Farscape or Babylon 5?

[kirk55555]

I just don't want a solid date for this stuff. I get b5 was eventually going to destroyed. Telling me the date ticks me off. It should just be in the vague future, long after the show is over with. Deconstruction of falling stars is just something we'll have to agree to disagree about. I found it to be the worst of B5 stuck into a 45 minute episode. Future spoilers, propaganda, and a horrible future that literally makes the whole show almost inconsequential (who cares what happens in season 5? The earth is going to burn so badly it will make Mad Max look like a hopefully future). I HATE stuff like that, with the future becoming so bad Earth reverts to the dark ages. Its BS, so of course its the future of Babylon 5.

I've stated my hate of stupid propaganda stuff, and baseing it on stupid future stuff written in books doesn't make it any better. Making something "Orwellian" may make the "smart" crowd more interested, but its just stupid to me. I never read 1984 (there isn't enough money in the world to make me read something like that), but I know the concept and I hate stuff like that. I guess I just have too much faith in humanity as a whole, so I find the dystopian future stuff to be idiotic at best. I would think that would be pretty obvious at this point, considering how much I've talked about my problems with the propaganda and Clark's rise to power.

I also find the concept of humans becoming energy creatures ridiculous, but at that point its just something I laugh at. The human encounter suit was just stupid. Every older race doesn't need to evolve into pure energy, but even if they did I don't think 1,000,000 years would be quite enough time for humans to become energy. Still, the telepath war stuff is the biggest fear this episode and the first ep of Season 5 put into me for the immediate future of the show. I really hope we can get through the season without it, but I wouldn't even bet a penny on that.

 

[hyzmarca]

I also find the concept of humans becoming energy creatures ridiculous, but at that point its just something I laugh at. The human encounter suit was just stupid. Every older race doesn't need to evolve into pure energy, but even if they did I don't think 1,000,000 years would be quite enough time for humans to become energy. Still, the telepath war stuff is the biggest fear this episode and the first ep of Season 5 put into me for the immediate future of the show. I really hope we can get through the season without it, but I wouldn't even bet a penny on that.

I think it's less evolution and more high-end cybernetics. One of the RPGs explains that the vorlons basically just shoved copies of their mindstates into engineered space-time defects, making them sort of like one of Arthur C. Clark's precursor races. At some point you start replacing the meat and bone with metal and plastic, because the metal works better. Then at some point you start replacing the metal with engineered folds in space-time, because engineered folds in spce-time are more durable than metal.

And, you must remember, that humans, minbari, and many other races were specifically engineered by the vorlons with this outcome in mind. They weren't just creating telepaths, they were playing a very long game.

 

[Booji]

Kirk: huh? not a damn thing for season 5 gets spoiled in 'Deconstruction'. what are you talking about? The Garibaldi scene? If so, that spoils nothing at all. I also don't get the concept of humans becoming Vorlons ridiculous. You have no problem with Vorlons evolving into beings of energy, but humans can't for some reason? And then you find the future dystopian stuff idiotic. Why? because it's not the usual Star Trek happy ending? If you honestly think humans will be these goody two shoes Star Trek loves to show a few hundred years from now, you're delirious. Seriously, do you pull random complaints out of a hat? I understand certain story ideas not being your cup of tea, but the things you call idiotic are just ludicrous.

 

[Booji]

hyzmarca: I'm 99.9% certain humans, along with Vorlons, evolved. It's the same thing that happens to the race the Soul Hunters capture in 'River of Souls'. They had evolved into beings of light and then the Soul Hunters nabbed them. I wouldn't go by those Mongoose books for anything canon.

 

[DalekJim]

I never read 1984 (there isn't enough money in the world to make me read something like that)

What!? It's a masterpiece of literature and world-building. Sure, I prefer Farhenheit 451, but 1984 should be required reading.

I also find the concept of humans becoming energy creatures ridiculous, but at that point its just something I laugh at.

It's an allusion to a very very old, optimistic sci-fi ideal that the highest level of being is above the physical and that eventually humans will be beings of consciousness. I think it's pretty inspirational.

Deconstruction of Falling Stars isn't dystopian at all. It just takes a reasonable historical standpoint that Babylon 5's five year story arc won't end all human suffering and solve all problems. I think it's not only JMS's best Babylon 5 episode, but also the highpoint of his career.

