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B5 race relations

RW7427

Super Moderator
One thing that has always fascinated me about Babylon 5 is all of the different races and how they related to one another. You've got Humans and Minbari who fought a terrible war in which the Human race is almost destroyed, then like 12 or so years later they become allies. You have the Narns and Centauri almost constantly at war. You have the Vorlons using everyone else to do their work, only seeming to form an alliance with the Minbari when they were really using them. Earth signs a non-agression treaty with the Centauri, but the Humans on B5 really support the Narns. Then there is the Centauri alliance with the Shadows and their wars against the League Worlds, who turn to the Humans and Minbari for help. There are just so many different fascinating ways that these races relate to one another. I could sit and watch B5 for hours just taking all of that stuff in.
 
Yes, me too. It's politics and international relations brought to TV, without the dryness of a documentary, and far better structured than random newscasts/reports. The depth of the characters also helps me to feel more engaged with the goings-on. It definitely needed its 5-year arc. I'm glad it got it.
 
Well, I have always been fascinated with history and the way that countries fought, formed alliances, and etc. That is one of the things that drew me to B5.
 
I thought it was kind of amusing because for all the Centauri tried to help us, it seemed like no one on Babylon 5 liked 'em. From any season.
Sure, they're drunk power hungry war mongers, but deep down I think most of them were good.
 
Everyone should have just let them conquer the galaxy. They obviously have the will and in the long run it would be best.
 
But as Kosh refered to, the Centauri were a dying people. They could in no way conquer they galaxy, not without the help of the Shadows. If they went up against the Humans or the Minbari in a major war without Shadow help, they could not beat either. They even needed help to beat the Narns.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by RW7427:
<font color=yellow>But as Kosh refered to, the Centauri were a dying people. They could in no way conquer they galaxy, not without the help of the Shadows. If they went up against the Humans or the Minbari in a major war without Shadow help, they could not beat either. They even needed help to beat the Narns.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>
He didn't specify.
"Who the Narns or the Centauri?"
"Yes"
 
Sorry, I should have specified that Kosh was referring to both the Centauri and the Narns.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr><font color=yellow>But as Kosh refered to, the Centauri were a dying people.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>Kosh was wrong about more isseues.
Unless you see someone dead, consider them alive.
The case of John Sheridan might illustrate that quite well.

When asked about the Centauri, someone who wrote Babylon 5 mentioned that "they did not quite make it to first-oneishness". Being late for first-oneishness is pretty damn far from being dead.
 
perhaps they were dying in the sense that they had reached and passed the peak of their civilisation... and they were just declining from then on. If they never 'rose' again, they would not have made it to First One status, and perhaps they would simply have died out, and been forgotten.
 
Well, according to the Centauri trilogy, they never really did make it to First One status, at least not in the recent decades after B5.
 
I doubt anyone could have made First One within the next couple of decades after B5. /ubbthreads/images/icons/laugh.gif Not even the humans and Minbari - it took slightly longer for the humans to reach that status (I assume the Minbari got around to it at about the same time or perhaps a few millennia earlier). /ubbthreads/images/icons/wink.gif
 
It was my understanding that the humans reached first one status before the Minbari. If memeory serves me there were a couple of threads on the old forum that related to this particular subject.
Next topic, if we look at our own history every empire that rose, fell in the end. Maybe Kosh was referring to that particular point in time that both races were doomed. In their current state that is. If you look at the last episode of series 4, humans just about destroyed themselves on earth but were able to rise from the ashes and rebuild themselves so to speak. Maybe the Narns and Centauri also went through some sort of Catharsis and were renewed, thus able to move on to first one status. I think maybe only JMS would ever be able to clarify it
 
I like the Narn and Centauri as much as anybody, but has a race, they seemed so...petty. All they had been focused on for years and years was blood and retribution.
I think the Narn and Centauri would have destroyed themselves, just like Londo and G'Kar killed each other. Blood calls out for blood, and I don't feel that the Centauri or the Narn would've gotten past that.
 
As for Londo and G'Kar... it was slightly more complicated. G'Kar killed Londo because Londo asked him to, and Londo's keeper killed G'Kar because he threatened its host. In the end this development saved many lives, possibly a great portion of Centauri Prime.
 
I know, I know, but still doesn't it just figure a Narn leader would kill a Centauri leader?
Besides if you were some Centauri or Narn regular schmo, you wouldn't know the real story, and cry vengeance on the opposing race.
 
Even if you would not know Londo Mollari's diary, you would notice the statues Emperor Cotto built to remind of their relationship. And to be painstakingly exact, G'Kar was no longer a leader. He had refused to accept that position.
 

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