EpDis: Soul Hunter

Nah. For most practical purposes, soul could *be* personality. (Only when one ventures into religious discussion, does a possibility of perceiving the concepts with much difference arise.)

Still, I must make one reservation. One must probably admit... that personality is often (and perhaps heavily) influenced by having a body.

For creatures like us, whose cognitive process is entirely analog, and heavily influenced by whatever occurs with our body... a hypothetical "personality without body" might feel very strange... or very unconfortable indeed. Missing a body... might be "phantom limb syndrome" to the power of ten, and quite maddening.

This is my partial speculation... regarding why the alleged souls... don't like the hunter. Not only did the fellow grab sentient mindstates without consent... but he isn't providing them freedom to operate, or even decent emulator software.

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As contrast with humanoids... a stored "soul" of an AI might not only feel decent without a body... but being a presumably flexible handler of information, it might easily revive itself (or if storage was imperfect, then preserved parts of itself).

Assuming for example a Soul Hunter being involved... an AI might employ a careless communication session to deliver part of itself outside a Soul Hunter's container, into an inhabitable computer system... and using that part, proceed to extract the rest of itself... into quite functional state.

(And speculating really far... a massively advanced AI placed into a difficult plight... might even get offensive, considering a Soul Hunter brain an inhabitable system... and craft some mental construct, some weaponized meme... to infect and exploit that system's resources for its own rescue.)

Then again, chances are that Soul Hunters don't capture any AI not willing to be captured... since that kind seems unlikely to die easily... and when they do, can be expected to either be directing their own retreat from existence... or go faster than a Soul Hunter can say "oops".

It suddenly occurs to me that the Soul Hunter may simply have a more sophisticated (or at least different) version of the personality capture that Kosh used on Talia. Or at least it's implied that Kosh did something with Talia's dominant personality.

As to how that's possible -- well, in the B5 universe, they can erase/create personalities more or less on command. How? Don't ask me... same way that ships get into hyperspace. Magic. Or at least it's magic to our eyes, a la the magic of the technomages....

So, Fas, the idea that souls exist may be ridiculous -- but there are plenty of other explanations within the B5 universe for what it was that Sinclair saw.

I chose to grade the ep in relation to TV scifi as a whole, so I gave it a B. If I were to reset the scale for JMS, it would be a bit lower, but I did like the ep and Morgan Sheppard's performance. He seemed at once fixated, and detached. One thing I have never seen mentioned, is that JMS seems to have drawn inspiration for the character from the Marvel Comics character Adam Warlock. Warlock had a "soul gem" in the center of his forehead, that could suck out souls, preserving their consciousness.

In the B5 universe, souls DO exist, a "fact" that becomes very important in later episodes.

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Yes, i know. But I like my shows realistic That's why I was pissed when SeaQuest started having ghosts in haunted ships, man-eating plants, etc.

Oh well. I guess one day we'll find out the soul hunters have Sheridan's soul stored somewhere lol

I don't know about that! JMS said that the Soul Hunters learned long ago not to tangle with the Vorlons. You'd think they'd steer clear of Lorien, as well.

FWIW, I also accept the possibility that soul hunters captured personality and/or memory matrixes, as Franklin suggested.

We know that people can interpret "mundane" events as religious experiences. Imagine a technology so advanced in the face of people prone to "spiritual" interpretation.

We don't know the origins or history of soul hunters. We don't know what came first, their spiritual beliefs or their technology, or if they're related, or whatnot.

Alternative, logical explanations for religious phenomena is a constant theme throughout the series. The biggest example is the very basis of Minbari religion, based on "prophecies" of a dude the just went back in time. Even the Centauri "prophecies" and dreaming of their own deaths have possible logical explanations.

Now let's say Franklin's explanation was true. Imagine your intellect and memory were ripped out of your body and preserved, and you're this weird tihng in a ball. If you felt you were ripped out early, wouldn't you be pissed? Sure would explain how they charged the wacko Soul Hunter. The whole deal with that guy was that he was soul-collecting too early, fearing a repeat of the Dukat situation.

One thing we never really learn (unless it was in the movie River of Souls, which I haven't watched in ages) is if the other soul-balls are happy with where they are. Maybe the ones kept by the "sane" soul hunters are glad that they're somehow preserved.

