Babylon 5: "Hunter, Prey"

[Yukaphile]

HOLY SHIT THAT IS BRILLIANT!

[Emiledot]

Im trying to post some photos of some Babylon 5 fleets. Its saying the board attachment quota has been reached. Can this be fixed so I can post these? Thanks

[Yukaphile]

[planescaped]

I remember when i first watched Babylon 5 way back. I thought all of Kosh's "you do not understand" and "you're not ready to see what I look like" was all just pseudo-mystical BS.

Suffice to say I was floored when it turned out to be 100% incorporated into the story, and more than just words.

[Beastro]

I remember when i first watched Babylon 5 way back. I thought all of Kosh's "you do not understand" and "you're not ready to see what I look like" was all just pseudo-mystical BS.

Suffice to say I was floored when it turned out to be 100% incorporated into the story, and more than just words.

Funny people's reactions to things, as this isn't the first time people have expressed this about the Vorlons.

Me, it's a big reason why I found them so interesting and wished more was done with them, even if I knew so much of their appeal was what was hidden. For me the opposite was done with the Shadows, and they should have had more nuance to into them.

I do know thematically why that was done. As much as we can benefit from chaos we are beings of order which need to keep chaos at bay and filter it in slowly. It's for that same fundamental reason that the good guys ultimately came from the side of order, even if the wardens of order aren't entirely good guys and have lost their way forcing the good guys to rebel to end the cycle.

The Vorlons, for all their manipulating and callousness, have some faint glimmer of good intent that has been perverted, while the Shadows as shown are nothing but "You will be beaten endlessly. If you're strong enough to survive it then you'll be beaten more to make you stronger unless you can't survive it any longer. If you can't, then you deserve to die".

That hides a malice behind it they constantly exude until the final conversation with Lorien when the representative Shadow starts talking like some innocent, lonely infant. That isn't wrong in and of itself, that the Shadows just apply their means to an end in the same way the Vorlons do with being nasty themselves, but that isn't shown of them, not even the scenes with Sheridan at Za'ha'dum that still has that malevolentness surrounding it that comes out when he refuses their offer.

For all JMS' intent of presenting a neutral conflict of order vs chaos with the good guys trying to break free of it, it still possesses a strong element of good vs evil in it that isn't just Vorlon propaganda.

[Kendrakirai]

The shadows are fanatical darwinists, survival of the fittest, and they’re determined to make sure that they really are the fittest. You can’t really be nuanced when you’re trying to force civilizations to evolve to survive everything that can possibly be thrown at them short of blowing up stars.

You could say, however, that perhaps the Shadows were afraid that there would come a race that could actually defeat them, survive *everything* the Shadows could throw at them and come out stronger and stronger until they finally destroyed the Shadows themselves. Or worse - that they could do that *without* the Shadows forcing them to evolve, which would invalidate their entire millions-year-old mindset, society, and *existence*.

Light and dark, order and chaos, good and evil....or hope and fear.

[G-Man]

The thing with Kosh is that his vague comments and such are meant to *guide* you to the answers, guide the *species* to the answers. The Vorlons guide, the Shadows give.

You know, that whole ‘give a man a fish, he eats for a day, teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime’ sort of thing.

If you just *tell* people everything, that’s no different from giving them what they aren’t ready for. If you can teach them to *understand* what’s what, they’re much less likely to abuse things.

So you be vague, you make them question. If you’re lucky, you can get them to ask the *correct* questions.

Very early on, Kosh said ‘truth is a three edged sword’ and Chuck seemed confused by that (though it could also have just been a gag), but I believe the explanation for that was there’s my truth, there’s your truth, and there’s the universal truth. Either objective fact, or the truth that will become accepted, or something, I forget what it was precisely.

But that’s a question that you need to ask, what does that mean? You can start to understand it if you think about it. Internalize it.

"Understanding is a three-edged sword."

I believe that Sheridan figured out the answer - "My side, your side, and the truth."

[Beastro]

You could say, however, that perhaps the Shadows were afraid that there would come a race that could actually defeat them, survive *everything* the Shadows could throw at them and come out stronger and stronger until they finally destroyed the Shadows themselves. Or worse - that they could do that *without* the Shadows forcing them to evolve, which would invalidate their entire millions-year-old mindset, society, and *existence*.

And yet they do not look upon the other First Ones in that light, and they are looked upon as a part of them rather than being a pariah which is strictly speaking one of the first but outside their group. There's also the rules between them and the Vorlons that speaks more of their thinking as "This is best for the Younger Races" rather than "This is the way things are and should be universally applied to everyone", though we never get to see what would've happened had they won a Shadow War and might have sought to consolidate their position; the Vorlons in winning at least the previous war showed a willingness to play the game of cycles, beating the Shadows but not finishing them off allowing then to rebuild, even to the point of not using a planet killer on Za'ha'dum.

There's also the reverence for Lorien.

How they acted seemed to reveal a certain separation in their thinking when applied outside of their treatment of the Younger Races.

Another thing about the difference between the two that came to mind is how they handled their material legacy. the Vorlons locking theirs off protected for the Younger Races to eventual make use of in time while the Shadows just dropped everything for their minions to do what they wished with.

[Madner Kami]

A "Shadow War" can, by it's very definition, not be won by the Shadows in the first place. A victory is the very end of the conflict and since the conflict itself is the entire point of the war... Go figure.

[Beastro]

A "Shadow War" can, by it's very definition, not be won by the Shadows in the first place. A victory is the very end of the conflict and since the conflict itself is the entire point of the war... Go figure.

I look on that as the Vorlon's framing of the war for those of the Younger Races aligned with them alongside the very name Shadows, things reflective of the Tolkienesque inspiration of B5 with Melkor, Sauron and their lot which serve them collectively referred to as the Enemy.

I'd think the Shadows themselves have an entirely different one (Vorlon War doesn't have the same ring to it).