A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

That sounds broadly similar to B5's way of hyperspace navigation. Of course clouds don't have gravitational inclines, nor do they randomly twist, bunch or warps space. Plus of course even if you get lost in a cloud, you can usually find the ground, one way or another. Get lost in hyperspace, you'll be lucky if you're found within the next million years.

In short, I don't think dead reckoning would work in hyperspace.

 

You'd be surprised. Studies show that most pilots who lack instrument training will enter a "graveyard spiral" within 90 seconds of losing visual reference....

 

^Dad had that happen in a P-61 on a night flight over the ocean. Total disorientation from the stars reflecting in the Pacific. Fortunately the navigator noticed and started kicking Dad in the back really hard and yelling.

 

How come they need a beacon to navigate? Wouldn't standoff observation and calculation suffice (it works just fine for us)?

Edit: on review, I suppose it has something to do with the properties of hyperspace (unknowable to the audience, possibly random)? Although why this would affect the position of objects in real space is unclear...

 

That's the ticket. Hyperspace has no stars or planets, so there are no navigational landmarks (except the beacon system), and it has unpredictable gravitational currents and eddies, so you can't really maneuver by dead reckoning. I imagine you can get away with it if you have a ship with a jump engine by traveling relatively short distances in hyperspace and periodically jumping back into normal space to get your bearings, so you never drifted far enough away from where you thought you were to become hopelessly lost. That's probably how the Explorer ships do it.

Of course, if you don't have jump engines, either because your ship wasn't built with them or they're damaged, then you're really screwed if you get off the beacon, since you can't just dip into normal space to try to figure out more or less what direction to go in.

 

I think there was a series of "short jumps" used in one of the unfilmed Crusade scripts written by JMS, so it's possible but you still have to have some idea where you are. Plus it puts a huge strain on the jump engines if you keep using them like that and the last thing you need is for them to burn out when you're nowhere near a jumpgate. Also keep in mind that distance and direction dose not correlate from normal space to hyperspace so unless you're talking tiny jumps, like less than an AU at a time, then you're going to be zigging and zagging all over the place. Plus of course with hyperspace constantly shifting, the lack of reference points would be the least of your worries since reversing course wouldn't necessarily bring you back the way you came since the way you came moved somewhere else while you were gone. It's like a maze where all the walls are constantly changing position, if you take a wrong turn, you're pretty much lost.

I think the way explorer ships work is by first sending out a bunch of probes in normal space from an established system, each with an encoded beacon that can be followed later by a manned ships. So you're basically inching out, one system at a time, though given the cost of building a gate, they'd only follow up on a probe if it looks like it's detected something of value like Quantium 40, for example. Once the explorer confirms the probe's readings and the gate is in, it moves on to the next system while the surveyors come in and pick up samples to determine if the quality of the minerals are worth the effort of a mining operation.

 

I'm not sure where you are getting all, but it sounds like baseless speculation, and I have watched the show pretty carefully. Hyperspace certainly is not random. Every point in normal space maps to a point in hyperspace. It is a 1:1 mapping, only hyperspace is a heck of a lot more compact, and it is contorted/stretched unevenly. The big problem appears to be navigation due to lack of reference points, and the gradients that tend to pull you off course. But hyperspace is certainly not random and changing.

Exploration to new star system would certainly require smaller jumps to get your bearings, but 1 AU? Hardly. That's just spitting distance. A couple of jumps to a new star system would probably suffice, if you left small probes behind in hyperspace while you got your bearings in normal space.

So... TGB, when will you do more reviews, so we can get back off this topic side discussion?

 

I've already watched the next episode, but I'm currently overdue on a project and I'm desperately trying to get it finished. Hopefully I'll write something up about the episode tomorrow. All I'll say for now is that G'Kar cracked me up. "I can hear you!"

 

One of my favorite scenes in the entire series.

 

It's not speculation. Most of it comes from "City of Sorrows", some from JMS posts. Hyperspace isn't totally random exactly, but on a local scale it may as well be. The maze analogy was probably a little misleading as that only really describes the perceived experience, not the actual mechanics of hyperspace.

The "1 AU" is just a broad guess based on descriptions from the aforementioned script. It describes the ship opening a jump point with a gas giant or some such visible some ways ahead then more or less immediately jumping out with the planet now WAY behind, but still visible. So we're talking easily within the 1 or 2 AU ball park.

 

Convictions (***)

Explosions! Intrigue! Computer scientist monks! What didn't this episode have? Well, it didn't have a Belgian man named Fran singing about his love of harmonicas, but I can forgive that oversight. So, some guy is blowing things up real good on the station, and this causes Lennier to get hurt. Lennier lies right before this happens, so apparently Minbari only lie to protect someone's honour or to get rid of minor annoyances. By Minbari stanards I don't lie either, because I only lie to get out of doing things I don't want to do and to impress women.