 

[Lindley]

Although the Earth was burned, that isn't the entirety of human civilization. The segment clearly implies there are others off of Earth working to rebuild it.

 

[Nagisa Furukawa]

Kirk: huh? not a damn thing for season 5 gets spoiled in 'Deconstruction'. what are you talking about? The Garibaldi scene? If so, that spoils nothing at all.

To kirk, anything revealed beyond the "present" is a spoiler, hence his reaction to Londo's fate, hence his reaction to being told vaguely when B5 is destroyed. This... isn't a view most take, I don't think.

 

[JoeD80]

a horrible future that literally makes the whole show almost inconsequential (who cares what happens in season 5? The earth is going to burn so badly it will make Mad Max look like a hopefully future). I HATE stuff like that, with the future becoming so bad Earth reverts to the dark ages.

Not any one generation is going to solve all problems for all time. It would be silly IMO to insinuate that Sheridan made the whole Universe perfect. However, the fact that Garibaldi's mind was there to stop the bad guys 500 years in the future; and the fact that the Rangers still exist 1000 years into the future to help re-build the Earth shows that Sheridan and the Army of Light *did* have an effect on the future and they were definitely *not* inconsequential. (And the Rangers did have technology; they were just re-introducing it to the people slowly).

If the story took the tack that nothing bad would ever happen again it would be completely unrealistic.


ETA: Joe's comments

The fact, as I see it, is that no one and nothing will ever solve all of our
problems at once, now and forever. People will always be people. You can't
wave a magic wand and fix it all.

Yes, there was another war...but had the Shadows not been stopped by our
characters, there likely wouldn't have been a human race at ALL anymore.

Yes, there was a war, and many died in it...as tends to happen in war...but the
nominal right side in it came out on top, which would not have been the case
but for Garibaldi's simulacra giving them a leg up on things.

We have had, continue to have, and will always have wars, and grief, and
struggle...we will climb up and fall down...but each time we climb a little
higher, and in the end, we *do* build the world that our ancestors would have
wanted for us...we *do* leave the cradle at last, and we take our place among
the stars teaching those who follow us.

For my money, that's as happy an ending as we or anyone can ever hope for.

 

[kirk55555]

Kirk: huh? not a damn thing for season 5 gets spoiled in 'Deconstruction'. what are you talking about? The Garibaldi scene? If so, that spoils nothing at all. I also don't get the concept of humans becoming Vorlons ridiculous. You have no problem with Vorlons evolving into beings of energy, but humans can't for some reason? And then you find the future dystopian stuff idiotic. Why? because it's not the usual Star Trek happy ending? If you honestly think humans will be these goody two shoes Star Trek loves to show a few hundred years from now, you're delirious. Seriously, do you pull random complaints out of a hat? I understand certain story ideas not being your cup of tea, but the things you call idiotic are just ludicrous.

Star Trek took it a bit too far (which even DS9 made fun of atleast once, with Jake trying to borrow money from Nog and it was basically bashing the concept of humans being "beyond" things like money) but B5 is much to bleak. I didn't expect Sheridan to make the future perfect. But, the Earth basically destorying itself is just stupid. It also makes no sense. What about Mars, or the other human colonies? Earth would not be left alone to revert to the dark ages.

Is it such a bad thing to think that humans may actually turn out atleast ok, and have a good future? There can be a balance between Star Trek's humans and a more realistic approach. B5 isn't it. B5 takes it about as bad as it will go. I personally don't like that route. In the end, it doesn't really matter. In my head, the episode is not in continuity. Much like how I ignore the TNG episode that hobbled the Enterprise's speed (presumably because the people in charge were taking stupid pills) or that a lone ship in the Delta Quadrant broke the Warp 10 barrier, I'll pretend that humans don't revert to the dark ages, and that the whole episode just doesn't exist.

 

[Reverend]

And, you must remember, that humans, minbari, and many other races were specifically engineered by the vorlons with this outcome in mind. They weren't just creating telepaths, they were playing a very long game.

That's pretty much how I see it. Remember Ironhart from season 1's 'Mind War'? Psi Corps didn't magically make one of their own spontaneously mutate into a being of thought and energy, they flipped some switches in the telepath gene (the one implanted by the Vorlons) that were most likely to remain dormant for a long time to come.

