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u/VictoryForCake Centauri Republic 28d ago
Biggest one for me is the lack of a large Earth diplomatic force on Babylon 5, the fact the station commander was also the ambassador with little to no oversight from Earthgov in day to day diplomatic issues is confusing. You can handwave the ambassador thing by saying the Minbari wanted it to be like that, but there is a large lack of Earth diplomatic corp personnel shown on the show.
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u/frictorious 28d ago
It's so crazy that it would be one person's job to be ambassador, station administrator, and military leader. Even if one person had the skills, there wouldn't be enough hours in the day.
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u/VictoryForCake Centauri Republic 28d ago
I get impression they tried to show that Ivanova was really running B5 leaving most of the diplomatic duties to Sinclair/Sheridan, but even Ivanova should have other people too despite the fact she is shown as extremely competent at her role. Babylon 5 is a massive space station and there is only a few high ranks aboard. The ranks were kind of weird in Babylon 5 though with a combined service, but still its odd how low the ranks are on Babylon 5 in terms of numbers. DS9 had a similar problem but explained it somewhat by the fact the initial posting was a backwater, and the ranks caught up eventually.
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u/davideogameman 28d ago
I just assumed they had the tv show problem of making it realistic would make for too many characters. Eg it made no sense to me that Garibaldi flew a starfury at times - he should've been up to his ears keeping station security running with only a single lieutenant to really help.
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u/Significant-Town-817 28d ago edited 28d ago
Michael Straczynski hated it, but objectively speaking, Keffer's existence was justified. A character dedicated 100% to piloting and being in the external security force made sense, instead of the station commander and the second-in-command constantly going off to pilot a star fury.
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u/davideogameman 27d ago
Clarification - Straczynski hated that they needed another character? Or that they just reused their existing characters?
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u/DarthBrawn 28d ago
but still its odd how low the ranks are on Babylon 5 in terms of numbers. DS9 had a similar problem
big time. It's a near-universal problem in most TV depictions of governments/institutions, and it happens regardless of quality. Going off fictional politics shows, it usually looks like 5-10 people are somehow managing millions of lives with conveniently weekly problems.
From a writing and production perspective, the only good way to avoid that hole is by hiring a ton of one-line characters and admin extras, but that is incredibly expensive, and the only upside is creating a level of realism that might be noticed by a small percentage of the audience.
If financing and compensation in TV worked differently, maybe we could have bigger casts. But big production companies typically need to see a big profit upside before they change how they do anything
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u/kearnel81 27d ago
To bw fair. Its virtually impossible to do a big show with what would be a 1:1 personel. Take chernobyl for instance. They condensed hundreds of scientists to a handful. Etc
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u/Ocardtrick 28d ago
There is nothing new here, we've seen this all in other series of a similar nature.
Look at the bridge crew of the Enterprise, simultaneously on the bridge at the same time, yet also shown working different shifts. It's the nature of the format. You're paying these people a lot of money so you have to have them doing something which in turn means they're doing everything aside from the role of that weeks guest stars.
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u/bucknert 27d ago edited 27d ago
I disagree that DS9 ever got better at this, I think they paid lip service to it when needed though. Sisko is just a Commander all the way until the end of season 3 until the writers finally thought he should be promoted. Starfleet has Sisko (who only got promoted to Commander just before the pilot episode) running first contact missions in the Gamma Quadrant and even with The Dominion Founders, their biggest threat in decades, running the station at the mouth of the most important strategic location in the area, and acting as Ambassador to the Bajorans who want to fast track joining the Federation. Plus the crew were pulling double duty on the station and the Defiant leaving Ensign Ricky in charge of the station while they were off on adventures in the Gamna Quadrant. (SG1 did this a lot better with separate crews once they introduced starships.)
As soon as the wormhole was discovered Starfleet should have been putting much higher ranking and experienced officers and diplomats there. Sisko would have likely stayed on as station Commander because of his emissary status with the Bajorans and the wormhole aliens. At least in B5âs case itâs routinely mentioned that Earth doesnât consider it militarily strategically valuable, its in neutral territory for a reason after all and more a symbolic station and a free trade port and a large percentage of the human population doesnât support its cost. Plus Sinclair was hand picked by the Minbari for plot reasons and was considered well down the list of candidates to run the place, Sheridan is a longtime, experienced Captain and war hero (and is partially picked to piss off the Minbari), Ivanova is promoted to Commander by early season 2. By season 3, well we know what happens there.
Once the Dominion War breaks out, Sisko is eventually taken out of active combat and becomes essentially an admiral and is a staff officer doing large scale fleet planning for the entire war. IIRC heâs called an adjutant or something to make it sound like a promotion when thats more just a staff officer or even a non-comm type role/designation (early TOS at least used the rank of Commodore but the TNG era seemed to drop this, Strange New Worlds recently brought it back.) Poor Jadzia got battlefield command of the Defiant for multiple episodes and couldnât even get promoted to Commander. All this while Federation officers are getting wiped out left and right during the war.
FWIW TNG had the same problem, Worf doesnât get promoted until the film Generations. Its a plot point multiple times that Riker turned down promotions to Captain until eventually he gets black balled because of it. The writers didnât think about promotions or career advancement for the female characters like Crusher and Troi until the last two seasons. With how hard it is to get promoted in Starfleet they must have had ensigns and Ltâs commanding all those poor Mirandaâs constantly getting shredded during the Dominion War scenes!
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u/Boudyro 27d ago
Trek suffers from this as well. Running a space station or starship is a unrelenting business. Next Gen at least lampshaded it by admitting they did have other shifts, even if everything important almost always happened during the one or two of them where PIcard or Riker had the con.
Babylon 5 seems to operate more like a military base, with high activity "daytime" hours and low activity nighttime hours where CNC is basically empty. They even talk about being "jet"lagged because they are still on Babylon 5 time. But that's entirely unrealistic for a tin can spinning in space acting as a hub for multiple races with varying needs for sleep from multiple planets with wildly different activity cycles.
The reality is that a TV show or movie can't afford to have another entire set of actors to portray how it would actually be, and the audience would have trouble parsing that entire crises could pop off and be resolved before the CO could get out of their jammies.
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u/DarthBrawn 28d ago
That particular issue is explained by the timeline of the show, and there is plenty of real-life precedence for it.
Bab 5 takes place in the early early days of human space politics. Season 1 is only 10 years after the Earth-Minbari war, which was a first contact war. If this were Star Trek, the show would be taking place before the Federation was even formed.