The big revelation is that the bomber is... Ira Steven Behr. And he has a plot to get rid of Babylon 5 once and for all! Mwaahaha! Ira Steven Behr (played by Scott Bakula) is written with all the subtlety of a man that stole all his ideas from JMS, that is to say that he's played as a loon that tries to blow up the station because he's a loon. He fails, he gets punched upside the head a few times, and life on the station slowly goes back to normal. Except now we have computer scientist monks.

Clearly, the best moments in this episode involve Londo and G'Kar in the elevator, and I don't need to explain why because it's obvious to all. I wish there had been more of it, but perhaps it was for the best that we only saw a little, because that little bit was great.

Scott Bakula: 38

 

In Lennier's defence, he did promise to do penance later and that guy was REALLY irritating.

Trivia: The "Obnoxious Man" was played by the show's Director of Photography John C. Flinn and had previously been seen in 'Grail' suing a Vree for damages done when his great grandfather was abducted. The casting director must not gave gotten along with this guy to have given him roles like this.

 

No doubt he got the idea for "The Ascent" during this stint on the show.

 

Lennier lied to help that man save face by ending his public obnoxiousness.

 

Mine too.

 

A Day in the Strife (***½)

A difficult episode to rate here due to the various plots at work. Some of them are good, and by that I mean the G'Kar plot and the Franklin stuff is good. The plot involving the new Narn guy was fine, particularly when he talked with Londo and Londo put him in his place. G'Kar as the leader of the Narn on the station feels like old material again, but I guess it is different since he's not trying to prove himself as leader of his people this time, he's just trying to do what he thinks is right and his people back him anyway. Oh, and the Narn guy Sheridan beat with a metal bar is back, this time with a new sword, but without the unfashionable hat.

Dr Franklin is apparently developing an addiction to stims, which is neat. Being Irish, I've never known anyone that has developed a chemical dependency, so I'll be interested in seeing how this plays out. One problem with this episode, after Franklin's big freak-out everyone looks at him as if he has lost his mind, but I think he is perfectly justified in his reaction. His life, and the life of 250,000 other people was in danger and the person he was talking to didn't want to contact the molecular biologist because he's on holiday? A QUARTER OF A MILLION PEOPLE ARE IN DANGER OF BEING KILLED, SEND THE GUY A TEXT MESSAGE BEFORE I TAKE THE NEXT TRANSPORT TO EARTH AND BEAT YOU UPSIDE THE HEAD!

*Everyone looks at me as if I've lost his mind*

Stop looking at me!

*Discretely takes a swig from my hip-flask*

The sci-fi plot about an alien probe threatening to blow up the station because of... reasons.... that wasn't so interesting, but my drink has put me in a good mood so I don't want to focus on it now.

Captain Greyshirt: 13
Scott Bakula: 39

 

[DARK, SERIOUS TRAILER VOICE OVER GUY]

Patrick Killpatrick?

[/DARK, SERIOUS TRAILER VOICE OVER GUY]

Oh, wait....

Ta'Lon is probably my favorite B5 minor character. I wish they'd gone a different route with him but more on that later.

And the sword is friggen awesome.

 

One of my favorite Ivanova lines is in this episode:

Jan

 

I didn't like Ta'Lon all that much. Or maybe I just missed first season Na'Toth, she was just a far more entertaining foil for G'Kar than this guy, with his aggressively cheery disposition and speeches about mental swordsmanship.

But then we haven't really been successful in keeping women in heavy alien makeup for long, have we? Ko'Dath and the twin Na'Toths have been written off the show and Delenn, our only other regular female alien, has had her look changed to be more human-appearing. I'd like to generalize, but lacking any hard evidence to do so I'll just throw a bunch of seemingly connected facts up like that and wander away whistling.

 

You know maybe it is just me but being a World War II buff in "Day in the Strife" I saw parallels between occupation of Narn by Centauri and occupation of France by Nazis.

"In a Day in the Strife" Na'Far is the voice of collaboration with invader , he is simply taking the role of Marshall Phillipe Petain or maybe better Pierre Laval , leaders of collaborator Vichy France goverment with Nazis in WWII. Na'Far believes that best thing for Narn is collaboration to work with Centauri , not to resist , even to be willing slaves of Centauri. He is their puppet.. Just like Pierre Laval did under Nazi occupation and administration in France. Laval went as far as sending thousands of Frenchmen to compulsory labour in Germany during war.

G'kar at the other hand is like General Charles De Gaulle , leader of Free French and symbol of French Resistance. He believes that it is duty of every Narn to resist , to get rid of the invaders just like De Gaulle throught when he was in exile in London , organizing resistance. The matter is G'Kar ( just like De Gaulle in London) is in safety. In safe surroundings he is free to be passionate freedom fighter. He is not in Narn like Na'Far , feeling the Centauri pressure , reprisals every moment. ( like Vichy France leaders under Nazi heel ) So both G'Kar and Na'Far's positions and way of looking things , their perspectives are complately different.