B5: Severed Dreams

[Trinary]

Food for thought.

And the main reason that I just shelled out for another years for this forum. Not to derail it, but the discussions going on of late have been great explorations of the ideas the shows (and I hope the videos) bring up and given a full exploration. I don't often post (I barely have time for email) but I try to poke my head in once in a while to see, and these kinds of things give me a shot in the arm. I always try to err on the side of the audience being intelligent, and I've yet to be disappointed! So please, keep dishing out the food!

And you just made my day.

[Madner Kami]

This reminds me of the Snowden case and how I just can't get over how many service members view him as a traitor, white still admitting that the actions he exposed were in fact illegal and that there should be something done about it. They insist he should have somehow been done through the proper chain of command, but since those immediately above his head were in on it, at best he would have been fired and constrained by a NDA that would see him thrown in jail. I mean, witness the actions of the British government against their media when it came to the information that was released - they literally threatened to come tromping in there to take all of the paper's computers to prevent any further information being released. So I can even agree with him running, as I doubt he'd have gotten a fair trail that way. Indeed he still might not. But the parallel still remains there that a large number of service members still view him as a traitor in spite of the wrong he saw exposed, and some of them even want to see him executed over it, which must be the same kind of mentality driving the EA service members who are attacking their own for taking a moral stand against what they see as illegal actions by their government. And this from a country that has its armed forces swear to uphold and defend the Constitution against all enemies foreign and domestic - apparently it never occurred to them that their own government might be one of those enemies.

The question is, do the laws still apply if a criminal action is intended to and is indeed causing good? There's a good case to be made for answering "Yes.", because who is supposed to decide whether an action taken is good or not? It certainly ain't the job of the judiciary branch, because their job is applying law to given situations. While the legislative and executive branch could decide what is good, their business certainly ain't meddling in judiciary decisions. They make or enforce laws, not apply them.

[CareerKnight]

While the B5 Earth made some advances, I wouldn't be surprised if there was still bigoted hold-overs. Or at least, I could see racists and sexists continuing to exist in B5 more than I could see them in the later Star Trek series.

Oh sure, humanity hasn't "evolved" beyond that stuff in B5, its just shifted and changed. If they were truly beyond it then there wouldn't be xenophobic groups like Homeguard or the reaction some people have to whats going on on Mars throughout the series. Which I don't think is quite racism though that is what it immediately seems like to us since that's one of the main prejudices we still deal with but more like the region rivalries like North and South before and even after the American Civil War (yes I am also a history buff).

I don't recall Lochley's speech (I haven't rewatched in a while). From what I've recall hearing, it wasn't a certainty that B5 would get a fifth season, so JMS had to wrap up all the big plots in Season 4 ... then when they actually GOT a Season 5 there wasn't much else to do, which is why it struggled.

I also haven't watched season 5 in awhile, with the exception of the last episode, but as I recall Lochley was serving in some out of the way place during the EA civil war and so never really needed to pick a side when illegal orders came in though she made it clear she would have been like that captain Sheridan talked to in No Surrender who initially claimed to be involved.

I have heard three main reasons for the problems with S5. The first is, as you said, they weren't sure they were getting a 5th season so JMS rapt up the Clark stuff in S4 (he has said that S4 would have originally ended with Intersections in Real Time but no idea if those 4 episodes S4 lost because of that would have been used on Clark or the Shadow War). The second problem was JMS lost all his notes for the 5 season (accidentally left them behind in a hotel room or something, nowadays they would have been posted online within a day of someone finding them). So he was left trying to come up with a 5th season going from memory of his detailed notes. this led to some of the plots running longer then they would have otherwise, namely the telepath plot, aka the one most people dislike cause it dragged on too long. The third (and only one I'm not sure on the source for) is Claudia Christian leaving the show after S4 cause apparently Ivanova was going to have a lot of Lyta's role in the previously mentioned telepath plot line. If true, not sure how much it would have improved things.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

When I first watched B5, this was the point where I made my dad and brother eat crow and admit that I was absolutely right to force them to watch it with me. Of course, the show had gotten good long before this episode, but if you go by the first episodes/season it's almost unbelievable how good the show got and the investment you put into the characters. Because if I'm being honest, B5 doesn't really look like a particularly good show, especially in the first season. What B5 is, it's a triumph of storytelling and drama, and that's what really makes this episode so good.

As for the history discussion, add me to the list of history buffs, so adding history to a sci-fi discussion is a win-win. B5 is far more rooted in history than any Trek show. It wouldn't make sense for me to call Trek "realistic", because there's no historical precedent for the kind of utopia that is presented in later Trek. Roddenberry's vision, as far as it goes, is ideological rather than historical.

[J!!]

i suspect that another factor that contributed to the problems with season 5 was that when they were rescued by ted turner, part of the deal was to do a spinoff show. as a result, much of the season was spent laying groundwork for that series, basically setting up new plotlines that weren't planned to go anywhere until that show. and on top of that, Straczynski decided to carry over several B5 plots into the new show, so things like garibaldi vs bester, and the telipath plot ended up being stretched out, and then left hanging.

and then after all that, the TNT executives decided they didn't want the new show before it even started filming, and so set about deliberately sabotaging its ratings so that they wouldn't have to do a full season. so none of those plotlines ever got resolved.

considering that alongside what happened with legend of the rangers and the lost tales, and JMS really is the posterboy for getting screwed by the network

[ORCACommander]

While the legislative and executive branch could decide what is good, their business certainly ain't meddling in judiciary decisions. They make or enforce laws, not apply them.

