Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Stunaep on July 21, 2003, 04:33:50 am
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Now a year or so has passed since Estonia's Channel 2 screened the mighty impressive B5 series (best SF series, ever, IMO). Meanwhile, I've rediscovered the wondrous world of KaZaA, and downloaded exactly 72 of the 110 episodes. I've been slowly watching them since May, and I have gotten as far as Z'ha'dum.
I want to discuss. Because, this is STILL absolutely, terrifically, the best TV series I've seen. In fact, the only scenes that have moved me more the Londo's face in The Long Twilight Struggle were some of the scenes from LOTR and TTT. The uberleetness of Sinclair (I've got no problem with Sheridan, I just like Sinclair more) continues to amaze me, and then there's the terrific episodes like Comes The Inquisitor, or Confessions And Lamentations, not to mention Severed Dreams and The Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place.
The insights provided by JMS in usenet, as portrayed at Lurker's, make this even cooler.
Now discussion points:
Standard: Fave episodes, characters.
Specific: One thing that has always fascinated my was JMS' original vision. Specifically, if Sinclair had remained on the show, would he still have become Valen? His flashbacks in War Without End seem to indicate so. If so, would JMS really replaced the lead character? Also, it would have been rather fun if instead of introducing the character of Lochley, Ivanova's aide, Lt. Corwin would have been promoted. No?
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B5 was shown about 6 years ago here in Finland. I missed most of it then, but now I've downloaded all 110 episodes. I've now watched all of them, and I have to agree with you about the best TV series part, B5 rocks :nod:
I always kinda thought that the "main" charecters of B5 were really Londo and G'kar. That's why some of the stuff at the last season really moved me.
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Every character was a character, not just a plot-device.
You'd see G'Kar and Londo just wandering around arguing even though they had nothing to do with the plot of the episode.
It was all the little, pointless things that made it so good.
Like Delenn pissing herself at Reebo and Zooty.
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compared to the four episodes of the new Star Trek series that I've seen makes it even better.
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Hmm.
Here in Malaysia, they started showing B5 in 1996 (first season). Then the season ended, and it took 4 years for it to come back, on another network, at a way later time. Thankfully they were showing 2 or three episodes in a week instead of 1, which was good.
As a lite fan of B5, I guess I'm not so hot on the philosophy and everything. But I must say, those space combat sequences were , how you say, nifty.
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Originally posted by an0n
Every character was a character, not just a plot-device.
You'd see G'Kar and Londo just wandering around arguing even though they had nothing to do with the plot of the episode.
It was all the little, pointless things that made it so good.
Like Delenn pissing herself at Reebo and Zooty.
I agree 100% with that :) The other point is that unlike most Sci-fi shows the characters change over time.
The main characters lived through one of the most turbulent times the galaxy had ever seen and you can see how it changed them. Most sci-fi characters are exactly the same at the end of the final season. In B5 almost no one is the same.
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noticed that one could get seasons of babylon 5 on dvd...
Nice..:nod:
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I have the might Season 1 and Season 2 DVDs. Boy oh boy, I love B5. Attention to realism is something I've always admired. Even some of the ships actually *look* right out of the future, unlike like those funny gigantic things with long warp nacelles ;)
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Babylon 5 is my favorite TV series ever. I love alot of sci-fi...I really like StarGate SG-1 as well (for different reasons) but Babylon 5, much like some of the people who grew up on classic trek, is the show that has most influenced my life. At those young and impressionable ages when I first started watching the show I've grown up with it and with decidely positive view of the universe and Babylon 5 was always told with a very unwavering sense of universal morality that I haven't been able to match elsewhere.
It's hard for me to nail a single character down as my favorite. Ivanova is god (:D), G'Kar and Londo changed so much but they were always guys you could have empathy for, Garibaldi was a great character with more than his share of problems...I think my favorite overall was Sheridan (and maybe Sinclair). Any time I take those tests to figure out who you are supposed to be and I end up being those guys (or Vir, go figure).
