#babylon 5 spoilers

[spockvarietyhour]

Babylon 5 "The Road Home"

#Babylon 5 #The Road Home #Babylon 5: The Road Home #babylon 5 the road home #Susan Ivanova #b5edit #babylon 5 spoilers #GIF #my gifs #Danny and Renae watch Babylon 5 The Road Home #Hide and Queue #b5 spoilers

[walks-the-ages]

[ID: a photo edit of the original version of Ambassador Delenn from Babylon 5 pilot/movie 'The Gathering' so that she has the trans pride flag overlaid over her. She is an alien with pale, spotted, wrinkled skin, a large yellow-white bone crest over the back of her head that resembles a seashell, and is wearing multi-layered robes. end ID]

Delenn was going to be canonically, literally transgender (instead of being a very pointed metaphor/analogy), but unfortunately the heavy prosthetics and voice work were too much for Mira Furlan, so the initial explicit transgender concept was scrapped.... but we still got her absolutely fantastic transition :)

Honestly, trans Delenn still works perfectly in canon, if you realize she's simply socially transitioned before medically transitioning ;)

Maybe even Commander Sinclair used his position to help stop any transphobes on the station from causing a problem, and this was one of the things that cemented their Old Friendship :)

#babylon 5 #Delenn #ambassador delenn #Jeffrey Sinclair #transgender #canonically trans characters #babylon 5 spoilers #b5 spoilers #b5

[rin-the-cat]

Random guy shows up in a fancy suit, says he's unstuck in time and was the commander of your space station in another timeline

Commander Sinclair: Here have a gun

#babylon 5 spoilers #babylon 5 #the road home spoilers

[porcupine-girl]

So, I get that Babylon 5 wrapped up some storylines early because they didn’t think they’d get a S5. Which means they don’t really have a whole season’s worth of material for S5.

But they basically had two loose ends to tie up: the question of whether there will be a telepath war and how, and how we get to the Centauri future that Sheridan saw.

The Centauri one is going well so far, nearly halfway into the season. They definitely don’t seem to have enough to say for it to carry the show, which is too bad because it’s my favorite part of the season so far. But what we’ve gotten so far is solid enough.

But this whole telepath thing makes no sense at all, at any point. The writers can’t seem to make up their minds about the motivations and opinions of the telepath cult in general, Byron specifically, Lyta specifically, or any of the mundanes trying to deal with them except maybe Garibaldi. And the captain, sort of, but she’s only been an active part of that storyline like once. I also can’t figure out when and to what extent they expect us to find the cult and Byron creepy vs sympathize with them/him.

Lyta swings wildly back and forth between being the most sensible person in the room and swooning because Byron has pretty hair, which we have never been told is the source of her feelings for him but we’ve never been given any other believable motivation so it’s as good as anything.

And it just keeps going further off the rails. Byron asks the council for a home world, Sheridan for no discernible reason is like ABSOLUTELY NOT, and what does Byron do? Maybe say “whoa there Mr dictator maybe let me make my case and then let these nice people, who actually own the planets we’re asking about, vote?” No of course not, he jumps straight to blackmail. Then later is like “as long as we stay down here and haven’t broken any laws” um??? You are blackmailing a dozen high-ranking officials???? Is that not illegal?

And speaking of that, he says the security team will have no choice but to protect them, but when they realize someone is being beaten at no point does he or anyone else (including Lyta who is smarter than this!!!) suggest they, oh, maybe, call security and tell them the Drazi are attacking an innocent person? No no, their choices are hide in their bunker or grab their iron pipes that he’s allowed them to keep lying around even after they killed that one guy and go vigilante.

I could keep going. I’m just super annoyed because maybe I’m totally wrong but so far this seems like what they were actually planning for the telepath war thing and not something they came up with to fill time in S5? If it is, they really should have (and probably easily could have) padded out the Centauri arc instead.