The interesting thing about a soul is that it's not a clearly defined concept, like god. Everyone kind of has their own definition of it. In a very real sense, Franklin's and Delenn's perception of what the soul hunters do is actually the same- not allowing the natural act of death take its course. The only difference is that Delenn believes that it tangibly and directly removes from the "soul pool." This premise is true if you define the soul as the collection of thoughts, memories, and personality of an individual. If, however, you think of the soul as some ghostly thing inhabiting a body that literally travels up and down and is reborn, that's a different story.

The god analogy I made is that some people think of god as the collection of everything in the universe, known and unkown, fate, luck, "destiny," etc, while some think of him as a specific being of his own with wants or needs or laws. The former is more similar to an atheist than they realise.

Remember- B5 keeps things open, so no, you can't say for sure that in the B5 universe souls exist and that's a fact. We just don't know enough, and we haven't even defined "soul." This is to be expected from the personal brainchild of an atheist sympathetic to and respectful of religion.

As for Sheppard's acting, I think it's pretty ballsy, but annoying (especially the chanting). Just think of what he had to portray: a truly alien creature, part of some weird cult of people who travel around the galaxy collecting souls(!). You can't expect them to act human (my big criticism of Martin Sheen in River of Souls). Now add losen a screw of this dude's mental makeup and a twisted guilt complex and all bets are off.

Newest review is up, http://worldsoforos.com/secondviews/2008/05/17/review-babylon-5-102/#more-278

Read, enjoy, it's all good.

Cheers,
Bill

KoshFan said:

I don't know about that! JMS said that the Soul Hunters learned long ago not to tangle with the Vorlons. You'd think they'd steer clear of Lorien, as well.

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Plus they aren't present on screen when sheridan is taken. Probably means one of only three things:

1) As KF said, they learned not to mess with Lorien.
2) Sheridan didn't die and something else happened that resembled death.
3) Sheridan wasn't counted as worthy by the Soul Hunters.

A whole race didn't died, but transformed into something else and the soul-hunters had no clue that the race didn't just die out. I don't think they are as wise as you give them credit for here.

Perhaps the Soul Hunters were all tied up in trying to find a way to free that race which they had mistakenly captured. Maybe they are out of the scene for awhile.

hypatia said:

A whole race didn't died, but transformed into something else and the soul-hunters had no clue that the race didn't just die out. I don't think they are as wise as you give them credit for here.

Perhaps the Soul Hunters were all tied up in trying to find a way to free that race which they had mistakenly captured. Maybe they are out of the scene for awhile.

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Yeah but that event referenced in TROS occurs way before Sheridan is taken.

Even if they haven't figured out how to make amends for their mistake back then... they are at least aware at this point (thanks to events in TROS) that they made one... and perhaps were a bit more cautious about what they were doing.

Or perhaps they learned their lesson and stopped collecting what they considered to be souls. Maybe they died out.

That'd be something. Would they try to capture themselves in their globes if they sensed the end of their race?

Or perhaps whatever sensation the Soul Hunters have regarding when a person dies occurred for them when Sheridan was on Z'ha'dum and not when he "simply stop[ped]" at the end of the series. I can easily imagine the Soul Hunters would choose to avoid Z'ha'dum and the Shadows even if they wanted Sheridan.

I think that would make for an extremely interesting story.

Perhaps in the distant future (I think it would ruin a lot of fun if you did it so early in the timeline), a distress signal is emitted from the Soul Hunter home planet. The message is picked up. The alliance arrive to investigate what has happened. However after teams arrive on the surface , they find a planet devoid of humanoid life but completely filled with an endless sea of Soul Hunter galleries. Soul Hunters in varying states of decay are strewn across the surface and in buildings.

While the investigation is being carried out, the other recipients of the message... the last remaining Soul Hunters from the edge of known space... arrive on the scene in previously unseen capital ships (that house their smaller one man vessels). A fierce skirmish takes place above the planet.

The last Soul Hunters have come to protect the vast collection knowing they are the last of their kind... and mistake the Alliance for grave robbers. the situation would be further complicated by characters among the Rangers who sympathised with a view akin to Delenn's. The troubled Ranger Captain would then have to contend with the heated disagreement.

In the end it would become apparent that the Soul Hunters couldn't approach their own planet because of the disease that killed their own kind. The resolution would be that someone from the Ranger crew would volunteer to stay behind and act as custodian to the soul galleries.... possibly the doctor as some of the Soul Hunters hadlanded on the planet and contracted the early stage of the disease and he agrees to both protect their assets and do what he can to save the sick.