Nope there's definately something about Babylon 5 that makes it the way it is. It was a fantastic phenomenon...I hope we see its kind again someday.
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One more great thing. There never was a definite bad guy. In the first season 1 eps, G'Kar was the baddie. But then again he wasn't. He had redeeming qualities, and lots of them. After all, he was just fighting for his people. The Londo became the 'bad guy'. But he too wasn't a bad guy in the true meaning of the word. He was just... politically ambitious. Or take the Shadows for example. Sure they were the menace for three whole seasons, but then we realise, that they, along with the Vorlons (who we originally thought were... well, angelic) have been guiding us for thousands of years.
It's complex as hell. THat's why I enjoy it.
And then there's the humour. Little is there in Drama TV that beats There All The Honor Lies.
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just remembered another thing thanks to IF's post. Most US series a full of the so called american kiddie-morale. By which I mean that the morals, and ethics of the series are frequently at the level of a five-year-old. They may mean the best, but in life, it just doesn't turn out that way. Perfect example is the otherwise excellent '24'. Mainly a lot of scenes with David Palmer in it. B5 keeps it realistical, philosophical and so on. Which, btw, reminds me of an excellent quote by Londo: "One morning you look into the mirror, and you realise that what you see is all, that you will ever be. Then you kill yourself.... or you learn to live with it. Or you stop looking at mirrors"
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Clicky me now! NOW i said! NOW! (http://pages.prodigy.net/nsgrosky/Londo.wav)
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I was a hardcore B5 fanboy for a long time. Have almost every episode taped from the original airing. Have a "Church of Joe" T-shirt. Chitchatted with JMS personally on the GEnie SF&F forums. Can actually spell his last name.
But, I have to say the show has its flaws. For one thing, JMS is not a science fiction author. He may be great at writing characters, but at science he usually is pretty clueless (see "tiny explosion sends entire station spinning" from pilot episode). He also tends to write things that only make sense to JMS. And his attempts at humor are pathetically hamfisted.
Other than that it's an enjoyable watch. Much better than that "D&D in space" Crusade dreck.
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Babylon5 is the only thing that can make me sit down and watch television and not do anything else. Generally, I sit in front of the TV* and I've got the Legos out, or a programming project going, or whatever. Basically anything to use the other 97% of my brain that goes unused when absorbing crap from the ****box. With Babylon5, however, I have to watch, and pay close attention.
The real star of the show is the writing, particularly the dialoge and monologues. No matter how many times you hear Delenn's "only one human" speech, or Ivanova's "God sent me." speech, you can't avoid the goosebumps and shivers of awe. The absolute conviction of the actors and the depth of feeling in the writing combine to bring forth a true masterpiece.
My favorite characters in the show Bester and Marcus, each for obvious reasons. I don't have a true favorite episode, but I'll go with the one where the Whitestar comes screaming out of space like an avenging angel to save Sheridan on Zhahadum. That was incredible.
* It should be pointed out that I never "generally" watch TV. By this I mean "when events transpire such that there is nothing else to do, except choose between sitting in front of the television and having an elephan tap dance on my balls, I will sit in front of the television and try to mitigate the idiot-making effects of its evil rays by doing something else as well, so as not to turn into the average american moron".
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Originally posted by ZylonBane
He may be great at writing characters, but at science he usually is pretty clueless (see "tiny explosion sends entire station spinning" from pilot episode). He also tends to write things that only make sense to JMS. And his attempts at humor are pathetically hamfisted.
Its better than tiny explosion sends the quantum conjigulator into a semi-temporal telephonic sub dimensional singularity thingmabob and you need to use the ventral phase bank re-routed through the deflector dish and the captains coffee machine to make it go away :)
(I'm actually a fan of ST as well but sometimes its a bit much :D).
