Crusade

[S'mon]

Re JMS and B5, I agree that drama (tending to melodrama, but there's a place for that) and plot are his greatest strengths, while his weakness arguably lies in characterisation. G'kar and Londo are good characters, possibly because they represent their entire species (in more ways than one!), possibly because the actors are good ones. By contrast JMS' human characters have always tended to be very wooden and flat - perhaps it's the casting that's poor, but I suspect it's more than that.

Characterisation tends to be one of the strengths of Trek, a successful Star Trek series usually manages to produce some interesting/engaging characters, although there seem to be worryingly less in the recent (post-TNG) series. For me, Enterprise only really has Skip, but that's better than Voyager which had no one until Seven of Nine. I didn't like DS9 (hate the Trill*, hate the Bajorans and what they stand for, like the Cardassians though), so can't really comment on it.

*Actually the Trill Hosts seem to exemplify the perfect Federation citizen. Their only purpose in existence is to serve and obey, even their minds are/were largely under the control of their 'symbiote'. And they LIKE it.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

trademark of later Trek; the blandness, the bland multiculturalism that serves to homogenize every alien race while at the time subtely trumpting human superiority, its lack of real ethical connumdrums {because they can't show the Federation position to ultimately be wrong}, constitutes the opposite of drama. And it shows...

you know, again, I LIKED bab5 but I'm not sure you have a case here. The trumpeting of human superiority in B5 was not terribly subtle at times. There was a very blunt first season ep where the alien races each demonstrated their (one, race wide) religion. At the end, Sinclair showed all the mirdrid religions of earth. If the trek races were homogonized, at least you copuld hope it was a mistake or omission...

Another very disapointing thing JMS did that just screamed 'trek' was presenting alien religions or superstitions as analogies for problems with real life ones (the family who killed their child after surgery, the race that died off in superstitious response to a plauge), but sucking up to the real thing. After the "miracle" of sheridan's rescue, all these wacky alien pilgrims are showing up to seek the "holiness". Zack tells one to "touch the plant" that was nearby, and he does so with a look of brainless awe. Moments later a group of monks come to join the station. Are they here to "touch the plant"? They seem to be some flavor of catholic, would it be reasonable to assume that a church on earth which officially believes in miracles might have sent someone to investigate? Oh no, they just happen to be here at the same time in a scholarly, religious humanist sort of mission, and have many secular skills and abilities which make them invaluable to the station... Any rift in alien religions is a cause for a genocidal war, but later a nice group of protestants, muslims et al show up and are all good friends with the monks, working together for the greater good...

(breath ... breath)

OK, rants and essays aside, my point is that the criticisms you are making of trek can be fairly applied to B5 just as easily. JMS might have pushed the envelope a little more, but in the end we are talking about a television series that toed all the common lines that both old and new trek did. Make the analogies with another race, subtlely show the equality of the future, but make it good and clear that humans in general and a culture that looks strikingly western is just good to the bone, despite some bad apples...

Kahuna Burger, who was never a member of the Church of Joe...

 

[Staffan]

you know, again, I LIKED bab5 but I'm not sure you have a case here. The trumpeting of human superiority in B5 was not terribly subtle at times. There was a very blunt first season ep where the alien races each demonstrated their (one, race wide) religion. At the end, Sinclair showed all the mirdrid religions of earth. If the trek races were homogonized, at least you copuld hope it was a mistake or omission...

In the interest of fairness, it was shown in other episodes that at least some of the alien races had religious diversity as well. For example, I recall Na'Toth mentioning to G'Kar that she followed another religion than G'Quan. The Centauri polytheism seems to leave some room for varying opinions as well. Sure, Minbari religion seems rather monolithic (if open-minded), but that's to be expected of the race that exemplifies Lawful Neutral in D&D terms.

 

[Kahuna Burger]

In the interest of fairness, it was shown in other episodes that at least some of the alien races had religious diversity as well. For example, I recall Na'Toth mentioning to G'Kar that she followed another religion than G'Quan.

Did she follow another, or just none? But yes there was some diversity aluded to. However my main point was that the comment that Trek homogenized the other races and B5 was different from this is quite suspect.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Staffan]

Did she follow another, or just none? But yes there was some diversity aluded to. However my main point was that the comment that Trek homogenized the other races and B5 was different from this is quite suspect.

Some other, IIRC. It's been a while since I saw that particular episode however.