Well the executive branches always have the option of choosing not to enforce the law, therefore it never reaches the judiciary level, however most executive members will choose to enforce the letter of the law rather than risk their careers, or worse to further their own careers

[Madner Kami]

While the legislative and executive branch could decide what is good, their business certainly ain't meddling in judiciary decisions. They make or enforce laws, not apply them.

Well the executive branches always have the option of choosing not to enforce the law, therefore it never reaches the judiciary level, however most executive members will choose to enforce the letter of the law rather than risk their careers, or worse to further their own careers

It's usually quite well established which laws can be "overlooked" and which ones not. Treason, especially when done within the military and it's (usually) seperate judiciary branch, is rarely a crime that can be overlooked by design.

[Trinary]

As for the history discussion, add me to the list of history buffs, so adding history to a sci-fi discussion is a win-win. B5 is far more rooted in history than any Trek show. It wouldn't make sense for me to call Trek "realistic", because there's no historical precedent for the kind of utopia that is presented in later Trek. Roddenberry's vision, as far as it goes, is ideological rather than historical.

Well, to play devil's advocate--which when it comes to talking about Gene Roddenberry around these parts isn't much of a stretch--I will say that it can be interesting to recognize that a lot of aspects of what we call "human nature" are rather mutable. It's not totally unreasonable to think that societal norms, morality and even ways of thinking will change over time, especially if/when humanity fully gets into space or encounters other intelligent life and so on.

Of course, that's not a defense of all the icky things Roddenberry's done: his issues with creators, women, his rigidity or moral supremacy the characters spout at the drop of a hat. Trying to think outside the box and have humans be radically different isn't a bad idea in and of itself ... except that Roddenberry's thinking led him straight into his own box and stayed there.

I mean, you take someone living in France now and stick them next to a French person from the 16th century--it's quite a bit of a leap. So maybe a 24th century Frenchman will be equally as different---maybe even speak with a British accent!

In all seriousness, I was at a panel not long ago talking about coming of age stories ... and while we think of stories about the guy who breaks with tradition to be his own man is old-hat to us, for the overwhelming majority of human history, that moral would not be considered acceptable. You were expected to keep the traditions and do pretty much what your dad did for your whole life---if you were a guy, that is.

So you're right in that there's no historic precedent for Trek to rely on, but it is an attempt to project a possible future for humanity. And as far as futures go ... the preachiness aside, I'd rather live on the Federation Earth than the B5 Earth, or the one we have now. But in terms of stories I enjoy watching and can recognize patterns in, yeah, B5 holds the edge.

Babylon 5 was great not only because it incorporated politics and history (without always calling it 'ancient' or whatever), but also elements of fantasy. The Minbari are like Tolkien-style elves in their superiority to humans, the Narns are NAMED for Narnia, the Shadows/Vorlon War is cast in terms of darkness and light, and do I even have to go into the Rangers oath about standing on the bridge? I've never seen fantasy woven so well into science-fiction and pulled off like in B5.

I have seen attempts to incorporate sci-fi elements into fantasy and .... Eragon. 'nough said.

[G-Man]

and then after all that, the TNT executives decided they didn't want the new show before it even started filming, and so set about deliberately sabotaging its ratings so that they wouldn't have to do a full season. so none of those plotlines ever got resolved.

It's worse than that. It was announced that the show had been cancelled before the first episode even aired, so it would not have mattered how the ratings were (of course, knowing that the show was cancelled and things would not be resolved did not help ratings).

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

As for the history discussion, add me to the list of history buffs, so adding history to a sci-fi discussion is a win-win. B5 is far more rooted in history than any Trek show. It wouldn't make sense for me to call Trek "realistic", because there's no historical precedent for the kind of utopia that is presented in later Trek. Roddenberry's vision, as far as it goes, is ideological rather than historical.

Well, to play devil's advocate--which when it comes to talking about Gene Roddenberry around these parts isn't much of a stretch--I will say that it can be interesting to recognize that a lot of aspects of what we call "human nature" are rather mutable. It's not totally unreasonable to think that societal norms, morality and even ways of thinking will change over time, especially if/when humanity fully gets into space or encounters other intelligent life and so on.

Well, I guess it depends partly on just how far you're taking his version of the future. I don't think Roddenberry's vision was even really a thing in the TOS era- even the Federation was "United Earth" first. I don't know if Starfleet was portrayed as being any more righteous than America was portrayed as being in that era of television. It owed a lot of its success to some of the top sci-fi writers of the day writing episodes, good chemistry between the big three, and a lot of chemistry and energy.

It was early TNG when the vision stuff was the most heavy-handed. It wasn't just a good future where people managed to set aside their differences. Humans were portrayed as not even having ideological differences and were as a whole no longer driven by greed, jealousy, or selfishness, at least if you buy Picard's version of the story.

So if you were going to say that we could have a future where the leaders of the world figured out some stuff, technological and medical advances solved a good deal of the world's problems, and meeting aliens brought a changed perspective. Then yes, I don't think that's an entirely wild theory. It's an optimistic future and maybe not what I'd see happening, but not an impossible one. For that I think we do have some level of historical precedent. No utopia to be sure, but medicine and technology and stable political situations have brought a level of peace and health to some countries that most people throughout history could have only dreamed of.

If, on the other hand, we're talking about human nature itself being changed to the point that humans are no longer driven by any kind of greed or selfishness, well then I think it's a pipe dream. Ancient sacred texts or Greek tragedies reveal the same basic motivations for despicable behavior as you would find today. Social mores can change, but the idea that humans would suddenly agree on every important issue and adopt the same unselfish motivations as Roddenberry would have us believe runs counter to thousands of years of evidence.