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Originally posted by mikhael
No matter how many times you hear Delenn's "only one human" speech, or Ivanova's "God sent me." speech, you can't avoid the goosebumps and shivers of awe. The absolute conviction of the actors and the depth of feeling in the writing combine to bring forth a true masterpiece.
G'Kar's speech to the council in The Long, Twilight Struggle. Even Sheridan later claims that it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up on end.
The best thing about it is that it is so applicable to situations on Earth now as well as to a Sci-fi series set in the future.
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I'd like to point out if when dicussing B5 please indicate SPOILER if your going to mention something in the story. I can't say enough that spoiling is bad for those who haven't watched all of B5 yet.
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Dude, the statute of limitations on B5 spoilers ran out a few years ago.
I wouldn't mind the scientific blunders so much if B5 hadn't gone to such lengths to present itself as the show that got the science right. It rarely did. ("Mass drivers?!?")
Don't even get me started on John "Need To Know"/"Clear and Present Danger"/"Nuke'em" Sheridan.
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What have you got against mass drivers? They're a standard mainstay of science fiction.
Besides I haven't seen any scientific stupidity in Babylon 5 that surpasses the stupidity of other Sci-fi shows. In general there was actually a lot less.
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Originally posted by karajorma
What have you got against mass drivers?
The way they were used on B5. I'm sure JMS was thinking, "OOh, cool, mass drivers! This is teh science fictional thingy!", but their application in that particular episode made no bloody sense. Okay, so the Centauri wanted to pulverize Narn. What do you think is more efficient-- launching multi-megaton nuclear warheads (common military technology even in our primitive time period), or-- install massive clunky mass drivers on several of your ships, fetch several million tons of rock from god-knows-where, carve it up into pieces just the right size for the launchers, load the launchers, then blow a few billion electron volts accelerating the pieces toward the planet. Riiight.
Even if the goal was to pummel Narn without irradiating the place, accelerating the rocks was completely pointless. There's this little thing called gravity, y'see. All they had to do was bring some asteroids to Narn and deorbit them.
The way the characters in this ep were talking, it was as if mass drivers were inherently evil. "They're using mass drivers? Gasp!". This is inane. Mass drivers are just machines for making things go fast.
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Well in part you've pretty much answered your own question. Using nukes would irradiate the entire planet. Using asteroids on the other hand would only cause an ice age. So that's the first point answered as to why use mass drivers.
2) Narn like Earth no doubt had a planetary defence system. It probably wouldn't have much trouble shooting down nukes. A chunk of iron a couple of hundred meters wide travelling at a fraction of c on the other hand is another matter. Even if you do manage to break it apart you still haven't solved the problem of smaller chunks of iron raining down on the planet. A ten meter chunk of iron can have the power of around 5 Hiroshima size nukes even when travelling at the speed of asteroids in the solar system.
3) The Centauri have gravity based technology. They use it to power their ships. Accelerating a rock probably isn't that hard once you've got that kind of tech. All you need is rocks the right size and the Centauri could have brought some along themselves.
4) Why not deorbit the rocks you say. Transport the rocks through hyperspace and then drop them. Sounds easy. Except the problem is that when you move the rock through hyperspace you remove all of it's velocity. It would arrive in orbit around Narn with no velocity beyond that involved in orbiting Narn. Sure you could deorbit them once they are there but that just gives the orbital defence systems more time to shoot them down.
5) the H-Bomb has been described in similar terms to the mass drivers of B5 because they serve no tactical purpose.
The H-bomb is useless except for wiping out the civilian population. It's hugely indiscriminate. You can't aim it at anything because it will wipe out anything for miles around the intended target. That's why most missiles carry tactical nuclear weapons instead with a yield measured in kilotons.
It's no doubt the same with mass drivers especially considering the sheer inaccuracy of the weapon and the points I've raised above. With a mass driver the entire planet is the target and the attacker obviously can't care where the rocks fall.
Viewed in those terms they are a pretty evil weapon. You can't use them tactically, you can only use them when you don't care about anything on the planet. Besides it probably wasn't the mass drivers that were banned. More likely their use against a planet.
