"All Alone in the Night" discussion

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for the episode 2X11, "All Alone in the Night". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Summary:
Sheridan is abducted by a mysterious alien ship. Meanwhile, Delenn travels to Minbar to find out if the Grey Council will allow her to continue as an ambassador after her transformation.

Extra reading:
The article for "All Alone in the Night" at Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I guess Kosh just decided to send some random symbols at Sheridan to get his attention.

Which is ic for Kosh. :) He doesn't pose as anyone's father until later in the relationship and when he really wants an epiphany to happen...

Random thought – it seems Delenn has never bothered to let anyone know that she consulted with Kosh before undergoing her transformation... you’d think that would carry some weight.

Good point, given the esteem the Vorlons are held in by the Minbari. Though you know, it does fit with Dukhat keeping the two Vorlons in his chamber to himself instead of bothering to inform the rest of the Council about them, or that they're supposed to investigate this new potential allies called humans. You can say Delenn comes by the secrecy and the not-explaining-anything-unless-forced-to honestly.

General Hague: Can’t help but feel the tone of the conversation would be a lot less dubious if Hague had been instead a senator or something – hell, they could have used Marie Crane, the opposition leader mentioned in “Midnight on the Firing Line.”

Yes, that's what I meant with the irony of Hague and Sheridan talking about a coup while planning for what sounds awfully like a coup, with no democratic legitimacy involved whatsoever.

Unfortunately there series is fairly consistent in portraying Earth’s entire political class as complicit in Clark’s regime.

Don't forget that for all the "Santiago knew that if something ever happened to him..." nostalgia, Santiago's regime from s1 is the one where already a lot of the later developments are shown to be in place - the treatment of Mars, rising xenophobia, and hey, the status of Psi Corps. I recall Lushenko from Rising Star in s4 making a good first impression as a non-military politician, and also the female President during the Earth/Minbari war presented as favourably in In the Beginning, but generally speaking, you're right; there isn't really a portrait of political resistance towards Clark; most politicians on the show exist first to threaten B5's existence for budget reasons, make mean demands and then to be complicit in a regime-going-fascist. Whereas most military personnel portrayed on the show is presented in a good light. I wonder whether it's due to the tv cliché of "all politicians are evil and/or useless"? (The West Wing being the obvious exception, as a show where politicians of both parties are shown to be by and large well-intentioned and dedicated to public service, just with conflicting ideas of how to go about it.)

...now that I think of it, there is Number One. Who starts out as a resistance fighter, true, but isn't military, and she does become a politician post- independence, while consistently being portrayed in a favourable light. Still, she's on Mars, not from Earth.

Of course, this kind of set-up makes the leading role of Sheridan in the Earth civil war possible, because if there had been resistance to Clark lead by someone like Marie Crane, or, say, some leading senators whom Clark removed from office per martial decree once he got the fascism really going, Sheridan would have to defer to this person or persons unless he'd want to look like a hypocrite. And as he was supposed to be Aragorn, not Faramir...

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

I'd count Number One as being along the same lines as Sheridan himself - it's OK to be a politician if you've also been a soldier.

I do wonder where the Hague plot was going - Keeping Hague around has the same problems as a hypothetical opposition civilian leader; worse, since there's a clear chain of command. I assume he wasn't scheduled to last much longer past "Severed Dreams" even if the actor had been available.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Hm, you're right. I guess Hague would have died heroically, leaving Sheridan in charge...

I'd count Number One as being along the same lines as Sheridan himself - it's OK to be a politician if you've also been a soldier.

Meaning civilian-only politicians join reporters and historians as professions slandered by B5. Though in that light, it's interesting that with the Minbari we're clearly meant to sympathize with the religious caste (i.e. the politicians who AREN'T warriors - more than the military caste, with the working caste's existence only belatedly mattering at the end of the Minbari civil war but not throughout the show as a whole.

The Centauri are a case of their own because they're a monarchy, and questions of democratic legitimacy don't arise either way. Still, you could say Londo and Vir, both professional politicians without being part of the military in their world, are the most fleshed out portrayals of politicians we get...

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

I could be nit-picky and point out that Londo led Centauri forces in the raid on Vallus 12, according to "Voice in the Wilderness"... but, yeah, he's clearly not a 'war hero' in the same way Sheridan or No.1 are, even if he does have some minor combat experience in his background.

We really don't know anything about the Centauri military, do we?

It's funny - it didn't occur to me until just now that the Minbari castes are the idealised division of medieval society - Those Who Pray, Those Who Fight, and Those Who Work. B5, it seems, sides with the Papacy over the Holy Roman Emperor in regards to who has supremacy out of the first two...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

ZOMG! Delenn is Thomas Becket and Neroon is Henry II! Or Neroon is Friedrich II and Delenn is Pope Innocent IV...

*treasures image*

Centauri military: there is the "war minister" who is among Londo's and Vir's anti-Cartagia-conspiracy, and Londo's friend Urza is explicitly referred to as a war hero, but it all seems very Roman in nature, i.e. if you're from a noble house, you do some military time as part of the cursus honorum, but then you get into politics. I don't think we see non-noble soldiers except for the ever present guards in their Roman uniforms, and we don't have info whether they're enlisted or serve voluntarily. Still, if even the torturers have their own guild, one assumes becoming a soldier is something you as an ordinary Centauri citizen can decide, or not. (Following the Roman model again I imagine you do have to be a citizen to join, though.)