Legions of Fire, Book I: The Long Night of Centauri Prime - Chapters 6-13

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for chapters 6-13 of Peter David's Legions of Fire, Book I: The Long Night of Centauri Prime. Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware.

Next week, we'll discuss the rest of the book (Part II, chapters 14-22).

MOD NOTE: Since I'll be on my summer vacation for the next few weeks, I've set the posts to appear on schedule but probably won't monitoring the comm very actively, so if the discussion posts fail to appear on Sundays or there some other problems, please send me a PM.

P.S. babylon5_love could use some more contribuors.

Comments

[athena799.livejournal.com]

Lovely commentary, as ever. I think the conclusion is that a realistically rendered Fascist takeover of the Centauri culture would incompatible with Drakh goals. As things stand, you have an opaque aristocracy where there's all sorts of backroom dealings and power plays, where everything is quite secretive. That is much more conducive to the Drakh interest of secrecy. How Peter David showed the Fascist take over was unrealistic and were it done realistically the Drakh would have been at a disadvantage. *Sigh*

Which actually reminds me of one question I've always had - how much do normal Centauri know about the events of Cartagia's reign, the Vorlon attack, the deals with the Shadows, etc.? In my headcanon I assume Vir brought it all to light during his reign. However, from an outsider perspective, Cartagia's reign would be a golden age characterized by the return of Centauri glory. After all, the Emperor would get credit for Londo's accomplishments back on homeworld, and all of those were during Cartagia's reign. The first thing that happened after Cartagia was Londo ceding the Narn back their planet, which was necessary but from a popular point of view might appear to be weak.

Anyway, yes, I imagine the Centauri would freak the heck out over being bombed, having not experienced what they had been dealing out to others for centuries. In that the US parallel is quite apt. And I understand how the Drakh would hope to take advantage of that to further isolate the Centauri and cut them off from former allies, which also worked well in the US. What I don't understand is how they planned to sustain that hatred for so many years without some form of action? Were the Centauri supposed to just seethe against the Alliance for decades without any catharsis? And if revolution was required, as you say since it makes total sense that normal Centauri would get annoyed by Londo's class at some point (despite the racial obsession with status). However, such upheaval would probably not be in the Drakh's best interest. Honestly I think again its just lazy, American-centric writing. Americans (and I speak as one of them) make a national hobby of over-simplifying Fascism and the circumstances that gave rise to it. If I see one more lazy Nazi-parallel bad guy in any medium it will be too soon. The thing is, I don't mind Fascists-as-bad-guys, or Nazi-parallel bad guys when its done effectively and with a mind for what really happened. NightWatch was a well done example of this, the Prime Candidates were not.

A French Revolution style upheaval would be very convincing for Centauri culture to be honest, and something that would be very interesting to see. One can't help but wonder how alone Urza Jaddo was in his Narn sympathies, one would assume there must be factions of Centauri who outright opposed the war. The Centauri Trilogy would have been an excellent place to mention them, pity it never did.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

One can't help but wonder how alone Urza Jaddo was in his Narn sympathies, one would assume there must be factions of Centauri who outright opposed the war.

I think there were; my headcanon, which I believe I used for some stories like "Lost in Translation", is that Turhan as a younger man became the focus point of the peace party, much as Cartagia a generation (or two!) later became the "candidate", so to speak, of the war party. That's assuming that the Centauri occupation of Narn went on for a century or so, and by the end there must have been anti war attitude both for utterly pragmatic reasons (Narn was costing far more than it was bringing in, in terms of money and manpower) and for moral reasons (note that Urza was a former war hero, btw). So Turhan, backed up by a sizaable contingent in the Centaurum, orders the first withdrawal from Narn. (This is also why House Mollari loses seriously in influence, because Londo's grandfather was a hardcore Narn occupier and warmongerer.) But then as the Narn turn into an up and coming power and start to not just to compete with but to best the Centauri, you get the "we could have kept that planet if only those peaceniks hadn't stabbed us in the back, and look how humiliated we are now!" propaganda starting, and by the end of Turhan's reign, Turhan and Malachi and their reconciliation policy are very much a minority opinion, and they're seen as failures.

re: your question how Cartagia's regime would have been seen - I'm tempted to go with the Caligula and Nero receptions, of course, i.e. people would assume Cartagia got off to a great start and renewal after his uncle's age of decline, and then went bonkers. (If they're rumours about Cartagia's craziness at the Royal Court, they must have been among the population as well. Plus the Shadows openly arrived on Centauri Prime, and I can't imagine any Centauri glad about having those creepy ships around. If humans went crazy touching them, it must have happened to Centauri as well. I'M taking Londo at his word that the people remaining on Celini to trick the Shadows volunteered, and for this to happen, my guess is at that point the general opinion, carefully expressed only in private, was "the Emperor went mad, these creepy aliens probably had something to do with it, have you heard what happened to cousin X who, etc., and by the way, my uncle says critisizing the Emperor's hair cut is now punishable by death".

[4thofeleven.livejournal.com]

I can easily see Cartagia as a Nero figure - very unpopular among the aristocracy, who don't see him as behaving 'properly' even before he turns out to be insane, but at the same time, his flamboyance and rejection of upper-class traditions endearing him to the common people - who, after all, aren't the ones being executed on a whim.

Hmm, now there's a fun idea for the direction Centauri facism/popular unrest could go in - revolts led by Pseudo-Cartagia figures. If nothing else, the suspicious nature of his death would certainly have led to conspiracy theories, and if he was popular, the idea that he wasn't really dead might flourish for a long time...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Oh, a Cartagia equivalent of the False Neros who kept popping up would be brilliant. And, err. It's not like in this 'verse the idea of people coming back from the dead would be unheard of. Also: Cartagia made a deal, which Londo knows. Doesn't everyone who tells Morden what they want get it? So I could see Londo, upon hearing there are rumours about Returned Cartagia, first going "thanks for giving me the laugh of the day" and then "...." mentally.