A Niner Watches Babylon 5 (NO spoilers, please)

[hyzmarca]

I don't hate him (just generally dislike him), but don't you want to punch him just once? He has that sort of attitude.

Not after you've met the guy in person.

Peter Woodward isn't Galen anymore than Leonard Nimoy is Spock. One shouldn't confuse the actor with the character.

 

[Neroon]

I don't hate him (just generally dislike him), but don't you want to punch him just once? He has that sort of attitude.

Not after you've met the guy in person.

Peter Woodward isn't Galen anymore than Leonard Nimoy is Spock. One shouldn't confuse the actor with the character. And Galen the character is a Marty Stu with an annoying Gandalf affectation.

You really should take care to notice the winking smilie afterwards. There honestly are people in this forum with the ability to separate fact from fiction.

 

[Reverend]

There honestly are people in this forum with the ability to separate fact from fiction.

Lies!

 

[stonester1]

Sorry, but this is just one of those things I find too silly to take seriously.

To a certain extent I think JMS wants basically to put fantasy tropes into his sci-fi show. In essence, he wants wizards, so he inserts 'techno' to the start of mages so he can have his elder prophetic people making grand sweeping statements. They're really of a part and parcel with his Holy Grail searcher from the first season in terms of tone; and it's a consistent idea that will continue to emerge.

That said, I thought Michael Ansara really sold the role. But then, damn, I just love that guy's voice. And who doesn't?

Spoiler: Crusade

This is also by far the best use of the Technomages. Galen is a completely insufferable character who can frequently be as bad as Byron.

As for the b-plot, I loved the simplicity of the greens and purples killing one another for such a silly reason. Well, it's silly to me, I'm sure it makes sense to them.

Yeah, this is one of the comic plots from B5 I absolutely love. I do feel the series is hit and miss on the subject (even when limited to the field of 'aliens do weird things') but the Green/Purple scenario is one of the funniest things in the series run.

One of my favorite eps. I LOVE the technomages and it's one of my fav B stories, with all kinds of great moments and a little more insight into the Drazi and how their culture works.

 

[stonester1]

The Geometry of Shadows (**)

Technomages. Oh, goodie.

Sorry, but this is just one of those things I find too silly to take seriously. I realise that they don't really do magic and that everything they do is based on science, but if the future is going to have bands of people like this roving the galaxy then I'm going to chop my nuts off just to ensure that none of my descendants have to meet them.

Godben, you are entitled to your opinion, of course, but personally, I must say I find equally silly science fiction fans who get positively apapleptec when they get anything smacking of the supernatural in their science fiction.

And count on strange people in the galaxy in the future. Some of them will have power.

Me, I find strangeness something to celebrate, not to be wary of.

BUUUUUUTTTT...as always, YMMV.

But they are right, the mages don't show up again for a very long while, but you should try to accept the concept for what it is, and among other things, they are yet one more strange, mysterious element in the B5 U which defies being easily put in the box.

I LOVE those elements, both in fictional universes and in the real one.

Both enhances sensawunda and drives those who DO like to "organize" everything "logically" (especially your science types into a frenzy) and at the same time, helps to keep them a bit humble.

It's all to the good, IMO.

Carry on, sir. I'm still reading.

 

[TheGodBen]

Godben, you are entitled to your opinion, of course, but personally, I must say I find equally silly science fiction fans who get positively apapleptec when they get anything smacking of the supernatural in their science fiction.

I'm not that sort of science fiction fan. I loved the ending of BSG for example, and I loved much of the Prophet stuff on DS9, and I continue to watch and enjoy Lost even though that show has gone crazy with the supernatural elements. I just don't like the idea of the technomages, they attempt to impress with trickery and illusions and I find that annoying. Impress me with words, impress me with strength, impress me with a nice bit of cleavage, but don't try and impress me with the image of a monster.

I hope that explains my position better.

 

[stonester1]

Godben, you are entitled to your opinion, of course, but personally, I must say I find equally silly science fiction fans who get positively apapleptec when they get anything smacking of the supernatural in their science fiction.

I'm not that sort of science fiction fan. I loved the ending of BSG for example, and I loved much of the Prophet stuff on DS9, and I continue to watch and enjoy Lost even though that show has gone crazy with the supernatural elements. I just don't like the idea of the technomages, they attempt to impress with trickery and illusions and I find that annoying. Impress me with words, impress me with strength, impress me with a nice bit of cleavage, but don't try and impress me with the image of a monster.

I hope that explains my position better.

Ah, it does, sir.

Although, trust me, even if you didn't like them then, they do get cooler as you find out more about them, though the real in depth stuff, that which exists, comes post B5.

 

[CorporalClegg]

I must say I find equally silly science fiction fans who get positively apapleptec when they get anything smacking of the supernatural in their science fiction.

Why? It doesn't belong. There is nothing scientific about the supernatural, fictitious or otherwise.

For further research and reference see: "Buffy" and "Is not science fiction." This forum's history is littered with such arguments.

 

[Lindley]

Godben, you are entitled to your opinion, of course, but personally, I must say I find equally silly science fiction fans who get positively apapleptec when they get anything smacking of the supernatural in their science fiction.