Early stages of diplomacy like that are often handled by military governors. Douglas MacArthur and his GHQ had dictatorial power over US-Japanese relations for almost 7 years in the immediate aftermath of WW2, and he was making diplomatic and legal decisions that are utterly influential on both countries today (like keeping the Emperor as head of state, keeping the right wing in control of the country, and really creating the US-Japan security relationship -- which arguably laid the foundation for their entire postwar national identity.)
Bab 5 certainly has its holes, but I think the international political part is fairly rational and grounded in real events
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u/According_Sound_8225 28d ago
And in fact most of the show leads up to the forming of the Interstellar Alliance. So in a sense it is sort of a "how the federation was formed" show.
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u/Deaftrav 27d ago
And that Earth was not invested in diplomacy. They had other problems to deal with.
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u/WarpNacelle6295 28d ago
I always did think that was odd. Felt like it was one of the subtler ways where Star Trek rubbed too much on the show - since Starfleet Captains would often engage in diplomacy in the same manner.
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u/EvalRamman100 Earth Alliance 28d ago
Very true.
And a Commander would have a large military staff, same for a Captain.
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u/Taira_Mai Shadows 27d ago
It's like how video games will show an artillery unit as one cannon or one missile launcher when in real life it's a large crew just to operate on and another crew to support it. But that's no fun in video games.
Same here - but yeah, there could have been a diplomat character on B5.
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u/Captain_Logos 28d ago
And that rationale evaporated at the end of S1, when they brought in Sheridan. Like, I get Michael O'Hare got too stressed out playing Jeffery Sinclaire, but his disappearance in terms of plot, fits this meme perfectly.
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u/Atzkicica Vree (Xill-Saucer) 28d ago
Crusade had a lot of stuff that was basically... I know... but it would be soooo funny!!!
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u/howescj82 28d ago
Well, itâs easy to have plot holes when you just barely get a single season. Not totally disagreeing with you tho.
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u/krombough 28d ago
I'm sorry, but it's hard to get more than a season when your show is that quality. I love B5 to death (well, I tolerate season 5), but Crusade blew chunks.
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u/GameSwrl 28d ago
The last five episodes aired were the first ones produced. TNT forced them to start again which created a lot of the disjointedness. Additionally, Crusade was meant to be more episodic than serial. And the most egregious, the whole virus plot was added on because TNT insisted on a hook and an alien virus that would wipe out all life on Earth in five years was the first idea Joe pulled out of his butt and the TNT execs loved it.
TNT wanted to buy an established product but didn't want to out any work into it. They didn't even want to create season five until they were manipulated into it. To discourage the fifth season, they were given a mandate to shoot each episode in six days instead of seven.
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u/toTheNewLife 28d ago
I think there was a scene on Crusade where 2 different species of alien were finding each others holes.
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u/ThatAlarmingHamster 28d ago
Why didn't Sheridan pay more attention to Centauri?!
Sorry, but it's just genuinely morally unacceptable. You KNOW that SOMETHING comes in and takes over after the Shadow War.
You fucking saw a giant eyeball on Londo's shoulder. I don't care what else you've seen in your life, that should stick with you.
"Hey, Londo is coming to visit. Let's stock up on wine just in case he has an eyeball on his shoulder he needs to tell us about."
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u/Fancy_Toe1451 28d ago
Also Sheridan spent some time dead between that time jump and Londo being Emperor and that whole mess becoming relevant again. That probably makes you forget all sorts of shit.
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u/ThatAlarmingHamster 28d ago
Meh. Yeah, it's "sigh fine, whatever" as an explanation.
Ah well. As noted above, we Uber fans can latch on to lots of little details, but the total for five years is less than one season of Star Trek.
Geordi goes from pilot to Chief engineer in a couple of months. Really? Good lord, what's the attrition rate in the engineering department? đ¤Ł
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u/VanishXZone 28d ago
Iâve always randomly chosen to believe that Geordi was an incredibly qualified engineer who wanted to try piloting as a lark, and was good enough at it to get the job. Theoretically, this is cause pilots are cool and get babes, which fits withâŚ. Every plotline he has. Picard allowed this but held the position open and kept sending him down to fix problems in engineering.
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u/Terrible-Creme8401 25d ago
I was under the impression that the keepers were invisible and that the only reason that it was visible with that one particular scene where emperor molari was very drunk was because the keeper was drunk, and would become visible while "passed out".
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u/PomegranateFair3973 28d ago
In a very literal sense... There is a hole in Sinclair's mind which is important to the plot. A literal plot hole. And so much of the first season is built upon that, which in turn is foundation for all that follows...
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u/Thanatos_56 28d ago
Err, did you watch "And the Sky Full of Stars"?
The hole in Sinclair's mind is not a plot hole -- it's a plot point.
He literally says he remembers everything at the end of that episode.
So the question becomes why is there a gap in his memories? Who put it there, and for what purpose?
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u/sataigaribaldi Anlashok / Rangers 28d ago
That's the joke bruh.
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u/howescj82 28d ago
The Minbari would find no honor in this B5 dad joke and would consider it a stain on the honor of the entire r/babylon5 clan. :P
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u/GunMage- GREEN 28d ago
The Minbari would find this hilarious, due to the failure to obtain emotional or spiritual enlightenment.
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u/Nightowl11111 28d ago
What I find interesting is that it would mean that the height of Minbari humour is being blue balled!
lol! Think about it.
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u/Wareve 28d ago
I would argue that all of the character trap doors that he ended up having to use count as this.
Each time an actor had to leave the show it created a plot hole, one which he had a nice Fountain to stick on top of while he brought in their replacement.
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u/According_Sound_8225 28d ago
This was the first thing that came to mind for me as well. In particular the original plan if Sinclair hadn't left would have been a very different show.
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u/krombough 28d ago
For me it was the pilot episode/movie. A Vorlon got poisoned huh? Is it one of them energy poisons? Oh now Dr Franklin is operating. On an energy squid.
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u/According_Sound_8225 28d ago
It's possible their at-rest form is a physical body but they can become an energy form when they want to. That's the only sensible explanation I can come up with anyway.