6) Who says the Centauri discovered the nuke or ever built them? They may have managed to stumble upon gravimetric technology first. Even if they did discover the nuke (which does seem likely) who says they would have a large stock of them? It took several days of bombardment from the mass drivers before the Narns gave in. Considering the fact that mass drivers probably did more damage than nukes the Centauri would have needed a huge number of them to get the Narn to surrender. And that's ignoring the fact that the Centauri would have lost a lot trying to get through the planetary defence.
7) Accelerating the nukes to any kind of decent speed presents problems. No where in B5 did you see nuclear missiles used cause they are pretty much obsolete by the time of B5. They are too easily shot down by a fighter to be of much use. When you did see nukes used they were more like mines. So now the Centauri would also need to have large numbers of expendable rockets of some kind to deliver the missiles. What if they didn't have them? After all as said above the nuclear missile probably makes as much sense in B5 times as the blunderbuss does now. Making a single mass driver for each ship would probably be more efficient, especially since they are probably quite simple to make.
Anyway those are all the arguements I can be bothered to come up with for now. I could probably come up with more if I tried. :D
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I know sod all about physics, but would accellerating an asteroid not increase the friction and hence heat on it when it entered the atmosphere, making it more likely to break up? Or is there some sort of 'golden mean' involving the object velocity and the actual time it spends in re-entry heat that a mass driver could be used to achieve?
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You're right there. The speed you send it down at does make it more likely to explode in mid air. Unfortunately it isn't precisely necessary for it to hit the ground. In Tunguska the asteroid or comet detonated quite a few miles up.
Choice of asteroids also makes a difference. IIRC the iron asteroid that hit at Wabar in Saudi Arabia was about the size of a bus but caused the equivalent damage to a hiroshima style nuke.
The fact that the meteorite was mostly metal probably prevented an air burst.
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Andreas Katsulas made that show. The best line from B5 which typified B5 is, "Not everyone seems as he appears."
I have to say my favorite part of B5 is the warships, especially the EA ships. They aren't streamlined! Sweet! I have two favorite shows, the EAs attack on B5 and the freeing of Earth. (I can't remember the show names... been a long time) Seeing the Ag bust through that satellite... f***ing sweet.
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Originally posted by karajorma
2) Narn like Earth no doubt had a planetary defence system.
At the time of the rock attack, that defense system was already destroyed.
3) The Centauri have gravity based technology. They use it to power their ships. Accelerating a rock probably isn't that hard once you've got that kind of tech.[/b]
Rock is a hell of a lot denser than an air-filled tin can.
4) Why not deorbit the rocks you say. Transport the rocks through hyperspace and then drop them. Sounds easy. Except the problem is that when you move the rock through hyperspace you remove all of it's velocity.[/b]
False. Objects exit hyperspace at the same relative velocity they were moving in hyperspace.
6) Who says the Centauri discovered the nuke or ever built them?[/b]
Common sense says this. Discovering fission/fusion weapons is the high-energy physics equivalent of discovering fire. It's kind of hard not do to.
7) Accelerating the nukes to any kind of decent speed presents problems. No where in B5 did you see nuclear missiles used cause they are pretty much obsolete by the time of B5.[/b]
You see nukes in B5 (always used by John "Nukem" Sheridan, oddly), and you see missiles (G.O.D. satellites). There is no reason to assume some combination thereof doesn't exist in the B5 universe.
Anyway those are all the arguements I can be bothered to come up with for now.[/B]
They mostly seem to be, "What if a space-faring military didn't have something which in reality it probably would?" Welcome to the world of JMS logic.
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Just watching the scene from "Acts Of Sacrifice" where Ivanova plays the "Sex Human Way" thing with those aliens. That just absolutely cracked me up everytime :)
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You'd probably enjoy renting "Hexed (http://us.imdb.com/Title?0107107)" then.
