Babylon 5 - I'm finally going to do it

[Ensign_Redshirt]

Martian independence was never about leaving the Earth Alliance.

I suppose some "Free Mars" members would take offense to that statement... especially considering that the Free Mars movement often had a hard time agreeing on anything. The fact that Mars is still part of the EA at the time of "Crusade" probably shows that more moderate elements prevailed in the end.

Though it's the oldest (save perhaps, Luna) and largest human off-world colony, it's population is only around 2 million (10% or so of which are non-humans) so it's never going to be able to sustain itself as an interstellar power in it's own right - not until the great burn, at least.

Well, there's a difference between a) being independent, b) being sulf-sustaining, and c) being a power. Haiti is independent, but it was far from being self-sustaining even before the earthquake. Sweden is self-sustaining, but it's not a power of any kind. So, the question is: Which of the three would an independet Mars have been?

Proxima III and Orion VII did temporarily secede from the Earth Alliance, and I suppose they had even smaller populations than Mars. Of course we'll never know how Proxima III had developed without being depleted by an Earthforce blockade.

 

[Reverend]

I suppose some "Free Mars" members would take offense to that statement... especially considering that the Free Mars movement often had a hard time agreeing on anything. The fact that Mars is still part of the EA at the time of "Crusade" probably shows that more moderate elements prevailed in the end.

Oh absolutely, but Free Mars was always depicted as the fringe extremists. By the end of the war, I imagine most of the Resistance is made up of people who under other circumstances would be relatively moderate in their views.
The extremist element was clearly still there of course and we saw first hand the internal friction between Number One and Donovan's people.

Well, there's a difference between a) being independent, b) being sulf-sustaining, and c) being a power. Haiti is independent, but it was far from being self-sustaining even before the earthquake. Sweden is self-sustaining, but it's not a power of any kind. So, the question is: Which of the three would an independet Mars have been?

To answer that: -

There seems to be some confusion over what independence means in this thread.

Mars won independence in that it was no longer an Earth COLONY, unable to set
up its own goverment and such. But it is still part of the Earth ALLIANCE,
consisting of various worlds, and the Psi Corps works for the Alliance.

jms​

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

^^^ All in all, I think that B5 and JMS had a somewhat misleading use of the word "independent". What they actually meant was "self-governing" or "autonomous". (And when the United States declared independence in 1776 it didn't actually declare itself a self-governing and autonomous part of the British Empire. )

I wonder if JMS put this under "too many distracting details" though. Had the show started to explain the difference between the pre-2261 and the post-2261 status of Mars, Babylon 5 would have sounded like Star Wars Episode I very soon. The downside was that we ended up with a seemingly contradictionary "Mars is independent, but it didn't secede from the Earth Alliance".

 

[tomalak301]

Thanks to this thread, I shall now think of Byron as Marcus doing the Jesus routine.

I still don't get the Byron/Marcus connection. Marcus was a much better character, but both were incredibly different. The only thing similar I think might be both have british accents and long hair.

 

[Jan]

I still don't get the Byron/Marcus connection. Marcus was a much better character, but both were incredibly different. The only thing similar I think might be both have british accents and long hair.

That's all there is of it. But JMS designed Byron to be superficially enough like Marcus so that Ivanova would take a chance and get involved with Byron after having blown her chance with Marcus. Naturally, that would have been a mistake.

Jan

 

[Reverend]

^^^ All in all, I think that B5 and JMS had a somewhat misleading use of the word "independent". What they actually meant was "self-governing" or "autonomous". (And when the United States declared independence in 1776 it didn't actually declare itself a self-governing and autonomous part of the British Empire. )

I wonder if JMS put this under "too many distracting details" though. Had the show started to explain the difference between the pre-2261 and the post-2261 status of Mars, Babylon 5 would have sounded like Star Wars Episode I very soon. The downside was that we ended up with a seemingly contradictionary "Mars is independent, but it didn't secede from the Earth Alliance".

