Recap and discussion of The Lost Tales: Voices in the Dark

The lead in is this:
G’kar: I believe that when we leave a place, part of it goes with us, and part of us remains. Go anywhere in the station when it is quiet and just listen. After a while, you will hear the echoes of all our conversations, every thought and word we've exchanged. Long after we have gone, our voices will linger in these walls.

The story takes place in two parts on the same days:


Over Here:
A priest comes aboard B5, sent for by Lochley to exorcise a ‘demon’ from a crewman. The demon, if that is what he is, tells her and Father Cassidy that they have two choices – either do what God wants and free him from the body he’s in or leave him in the body. Lochley realizes that the ‘demon’ came from earth since the crewman was on earth a few weeks before. She tells him that they’ve found a third option – to send him back to earth to be exorcised, thus confining him to earth where he belongs.


Over There:
John Sheridan is getting ready to go to B5 for the 10 year anniversary of the Interstellar Alliance. H eis interviewed by an ISN reporter, then Galen comes to him in his sleep and tells him that the fate of earth in 30 years is destruction by Lord Vintari, Cartagia’s son and third in line for the throne of the Centuari republic. He says one solution is to kill the boy and has it all set u to happen on the way to B5. John sees another way and invites the young man to come stay with his family on Minbar to keep him safe.

This was supposed to be a new series for B5 but in the end was just the one shot. JMS did not want to produce any low quality tv movies, he said.

The tribute to Andreas Katsulas and Richard Biggs was that G’kar had gone exploring Beyond the rim and that Franklin had joined him in his explorations.

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my own opinion:
The first one was rather odd and strangely religious – which was actually quite typical of the original Babylon 5 as well. JMS always enjoyed exploring religious ideas though he, himself was an avowed nonbeliever. I actually found it a little heavy handed – how do we know what “Asmodeus” was and why did they not express an interest in exploring that idea more back on earth?

Of course Lochley was the one who showed the priest something about belief and faith… so maybe that was the point.

Not really sure what the reporter bit was about. Are you?

One would hope that maybe John and Delenn would make good step parents for the would-be emperor. The boy seemed to be less obnoxious than most Centauri.

I might have liked more of these – they were much better than The Legend of the Rangers.

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Questions:
1. Like? Dislike? Why?
2. Did the Quantum drive thing make you go ‘huh’? Why again was it included?
3. Which of the two bits did you like the best?
4. Did you see the leaping man? He looks more like an appearing out of nowhere man to me… just bad editing.


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Sources:
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0871427/quotes/?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu
The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/118.html
The Babylon Project: https://babylon5.fandom.com/wiki/Babylon_5:_The_Lost_Tales
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_The_Lost_Tales
Cap-that.com: http://www.cap-that.com/b5/the-lost-tales/?page=1

A Call to Arms

This is actually one of my favorite of the B5 movies. It’s the lead in to the series Crusade, which, I have to admit, is a real favorite show of mine. I came to Babylon5 after all of it was done – with the exception of The Legend of the Rangers and “The Lost Tales. In order to see Crusade, I had to buy bootleg video tapes from Ebay for an obscene amount of money.

But I digress.

A Call to Arms opens with a news report saying it’s the 5th anniversary of the Instellar Alliance and that President Sheridan hasn’t been seen in several days. There is mention of the recent Telepath War as well.

Garibaldi picks up Sheridan on a Whitestar. He is taking him to see some new ships designed by a Martian named Drake. They are a blend of Minbari and Vorlon tech and are top secret. Garibaldi says they can’t be followed so of course, we see a tiny ship following along. We see a hooded man inside the ship.


Garibaldi arrive at their secret location. He introduces Drake to Sheridan. Drake tells him about the Victory and the Excalibur. It turns out that they have not been tested as of yet. Funnily enough, the engines don’t start when they try to start them.


They tell Sheridan that there is a message from Delenn waiting for him. When he goes in, the message is all strange and next thing he knows, 30 minutes have passed without him knowing it. He agrees to rest.

An alien woman armed to the teeth comes aboard Babylon 5 and Zack asks her to leave her weapons. She asks where the ‘lost people’ go and Zack tell her the Brown sector.


John dreams of a planet and a voice telling him to listen – he hears nothing because the planet is dead, killed by the allies of the Shadows. He tells him to remember what he’s seen and he also sees the name of the planet, Daltron 7, written in rock.


Drake is taking the ship out to the firing range.

Dureena walks about in Brown sector, picking pockets and looking for a symbol. She follows it and a man kicks her and knocks her out. She dreams that she sees John and thinks she’s back on her own planet. She sees a Drakh as well. The voice tells her the planet shares the same fate as her world.

She wakes chained by the Thieves Guild and has to convince them she is a member, she does and they let her go. The head of the guild tells her he’s never seen one of her kind before and she tells him she isn’t sure why she came here either.