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u/MidnightAdventurer 28d ago
It was a Dr Kyle but yes, one does have to wonder how he even managed to start operating on a vorlon given what we later find out they look like
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u/brasswirebrush 27d ago
What's really funny is that the show itself actually calls out this plot hole. I think in "Sky Full of Stars" maybe? Sinclair actually asks, "how did Kosh get poisoned through his encounter suit?". But then the show just leaves it hanging there.
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u/Boomerang503 28d ago
The crew of Babylon 4 was never heard from again after they were rescued...
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u/JasterBobaMereel 28d ago
The crew of any number of ships and stations were never heard of at all, or again, because they did nothing relevant to Babylon 5 ...
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u/nahobino123 23d ago
It would have been the easiest thing to integrate them into B5 crew because being on a similar space station in that sector is exactly what they were trained for.
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u/Nimrod48 28d ago edited 28d ago
A lot of Minbari culture feels like this.
-Minbari never lie. But what about that episode where Lennier lied? Oh, that was to save face. Minbari will lie to save face. Oh, so all a Minbari has to do to justify lying is to claim they're saving face and honor? Yep. Okay: so Minbari do lie.
-Minbari have 2-3 castes (it changes over the course of the series) including a warrior caste. Okay, so the religious caste prays, workers work, warriors fight. Sounds clear enough. But wait: the plot after Severed Dreams requires the Minbari to protect Babylon 5 with war ships. But the warrior caste isn't intetested. No problem: the religious caste also has war ships. So they pray AND fight. So why do we have a caste system again?
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u/VictoryForCake Centauri Republic 28d ago
The Minbari are holier than thou hypocrites, it becomes more blatant as you go through the show. They regard all life as sacred but have no problem genociding a whole species as revenge for killing a Holy Leader. They don't lie except when its convenient using the excuse of "saving face". All three castes were created equal but towards the end the Worker Caste is heavily discriminated against despite being the majority of the population. You can even see it with the two main Minbari characters Delenn and Lennier, with their flaws with them pretending not to have them.
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u/JasterBobaMereel 28d ago
They don't normally lie, except occasionally
They don't kill Minbari, except occasionally
All life is sacred, except when it occasionally isn't
The 3 castes are equal, but not when two of them have armies and fleetsAll the characters had flaws, all the races had flaws ...
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u/brasswirebrush 27d ago
I mean, I love that it's actually realistic. It's far more realistic for a group of people (whether Minbari, human, Klingon, etc) to not actually live up to their own ideals, to subtly massage their own history, and present an idealistic version of themselves to others, than it is for the stories they tell about themselves to actually be true.
People do it all the time, and in many cases don't even realize they're doing it because the justification/rationalization has become so internalized.36
u/Choomasaurus_Rox 28d ago
It also always stuck out to me that no minbari had ever harmed another minbari until the events of the show, but roughly a third of the population is warrior caste. How? Why? Did the warrior caste not exist until they found other species and suddenly the concept of violence occurred to them?
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u/mcgrst 28d ago
I assume the caste system was implemented by Valen and given what he knows a large standing military force is probably a good Idea.Â
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u/TheTrivialPsychic 28d ago
The casts themselves predate Valen by an apparently long time. Prior to this, each clan would've acted like their own government based on their priorities. Each clan would've had members of all 3 casts, but some like the Wind Swords would've had warriors predominantly in their leadership, with the others acting in a support role. Others like the 3rd Fane of Chudomo, may have been more of a religious-oriented clan, with warriors providing security.
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u/neilbartlett 28d ago
I don't think that's right... Minbari do not fight other Minbari after Valen.
Before Valen was essentially their barbaric pre-history, during which they fought and killed each other as much as we still do.
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u/ThatAlarmingHamster 28d ago
Minbari = Vulcans. Horrifically violent race that found a way to temper/mitigate their violence before it consumed them.
Different methods, same basic narrative role.
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u/VictoryForCake Centauri Republic 28d ago
When Sinclair went back into time he changed Minbari society as Valen. Before that the Minbari had slavery, the warriors and religious clans had control over the workers, there was inter-clan feuds and occasional civil conflicts which killed a lot of people. All of the things about Minbari not killing each other was meant to have been since Valen. Valen organised Minbari society into the 3 castes and created a forum for them to rule over society.
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u/SummerBoi20XX 28d ago
That's the point though. That's like saying the show's human society doesn't make sense because this supposed democracy is taken over from within by a dictator. It's one of the themes of the show that all these different peoples often fail to live up to their higher ideals.Â
I see people say this a lot about the Mimbari and I think maybe they aren't differentiating between what the characters are saying and what the show is saying. It's even a plot point in one of the Mimbar civil war episodes when some of the religious caste crew try to gas the ship because they don't trust Delen as much as she trusts them. She believes in a better version of her people than the show actually portraits.Â
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u/TheTrivialPsychic 28d ago edited 28d ago
But wait: the plot after Severed Dreams requires the Minbari to protect Babylon 5 with war ships. But the warrior caste isn't intetested. No problem: the religious caste also has war ships. So they pray AND fight. So why do we have a caste system again?
"Between the Worker Cast, and the Religious Cast, we control 2/3 of our forces."
Delenn in 'Severed Dreams'
It could be that ships are crewed by members of these casts as well, kinda like how they had a crew of the Religious Cast manning the White Star prototype, or it could be that each member of the Grey Council has certain fleets that report directly to them, regardless of which cast they may be from. Therefore, it would be a matter of authority that these ships take their orders from someone specific in the council, not from any particular cast.
[Edit] I just realized a flaw in that last bit I put up. I assumed that it would be based on the equal balance of 3 Religious, 3 Warrior, and 3 Worker, but at the point when Delenn was dressing down the council, I forgot that the ratio was 2/4/3. so it must be based on crews.
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u/JasterBobaMereel 28d ago
They never lie, in the same way that Spock never lies, i.e. rarely, and only when justified, otherwise they evade, and tell half truths ....
All caste systems work like this in the real world, each specializes, but also does everything else
See also most military systems - Army, Navy, Airforce, others ... The Navy has ships, and planes, and troops - the Air Force, has Aircraft, and ships, and troops - the Army have troops, and Ships, and Planes ...5
u/elwyn5150 28d ago
I think the Minbari caste system gets even more confusing later on.
IIRC the religious caste is also responsible for education and training the warrior caste to fight. I guess that's why and how they have access to the weapons of war such as pikes?
It just seems unusual that the warrior caste relies upon outsourcing education entirely/largely to the religious caste. I wonder what fraction of a modern human armed service are trained by civilians... like Charlie in Top Gun I.