 

[Viking Bastard]

It was often alluded to that the B5 aliens often had more than
one religion. The Narn one was the only one that was ever gone
into detail though. It was revealed that that whatever-ya-call-em-
blue-all-look-alike race had several religions in the episodes after
the Vorlon/Angel sighting, although the differences between them
were never discussed (they were just fighting amongst themselves
over those differences). The Minbari used to have multiple religions
in the ole' days, but they had all merged into one official 'The
Galaxy's a Sentinent Being' Zen Jedi Code cosmology which is also
divided into different philosophical orders. The ruling culture on
Centauri Prime were originally just one of many nations, that
conquered the rest of the planet and forced their culture and
beliefs down their brethren's throats (never revealed on-screen I
think, just from JMS's comments on the subject). Etc.

For me, the main difference between B5 and Trek on this subject
is that although it may not be gone into the multi-cultural aspects
of the B5 universe in detail, it is strongly again and again implied
that we know nearly nothing of the many races, that what we see
is only the outer shell of a very complex society, which the goverment
of said society wants to project to the outer world while I never
get the feeling that there is any more to any of the alien-of-the-
week Trek aliens, even if there really is.

Y'know. Did that make sense?

 

[S'mon]

As an atheist myself, like JMS, JMS' treating of Earth religions with respect - including future-fictional ones, presumably - never bothered me. The Minbari and some other alien religions In think get a fair amount of sympathetic treatment in B5, also. Of course, none of them are being presented as literally 'true' - and there's a strong if sometimes subtle implication that many or all of the more revelatory/transcendent ones are works of Vorlon psycho-historical manipulation, also.

He could have created a world where future real-world religions were engaged in blood-crazed jihads against each other, but that wouldn't make much sense for the B5 universe where for plot purposes the humans need to be capable of the role of neutral mediators - ie humans _need_ to be more tolerant & reasonable than most other species, or the plot doesn't work. I agree this is a similar notion to Trek's; and the differences in seeing how it's handled are one of B5's interesting features. Note that in B5 humans, while apparently developing a greater degree of mutual tolerance/respect than now, don't seem nearly as homogenous as in Star Trek.

 

[S'mon]

He could have created a world where future real-world religions were engaged in blood-crazed jihads against each other...

Of course, such a show might not have made it to air, being too controversial perhaps for most TV networks. About the only genre TV show I've seen in the past several years that dealt at all with religious themes was Witchblade, set in an overtly Christian universe where from what I saw there appeared to be considerable question whether God was even a good guy or not...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer's resolute refusal to deal with (non-Wiccan) religion AT ALL, even when it's hammering on the door to be let in, is one of the few things I find annoying about that excellent show. The only character in priest's garb who wasn't already a corpse when encountered, turns out to be both
1) evil, and
2) atheist!

 

[Kahuna Burger]

The ruling culture on
Centauri Prime were originally just one of many nations, that
conquered the rest of the planet and forced their culture and
beliefs down their brethren's throats (never revealed on-screen I
think, just from JMS's comments on the subject).

wow, that is completely different than the impression I got of the centuari. They struck me much more as a roman style "Nice god, I can use that one too" kind of people. There's one episode where londo is bemoaning his state of affairs to Vir and he says "How many gods to we Centauri have?" which vir answers with some very large (in the hundreds?) but precise number, and londo says "and how many of them must I have offended to deserve this?" (to which the reply is of course "uh, all of them?")

Londo also makes regular references to the "Great Maker" when feeling serious... leading me to believe that the centauri culture keeps their gods around as conversation peices and never throws one out, but reserves any actual spiritual feelings for a less flashy force.

Kahuna Burger

 

[Viking Bastard]

Ah, yes, but the Centauri Republic we saw was the Centauri
Republic after a millenium (or somthing) in space. It used to be
a fearsome empire ruled by the great Centauri royal family.

By the time of B5 they've been taken over by Bureocrats.

.

EDIT: Ah, sorry, misread your post.

I wouldn't be surprised if they did some cultural adjusting too.
Sure, they crammed their culture down other people's throats but
they probably picked up quite a bit too.

.

EDIT, THE RETURN: My above answer still stands though. The
Centauri used to be a fearsome race of conquest. In the B5 era
they're merchants that pick up any trinket or interesting lookin'
piece of junk they can find. Why not collect Gawds too? Also, by
cramming their culture on others, they might not have necessarily
disallowed their religions, bur rather forced them to adjust it to
their previously established religious structure.