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Crusade, what the hell MIGHT have happened.

babylonfan

Regular
So, with the book series about to be completed, I am hopefull to get a resolution on the story. But, before we get there, how about making up the story ourselfes, and seeing how much of it is true when the books are released.



Just to be on the safe side: spoiler warning for both B5 and Crusade. I suppose everyone on these boards has seen both series multiple times already, but it never hurts to be thorough. :)



My guess where the story was headed is this:

It is well established that the remnants of the psi-corps would feature quite heavily in Crusade. This is both seen on screen, with seemingly a reference to the corps every other episode, but also and most definately seen of-screen. For instance the unfilmed script Value Judgements featuring Bester. Or in To the ends of earth a half dollar coin floating amongst wreckage of the hybrid shadow fighter, this to me is clearly a call-back to the psi-corps telekinetics experiments referenced in Mind war and one or two other episodes.

We also know that the psi-corps and the Shadows were cooperating. For instance, by sending blips to the shadows in Ship of tears. Clearly they had a long term plan as well: Morden, Earth Dome and a psi-corps agent where discussing strategies in Messages from Earth.

I am thinking that the Drakh virus was not just a virus to kill people.

I think that the virus would have gone strictly after "mundanes", leaving telepaths alone. This would have been done by modifying the virus Edgars Industries was working on in episode The Face of the Enemy.

As payment for the Drakh's services, the corps might have send low level telepaths to them. Who knows, the virus might force mind-bursts on anyone that had the dormant telepath gene. Those low level telepaths would not be incredibly valuable for the corps, but would be very usefull for the Drakh and their leftover Shadow tech.

A lot of people seem to think that blowing up Psi Corps HQ in The well of forever was the conclusion to the telepath war. I am not buying that. For me, it was just a small step towards the real war. The real war I feel would have been the latter seasons of Crusade. I find it hard to believe that JMS would close such an important and interesting storyline in a two minute flashback scene.

So, what do you guys think? What's your headcanon.
 
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Is this Crusade "What the hell happened?" book series restart supposed to actually give resolution to Crusade? From what I could read on the B5Books site, it does have a few more found scripts available, but it's more a collection of notes, stories, behind the scenes, etc.


I don't think it's supposed to tell the Crusade story that was left untold, is it?
 
It can't, because that story was never written. JMS may have outlined some or all of it, but except for the few unproduced scripts and outlines, no, the WTTH books will tell the story as we saw it - though perhaps there might be some earlier drafts before the TNT notes? Dunno. But, no, no resolution. JMS has been asked, and his response is always that he doesn't do 'might-have-beens' (paraphrasing).
 
That’s a shame. I’d been hoping, admittedly against better judgement, that we would get the story outline that JMS would have made.
 
You're not alone. I really hated seeing Crusade cancelled. But it does make sense that a story can't be completely fleshed out in perfect detail when you are working in an area like television. You have to keep options open for all kinds of creative and production-related reasons.
 
JMS has been asked, and his response is always that he doesn't do 'might-have-beens' (paraphrasing).

Yes, but that doesn't mean he couldn't do a So here is how it went. :p:p:p ;)

Honestly I think that would drive me crazy. Being a storyteller and coming up with an epic story only to be unable to finish telling it. He has to have some notes on where he wanted it to end up so how can there be a "never" going to happen scenario with finally laying out the whole story. I think we all just need to lure JMS around the campfire and then he can spin us the Crusade yarn in person. ;)
 
JMS has been asked, and his response is always that he doesn't do 'might-have-beens' (paraphrasing).

Honestly I think that would drive me crazy. Being a storyteller and coming up with an epic story only to be unable to finish telling it.)

Unless he wants to hold onto the story in case he wants to use some of the plot points, maybe in the B5 reboot, maybe in a completely different project one day. Or maybe he already has and doesn't want to give away that he's used them elsewhere?

Though I disagree that he doesn't do might-have-beens. He did a might-have-been in volume 15 of the script books with the original outline of B5.
 
Though I disagree that he doesn't do might-have-beens. He did a might-have-been in volume 15 of the script books with the original outline of B5.

Yes, he did. Captain Jaclyn can be hard to say 'no' to (plus it was (eeek!) 14 years ago. :thumbsup: But it's the way he responds these days.
 
Not sure where to put this as it is Crusade-related but not so much WTHH-related. And of course everyone on the mailing list already knows this :) ...

...looks like the option to get/purchase the Crusade encyclopedia will expire in about 23-ish hours.

Re-Update-ish: Extended till midnight Tuesday (25th).
 
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