Was "Deconstruction of Falling Stars an Alternative Ending?

[Reverend]

Well both the Centauri and the Narn (at one point) were engineered by the Vorlons to produce telepaths. Plus the Ralgan that looked like Franklin specifically said they were evolving, not "we were engineering ourselves." So it's not conclusive either way. I think there's an intentional ambiguity as to exactly how a species can make the leap to the "First One" level. It's intrinsically beyond what we think we know about evolution. I think it's even stated in the Psi Corps books that while science can verify the existence of telepathy, what happens to the brains while they're being scanned, the gene that marks psi potential, the actual mechanics of how and why it works totally resists analysis.
Not that it's magic by any means, but like the hyper-evolving phenomenon it's so far beyond what a "younger" race can understand it may as well be.

 

[Christopher]

Well both the Centauri and the Narn (at one point) were engineered by the Vorlons to produce telepaths.

But left to their own devices, different species with the same potential could still develop differently. Evolution, whether shaped by natural selection or by technology and culture, is still affected by circumstances, so there's no reason to be surprised that different species developing independently would end up developing in different directions. A "godlike superbeing" adaptation isn't necessarily "more advanced" than a sophisticated "mere mortal" technical civilization; it's just a different way of adapting, with the advancements more internalized within the body and brain than externalized with technology. So there's no reason to assume that Narn and Centauri were in any way "arrested" in their development just because they chose a different path.

Plus the Ralgan that looked like Franklin specifically said they were evolving, not "we were engineering ourselves." So it's not conclusive either way.

Strictly speaking, evolution just means change and adaptation in response to situational needs. There can be evolution driven by random mutation and natural selection, but there can also be evolution driven by genetic engineering and social selection. Some people or cultures might not be willing to define artificially engineered biological change as evolution, but others, particularly those that actually practice it, might choose to define it that way.

I think there's an intentional ambiguity as to exactly how a species can make the leap to the "First One" level. It's intrinsically beyond what we think we know about evolution. I think it's even stated in the Psi Corps books that while science can verify the existence of telepathy, what happens to the brains while they're being scanned, the gene that marks psi potential, the actual mechanics of how and why it works totally resists analysis.
Not that it's magic by any means, but like the hyper-evolving phenomenon it's so far beyond what a "younger" race can understand it may as well be.

Oh, the way psi powers were depicted in B5 was pure magic, no matter what the claims in-universe. Psi powers in general are a fantasy idea grafted into SF, all too often used as an excuse for bypassing the laws of physics -- if something impossible happens, you just say "Oh, it's psionics" as if the fact that there's a Greek word for it somehow counts as a scientific explanation.

For that matter, B5's approach to biology and medicine in general was pure fantasy. All that nonsense about "life energy" transfer healing people or extending or shortening their lifespans, as if longevity were a gas tank that we burned through at a steady rate. I always hated that. B5 made a good effort at plausibility in certain aspects of physics, but when it came to medicine and biology it was some of the most ludicrous fantasy I've ever seen.

 

[Forbin]

Well, we're pretty used to medical magic in our sci fi, though. Crusher healing broken ribs with the wave of a sparkly wand especially brings that to mind.

McCoy could probably find a cure for AIDS in 20 minutes if Kirk and Spock suddenly contracted it. It'd be a magenta fluid in a hypo, and one lap-dissolve after injection they'd be back to their starting weight.

 

[Christopher]

^Yeah, but the whole "life energy" thing in B5 was stupider than any of that. It's a whole order of magnitude more nonsensical.

 

[Neroon]

It could simply be that in the telling of the story B5 was not concerned with the nitty-gritty details, the mechanics of precisely how such capabilities worked. Quite often it's not necessary to understand precisely how they worked, only that they DO work. One of the great two-edged swords for Trek was the over-reliance on what has come to be known as "technobabble". While it certainly can add to the ambiance of the trek verse, it was used so redundantly that it became a running joke amongst its critics. In measured doses, such "explanations" can help but overdoing it impedes a good story. When the story relies upon such "science" that is so far ahead of where we are today, it becomes indistinguishable from the "magic" you imply. How is that any "stupider"? In "Confessions and Lamentations", Dr. Franklin goes into what is for B5 an unusual amount of depth in explaining the plague affecting the Markab and other races. It sounded rather reasonable to me, a neo-"scientific" diagnosis.

And I just realized I sort of paraphrased an exchange between Sheridan and Elric

 

[Reverend]

Lorien: There is no magic, nothing spiritual about it, only the application of energies healing and rebuilding cells.