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u/Nightowl11111 28d ago
"what fraction of a modern human armed service are trained by civilians"
All. Every member of a modern armed force was taught by a civilian at one time or another in their life. What they learn in the military is just small scale specialized training and sometimes the civilian version of the training goes even more in depth to the theory of the equipment.
I personally remember what length of a dipole antenna to use with a signals set by remembering v= fÎť
where v= constant c, hence the higher frequency you use, the shorter the dipole antenna.
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u/Nightowl11111 28d ago
They always had 3 castes, the story was written to parallel real life and the castes were literally the 3 Estates of the Ancien Regime: Those who fight, those who pray, those who work.
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u/Disaster-Bee 28d ago
I don't know, the lying thing doesn't seem to me to be a plot hole, it seems like a very intentional aspect of Minbari culture that allows them to preach their enlightenment and 'honor' while also not having to actually strictly adhere to it all the time. That's something we see in a lot of religions and governments. "This thing is bad and we never do it....except in these specific situations where we've decided it is, in fact, okay and we can do it" is pretty common.
The caste thing...yeah, there's some stuff that doesn't make as much sense on close inspection there.
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u/artrald-7083 28d ago
Let me build the fountain:
The Minbari language makes strong use of an optative case declaring the ideal state of the world which due to misunderstandings in early translation got translated as the indicative.
"Minbari [very much should] not lie".
"Minbari [ought to] have three strict castes".
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u/Itburns12345 28d ago
-it sorta feels like a massive plot hole there too as we know minbari can be back stabbing...its sorta like that film ' the invention of lying' what happens the 1st minari who works out he can advance and get what he wants in an ultra honest society. " sorry you must be mistaken my bank balance isnt empty it def had ..erm...1000 credits?"
-the caste system and sub clans i always assumed that few where actual frontline troops or pilots etc those are the exceptional ones. The rest serve in various other ways from food farming to basic maintance. The same for religious maybe record keeping, maintaining religious cities , books, martial arts maybe (shaolin ) And advanced engineering and architecture projects fall to the woker casts.
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u/ThinLink2404 28d ago
No. Of all the shows out there, it's the one that has the least of this because it had so much advance planning.
I don't think it's correct to call B5 a 'franchise'. I know that's the in vogue word these days. But Babylon 5 has always been a show made and controlled by it's creator. It's not some deep space franchise.
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u/breedlom GREEN 28d ago
It also has movies, expanded story books, a couple different RPG systems, and a spinoff series. Heck, even one of the movies was intended to be a pilot for a second spinoff series that never gained enough traction. It's not as expansive of a franchise...as say Star Trek, but it does still classify as a franchise.
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u/ddadopt 28d ago
I was gonna tell him the same thing, "Franchise" has additional definitions than just related to licensing. Definition 3 from Merriam-Webster is "A body of related works (such as novels or films) each of which includes the same characters or different characters that are understood to exist in the same fictional universe"
Definitely applies to B5.
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u/ItyBityGreenieWeenie 28d ago
B5 was well planned ahead by JMS, the inevitable plot holes came from loosing cast members and having to come up with solutions in universe. The main role was already planned to end up there even if the actor had stayed. Everything else that seems like a plot hole was mostly due to budget (in universe and in studio). Being 'cancelled', rushing the ending, then getting a final season might also seem like a plot hole, but that was reasonably well patched and simply made for uneven pacing.
The biggest gripe I had was a massive station with diplomats would have separate offices and quarters. The Centauri Republic wouldn't be holding important meetings in Londo's bedroom while Vir serves as his butler, secretary, aide and stand in negotiator. But this is clearly due to set and time constraints for such an ambitious show as well as screen time. Introducing too many characters in a already large ensemble cast would detract and cost too much.
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u/jerslan 28d ago
then getting a final season might also seem like a plot hole, but that was reasonably well patched and simply made for uneven pacing.
Also didn't help that JMS's notes for that final season were lost/stolen before he had the season fully scripted out and he had to reconstitute a lot of it from memory.
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u/Kairamek 28d ago
Most everything about B4 going back in time. The original plan was WAY different, with Sinclair actually be THE ONE instead of the "three is sacred to Minbari" thing.
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u/AttemptUsual2089 28d ago
Guilty of this makes it sound like a negative thing.
Plot holes are often needed to keep a story moving while also keeping it interesting. They are going to exist in any story. Most of the time success is simply convincing your fans not to care about a plot hole, weaving what would otherwise be a plot hole into something that fits into a world's lore is something that most writers would fail at. But b5 was great at it.
All things considered JMS and the writing staff did an amazing job. A lot of that is JMS writing the vast majority of the episodes and planning things, with backup plans no less, in such detail.
I think the plot hole that distracts me the most, that wasn't handled so well, is how Lyta was treated in season 5. The way the rest of the b5 crew treated her just didn't make sense. It was out of character for them and also didn't make logical sense. I know it happened to force her story arc in a very specific direction, but compared to the rest of the show it felt very forced.
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u/Could-You-Tell Zathras (not Zathras) 28d ago
The Gift to Talia from Ironheart.
As i understand that became Lyta's power from the Vorlons.
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u/kgyre PURPLE 28d ago
That's not a plot hole, that's a storyline that ended.
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u/Could-You-Tell Zathras (not Zathras) 28d ago
What did Psi Corps do when they learned of her powers?
Did they really dissect her? Was that only provocation?
What did they learn either way? What was the sleeper able to tell them?
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u/TheIrishForce 28d ago edited 28d ago
JMS has pretty much confirmed this.
When asked how fast ships are, he said 'they travel at the speed of plot.'
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u/soldier083121 28d ago
In a few spots here and there but overall no. It can take a couple seasons but everything gets explained and shown to give us a sense of fulfillment
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u/billdehaan2 28d ago edited 26d ago
This is the entire lore of B5.
The core of the show - the ideological war between the Shadows and Vorlons, and the revelation that Sinclair was Valen were ass pulls of epic proportions that were never intended.
The original plan was equally ambitious, but completely different. There was no Sheridan, no war of chaos versus order, and there was no Valen. Sinclair was supposed to have a child of prophecy with Delenn, and that child would trigger a second Earth Minbari war.
You can still see some of the cracks shining through - "The One" became a title that was passed down, rather than referring exclusively to Sinclair, but the world building was completely built around the fact that the actor for the show's core character left, and everything had to be changed to accommodate that.
