Babylon 5: Revelations

[cdrood]

I understand the death penalty. But spacing? Egads. Though it does make sense painting the Earth government as a corrupt force. Especially given their treatment of telepaths.

Probably because the legislators didn't want to have to pay for expenses for ferrying around guillotines, liquid injection, treatment for the mental shock of a firing line for their troops, electric chair, etc. Whereas in a spaceship, you just open the airlock while they're in it. No fuss, no muss.

Welcome to having cost of procedure factor in treatment of your condemned. That might even be the reason, not a cultural shift regarding execution, why telepathic wipe of personality happens. Because it saves tax dollars to have these perfect workers around to do manual labor than to spend decades holding them in prison and then executing them.

Those reasons are actually stated outright in both episodes dealing with death of personality. B5 doesn't have the resources to imprison someone long term. No one wants to pay to transport a criminal to a prison on Earth. The death penalty is only legal for treason & mutiny.

[cdrood]

I know it was more about Sheridan's story, but Franklin operating the machine on his own with no one monitoring was kind of stupid. We've seen he has a staff and you'd think he'd have someone monitoring Garibaldi's vitals during the process and could hit the off switch.

[Yukaphile]

I've said it again, I'll say it here. Just shoot them with a PPG.

[Yukaphile]

Others have brought up how you'd lose precious air with spacing.

[ORCACommander]

spacing on screen is done with air for dramatic effect, in real life they would just depressurize the lock and transport the corpse afterwords to reclamation.

Also Yuka: Use the Damn Edit Button

[FaxModem1]

I've said it again, I'll say it here. Just shoot them with a PPG.

Most police aren't okay with straight up executions. How would you want to handle execution duty of handing out a gun and telling someone to shoot some person in the forehead? Or being the one handed the gun and told to shoot the person in the next room?

[Yukaphile]

I'd do it if it meant saving them the fate of being ejected into space.

[MightyDavidson]

I've said it again, I'll say it here. Just shoot them with a PPG.

Most police aren't okay with straight up executions. How would you want to handle execution duty of handing out a gun and telling someone to shoot some person in the forehead? Or being the one handed the gun and told to shoot the person in the next room?

Also is shooting them really more humane then chucking them out into space?

[Yukaphile]

Yes it is. Death by asphyxiation in hard vacuum... have you read about it? It's one of the most horrific deaths possible.

[Admiral X]

Also is shooting them really more humane then chucking them out into space?

Depending on where you shot them, death would be instantaneous or nearly so, but spacing would last several minutes and be very painful.