Ivanova may rock, but Claudia Christian is borderline as an actress.
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Hey, it's nice to get some comedy now and again from Sci-Fi rather than what we have today in Enterforaprize. So maybe the humour isn't compatible with your "American" style comedy, but so so. ;)
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Originally posted by ZylonBane
Common sense says this. Discovering fission/fusion weapons is the high-energy physics equivalent of discovering fire. It's kind of hard not do to.
See many 18th century gun toting samurai? The Japanese knew damn well about gunpowder but chose not to use it. Maybe the Centauri learned about nukes but never used them in weapons for some reason.
Secondly you're assuming that the progress on Centauri Prime went along the same lines as they did on Earth. Suppose that the Centauri had already made it into space and invented primative lasers before they discovered nuclear power.
While the nuke might be a great weapon it was alreadly obsolete in many ways. The main use for nuclear power would be to provide the energy for bigger and more powerful beam weapons.
(Remember that the gap between advances in rocketry and first discoveries in radioactivity were less than 50 years apart and also that radioactivity was discovered completely by mistake).
Could B5 have been more scientifically accurate. Yep. Of course it could. However it's pretty mean to pick on one of the most scientifically accurate sci-fi show on TV when there are so many that are far worse
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Actually, by referring to real science, B5 exposes itself to much higher standards than shows that make up their tech. Fictional tech can behave however the creators see fit, but real-world tech must behave in a real-world fashion or people are going to call bull****. Like in the episode where Garibaldi shoots the Monster of the Week by dumping loose bullets in a steam pipe (or something like that).
And I never could figure out why they didn't password-protect their jump gate.
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Originally posted by ZylonBane
Actually, by referring to real science, B5 exposes itself to much higher standards than shows that make up their tech. Fictional tech can behave however the creators see fit, but real-world tech must behave in a real-world fashion or people are going to call bull****. Like in the episode where Garibaldi shoots the Monster of the Week by dumping loose bullets in a steam pipe (or something like that).
At least JMS had the balls to admit that that particular episode didn't work. I don't see many Sci-fi show creators ever say that any part of their show is anything other than sheer brilliance.
And I never could figure out why they didn't password-protect their jump gate.
It's probably an all or nothing deal. Either you have a node in a certain place that allows any ship to jump in or you have no jump node at all. In A View From The Gallery they state that it takes a couple of days to shut down a node which sort of points to what I'm saying.
Secondly anything big enough to be a threat to B5 is generally capable of creating its own Jump node. At least by leaving the node unprotected (even if it could be protected) you know which direction the enemy is most likely to come from since they will probably use the jump node rather than simply jumping in right next to the station (although a couple of ships did do exactly that).
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Originally posted by karajorma
It's probably an all or nothing deal. Either you have a node in a certain place that allows any ship to jump in or you have no jump node at all. In A View From The Gallery they state that it takes a couple of days to shut down a node which sort of points to what I'm saying.
Oh GOD do not mention the bloody Laurel and Hardy episode. Ack. Ack ack ack ack ack. I'm still trying to scrub that from my brain (along with most of season 5).
The couple-day shutdown refers to the amount of time it takes to fully discharge the jump gate. However, the gate is controlled by a computer that accepts transmitted requests. This computer can -- and has been ("Signs and Portents") -- configured to reject requests. Yet except for that one episode they never seem to think of it.
Jump gate details were left painfully mushy on B5.
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Password protecting your jumpgate would only be useful if the attacking force couldn't generate a jump point without gates. Since most large military vessels (of the major races, don't know about the minors ones) can enter and exit hyperspace with the use of gates, the use of password protecting the gate would be questionable.
As a minor point, and using the case of B5 especally, if they had to evacuate in a hurry, you'ld have to give the password to each civilian vessel, which would slow thing down. Because someone could leak the 'password', you would not be able to give it out until the evaculation began.
