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Legend of the Rangers: What Would Have Happened?

Hi, everyone. Let's speculate a bit, shall we? Since many, many, many clues of what would eventually happen in B5 were dropped in "The Gathering," I think it's probably fair to assume that the seeds of a lot of what would have happened in "Rangers" were planted in the pilot. ("To Live and Die in Starlight")

Obviously, the question of what happened to the crew of the Liandra, and who the traitor was would have been revealed. The Traitor, of course, would still be alive. I'm not convinced that we met the traitor in the pilot episode, of course, but I think they would have been a major recurring character in the series itself, had it gone on. I'm assuming it's whomever their superior in the Rangers was - whomever gave them their marching orders. I base this on nothing whatsoever.

Obviously, we would have had to deal with The Hand. Obviously there would have been run-ins with the Drakh. Obviously Bester would have turned up eventually.

My big hunch, however, is that much of the show would have been dedicated to the Telepath Wars. Crusade started 5 years after the formation of the ISA, 4 years after the show ended, and the war was said to be "Recent" in the first episode. "Rangers" started about 2.5 years before that, or about 2.5 years after the ISA, about 18 months after the penultimate episode of Season 5, and the war hadn't started yet. Lyta gave Garibaldi 2 years to get things in gear for her, and then she'd remove the "blocks', which means whatever she was planning would have started about six months after the pilot. Ergo, probably, the Telepath War would start around the end of the first season, and simmer in the background for the next season or two.

Now, JMS has said that the cure to the Drakh plague would have been found before the end of the season, "Possibly well before." I'd submit that using the Straczynskian standard design of 5 seasons, 110 episodes, and the fact that the third season of Rangers would have taken place concurrently with "Crusade" that it's likely the show was intended to pick up the Drakh Plage thread and resolve it, possibly involving as many Crusade alumns as were willing to guest star.

So whadya' all think?
 
Just to clarify, JMS said that the cure to the Drakh Plague would be found around the middle of the *second* season. I think that's what you meant but there's a word missing.

I don't think the Rangers would be involved with the Teep War simply because they worked for the Interstellar Alliance, not Earth.

While I think that we might well have seen parts of the Telepath War in the background, my impression was that there were issues with the Ranger Council that would play a major part in what the crew of the Liandra faced. Not just that they were hidebound and stuck in old ways, that there was corruption, too.

Jan
 
Thanks, Jan! My "Before the end of the Season" comment was a typo. I meant to say "Before the end of the Series." Sorry.

I hadn't actually heard JMS say that it would be found in the middle of the 2nd season (Which would place it around the late 4th or early 5th season of Rangers). The last quote I'd heard from him was that it "Might" be found "Considerably" before the end of the show. I take what you say on faith, though, I haven't really been following his comments in a long time, so obviously I've missed a lot. <G>

He *did* say somewhere that the ISA ended up having to intervene in the Telepath war eventually, so that could/would have brought in the Rangers in some capacity.

I totally, totally agree that it would have had to deal with corruption in the Ranger leadership, since obviously someone betrayed the Liandra to whomever/whatever killed the crew (Which may not have been related to The Hand).
 
This is facinating, i would have loved if the series went on. My own thoughts about where the series would have lead could have been included a new colony for the rangers to be their own seperate nation who live in secret and are guardians of the great aliance. we see some evidence of this in the last episode of season 5 of the Babylon 5 Series
 
http://www.theadvertisingwebsite.com i could even say that the hand who also live in secret maybe the old brothers of the vorlons and the shadows, maybe an old enimy who they have forgotten about over the years of their own war and include possibilities of the returning of the first ones to fight one last battle in the protection of the children to come:cool:
 
I don't really know. On one of the other threads, someone else mentioned that JMS mentioned that the Rangers story was supposed to dovetail into the attempted Crusade story and resolve that, but I really don't know any details.
 
I had always assumed that Legend of the Rangers would have been dealing with leftover first-one technology for possible use against the 'hand' along with day to day ranger matters and missions.

Then again, maybe the hand were created as a red herring for the real story which in true JMS style would show up later in the series.
 
The Hand, along with most of the movie was pretty bad. If not for G'kar it would have been a disaster. Even the opening battle scene when the captain asks how many raider ships remain. David says....6 are left. But we can clearly see at least 10 raider ships they are in pursuit of . At least Christopher Frankes music was very good. I do not even keep LOTR with the rest of my B5 dvds. As far as I am concerned LOTR never happened.
 
The Hand, along with most of the movie was pretty bad. I do not even keep LOTR with the rest of my B5 dvds. As far as I am concerned LOTR never happened.

You're not the only one! It was a disaster even with G'Kar.
 
Ditto :). Easy to focus on the things that we don't like so much to the point that we don't notice and promote sufficiently the good things :): eg, the great performance of Alex Zahara as Dulann, several of the rest of the crew (those who played Na'Feel [reminded me of JCB as Na'Toth], Firell, Kitaro and others). To each his or her own, though.
 
Ditto :). Easy to focus on the things that we don't like so much to the point that we don't notice and promote sufficiently the good things :): eg, the great performance of Alex Zahara as Dulann, several of the rest of the crew (those who played Na'Feel [reminded me of JCB as Na'Toth], Firell, Kitaro and others). To each his or her own, though.

I've always said that Dulann, Na'Feel and Firell were definite plusses in B5:LotR. The trouble is that you have to experience the mountain of crap that is the setup for the story, the story itself, and Sarah Cantrell (acting, lines and OMG could it be more cringeworthy, mine destroying sequence.) to get to those plusses.

To me, B5:LotR is the single worst B5 TV episode or TV movie ever made. I could edit it down to about 10 minutes of good stuff, and in that respect it's the "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" of the Babylon 5 universe/franchise.
 
AGREED...wait. Almost forgot TKO.

Nooooo, it's worse than TKO. I can watch TKO (and Grey 17 is Missing, and Infection) all the way through. Can't say that for B5:LotR, because there are places that are so bad that I have to FF or leave the room.
 
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