Forces of light? (SPOILERS up to "Interludes")

[B5JMS Poster]

Subject: Forces of light? (SPOILERS up to "Interludes")
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 No. | DATE        |  FROM
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+  1: Apr 29, 1996: koreth at hyperion.com (Steven Grimm)
*  2: Apr 29, 1996: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)

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From: koreth at hyperion.com (Steven Grimm)
Lines: 69

Minor SPOILER for "Interludes and Examinations" (nothing you won't get from
the previews or TV Guide) and the episodes that precede it.






















Now that full-on war with the Shadows is breaking out, it's time for the
army of light to show what it's been up to for the past year and a half,
how it's taken advantage of the secrecy Delenn has worked so hard to
protect.

>From what we've been shown, it hasn't been up to much.

The Rangers are there, yes, but they're more spies than soldiers; even the
Centauri can pin them down on a base without Shadow help.  Certainly a
strong intelligence capability is vital to a war effort -- but so far the
Rangers have found out lots about the Centauri and Minbari and Earth and
the nonaligned worlds, and precious little about the Shadows themselves.
Knowing that the Drazi are planning to attack the Vree probably won't be
of much help when a fleet of Shadow cruisers pops out of hyperspace.

The Grey Council hasn't been moving behind the scenes to prepare, if
"Severed Dreams" is to be believed.  It's possible the warrior caste will
be embarrassed into action by the sight of the religious and worker castes
valiantly going off into battle, but starting a fight without your best
strategists and tacticians in place (who, presumably, can be found in the
warrior caste) is a recipe for disaster.

The Vorlons have remained tucked away in their little corner of the galaxy.
Even their ambassador does little more than duck out of his quarters from
time to time.  Okay, he's done *something*, namely set up another race to
shed all the blood.  And they've helped build the White Star, but again
they're just pushing someone else to take all the risks.  Also, as far as
we know there is only one White Star, so that contribution is probably of
minor significance to the overall war effort.

Nobody has been pumping Draal, perhaps the most capable information source
in the entire galaxy, for useful information.

Sheridan has set up alliances to help protect Babylon 5, but they'll be
no good in the war at large -- what use is Babylon 5's safety if the rest
of the galaxy is lost?  As far as we've seen he's done little to prepare
for a huge conflagration.  He reacts when something major happens, e.g.
"Messages From Earth," but doesn't seem to be massing any forces or putting
any chains of command in place.

In other words, it seems like our heroes have been more or less sitting
on their thumbs, embroiled in internal problems, waiting for the war to
start.  Next week, I suspect they'll start to pay the price.

-Steve

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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Lines: 47

Just to be sure on spoilers....





























"In other words, it seems like our heroes have been more or less sitting
on their thumbs, embroiled in internal problems, waiting for the war to
start.  Next week, I suspect they'll start to pay the price."

The former part of this is not entirely true.  Some stuff has been going
on in the background, but it's been very secretive...which is why you
don't know about it yet.  They've been working like the dickens, getting
some stuff ready...and you'll find out what that is in an episode later
this season.  They needed to buy time, and now that they've had it,
they've used it well.




 jms


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