Babylon 5: Geometry of Shadows

[FaxModem1]

He plays Jeyal? If so, yeah, he's a good actor. I loved his performance as Jeyal, even if he was a patriarchal jerk, he at least had layers to him.

Sigh, kids today: His real most famous role in Star Trek.

[Madner Kami]

Michael Ansara was the technomage, who prophesized Londo's fate, much to Londo's surprised disappointment about a very accurate characterization. Still feeling sorry for him.

[Nevix]

I love how this is one of the moments that cemented how Vir might be a week attache/assistant on the outside, with a lot of courage on the inside.

[Jonathan101]

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.

Is it just me, or is Chuck putting musical montages more and more often now? I like them overall don't get me wrong, but I like them to feel unique.

No; I feel that way too.

[Yukaphile]

@FaxModem1 Can you blame me? He was in blackface or makeup most of the time, and the Jeyal makeup was different enough I couldn't tell. Now I think of it, the voices are the same.

[FaxModem1]

@FaxModem1 Can you blame me? He was in blackface or makeup most of the time, and the Jeyal makeup was different enough I couldn't tell. Now I think of it, the voices are the same.

I usually identify actors by voice, and his gives some of the best speeches: like this one.

[jadenova]

That hokey pokey joke was rather obvious.

[Blaze Rocker]

Chuck didn't make a Mr. Freeze joke. I'm rather surprised.

But then again, he also didn't mention that Sheridan's wife (recorded message in 'Revelations') was Tasha Yar's sister so I guess his focus was just on other things.

[Yukaphile]

Where's the Mr. Freeze joke?

[TheStarWarsTrek]

So admittedly I'm not that familiar with B5, but I'd heard about the Drazi thing before, and IMO it raises a lot of questions. So, if murder is acceptable during this conflict, how much collateral damage is allowed? Are the Drazi having to rebuild destroyed buildings, or even destroyed cities, every 5 years? Does only a select portion of the population put on colored sashes, or does every single member of the (presumably) billions of Drazi participate? If so, they must have a whole sweatshop dedicated just to the sashes. Do children participate? Could a baby be chosen as leader? <insert political joke here>. If the government changes pretty much randomly every 5 years, how do long term changes stick? I know in real life we have political gridlock and one administration undoing the actions of the previous one, but at least there are other factors in play. The B5 wiki helpfully points out that the leader of the winning team picks a council from it's ranks. So if Green wins, is the leader flooded with millions of emails from fellow Greens saying that they should be chosen for the council since they have the best plan for the budget?

Maybe there's aspects I'm not considering, maybe it could be a functional (if alien) system of government if someone fleshed it out a bit and answered some of these questions. After all, if I was to describe to an alien how the US government works, I could say "We vote for our leaders". But that's a bit simplistic, dosn't cover things like the electoral college, requirements like the President having to be 35 and native born, ect. So maybe there's more to the Drazi system than it appears.

But at first glance, it seems like one of those unfeasable sci fi/fantasy socieites. You know, like "If Species X is Always Chaotic Evil, how does their society not tear itself apart with back stabbing?" or "If Species Y are all warriors and Species Z are all traders, who does the other essential jobs in their society?"