I'm not that sort of science fiction fan. I loved the ending of BSG for example, and I loved much of the Prophet stuff on DS9, and I continue to watch and enjoy Lost even though that show has gone crazy with the supernatural elements. I just don't like the idea of the technomages, they attempt to impress with trickery and illusions and I find that annoying. Impress me with words, impress me with strength, impress me with a nice bit of cleavage, but don't try and impress me with the image of a monster.

I hope that explains my position better.

It's more than just an affectation; it's part of their culture, if that word applies to so limited a group. They think of their abilities as "spells" and so present them as such. Some are more ostentatious about it than others, of course.

 

[David cgc]

I just don't like the idea of the technomages, they attempt to impress with trickery and illusions and I find that annoying. Impress me with words, impress me with strength, impress me with a nice bit of cleavage, but don't try and impress me with the image of a monster.

That reminds me of how the supplemental material once mentioned that the Vorlons referred to the Technomages as "the fabulists," so you're in good company.

 

[Hound of UIster]

It's quite a pity that JMS never saw fit to include any major interactions of any sort between the technomages and telepaths even in the spinoff when he had two characters from each group in the cast.

 

[Neroon]

It's quite a pity that JMS never saw fit to include any major interactions of any sort between the technomages and telepaths even in the spinoff when he had two characters from each group in the cast.

Given that "Crusade" wasn't even through the first season, it's hard to say precisely what other interactions we'd have seen.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Starbrow;3894770]Was wondering, what did you though about his " speech "?

I was a bit thrown by him calling Lincoln an "old Earth President" because Lincoln wasn't President of Earth, he was President of some United States over thataway. I know JMS probably phrased it that way for brevity because saying "an old President of one of Earth's historic nation-states" might have been a bit much, and he was writing for an American audience so he probably didn't care.

Other than that, it was a standard television speech, it was no "The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels tonight."

This is what I thought:

Sheridan: "When I was 21.."

Me, interrupting: "I SAW A GAZELLE BEING BORN.."

Everyone falls off the couch laughing.. had to rewind the dvd to hear the speech.

That about sums it up.

Sheridan's speech was a good luck speech and given almost a decade before Archer's speech there's no connection between the two.

Only a connection of them both being deeply embarrassing.

And on to the Techno Mages..

I get that some might think this was pretty lame but I liked them and I wanted to know more about them. Not the lights and trickeries but the whispered history of their order and their coming isolation.. I WANT TO KNOW MORE.

And I just realized there is a trilogy about them in the Bab 5 books. Are the Bab 5 books good? Are they as good as middling Trek books (80% of them are middling IMO)? Should I start collecting them now?!

 

[Harvey]

The so-called canon books are pretty good. They are the three trilogies, the book about Sinclair during season two (To Dream in a City of Sorrows), and The Shadow Within.

 

[Reverend]

"So-called"? It's been pretty firmly established that the three trilogies plus 'City of Sorrows' and most of 'Shadow Within' are canon. Some have even had elements mentioned on the show. What makes you think otherwise?

But yes, those are all pretty good. There was half a dozen or so books published earlier but from what I gather they range in quality from "just barely tolerable" to "utterly dire." Most fans appear to just ignore them as aside from being mostly rubbish, they're also non-canon.

 

[Kegg]

Although, trust me, even if you didn't like them then, they do get cooler as you find out more about them, though the real in depth stuff, that which exists, comes post B5.

I don't think Crusade really tells us a whole lot more about the technomages, just devotes more time to them. So I assume you mean the books.

It's quite a pity that JMS never saw fit to include any major interactions of any sort between the technomages and telepaths even in the spinoff when he had two characters from each group in the cast.

Given that "Crusade" wasn't even through the first season, it's hard to say precisely what other interactions we'd have seen.

Bingo. And if memory serves the telepath and the technomage had at least one scene together.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

The so-called canon books are pretty good. They are the three trilogies, the book about Sinclair during season two (To Dream in a City of Sorrows), and The Shadow Within.

Thank you. Could you tell me the name of the trilogies? I am not looking it up because I don't want to see any spoilers as in, "5 years after blahblah is murdered.." However I will keep my eye out for them on ebay for after I finish the series.

 

[Neroon]

The so-called canon books are pretty good. They are the three trilogies, the book about Sinclair during season two (To Dream in a City of Sorrows), and The Shadow Within.

Thank you. Could you tell me the name of the trilogies? I am not looking it up because I don't want to see any spoilers as in, "5 years after blahblah is murdered.." However I will keep my eye out for them on ebay for after I finish the series.

The first is the Psi Corps Trilogy, by J. Gregory Keyes.
1. Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi Corps
2. Deadly Relations: Bester Ascendant (Babylon 5)
3. Final Reckoning: The Fate of Bester


The second is the Centauri Trilogy, by Peter David
1. Legions of Fire, Book 1—The Long Night of Centauri Prime,
2. Legions of Fire, Book 2—Armies of Light and Dark
3. Legions of Fire, Book 3—Out of the Darkness

The third is the Technomage Trilogy, by Jeanne Cavelos
1. The Passing of the Techno-Mages - Casting Shadows
2. The Passing of the Techno-Mages - Summoning Light
3. The Passing of the Techno-Mages - Invoking Darkness

Also recommended:
The Shadow Within, by Jeanne Cavelos
To Dream in the City of Sorrows, by Kathryn Drennan

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Thank you!!!

They have such great titles! And the episodes of Bab 5 often have great titles as well.

 

[Brian]

I loved the Techno-mage and Centauri trilogies.