Which is better: B5 or DS9...

[Fade]

IIRC the custodial nature of the Vorlons and Shadows wasn't revealed until very late, just prior to the war's resolution. Before that the war seemed a more primal conflict fueled by the intrinsic nature of the combatants being diametrically opposed. If there were hints that the conflict was, as it turned out to be, just a political one between the younger races' babysitters, I guess I ignored them in favor of the more classical dualism.

Zha'ha'dum. Last ep of season 3. The Shadows explain their philosophy to Sheridan, and their claims about the motivations of the Vorlons.

 

[Orius]

IIRC the custodial nature of the Vorlons and Shadows wasn't revealed until very late, just prior to the war's resolution. Before that the war seemed a more primal conflict fueled by the intrinsic nature of the combatants being diametrically opposed. If there were hints that the conflict was, as it turned out to be, just a political one between the younger races' babysitters, I guess I ignored them in favor of the more classical dualism.

Basically, yeah. Both the Vorlons and apparently the Shadows were lying or at least not telling the whole story to their followers (for lack of a better term). It wasn't until Sheridan met up with Lorien that the truth was revealed.

 

[Mallus]

Vorlons/Shadows...

I thought the custodial nature of the Vorlons was clear from pretty early on. I forget the ep. with the exchange between Sheridan and Kosh

"Teach us? Teach us what?"
"To fight legends."

Or when its revealed that Kosh outside his encounter suit appears to every sentient looking as a figure out of their respective religious mythologies.

I like how at first we seem to be dealing with a moral universe akin to Tolkien. But with neat little cracks, like the Inquistors sadism ostensibly in service of 'good'.

And by the end of season 3 we at find out that the Shadows at least have an ideology: they aren't just all-too-real cosmic boogeymen.

 

[Kesh]

B5 is certainly my favorite. However, I gave up on DS9 about halfway through its run, because the story didn't seem to be going anywhere. At all.

Now, I regret it, because it sounds as if the last couple seasons really picked up the pace and fixed the things I was complaining about. But the darn thing isn't in reruns anymore! All I can see is Voyager and ST:TNG... Enterprise is okay, but I'd really like to rewatch DS9.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This won`t help you, but me: DS9 reruns are currently in German TV.

And DS9 is coming on DVD... (Unfortunately, this is quite expensive...)

Mustrum Ridcully

 

[Lurks-no-More]

B5 is my choice any day. DS9 is very good Trek, but it's still Trek, and I'm kind of allergic to some of the conventions of its universe (like transporters and time travel...).

 

[Mallus]

DS9 is very good Trek, but it's still Trek, and I'm kind of allergic to some of the conventions of its universe (like transporters and time travel...).

I really enjoyed that aspect of B5, the particular set of rules for his universe. B5 had no teleportation, no androids, the only robots we saw regularly were the maintenance drones, no AI's taking over the station, no magical force fields {ships were either armored, or in the case of the Earth vesels, giant fragile blocky tin cans...}. Most telepaths had to be in physical contact to "read" you.

It seemed clear to me that JMS loved scifi {duh, he names a main character Alfred Bester...} and understood that a carefully built setting with its own consistent conventions was an important character.

Too often scifi series suffer from the "Kitchen sink" syndrome and feature every vaguely scifi notion thown in willy-nilly. That shows a fundimental disrespect for the genre {of course, Farscape did jus that, often looking like demented pulp scifi from the 40's as Hunter S. Thompson might have wrote it... but Farsacape is special...}

 

[Holy Bovine]

Babylon 5 is easily my favourite science fiction TV series. it outstrips all the Treks and i fully realize its shortcomings in terms of often hackneyed dialogue (how often did someone say that things were going 'straight to hell' or 'hell's on its way'? I counted at least a dozen over the 5 years - not too bad I guess but sometimes it seemed very forced. I kept half-expecting Ivonava to walk inot the C&C with Satan following her! ) and the wooden acting of some of the minor characters.

One thing I did love about B5 that trashed Trek's work in this field was alien races. The aliens in B5 always felt alien to me. Not in just physical appearence but in how they react to things and what motivates them. The Centauri are a good example of this (and Londo the best of the bunch of course). they look like humans with bad hair but when you see how they deal with alien races and situations you can't help but think they don't act the way humans would. The Narns driven almost to madness as a race in their attempts to destroy the Centauri. The Minbari, dividing everything in their culture into 3 seperate classes and attempting to maintain balance between those classes.

Probably Delann put it best when she tells Sheradin that humans are unqiue in the galaxy in that the Babylon station, were ti built by any other race, would only have been used by that race. Whereas the humans built it (5 freaking times mind you!) solely for the purpose of creating a community for all races to come together in and learn (or spy if you want to be cynical) from each other.

Thats the stuff I love about B5 - a humanese that tries to rub off onto these otherwise completely inhuman races.

Hope I acutally made sense there

 

[Fade]

What always puzzled me is that the human government poured all those resources into building a treaty station, and then don't send an ambassador. Sheridan doesn't count, he has no authority to negotiate. He just gets instructions handed down, he can't represent his government in making agreements with the other races.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Humans in Deep Space Nine/Startrek and Babylon 5 have one thing in common - they are a special race.
In B5 they are the only one would build up a station like Babylon 5, in Startrek they founded the Federation.
Humans in both Universes try to really fit to our own, human ideals.

Besides perhaps the Vorlons, Shadows or Borg, none of the alien species seemed to be too alien,
The only - at least until now - Universe with real alien beings is the Farscape Universe.

Mustrum Ridcully