It becomes a little clearer if you've read the Psi Corps novels and that one short story by the same author. It goes into a little more detail as to how the Vorlons went about creating telepaths and what their long terms plans might have been had they still been around. They'd been tampering with many species for tens of thousands of years, but humans it turns out were their pride and joy, producing way more powerful teeps than the other races.

Indeed, the implication is that the Vorlons themselves weren't *that* powerful telepathically and what ability they did have may have itself been artificially engineered. The reasoning being that the mechanics of natural selection prohibits an species that evolves telepathy from becoming sapient since it wouldn't need to.

Imagine a prey species that could instinctively get into the head of a predator and make it forget it was hunting it. Or a predator that could will it's prey to come out of the bushes and just lie still while being eaten. It's an evolutionary dead end. Conversely a sapient species will only evolve to become better tool users, since environmental pressure becomes less of a factor in evolution once a species learns to adapt the environment to suit it.

Oh and I wouldn't trust anything from the RPGs. That stuff was nothing but licensed fan fiction.

Kirk: huh? not a damn thing for season 5 gets spoiled in 'Deconstruction'. what are you talking about? The Garibaldi scene? If so, that spoils nothing at all.

To kirk, anything revealed beyond the "present" is a spoiler, hence his reaction to Londo's fate, hence his reaction to being told vaguely when B5 is destroyed. This... isn't a view most take, I don't think.

And yet he was fine being told Sheridan would keel over in 20 years. Like I said, I give up trying to reason with this guy. And yet...

I didn't expect Sheridan to make the future perfect. But, the Earth basically destorying itself is just stupid. It also makes no sense. What about Mars, or the other human colonies? Earth would not be left alone to revert to the dark ages.

Stupid? You use that word a lot but I don't think you understand what it means. You use it like it means "something you don't like."

Anyway, the Great Burn was just a bump along the road, just like the last dark age. Just like then, the dark age is followed by a renaissance bringing back culture and civilization stronger, move advanced and prosperous than it was before the fall of Rome. Likewise, we've stumbled along the way, have some not insignificant periods of chaos and strife, but as a species we've always eventually come out the other side better than when we went in.

To answer your question though, Mars and the other human colony worlds are probably mostly OK. What Earth did was mostly self-inflicted, the ISA cannot interfere with internal conflicts. Besides, in the long run what good would it do? Earth needs to learn to stand on it's own two feet and make their own way in the galaxy again, or else it'll just repeat the pattern over and over.

Plus, as has been pointed out, it all turns out for the good. Earth did eventually rebuild, they're still a part of the Anla'shok a MILLION years on and have taken the responsibility of watching over a new generation of younger races, hopefully without repeating the mistakes of the Vorlons and Shadows....sure someone blew up Sol and made them relocate to "New Earth" (the old Vorlon homeworld according to JMS) but that's just another one of those bumps along the road...

 

[hyzmarca]

hyzmarca: I'm 99.9% certain humans, along with Vorlons, evolved. It's the same thing that happens to the race the Soul Hunters capture in 'River of Souls'. They had evolved into beings of light and then the Soul Hunters nabbed them. I wouldn't go by those Mongoose books for anything canon.

Spontaneous species-wide transformation like that isn't evolution, its revolution. That shit doesn't happen naturally, it requires some sort of intentional technological catalyst.

 

[kirk55555]

Kirk: huh? not a damn thing for season 5 gets spoiled in 'Deconstruction'. what are you talking about? The Garibaldi scene? If so, that spoils nothing at all.

To kirk, anything revealed beyond the "present" is a spoiler, hence his reaction to Londo's fate, hence his reaction to being told vaguely when B5 is destroyed. This... isn't a view most take, I don't think.

And yet he was fine being told Sheridan would keel over in 20 years. Like I said, I give up trying to reason with this guy.

That doesn't bother me because it says he has a maximum of 20 years to live. He could have died the day after they learned that. He could die anytime before the 20 years are up. Its still a mystery when he'll die, and what the circumstances will be. Right now he's still like anyone, he could die anytime. The fact that he will be dead in 20 years isn't a big deal, as long as you don't tell me how he'll die. He could die because of the limit, and that would be fine. But, at this point, its still a mystery. It means he can be in danger, and i won't know what will happen. There is the potential for suspense, which is what I want.