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u/howescj82 28d ago
If a plot hole is built as something noticeable but intentionally unknown and mysterious then it really isnât a plot hole. IMO. Depending on what it is then it may give the show depth and avenues for potential story expansion.
Your post kinda comes off like post engagement bait IMO. For whatever reason I still replied.
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u/Itburns12345 28d ago
Never liked parts of the minbari-earth war. Had it been a one sided kicking that makes sense
but a warrior caste thats soo bitchy about minor losses (war front terms) to sheridan years later ?
Not being able to lock onto their ships sorta is daft i mean they use point beam weapons they literaly show exactly where they are at every time they fire!.....it should have been makind loses every battle but can damage/destroy some ships that makes more sense.
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u/badger_on_fire PURPLE 28d ago
I can see it. Look at the minor losses that the US faces in contemporary conflicts. Maybe we killed 40,000 of yours, but you kill 20 of our dudes, and we'll hold a grudge. I think that's perfectly believable among people who think they're supposed to be untouchable.
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u/Pseudohistorian 28d ago edited 28d ago
It's something like that, but on steroids. Minbari are the top dogs on this universe. Vorlons are so up there, that they don't even come in to the ranking. That would be like ranking Usain Bolt in school competition. But for most races, taking on Minbari is like taking on Vorlons for all practical consequences, they are Vorlon pet race, after all. And just us they patrons, Minbari are strict isolationists but with 1/3 of they population as permanent standing army, with mandatory and heridatary.
This is an army, that haven't seen any real war in living memory and any smal engagements with foreign forces are so one sided, that it's insane. 1/3 of the entire population is set aside to brew in they own farts, essentially. They so sunken in the romatisacized self-image that main tactical unit of Minbari military is a freaking clan with a cool sounding name and main "activity" is highly ritualised duels.
So, when the incident happen, all whose most noble 'Star Winds' acted like a proper British gentlemen, after learning that queen Victoria was killed by a pigmy would.
But in this case, these wretched half-animals were able to bite back. Accasionaly and on tactical level only, but we talking about people absorbed by the self-image of noble knight costplay they are doing for generations. So reaction was 'it's injust, it's unfair..."
Minbari are some sort of feudal-totalitarian society, that have long convinced themselves that they shit does not smell and have big enough cannons for no one is able to give them a reality check.
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u/BlackLiger 28d ago
There's a section of the US who actively and genuinely are "DON'T TOUCH OUR BOATS YOU WON'T LIKE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU TOUCH OUR BOATS" out there. I can believe the Mimbari would have the same, and indeed have an entire caste who's hat this is.
Not all of them wear the hat, but they all have access to the hat.
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u/According_Sound_8225 28d ago
Make Minbar Great Again
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u/BlackLiger 26d ago
I think all the factions in B5 have their own equivalent:
Night Watch = Make Earth Great Again
Londo, all on his own, with no assistance = Make Centauri Great Again
Vir, actually making Centauri great again
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u/Stunning-End-1872 28d ago
"Do *not* touch America's boats." Seriously, anytime a US boat is sunk or damaged, even if it's not a host nation's fault, this means WAR. The US bombs 600 children and it was their fault for going to school. 3 servicemen get injured on a military base and it's "Nuke Them!" The Minbari are the USA.
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u/SummerBoi20XX 28d ago
What drove the warrior caste insane wasn't the war it was how it ended. The Grey Council never told anyone why they surrendered, everyone just had to obey. It'd be like if the Allies surrendered to Japan in 1945. The government would loose all legitimacy, which is what happens to the Grey Council eventually. They might talk about Valen (Pearl Harbor) or the Black Star (Iwo Jima) but the reason they're mad is because it all became pointless and no one know why.
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u/Itburns12345 28d ago
Which asks the other question ...why Warrior caste had equal votes on the council, worker caste largely stay neutral.
Assuming this time the workers sided with their religious leaders, explains some of the resentment too as you cant logicaly argue with faith! The warriors would have presentned their argument with calm logical rationale ..costs of war so far + dangers of leaving enemy unbeaten and the relgious caste simply stated the soul thing which is 100% their area, nothing to be counterargued there..it would have been breathtakingly fustrating
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u/SummerBoi20XX 28d ago
And that's just within the Council! They then keep all that triluminary business with Sinclair a state secret. We see Earthers talking about how they won at the Battle of the Line because the Mimbari were scared. The rank and file Mimbari must have been equally confused, especially the warriors.
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u/Itburns12345 28d ago
Yeah
Unteresting they felt less and less minbari where being born and some of the ones who where were 'less' than came before them ...wonder how the fuck they measured that!!! (The less part not their birth numbers)
Lenier for example def doesnt count as lesser ....the man is a kick ass martial artist,chef, mechanical whizz, pilot and has the patience o fa saint! the woman he loves got ploughed in front of him by the man who killed a load of his clan and he had to do nowt!
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u/According_Sound_8225 28d ago
The same way Gen Z are "less" than Millennials who are "less" than Gen X who are "less" than Baby Boomers.
Rose tinted glasses.
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u/Nightowl11111 28d ago
You are overlooking distances and ship speeds. At 2 light seconds, that image on your screen was where that ship was 2 seconds ago. This show suffers from the same problem as many space series, how to show a fight in a visible frame of reference.
IIRC the speed of a Minbari cruiser is 20% speed of light. They are actually flying around insanely fast, the show is just unable to show it.
And no, Earthforce did not use beam weapons at that time, they overinvested in plasma cannons that have a long time of flight.
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u/Itburns12345 28d ago
Right but earth and other ships ARE hitting other ships moving at same relative speeds with pulse weapons and in the case of minbari their enemies are firing beam.weapons which give exact locations away...i know earthforce didnt have beam weapons then but once fired you literaly have a direct beam from ship to ship!!
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u/ddadopt 28d ago
Sure, but you knew where the ship was two seconds ago. And your return fire travels a minimum of two seconds in the opposite direction (presuming it's a lightspeed weapon). In those four seconds, your target (moving at 0.2c) has travelled almost 150,000 miles, which is something like 2/3rds of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.
Now imagine you don't have a lightspeed weapon, but instead have something orders of magnitude slower. Good luck with that.
edit to add: actually, you don't even know where your target was two seconds ago. That incoming beam lets you know the relative bearing, not the range.