Sounds exactly like an instant bone knitting/burn healing/wound closing flashlight from Trek to me.

 

[Neroon]

There is no magic, nothing spiritual about it, only the application of energies healing and rebuilding cells.

Sounds exactly like an instant bone knitting/burn healing/wound closing flashlight from Trek to me.

Or a saltshaker, perhaps.

 

[Christopher]

I'm talking about something more fundamental than that -- the idea that the length of time someone has to live is determined by something as simplistic as how much "life energy" they have -- that by transferring "life energy" from one person to another, you increase one's life expectancy by X years and decrease the other's by an equivalent amount. As if we were all born with a fixed amount of "life" and it could be added to or subtracted from like gas in a tank. As if longevity and health had nothing to do with nutrition, exercise, environmental factors, stress, infection, cellular mutation, the quality of medical care, or anything else. That goes far beyond pseudoscience into something out of a fairy tale.

And the "B5 wasn't dependent on technobabble" argument doesn't cut it. There's zero correlation between how much technobabble a story contains and how much sense it makes, because a lot of technobabble is sheer gibberish anyway. It's easy to tell a story that makes sense without going into a lot of onscreen detail; as long as the writer understands how to tell a story that makes sense, it isn't necessary to put all that work on the page. A case in point within B5 itself is its treatment of the physics of spaceships and space stations. We didn't get a lot of lectures about rotational gravity in the station or the Newtonian logic behind the Starfury design or the physics of how ships moved in space, but all these things were still thought through pretty well behind-the-scenes and depicted credibly. It was invisible to those who didn't know their science, but those who did could tell without being told that it made sense. In that respect, JMS put a lot of thought and care into making it plausible. Which just makes the ludicrousness of the whole "life energy" business stand out in sharp relief. If he was willing and able to handle physics so intelligently, why couldn't he do the same with biology?

 

[Jan]

I'm talking about something more fundamental than that -- the idea that the length of time someone has to live is determined by something as simplistic as how much "life energy" they have -- that by transferring "life energy" from one person to another, you increase one's life expectancy by X years and decrease the other's by an equivalent amount. As if we were all born with a fixed amount of "life" and it could be added to or subtracted from like gas in a tank. As if longevity and health had nothing to do with nutrition, exercise, environmental factors, stress, infection, cellular mutation, the quality of medical care, or anything else. That goes far beyond pseudoscience into something out of a fairy tale.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't recall it being said anywhere that "life energy" had anything to do with the length of somebody's life. In fact, I'm particularly recalling that Franklin compared the possibility of using the alien healing device in the same way that blood can be donated. Blood is renewed/replaced after being donated although losing too much of it will cause death, just as having your life energy drained as Marcus did caused death.

Jan

 

[Christopher]

^Well, wasn't that key to the whole business of Lorien resurrecting Sheridan -- that he brought Sheridan back to life by infusing some of his own life energy, but that it would only give Sheridan 20 more years? That was the whole deal behind "Sleeping in Light" -- that his fixed 20-year allotment had run out and so he died.

 

[Jan]

^Well, wasn't that key to the whole business of Lorien resurrecting Sheridan -- that he brought Sheridan back to life by infusing some of his own life energy, but that it would only give Sheridan 20 more years? That was the whole deal behind "Sleeping in Light" -- that his fixed 20-year allotment had run out and so he died.

I think it was more than that. What Sheridan told Delenn when he and Lorien told her about only having 20 years left was:

I had Franklin give me a complete
medscan. He found things in my
neural system...some kind of
biochemical energy repairing and
sustaining me. He's never seen​

anything like it.

And Lorien added:

I did the best I could, having never
seen a human before. And I have
given him back a portion of his​

life. But only a portion.

I had the impression that what Lorien gave Sheridan might be something on the order of the 'organelles' that were talked about in the Techno-Mage trilogy.

Jan

 

[JoeD80]

assuming Warner et. al. didn't have O'hare canned.

If Michael O'Hare had been fired by WB, the studio wouldn't have allowed him to be in a third season episode.

 

[Nerroth]

Not according to the 5-year memo that was published in the script book series. In fact, to discover the original fate JMS planned for Sinclair, you'd have to look at the sequel portion of that memo which says quite clearly that the final scene is of Sinclair alone, fishing. That memo was written between the filming of "The Gathering" and the start of filming of the series proper.

In fact, there's no mention of Sinclair becoming Valen at all so I think it's probable that the Sinclair-becomes-Valen idea came along well into the first season.

Jan

I had been under the impression that the idea was in the works even as far back as The Gathering.