 

[JoeD80]

I'll pretend that humans don't revert to the dark ages, and that the whole episode just doesn't exist.

Well the guy who created the show wrote the episode, so I think that's a losing argument from your side.

I didn't expect Sheridan to make the future perfect. But, the Earth basically destorying itself is just stupid. It also makes no sense. What about Mars, or the other human colonies? Earth would not be left alone to revert to the dark ages.

There were two sides in a war. The end result was the Great Burn. If Garibaldi hadn't been there it's possible there would be no Earth left at all. Then, it's made clear that in the 1000 years timeframe that the Rangers were *not* leaving them alone to suffer and were there *to help rebuild*.

Also:

Some [colonies] probably would offer to help...but if technology is now suspect, some might not want that help...other colonies might be of the "screw 'em, they got what they deserved" perspective...often politics gets in the way of charity.

 

[DalekJim]

I'd rather the show opened up more interesting questions than just "What happens next?" so I don't care about these "future spoilers".

I think kirk55555 would really hate the Dune series of books.

 

[EmoBorg]

hyzmarca: I'm 99.9% certain humans, along with Vorlons, evolved. It's the same thing that happens to the race the Soul Hunters capture in 'River of Souls'. They had evolved into beings of light and then the Soul Hunters nabbed them. I wouldn't go by those Mongoose books for anything canon.

The worse of part of "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" episode is that we see that Humans evolved into Vorlon like douchebags.

 

[Booji]

Spontaneous species-wide transformation like that isn't evolution, its revolution. That shit doesn't happen naturally, it requires some sort of intentional technological catalyst.

Spoiler: In the finale

I was always under the impression Sheridan "got it" right before he died and evolved into a Vorlon instead. Hence, the light you see emanate from within the Whitestar

 

[Booji]

Is it such a bad thing to think that humans may actually turn out atleast ok, and have a good future? There can be a balance between Star Trek's humans and a more realistic approach. B5 isn't it. B5 takes it about as bad as it will go.

it's great to think humans will turn out alright, but B5 was taking a realistic stab at the future. Human history has taught us it won't be neat. To expect a tidy ending simply isn't B5.

 

[Leroy]

Is it such a bad thing to think that humans may actually turn out atleast ok, and have a good future? There can be a balance between Star Trek's humans and a more realistic approach. B5 isn't it. B5 takes it about as bad as it will go. I personally don't like that route. In the end, it doesn't really matter. In my head, the episode is not in continuity. Much like how I ignore the TNG episode that hobbled the Enterprise's speed (presumably because the people in charge were taking stupid pills) or that a lone ship in the Delta Quadrant broke the Warp 10 barrier, I'll pretend that humans don't revert to the dark ages, and that the whole episode just doesn't exist.

Humans turn out more than ok in the B5 future they eventually "evolve" into energy beings with incredibly advanced technology able to blow up stars on a whim while riding in organic spaceships.

The "great burn" is just a minor setback that doesn't really ruin the grand scheme of things for humanity all that much since the off world colonies and other places were not affected, that and humans from off world like the rangers were willing to donate their time and help the survivors advance and rebuild and not resort to a "too bad so sad, I've got mine" attitude they could have adopted but didn't.

You act like the dark ages was permanent and the human species goes extinct or something which simply is not the case.

 

[DWF]

Humans didn't blow up earth's sun their enemies did and it's likely that after a million years humans had finally gotten to the Vorlon homeworld and learned how to evolve like the the Vorlons did.

 

[Snatcher42]

So Deconstruction of Falling Stars is the next controversial episode? Hmm.

What about Mars, or the other human colonies? Earth would not be left alone to revert to the dark ages.

Isn't that exactly what the segment is showing? The rangers from other worlds and colonies are on Earth slowly re-introducing technology. The whole thing is shot from surveillance cameras they've installed in the monastery.

I don't think it's a pessimistic episode. The message is: yes, we're going to stumble and make more mistakes along the way, but in the end we turn out OK. Thanks in large part to people like Sheridan. The fact that his legacy remains a force for good a million years later is huge!

As others have said, in the last segment we've essentially become the next Vorlons. However, since we're shown archiving the history of B5, we've hopefully learned from it, and won't make all the same mistakes. Just like every parent wants their children to succeed them, we get a little bit better and better each generation. Vorlon, to Human, to whatever comes after us.