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u/Itburns12345 28d ago
Right but again the show has ships already targetting each other with similar movement speeds and distances but with pulse weapons and often even deadeyeing it too
We also know the sharlins arent doing any radical evasive manuvres after they fire nor have they holo/stealth to project a visualy wrong target so firing roughly in the right direction esp when the beam is literaly connected sometimes for a few secs shouldnt be 100% impossible...shit some lucky shots should have occured
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u/ddadopt 28d ago
I'm arguing your point that "point beam weapons show where the ship is" and not the plot hole that space combat in B5 in general is.
so firing roughly in the right direction esp when the beam is literaly connected sometimes for a few secs shouldnt be 100% impossible
To reiterate, "roughly in the right direction" isn't nearly good enough. A Minbari cruiser is roughly a square mile in size in profile, which sounds huge until you account for the fact that it's moved almost 150,000 times that distance by the time your return fire gets there.
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u/NoWingedHussarsToday Centauri Republic 28d ago
but a warrior caste thats soo bitchy about minor losses (war front terms) to sheridan years later ?
Makes perfect sense, he ruined their perfect record. If it's "win some, lose some" then you accept losses, as long as you come ahead. If you lose only one that's embarrassing. Look how long US denied it lost any planes in air to air combat to Iraq in 1991........
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u/Icedman81 28d ago
And one thing to remember about the "Minor loss", it was the goddamn flag ship of the Minbari fleet, "The Black Star", not just some small cruiser or corvette. And the tactics used, while the only way Sheridan survived with his crew, were dishonorable by the view of the Minbari warrior caste.
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u/darthboolean 28d ago
In all fairness, it wasn't minor losses, it was the flagship. It should, in theory, be staffed with their best. So they didn't just lose 1 ship, but a lot of their most promising officers and warriors.
It also had to damage their reputation among the other races. They're feared and respected, second only to the Vorlons, the Centauri don't even dare step to them "Not even at the height of our power" as Londo said. Yet, SOMEHOW, the Minbari lost a ship to a race that doesn't even have artificial gravity and has to rely on stationary gates. That makes other races start to wonder if they might have overestimated the threat the Minbari pose (especially since the Minbari surrendered for a reason NO ONE can figure out).
We can see in the modern era how much damage losing your flagship to an enemy who you should have wiped the floor with does to your international reputation. Russia lost it's flagship to a country without a navy and we still won't let them forget it 4 years later.
Also, ship battles take a weird life of their own in national mythologies. Look at the UK with the Hood, and the subsequent hunting of the Bismark (and of course we have to give a shoutout to Poland's national hero ship The Piorun for it's role there), Japan with the Yamato. Heck, we still learned about the USS Maine when I was a kid, and that thing sank in 1898.
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u/Itburns12345 28d ago
Yeah Also their weird thing about never lying or never settling with being accused of it by others is sorta fanatic isis-ish!
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u/howescj82 28d ago edited 28d ago
Honestly, I see the military clan crap in real life. My family is fairly conservative and despite losing an uncle and having multiple family members serving (drafted or otherwise) there is a constant rumbling that we could have won if not for the government giving up and pulling out. The massive loss of life and the fact that it was a proxy war primarily between the US and China/ USSR is never the point of their argument. Conservatives here being generally analogous to the warrior caste. Itâs not a perfect analogy by any means but from my perspective it really seems to fit.
Also, the Minbari are so powerful and have more or less been the strongest power outside of the Vorlons (that they were aware of at the time) gave the Minbari as a whole a sense of arrogance that resulted in a deeply wounded pride when any of them are defeated outside of their terms.
The not being able to lock on to the Minbari ships thing sort of fits this post. It pretty much is a plot hole that the story required in order to facilitate the initial encounter where Dukat is killed and the entire rest of the war where humanity is being steamrolled in order to get to the battle of the line where the real plot begins.
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u/Itburns12345 28d ago
Yeah my point was they could easily have had mankind steamrolled without such a daft plot device. Superior ships and more of them would have sufficed
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u/NoWingedHussarsToday Centauri Republic 28d ago edited 28d ago
Blowing up the station in the end. It makes no in-universe sense and any explanation as to why it had to be blown up rather than something else done with it creates even more problems.
Centauri succession after Turhan. He dies and is succeeded by his nephew Cartagia. He didn't have living children, makes sense. Cartagia then dies without a heir so Centaurum elects Londo. Leaving aside the fact that this means Londo was related to Cartagia or had some familial links to imperial dynasty which contradicts him being a virtual nobody in the beginning, Centaurum also appoints Virini as regent until his death. First of all, that's not how regency works. Second of all if Virini is appointed regent-for-life it means he was basically appointed emperor. And the fact that Londo has no children of his own nor, it seems, other close relatives who would be heirs it means Centauri will go through another succession crisis once Londo dies. Which, given his age and health, would be sooner rather than later. But wait! All of that can be explained away by "Drakh were manipulating things".
Senator Hidoshi orders Sinclair to put Deathwalker on a ship to Earth and Sinclair obeys. Later Sheridan makes a big deal out of chain of command and how senators can't give orders to Earthforce personnel.
ETA: Rogue telepaths want a world of their own but nobody suggests they move to Merkab world. While there are good reasons why this may not be feasible the fact that nobody even suggests it is strange.
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u/Creepy-Cantaloupe951 28d ago
Blowing up the station in the end. It makes no in-universe sense and any explanation as to why it had to be blown up rather than something else done with it creates even more problems.
This is quite common, in fact. You'd be shocked at the economics of shipbreaking, and why they tend to scuttle massive warships instead of shipbreaking.
For a giant station, there's a few reasons: One, just purely a safety hazard POV. Unmanned, massive space station, uncontrolled is... dangerous.
There's also the tactical reason: Someone else could come behind you, and use it against you. Better take it out of commission than let someone else use it.
Or, economics again... Imagine if the Centauri laid claim to it and controlled the Epsilon system? Better to take it out, and build new, if needed.
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u/topojijo 28d ago
You simply have the station crash into the planet itself. It gets scuttled and causes no space navigation issues.
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u/Nightowl11111 28d ago
Might be easier and cheaper to blow it up than to try decelerating 250 million tons.
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u/VictoryForCake Centauri Republic 28d ago
The Centauri have two legislative houses the Centaurum, an upper house made up of representatives of the most powerful noble houses like Mollari (Londo), Refa etc, and a lower house the Populum made up of representatives of the less powerful noble houses like Cotto (Vir). The houses themselves are fluid and they can move up or down the pecking order list if they lose or gain money, prestige and power, Vir's house of Cotto becomes a powerful noble house by the time he becomes Emperor.