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Originally posted by karajorma
You're right there. The speed you send it down at does make it more likely to explode in mid air. Unfortunately it isn't precisely necessary for it to hit the ground. In Tunguska the asteroid or comet detonated quite a few miles up.
Choice of asteroids also makes a difference. IIRC the iron asteroid that hit at Wabar in Saudi Arabia was about the size of a bus but caused the equivalent damage to a hiroshima style nuke.
The fact that the meteorite was mostly metal probably prevented an air burst.
To be fair, AFAIK there's never been any conclusive proof for what happened at Tunguska.
NB: not much point password protecting the primary point of access to what is effectively a free trade station, is there?
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Originally posted by aldo_14
To be fair, AFAIK there's never been any conclusive proof for what happened at Tunguska.
NB: not much point password protecting the primary point of access to what is effectively a free trade station, is there?
Well experiments have proved that something exploded in mid air over the place. The pattern of fallen trees is exactly that for a mid air explosion.
Now as to whether we are dealing with the explosion of a meteor/comet/alien space craft, well that's another matter :)
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Originally posted by karajorma
Well experiments have proved that something exploded in mid air over the place. The pattern of fallen trees is exactly that for a mid air explosion.
I remember seeing the pictures in a book.... don;t have it handy, but I remember that the blast pattern, and specfically the surviving trees, strongly resembled the aftereffects of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima blasts.
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Yep. "Little boy" was also an air-blast. It blew up 2000ft above Hiroshima.
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i thought only military jump nodes and Quarantine nodes used passwords.
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Originally posted by aldo_14
I remember seeing the pictures in a book.... don;t have it handy, but I remember that the blast pattern, and specfically the surviving trees, strongly resembled the aftereffects of the Nagasaki and Hiroshima blasts.
Well, no, not exactly... the A-bomb blasts were from directly overhead, and the bast pattern was roughly circular. The pattern of fallen trees at Tunguska was more like a butterfly, indicating that the explosion was directional, i.e. came in from a certain direction. I believe the angle of incidence was something like 35 degrees, though it's been a while since I saw that info. Exactly like a shallow-approaching piece of interstellar debris, be it comet, asteroid, or whatever. However, the blast did generate a lot of heat, so the trees were blackened pretty thuroughly.
I believe that the leading theory is that it was a comet; there was no physical debris left from the object after the explosion, and a comet would be the most likely thing to explode once it built up enough heat. Asteroids break up, but they are still rocks... comets almost flash-boil and can explode when passing through a medium as dense as our atmosphere.
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I think Aldo was refering to the fact that the trees directly underneath the blast were still standing while the ones further out had been knocked down.
I tend to agree with the theory that it was a comet for the reasons you say. :)
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just as a sidenote... I like B5 too very much
carry on...
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The human/Shadow hybrid Omega-X rocked
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Originally posted by ZylonBane
I was a hardcore B5 fanboy for a long time. Have almost every episode taped from the original airing. Have a "Church of Joe" T-shirt. Chitchatted with JMS personally on the GEnie SF&F forums. Can actually spell his last name.
But, I have to say the show has its flaws. For one thing, JMS is not a science fiction author. He may be great at writing characters, but at science he usually is pretty clueless (see "tiny explosion sends entire station spinning" from pilot episode). He also tends to write things that only make sense to JMS. And his attempts at humor are pathetically hamfisted.
Other than that it's an enjoyable watch. Much better than that "D&D in space" Crusade dreck.
Agree on crusade, semi-agree on Science (well, it does have loads of better science than ANY other SF show ever on TV, despite it being sometimes... well, you know), disagree on humor. Wohoo? - best joke in an SF series I've seen.
[edit] And, yes, I've seen Stargate. IMO, the quiet, subtle humor of B5 easily beats the all-out american comedy episodes that Stargate seems to do dozens of every season.
On a side note, on my Summer's Vacation of Hard Work, Booze and Women(tm), I've manage to convert two dudes and a dudette into the B5 religion, using my 15 cd-set of low quality B5 episodes. They never fail.