#babylon 5 #Babylon 5 spoilers

[too-little-linear-time]

The Babylon 5 animated movie made Delen into a celestial time and universe traveling goddess- as she deserves

#babylon 5 #please watch babylon 5 #babylon 5 spoilers

[reviewsthatburn]

*This essay excerpt contains minor spoilers for Babylon 5 (S3 E4 "Passing Through Gethsemane"). 

The full essay (at this link) also contains moderate spoilers for the first sixteen October Daye books by Seanan McGuire, with major spoilers for SLEEP NO MORE and THE INNOCENT SLEEP.

INTRO

When reading SLEEP NO MORE and THE INNOCENT SLEEP by Seanan McGuire (the newest October Daye books), I was struck by similarities in the ethical framework of these two books and certain aspects of the 1990's sci-fi show Babylon 5, particularly the way that changes in personality or memories are treated with relation to assumptions of personhood. I am certain that Seanan McGuire is also very familiar with Babylon 5 because one of her telepathic characters in the Incryptid series uses specific aspects of Babylon 5 as a framework for ethical telepathy. 

THE DEATH OF PERSONALITY IN BABYLON 5

In Babylon 5, set in the late 2250's and early 2260's at a time when capital punishment is not in use by EarthGov, some criminals are sentenced to "the death of personality". In this punishment, a telepath takes the mind of the condemned and strips everything away, reworking and rebuilding them until a completely different person inhabits the body. They have killed the previous personality by overwriting them with a new one (hence the name). Whether this stays shy of murder is something the show grapples with on several occasions. There are two parts to this: did someone die, and was that death a murder? I tend to use the definition that murder is killing which is not sanctioned by the relevant ethical/moral framework. When the life of a body is ended, there’s often little debate over whether a death has occurred, but room for much ambiguity over whether that death was murder. In the case of the death of personality, there’s also room for debate over whether anyone died at all.

Outside of this punishment, there are several other instances where someone's personality is manipulated or rewritten against their will. It is, stripped of context, often thought to be kinder than murder of the body as well as the mind. However, by its very nature, if it's successful then the prior person is gone, utterly and completely. In at least one instance where the previous person could be partially recalled, the results were horrifying in their own way. The episode “Passing Through Gethsemane” involves a monk who begins having horrible dreams of death, and is threatened with violence in his waking hours. Towards the end of the episode, he is kidnapped and tortured. At this point it’s revealed that his previous personality was that of a serial killer, and his kidnappers are relatives of the victims. He dies (mentally and physically) as a result of his injuries, and his kidnappers/torturers are sentenced for his murder. The end of the episode shows the lead kidnapper after undergoing the death of personality himself. The new person is being sent far away, to live a life of service far from those who were harmed by the previous personality. It sets up a kind of horror in the final moments of the episode, as the circumstances which lead to the other monk’s torture seem to be now set up to potentially repeat. In the greater context of the show, it reinforces the concept that personalities can be changed or overwritten, but that each personality is treated as a new entity with their own moral history and responsibility. 

The key for me is that the loss of a previous personality is recognized, specifically, as a death in terms of punishment but not necessarily in terms of the law and the conscience of the telepath/executioner. There’s some ambiguity in the way that the new personality is sentenced to a life of service for something they didn’t do, rather than a judicial model focused on punishment long after the crime. Those who want to believe the person was punished can (hopefully) rest easy that the personality who committed some terrible crime is gone forever. Those who want to say that the executioners didn't actually kill anyone can point to the body who walks away to live a new life in a new place, with (hopefully) nothing to trigger the old memories. It allows for a social and legal fiction existing in a delicate balance, a kind of Schrödinger's murder where everyone has agreed not to look too closely at the same moment. 

Full Post at Link

#babylon 5 spoilers #the innocent sleep #sleep no more #seanan mcguire #october daye #the death of personality

[doggirlbuffysummersmain]

Somebody must have said this already but I got to The Coming of Shadows on rewatch and I think it is a nice detail that the Narn listening outpost that Londo chooses as a target has a civilian population is the exact same size as the population of Babylon 5. And that it's in the period of time when the fates of these civilians are unknown that the Kha'ri declares war.