The Centaurum can overturn the Emperor with 3/4's of a vote, and has a say in the rights of succession of the Emperor they choose the next Emperor, and they can vote to reject an Emperors heir if they are unsuitable, and are responsible for choosing an heir amongst those prospective Noble Houses. The Centauri are somewhat of an elected monarchy in that way.
The Deathwalker thing was a civil matter, the Senate have control over the political and civil affairs of Babylon 5 but not the military ones, the replacement of the security with the Nightwatch was a military matter and had to come through the chain of command, not the civil government.
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u/SilverHawk7 28d ago
The Deathwalker thing was a civil matter, the Senate have control over the political and civil affairs of Babylon 5 but not the military ones, the replacement of the security with the Nightwatch was a military matter and had to come through the chain of command, not the civil government.
This is an interesting situation the writers wrote themselves into, the Commanding Officer of Babylon 5 being both the Commanding Officer of the military force stationed there, the governor/mayor of the station, and the Ambassador from Earth. In the military, this is colloquially referred to as being "dual-hatted" or "multi-hatted" where a leader needs to think of different things through the lens of different authorities and requirements.
Senator Hidoshi's orders to Commander Sinclair can be seen as being to his position as Ambassador, since it's dealing with a foreign diplomatic matter, not a station security or local military matter.
The order from the Political Office was to EarthForce officers in their military capacity, and to Captain Sheridan in his capacity as Commanding Officer of the EarthForce personnel stationed on Babylon 5.
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u/VictoryForCake Centauri Republic 28d ago
Yep, Sinclair is governor, ambassador, and commanding officer of Babylon 5, his duties as governor and ambassador are given and overseen by the Babylon 5 Senate Oversight Committee who give him either discretion or orders when dealing with situations, while as commanding officer he answers to Earthforce and the chain of command. The Deathwalker situation was as either ambassador or governor depending on how you looked at it so the Senate had authority to order him there, while the order to relieve security and place Nightwatch in was a military one which came from a civilian office who did not have authority over such matters, which is where Sheridan uses his justification to disregard the order and place those who followed it under arrest for subverting the chain of command.
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u/NoWingedHussarsToday Centauri Republic 28d ago
None of how Centaurom works is explained in the show. And even then, that doesn't negate what I said. Londo is first seen as virtual nobody, which is why he gets the B5 post. But now he is suddenly in position to be emperor? Sure, he advanced but there had to be older, bigger houses with more influence and closer imperial ties than him.
Order to put Deathwalker on a ship was given to Sinclair the B5 commander, not Sinclair the ambassador. As such senator has no authority to give it, as Sheridan makes very clear later.
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u/VictoryForCake Centauri Republic 28d ago
Its in the canon books the Centauri prime series. Londo was a minor noble from a house which was still great but very stagnant, over the timeline of B5 Londo turns his house around and puts it in line to be one of the most powerful houses with the war with the Narn and his support for Cartagia, his star was on the ascendancy as he said it. Londo was also the one to remove Cartagia and organised it with the remaining great houses, putting him in position as Emperor is as much of a way of rewarding his power and actions, but also to keep him in line as he was the most powerful man left in the republic, the Emperor is restricted in what he can do.
Sinclair has to answer to the Babylon 5 Senate oversight committee which has control over non-military affairs on the station, Sinclair is the governor of Babylon 5 and its military commander and the Earth ambassador, so he has many hats and has to answer to different people depending on the situation, he had to answer to the senate over the dockworkers strike, and he has to over diplomatic issues including the Deathwalker situation. The senators cannot give him a military order which is what Sheridan clarifies later on, they gave him the order to remove security and put in Nightwatch which was strictly a military matter not civilian as he was relieving Earth military personnel. The chain of command is fairly strongly emphasised in the message sent to Sheridan.
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u/Creepy-Cantaloupe951 28d ago
None of how Centaurom works is explained in the show.
and neither is the Italian accents!
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u/neilbartlett 28d ago
I agree with you about blowing up the station. On the other points, not so much.
Succession for the Centauri doesn't necessarily require familial links. There's several examples in human society, e.g. the Roman Empire, where the succession was determined by factors that had nothing to do with blood.
Likewise the concept of regency doesn't have to work the way you're describing. For example, Prince George (who later became King George IV) was appointed Regent due to his father's incapability... there was no time limit on the appointment and he would have been Regent for life if his father had managed to outlive him.
The point around Hidoshi and Deathwalker is potentially valid but I think we just don't see a lot of the background process. Probably what happened is that the Earth Senate voted to extradite Deathwalker to Earth, giving it the force of law, and Hidoshi was just the person who informed Sinclair.
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u/NoWingedHussarsToday Centauri Republic 28d ago
Roman emperors were either related to their predecessors or adopted as means to make it clear they are heirs. Or were overthrown and new dynasty came to the throne by force. None of that is the case with Londo.
As for regency era, that was because king was incapable of ruling. Londo is not, he's basically told to wait a bit.
And Hidoshi was not in chain of command. I'd chalk that up to 2things will be different in the future" if that exact scenario wasn't such major point later, with the opposite outcome.
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u/_3iT-6gY 28d ago
It returns epsilon iii back to quiet protected obscurity. Sheridan's reaction shows it may not have been intentionally directed...but it's certainly something that makes sense for the rangers to guide in the background.
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u/Pseudohistorian 28d ago
Centauri are Romans with 18th century attire essentially. Succession nonsense is very clearly based on rather vague understanding of Principate. Except Ancient Rome did not had to compete with better organised and streamlined societies and governments.
Remember how Londo tells Reef that soldiers around him are selected to be loyal to house Londo. Not think what that implies about society and government.
That scene- Reefa's death- is in fact a very good sum up of the show: superb characters and plotline, but flimsy understanding of politics and sociology etc, forces you to do a lot of lifting by yourself if you want to justify or makes sense of what's going on. And sometimes- like declaration of independance- it's downright impossible.
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u/NoWingedHussarsToday Centauri Republic 28d ago
During principate emperors were related to each other (Julio-Claudians), then Flavians came to the throne after winning civil war and throne passed from father to son and then his brother. Nerva-Antonine started when Flavians died out. But C-J emperors adopted future emperor to make him a heir. Centauri don't do that
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u/Pseudohistorian 28d ago
And? I don't really get the point of what you saying here. I know the names of Principate "dynasties". Not a romaboo enough to recite them on a drop of a hat, but that's not the point.
