill particular Darksiders makes them just as bad as the Sith but when you think about you should realise "no, it really doesn't".

Especially since in those cases they either have quite good reasons for this, or they recoil in horror at what they are about to do. And these tend to be individual cases, while what the Sith do is part-and-parcel of what it means to be a Sith.

The Sith are not Fascists; Fascists put the group above the self, or their own group at least. The Sith put the self above every other self. Except perhaps for the Brotherhood of Darkness and the One Sith, a Sith would see Fascism as a means to an end rather than an end in itself- which may be even worse than being a Fascist out of conviction.