They are ready to test the weapon and Sheridan sees Earth as the target. Garibaldi thinks he’s nuts. When they do fire the main gun, it’s impressive but they can’t fire again for a full minute while the power recharges.

Sheridan appears on a planet with the technomages, which is what Galen, who has been making him hae the dreams, is. They are arguing about Galen interfering and about leaving. Galen explains that the Drakh are continuing the work of the Shadows and are testing their weapons ahead of another war. He tells Sheridan that he must find the rest of the answers on his own and in secret. When Sheridan wakes, he tell Michael they must go immediately to Babylon 5. He see 4 faces carved in stone.


On B5, he meets with Dureena and Captain Anderson, who has been having visions too. They are two of the four faces, along with Sheridan’s. The fourth face is a Drazi. They leave in Anderson’s ship and head for the new ships, contacting Drake and telling him not to talk to anyone else.


When they get there, they steal both prototype ships and head for Daltron 7. They find the Drazi dead there and he has video of the Drakh’s planet killer. The Drakh approach and the Excalibur picks up evidence of a message coming into the Drakh from elsewhere. Sheridan and Anderson escape into hyperspace and contact Garibaldi and between them they figure out that Drake informed the Drakh about the Sheridan and the ships.

Everyone heads for earth to try to stop the Drakh. They do stop the planet killer but the Drakh drop a 5 year nanoplague on the earth. Anderson rams the planet killer with the Victory to save Earth and now Sheridan commissions the Excalibur to find a cure for the plague before all life on earth is dead. Earth is quarantined until they find it.

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Quotes:

Sheridan: Those who command the Excalibur will never stop, never give up, never slow down, until a cure is found. We will take any help we can get, wherever and whoever it comes from. Because this is a cause that surpasses borders and differences and distrust. This is a mission about the survival of Earth itself. What we do over the next five years, here and at home, and across the darkness of between the stars will determine the whether an entire world will live or die. It's a fight we can't afford to lose and we won't. We won't!

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Questions:

1. Did you find Drake’s reasoning for selling out Earth to the Drakh to be a little shallow? ‘I don’t like Earth and they paid me a lot’? Really?
2. I can make a long list of things introduced here that were changed in Crusade, one being that Zander prime was victim to the Shadow Planet killer in the movie and in the show, it is inferred that they died from the plague. Can you name any of them?
3. If Drake were a sellout, why did he build such a good ship without sabotaging it as well?
4. How do you rate this one among the movies?

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Sources:

The Lurkers Guide to Babylon 5: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/115.html
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5:_A_Call_to_Arms
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146455/quotes/?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu
The Babylon Project: https://babylon5.fandom.com/wiki/A_Call_to_Arms
Cap-that.com: http://www.cap-that.com/b5/a-call-to-arms/

The Gathering (Babylon 5 pilot)

As we take a look at the station, Londo is the voiceover:
"I was there, at the dawn of the Third age of mankind. It began in the Earth year 2257 with the founding of the last of the Babylon stations, located deep in neutral space. It was a port of call for refugees, smugglers, businessmen, diplomats and travellers from a hundred worlds. It could be a dangerous place, but we accepted the risk because Babylon 5was our last, best, hope for peace.
Under the leadership of its final commander Babylon 5 was a dream given form...a dream of a galaxy without war, where species from different worlds could live side by side in mutual respect...a dream that was endangered as never before by one man on a mission of destruction.
Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. This is its story."
( Thus we begin. )

~

Quotes:
There was a time when this whole quadrant belonged to us! What are we now? Twelve worlds and a thousand monuments to past glories. Living off memories and stories, and selling trinkets. My god, man! We've become a tourist attraction. "See the great Centauri Republic - open 9 to 5 - Earth time." ~ Londo Mollari

Delenn: By the way, there is something I've been wondering. Why Babylon 5? If the prior four stations were lost or destroyed, why build another?
Sinclair: Plain, old human stubbornness, I guess. When something we value is destroyed, we rebuild it. If it's destroyed again, we rebuild it again. And again, and again, and again - until it stays. That, as our poet Tennyson once said, is the goal: "To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield."

Sinclair: There's a 24 hour period in my life that I can't account for; it happened during the war with your people. You wouldn't be holding anything out on me, would you old friend?
Delenn: Commander, I would never tell you anything that was not in your best interest.




Questions:

1. What changes from pilot to series stood out to you?
2. Did you notice that the interior of B5 seemed more elaborate in the pilot?
3. Who was your favorite character in the pilot? Did that change in the series?
4. Did you feel there were too many unanswered questions in the pilot?

Sources:
The Lurker’s Guide to Babylon 5: http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/000.html
Imdb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106336/quotes/?tab=qt&ref_=tt_trv_qu
Sadgeezers Cult Sci Fi Portal: http://sadgeezer.com/Babylon-5-Films-The-Gathering.htm
Cap-that.com: http://www.cap-that.com/