Check the dictionary, self-governing and autonomous means the same thing as independent.
As I recall, the opening shot of 'Ruling from the Tomb' had the text "Mars, Independent Member, Earth Alliance." That seams pretty clear to me.

 

[tomalak301]

Ok, I promise this will be the last (Non-reply) post I put in this thread, with one stipulation. If, and when I ever get around to watching B5: Legend of the Rangers, I'll post about it here, or maybe even start a new thread, depending on when I get around to seeing it. Not sure where I can get it now and don't really want to buy it. I think it might be on Youtube so that's nice.

Anyway, some final thoughts on the final episodes:

-If there is one thing I don't like about the ending of Babylon 5, it's that it kind of makes that one "somewhat" important series of scenes in War Without End kind of meaningless. Why was this series so set in the whole predestination concept and you can't change what is to come. Ivanova's speech at the end summarizing the entire series was well done, but why did everything happen as if it was predicted years and years ago. I'm talking mainly about Mollari and Sheridan's reaction to him. Just the fact that War Without End wasn't even brought up kind of irked me. I know JMS wanted a tragic character, and how Mollari's arc ended was indeed tragic, and really well done, but Sheridan saw that future and here said nothing. For that yeah Keeper-Londo had a point about accusing Sheridan for the downfall of the Centauri republic.

-Really loved the series of series finales this show had, except for Objects at Rest. I saw them so close it's hard to really not think of the three as one big episode, but really loved everything about them, Garibaldi's story (Which was the best), G'Kar's end (Which, the more I think about it, the more wiser and awesome he became), Lyta's end (Even though I didn't like where Season 5 took her), and all the stuff in between. Loved Garibaldi playing hardball blackmailing the board in Objects in Motion, or just how great his and Lise's relationship was. Just everything about that storyline might be the best (non-Centauri) storyline in Season 5.

-As for Objects at Rest, I've made a mention in the past I didn't like what season 5 did to Sheridan or Delenn. Well, this episode featured them, and simply, I didn't want to care. It also goes back to the whole predestination thing of Lennier and how that whole thing of him and his betrayal was so out of character. Why not have the ability to change. Why not prove a dead guy wrong. Then we get the whole Minbari split personality disorder thing and I just was like Ok, so Lennier didn't like the relationship between Delenn and Sheridan, fine I get that, but it still doesn't justify him doing it. It just seemed more "Why is this necessary" than anything else, other than to add some action to a somewhat dull episode. Like I said, the best and true pre-sleeping in light finale really was Objects in Motion.

-Sleeping in Light: Still an awesome finale. I got teared up again at the end, and like I said, the speech from Ivanova summarizing the entire series really is one of the best written speeches ever.

Time to put B5 away for a while. It was fun watching it the second time around, finding those little things that are easily missable. Heck, I might even get the 5 movie set this year so I have those, but I'm not sure yet.

 

[Lindley]

-If there is one thing I don't like about the ending of Babylon 5, it's that it kind of makes that one "somewhat" important series of scenes in War Without End kind of meaningless. Why was this series so set in the whole predestination concept and you can't change what is to come. Ivanova's speech at the end summarizing the entire series was well done, but why did everything happen as if it was predicted years and years ago. I'm talking mainly about Mollari and Sheridan's reaction to him. Just the fact that War Without End wasn't even brought up kind of irked me. I know JMS wanted a tragic character, and how Mollari's arc ended was indeed tragic, and really well done, but Sheridan saw that future and here said nothing. For that yeah Keeper-Londo had a point about accusing Sheridan for the downfall of the Centauri republic.

It is a bit odd, but then, we already know Sheridan doesn't have the firmest grasp on the whole time travel thing, seeing as his logic in "Z'Ha'Dum" didn't even make sense. He thought that future might not come to pass after all, I guess.

The WWE/ITB timeframe is revisited in the Legions of Fire trilogy (aka the Centauri trilogy).