Crusade, WTF?

[LordClinto]

I was always under the impression that the cure was found and put in place by the Excalibur crew before their time was up - the great burn that we see in Deconstruction of Falling Stars didn't happen until much later when the EA broke away from the ISA?

The Great Burn was something like 500 years later, 2767 or so?


Realize that Mr. Garibaldi's Hologram is the one responsible for putting the Earth through a second Iron Age! :lol:

 

[Triggy]

I can't remember where I read it but I do remember that JMS said the cure would have been found at about the end of the second season, with the mission then turning into an investigation into the more sinister "black ops" EA stuff (hence the whole Hunter thing with Gideon, etc.). With the Excalibur being the only ship in a position to do so as it was outside of direct EA influence (much in the same way as B5 was outside of EA influence in the main series).

 

[lastbesthope]

We know the cure was found in time, we see Franklin in the future on Mars when Garibaldi gets the summons to see Sheridan before he dies. We also know Franklin was on Earth when the plague was dispersed, ergo he was cured.

LBH

 

[tneva82]

We know the cure was found in time, we see Franklin in the future on Mars when Garibaldi gets the summons to see Sheridan before he dies. We also know Franklin was on Earth when the plague was dispersed, ergo he was cured.

Good point. So that theory can be laid down for good :lol: Thanks for pointing that one out.

 

[Burger]

But Franklin had plot immunity.

 

[captainsmirk]

Well he had the advantage that Sleeping in Light was filmed before the Crusade plotlines was created...


Nick

 

[Lawdog1700]

I have to be honest...I enjoyed Crusade a lot. In fact I liked all of the Crusade episodes a lot more than most of season one of Bab 5.

Something about the Apocalypse Box...such a COOL plot device. So much potential wasted...

 

[Frohike]

NNOOOO!

where is that pic that Burger had of the flame thrower and the '* you are here' comment :wink:

 

[lastbesthope]

Well he had the advantage that Sleeping in Light was filmed before the Crusade plotlines was created...


Nick

Do we know that? We know SiL was filmed before Crusade, but JMS does like to preplan his plot arcs, or so he says.

LBH

 

[Greg Smith]

I have to be honest...I enjoyed Crusade a lot. In fact I liked all of the Crusade episodes a lot more than most of season one of Bab 5.

Crusade had direction, which 1st season B5 lacked (or seemed to). B5 looked like a substandard copy of Star Trek (Soul Hunter), with a few X-Files refernces thrown in (Infection), to me. The crew of the station seemed kind of bland, and even the aliens were a little cliched. While there was certain interesting delevopments, it wasn't until 'Signs and Portents', that I really sat up and took notice. The slow build up is kind of interesting to watch with hindsight, but was less so then.

Crusade really hit the ground running, with a plot-arc, more interesting characters (granted a couple of them were a little out of place), a few mysteries. It too had a couple of sub-Star Trek episodes, and a more gleeful X-Files homage. It was just starting to get really good when they pulled the plug.

 

[Kosh127]

on one of the comentait was stated taht a crue was found in the second season and the rest of the show would be about shadow tech and the like.

 

[stevinator]

Great burn was much much later, just read this on wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusade_%28TV_series%29

nice plot spoilers etc as well as some info on the series and stuff.

One thing I was surprised to read however was some hints of a less than spectacular working relationship between JMS and mongoose? Or am I overly sensitive on this? AOG material was mostly considered canon I believe while a lot of the mongoose stuff which I think is just as good quality wise (perhaps better) is ignored or flat our said by JMS to be non-canon (at one point he said he would not endorse the novels and would have no obligation to maintain continuity in futre work as this material was all non-canonical)..the link is here for anyone interested (atleast most of it...was bored and read most of it from work a few nights ago):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5_Novels%2C_novelizations%2C_short_stories%2C_and_comic_books

(the last paragraph before contents list).

Have a great day all.

Regards,

Steve

P.S. If you read some of the race entries etc AOG sourcebooks are often referred to as canonical while the mongoose books are not although they are pointed out for further reading (presumably non-canon???)

 

[locarno24]

There were quite a lot of interesting bits starting to form....and yes, the cure was supposedly going to be found relatively early on, and the whole shadowtech abuse story become the centre (that's where the cure was going to pop up, supposedly).

Several interesting characters had popped up, inside the ship and out, but with only 12 episodes or so none of them managed to reach Mr.Bester status by being regular characters.

If you've seen the episode with the body-hopping aliens, the Earthgov rep (the supposed PR guy who turns up with fashion designer in tow) was supposedly going to be a big player; hence the being who'd been in his head saying 'I know what you're after, I know where you can find it' and his own comment about 'if anyone knows about surving political change, it's me'

Apocalypse box.....would have been interesting to see what thy actually did with it. The commentry points out that they actually used Gideon's voice - suitably distorted - for the voice of the box, which is no doubt highly significant in a way I don't quite get.

 

[emperorpenguin]

If you've seen the episode with the body-hopping aliens, the Earthgov rep (the supposed PR guy who turns up with fashion designer in tow) was supposedly going to be a big player; hence the being who'd been in his head saying 'I know what you're after, I know where you can find it' and his own comment about 'if anyone knows about surving political change, it's me'.

that comment was a reference to the character (Mr Welles) appearing as a Nightwatch operative in the season 2 finale "The Fall of Night"

 

[tneva82]

that comment was a reference to the character (Mr Welles) appearing as a Nightwatch operative in the season 2 finale "The Fall of Night"

Yep. Nightwatch member surviving fall of Clark certainly knows how to survive changing political situation :wink:

 

[Nightmares about Minbari]

One of the biggest problems with Crusade is that it seamed to pretty much ignore Babylon 5. There just seamed to be little to connect it to the massive wealth of background in Babylon 5.

For a long time I thought that it was someone elses SF series that they shoe-horned into the babylon 5 universe just to capitalise on the name recognition. bit of rewriting here or there to put a few connections in and job done.

Now I know that this isn't what happened, but watch the series and it seams credible.

 

[Greg Smith]

One of the biggest problems with Crusade is that it seamed to pretty much ignore Babylon 5.

I'd really have to disagree with that. While there is little mention of the other races, Minbari, Narn centauri, the Excalibur visits B5 at least once. The Drakh appear frequently. The Rangers & Shadows are mentioned frequently. Franklin and Shelby appear, Bester was due to appear. One of the characters is ex-Psi Corps.

Heck the Pilot for Crusade was a B5 TV movie, that only included a couple of cast from Crusade.

 

[locarno24]

It was mostly due to the change in theme; Crusade was/started as much more action-ey and single-ship exploits. B5's most interesting bits were politics and full-scale war. Crusade may well have moved into this field later, but early on couldn't compete for storyline or visual impact. This is kind of why 'Lost Tales' has so much promise; the B5 timeline is well established and known by the majority of the viewers, so you can dip in and out of any interesting bit of the history, with short stories from the Valen-Era Shadow war through to covering the bits of Crusade JMS might have wanted to do.

 

[emperorpenguin]

While there is little mention of the other races, Minbari, Narn centauri, the Excalibur visits B5 at least once. .

I think that was part of the weakness. Some of B5's best characters were the Centauri and Narns (Londo, Vir, G'Kar, Refa, Cartagia) and some of the best plotlines involved those worlds. At least I always thought the Minbari stories a little weak in comparison.