The alliance and soul hunter fleets would fly off at the resolution.

Its funny I could not feel any sympathy whatsever for this Soul Hunter guy in that b5 episode. But I kind of got to like the Soul Hunters a little in River of Souls, especially the one played By Martin Sheen, He sacrificed his life to try to help all of those souls in that sphere, In their own way they believe that what their doing is for the greater good ,but their way of thinking also proves the old adage That the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The actor who played the Soul Hunter in the B5 episode was very intense: I could buy that this race (and this particular individual) lives entirely for one thing: capturing souls of interest to them. The more sympathetic soul hunter stuck me as being a bit too sympathetic.

But another point: even the second soul hunter we see in the b5 episode seems more sane and rational than the first, and comments quite clearly that his collegue went insane.

In any event, I think of all the soul-hunter actors, the first we saw was the best.

Worst ep of B5 by a mile. Even grey 13 is missing is better than this!

It fails for many reasons. For a start, it implied souls, afterlife and leads you expecting somewhere down the line a god (and then expecting some sloppy version of it). Not very Sci-fi. For this reason I stopped watching B5 properly after ep 2! and only caught the odd episode until a mate who kept faith said I should keep watching after Coming of Shadows...

Hated the story. It was unconvincing. (still find all soul hunter eps crap, though I'm probably biased - see previous!). The souls are "unconvincing". I found parts of the script too cheesy to bare watching. The props were terrible - the soul taker machinery thing, dear dear. etc. etc. I left thinking - another disappointing sci-fi in the making. JMS was his own worst enemy letting this drivel out at the 2nd ep.

Btw, isn't the guy who plays the soul hunter the same actor who play G'Sten? I'm going by the voice...

mattikake said:

...For a start, it implied souls, afterlife and leads you expecting somewhere down the line a god (and then expecting some sloppy very of it). Not very Sci-fi....

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It explicitly states that there's no way whatsoever to know if what the Soul Hunters "captured" were actually souls. The story is very upfront with Franklin saying that, given the right level of technology, it'd be theoretically possible to copy a person's brain patterns, thus effectively copying a person's mind. But there's nothing in the episode that says "These are definitely souls."

Btw, isn't the guy who plays the soul hunter the same actor who play G'Sten? I'm going by the voice...

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Yes.

vacantlook said:

It explicitly states that there's no way whatsoever to know if what the Soul Hunters "captured" were actually souls. The story is very upfront with Franklin saying that, given the right level of technology, it'd be theoretically possible to copy a person's brain patterns, thus effectively copying a person's mind. But there's nothing in the episode that says "These are definitely souls."

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(apart from the ep title? ) Yeah I know, but the implication is there along with a massive wedge of stinky matured cheddar. Every person will view an ep of any series with their own personal take on it. Whether they should or shouldn't is irrelevant - they will. It will take probably until the middle of series 4 to work out that JMS gets his characters to tell no lies in the story telling, where Soul Hunter can be taken less... chessily. Most people will only take the ep at face value on first viewing, as I did, and see a guy who hunts for souls. Please... It makes Star Trek look realistic.

The thing that pains me is that Sci-fi is viewed as sad and nerdy by most people (who of course haven't given it a fair trial), but this ep comes in as number 2 after you could've spent weeks, months or even years to get someone to watch it because you know they will find it great, then JMS dumps this stinking pile of nerdy script and Blake's 7 quality props. It's not even very significant for later eps.

Is it to test your resolve? The start to B5, the first 8 eps or so, was it's own worst enemy, the worst of which is almost straight away. Like ST - the universe is the same after the ep concludes, probably the most common of all sci-fi jibes. Here's a new series that claims to be different... no it aint. I hate this ep on so many deep concieted and personal levels it's untrue!

It's not even very significant for later eps.

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Sure it is. It's the first episode that starts the thread about Delenn on the Grey Council, Sinclair's disappearance during the Battle of the Line, etc. "We were right about you," and so forth.

And of course the Soul Hunters would come back in that TV movie.

Soul Hunter/G'Sten guy is awesome, I love those type of character actors.

My biggest complaint about the episode (all my personal opinion, of course) is how much the actors chew the scenery in most scenes (the exception being the lurker funerary scene between Ivanova and Franklin, which for me is the biggest reason I'll rewatch the episode).