Not least since, unless I'm mistaken, Kosh explicitly refers to the fake-Sinclair as 'Entil'Zha Valen' when greeting him...

 

[David cgc]

^Well, wasn't that key to the whole business of Lorien resurrecting Sheridan -- that he brought Sheridan back to life by infusing some of his own life energy, but that it would only give Sheridan 20 more years? That was the whole deal behind "Sleeping in Light" -- that his fixed 20-year allotment had run out and so he died.

I think what Lorien did was more of a highly advanced form of life support, and the Alien Healing Device... well, hell if I know, but its effects on the donor didn't seem to be permanent (unless he used it too long and died. And, occasionally, not even then).

I had been under the impression that the idea was in the works even as far back as The Gathering.

Not least since, unless I'm mistaken, Kosh explicitly refers to the fake-Sinclair as 'Entil'Zha Valen' when greeting him...

That was added in when the "The Gathering" was reedited in between the fourth and fifth seasons. That's also how they were able to have auditory flashbacks from "And the Sky Full of Stars" when Sinclair was talking about the Battle of the Line.

 

[trevanian]

assuming Warner et. al. didn't have O'hare canned.

If Michael O'Hare had been fired by WB, the studio wouldn't have allowed him to be in a third season episode.

??????

 

[sidious618]

According to Jerry Doyle O'Hare was asked to leave due to sexually bothering some of the women on set. Then again, if you listen to his radio show you know he tends to play fast and loose with reality.

 

[trevanian]

I had been under the impression that the idea was in the works even as far back as The Gathering.

Not least since, unless I'm mistaken, Kosh explicitly refers to the fake-Sinclair as 'Entil'Zha Valen' when greeting him...

That was added in when the "The Gathering" was reedited in between the fourth and fifth seasons. That's also how they were able to have auditory flashbacks from "And the Sky Full of Stars" when Sinclair was talking about the Battle of the Line.

My impression is the recut GATHERING is mainly just restoring GATHERING to the way JMS had it before it had to be cut (plus getting a decent new score), not that it had to get all fixed up and altered.

 

[Neroon]

And the "B5 wasn't dependent on technobabble" argument doesn't cut it. There's zero correlation between how much technobabble a story contains and how much sense it makes, because a lot of technobabble is sheer gibberish anyway. It's easy to tell a story that makes sense without going into a lot of onscreen detail; as long as the writer understands how to tell a story that makes sense, it isn't necessary to put all that work on the page.

Again it isn't necessary to get into such detail if there is more to the story than just those aspects. Technobabble all too easily does little more than clutter said story with detritus. Sure the medical aspect of the "life energy" could have been handled more deftly, but I seriously doubt it was such an impediment to the enjoyment of the episodes where it was used. It was simply a means to get to the story's crux.

A case in point within B5 itself is its treatment of the physics of spaceships and space stations. We didn't get a lot of lectures about rotational gravity in the station or the Newtonian logic behind the Starfury design or the physics of how ships moved in space, but all these things were still thought through pretty well behind-the-scenes and depicted credibly. It was invisible to those who didn't know their science, but those who did could tell without being told that it made sense. In that respect, JMS put a lot of thought and care into making it plausible. Which just makes the ludicrousness of the whole "life energy" business stand out in sharp relief. If he was willing and able to handle physics so intelligently, why couldn't he do the same with biology?

In a perfect world that would be nice, but face it. Showing the physical principles of the space flight and artificial gravity used in the show would be demonstrably easier than that for biology. There you'd most likely need more exposition, something the show had too much of.

 

[Christopher]

^I disagree. There could easily have been an equally simple but less idiotic way of handling the medical stuff than "life energy transfer." Hell, having no explanation whatsoever would've been a vast improvement over that.

 

[Lindley]

I had been under the impression that the idea was in the works even as far back as The Gathering.

Not least since, unless I'm mistaken, Kosh explicitly refers to the fake-Sinclair as 'Entil'Zha Valen' when greeting him...

That was added in when the "The Gathering" was reedited in between the fourth and fifth seasons. That's also how they were able to have auditory flashbacks from "And the Sky Full of Stars" when Sinclair was talking about the Battle of the Line.

My impression is the recut GATHERING is mainly just restoring GATHERING to the way JMS had it before it had to be cut (plus getting a decent new score), not that it had to get all fixed up and altered.

There were a few alterations made, however. If you read the JMS Speaks archive for "Midnight on the Firing Line", he mentions that they've worked out what Kosh will sound like. He wouldn't have said that if Kosh had had any lines in the pilot.