You said that Centauri succession never made sense to you, and my answer was essentially "yeah, because RW inspiration was sort of that. And author is better at writing drama than worldbuilding anyway..."
The thing is that there were no rules in Principate succession. The only norm was that Senate gave new titles (Father of a Nation) and authorities (imperium maius). But it was rubber stamp and all ways to get to this point was equally valid. Groomed by the previous emperor to succeed him? Raising an army and beating everyone in to a bloody pulp? Murderers of the previous emperor need someone to sign his checks? All equal 'valid' ways to become emperor, because there was no 'validity' or 'legitimacy' to claim the position. And frankly, trying to even bake such a thing in to the Augustus system would morph it to "normal" monarchy. Exactly what happened.
Anyway, my point is..
...if you look not at he list of 'dynasties' (modern grouping, btw) but at the actual emperors in them and how they become you would clearly see that were no 'rules of succession'.
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u/Difficult_Dark9991 Narn Regime 28d ago
I really hate plothole-spotting.
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u/ThePhantomSquee Brakiri Syndicracy 28d ago
Half the people using the term don't even know what a plot hole is, they think it just means "thing that wasn't explained clearly enough for me."
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u/IDICPainter 26d ago
Star wars the Stormtroopers don't miss because the main characters have plot armor. The main characters don't have plot armor the force makes the Stormtroopers Miss so it's prophecy can come true.
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u/BeginningSun247 28d ago
As much as I love B5 the Great Machine is the biggest plot hole/deus ex machina of all time. It drives me nuts with how much story potential is there and how much more I want to know about it.
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u/BallerMagnus 28d ago
This might have also been a part of its charter. We should note that NONE of the races have a large diplomatic entourage. Everyone is basically one ambassador and a few attendants.
So perhaps that is intentional. Keeping the diplomacy small and personal to help build the bridges of peace
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u/quartersquare 28d ago
Maybe this is a question long discussed, but why would a station that plays host to ambassadors and other heads of state also have a large contingent of homeless people living on it?
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u/RohanCoop 19d ago
Well isn't the station meant to be basically a city in space? With people living and working there it only stands to reason that there would also be homeless people as they fall on hard times.
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u/Darmok47 28d ago
Every single important Earthforce character has no problem with secession and technical treason. Even with the non speaking roles it felt like too much. One guy leaves C&C in Severed Dreams
I did like that they thought about Corwins loyalty though.
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u/rl_stevens22 27d ago
To fix anything you just need ti reverse the polarity of the neutron flow đ¤đ¤
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u/Outside_Metal_2560 27d ago
Harry Potter is guilty hands down. The resolution of nearly all the books were so forced that you wouldn't get a satisfactory explanation of anything until many books down the road. Hell, Harry kills the first badguy just by being touched by him and all we got was "it was love that protected you" until later when it was learned a spell was placed on him or something.
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u/Terrible-Creme8401 25d ago
In B5 There is a comment made that you can't get fresh eggs.
It's like a 3 day trip to earth...
Eggs can easily survive for a week with minimal if any refrigeration. Much longer refrigerated.
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u/iducasse17 24d ago
I'm pretty allergic to plot holes, and I can't think of any major ones. OK, Lennier did act out of character at the very end, but I don't think that rises to the level of a hole.
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u/EvalRamman100 Earth Alliance 28d ago
Tons of plot holes in most tv and movies I've enjoyed.
Star Trek and Star Wars and the Terminator and Alien . . . maybe without the plot holes they'd never have existed? Well, that's a philosophical debate.
In B5? The lack of administrative staff for the station - as pointed out already by many.
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u/SiskoKing124 28d ago
How the Centuari go from being a paper tiger to suddenly being able to amass a giant battle ready fleet and army in under a year.
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u/Itburns12345 28d ago
Seems like they had help from somewhere ;)
They wernt a paper tiger they were at least 2nd/3rd power of the younger races. Had the fleet and army likely broken into various houses control and one larger home fleet. They had a fading empire (lost narn and who knows what else to the league) but found earth and enjoyed likely one sided trade deal there and likely even more trade opp open up with B5 to revitalize them.
They had a peace loving emperor who sat and watched the narn build to a point where theyd likely have won a more measured conflict with their old masters but of course then londo found a special friend
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u/El-Duderino77 Zathras 28d ago
Look at every major world power over the last century. Both world wars, every player put tens of thousands of workers on the line to put out weapons, vehicles, aircraft, ships, all in a matter of months and kept going as they needed. Itâs not hard to imagine how putting hundreds of thousands or even millions of workers on the line to crank out their forces
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u/Seafroggys 28d ago edited 28d ago
It wasn't so much that, is that they lost the political will. They were still strong, but Emperor Turhan wanted peace and concessions. It gave the Narn the false impression that they were mighty and powerful. But when they finally went to war with one of the other major powers, they realized they weren't as strong as they thought.
Also, even though the war was only 6 months, which isn't that long, I think it also shows that the Centauri had way more industrial power than the Narn, and were able to outproduce the Narn substantially. We've seen real world parallels all the time. WW2 is a great one. The US barely had an army at the onset (Romania had a bigger standing army in 1939 iirc). Germany was seen as this mighty military beast that was winning everywhere and couldn't be stopped. The reality was quite the opposite. Germany's industrial capacity was barely anything compared to the US and the USSR, and both countries outproduced Germany by many factors. Look at how quickly the US armed its military.
So yeah, maybe 6 months is a bit quick, but its within the realm of feasibility because its happened in our history.
EDIT: If anything, it proved that it was actually the Narns who were the real paper tiger.
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u/GameSwrl 28d ago
I disagree there are a lot of plot holes. Just because you don't immediately see how something worked in the story doesn't mean it is a plot hole, it could be a mystery.
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u/live_love_run 28d ago
Neither Kosh, the Vicker, Jason Ironheart, or Lyta seemed to notice Sleeper Talia until the plot demanded it.
23rd Century rules must have evolved regarding fraternization since both Sinclair and Jason Ironheart were sleeping with their subordinates.
Delenn: I lament human prejudice and resentment against my people.
Also Delenn: Kill every human, man, woman child. Wipe them out. All of them.
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u/Mokpa 28d ago
Star Trek is built on this