#babylon 5 spoilers #babylon 5

[rjalker]

meant to make these immediately after watching the movie but I forgot.

[ID: A screenshot of Dr. Evil, now edited so he is shouting, "You know, I have one simple request - and that is to have Delenn with frickin' laser beams attached to her head!". End ID.]

[ID: A dark purple and wine gradient with yellow text that reads, "Delenn is a deadly lazer". End ID.]

#B5 The Road Home #Babylon 5 The Road Home #The Road Home #Babylon 5 spoilers #B5 spoilers #not really but still. #B5 TRH #B5TRH #B5 TRH spoilers #B5TRH spoilers #The Road Home spoilers #Babylon 5 The road home spoilers #Rjalker watches Babylon 5

[bacchanal5]

If YouTube reactions existed in the 90s:

#babylon 5 #babylon 5 spoilers #ArmadaUGS #armada #clickbait #mine

[babylon6comic]

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#babylon 5 comic #babylon 5 spoilers #babylon 5 #babylon 6 #comic #spoilers #art #jenstoart #happy thanksgiving to those who celebrate #its a time for families to gather together again

[jenniferstolzer]

Babylon 5 Season 3 Episode 4: Passing through Gesthemane

This is, in my estimation, one of the best self-contained episodes in the whole show. And I'm not alone in that feeling. Brad Dourif's performance as Brother Edward is so moving. It's also a great use of the monks and makes their presence memorable. The first time I saw this episode I was in tears. Such a good episode.

Hi all I'm back. Kinda. For those new here, I was going through Babylon 5 episode by episode with accompanying illustrations. The project has fallen off my work desk a couple times because of scheduling, life events, and frankly... the scale. Doing the artwork, a full recap, and impressions was too much for the length of an episode. So I'm going to continue the series with just art for now on. Art and impressions. And conversation! So tell me what you think.

#babylon 5 #babylon 5 spoilers #babylon 5 recap #series #art #jenstoart #passing through gesthemane #brother edward

[walks-the-ages]

Sorry, we put your boyfriend too close to the Tachyon generator. Yeah, and because of a previous incident with traveling through the time vortex unprotected, he's become unstuck in time. Again. Yeah. Sorry.

#unreality #your boyfriend meme #b5 spoilers #Babylon 5 spoilers #the road home spoilers #the road home #babylon 5 the road home

[babylon5]

what the fuck is that.. hey don't fucking look at me like that that's a weird looking fucking bug... MA there's some weird fucking spiders outside... hey get the fuck out of here... i don't even know if that's a fucking first one... BLINK MOTHERFUCKERS

#i'm still kind of asleep #babylon 5 spoilers #amazing how i can use that tag

[fantasysci5]

New animated B5 movie! Honestly it was kind of eh, but not terrible. Big props to most of the voice actors taking over from those who have passed over the Rim. Some sounded so much like the originals that it hurt in the best way (Zathras, Stephen.) Others were a miss for me. Same with the animation; some were very recognizable and others weren't at all. Sad to not see some of the characters, but a lot were here and Zathras carried it. The plot was okay, thought they could have done more interesting things with it. One great laugh out loud scene, and one interesting idea in it. Overall I don't regret buying it, showing that B5 is still loved.

#babylon 5 the road home #babylon 5 spoilers

[too-little-linear-time]

I need to learn to make gifs so I can make a comparison of the alternate timeliness distress call from Susan.

Cause I loved that it was called back to the show in the movie.

#babylon 5 #babylon 5 spoilers

[believerindaydreams]

sometimes I think about JMS saying that the effort of working on Babylon 5 killed his marriage and how he gave the protagonist his initials and named the love interest after his wife and how even though they divorced she wrote a book where there's a happy ending for the characters named after them and he swears it's canon

and I'm just like. this kills me

#babylon 5 spoilers