The Hand

Mongoose Si

Mongoose
Having just watched Legend of the Rangers again, I was even more intrigued about "The Hand" and have been considering using this as a basis for my new campaign.

The obvious problem is that very little is revealed about them in the movie. Has JMS revealed any further info about them or their servants? Does anyone know anything nore than was revealed in LotR?

There is lots of potential for some great RPG material but some more info would be very helpful :)
 
In one of the epsiodes of the Bab 5 series Sheridan is told he is the Hand.. I always wondered if perhaps there was some link. For example we know the Shadows can createw facsimile's of people and program or reprogram them perhaps the Hand is led by an evil Sheridan clone :twisted:

It always kinda bugged me that in the Legend of the Rangers the Hand are said to make the Shadows look like Insects as we know the LAST of the Ancients and First Ones left for the Rim with Lorien at the end of the conflict with the younger races during the second great war. This would imply the Hand are either a younger race in possession of much superior technology (which is consistent with thier servants and the toys they give them but not the Hand themselves) or they are some party from some other location like the Thirdspace aliens and therefore completely unseen and quantifiable in strength.

There is a third option.. notably that the Hand is not a race so much as a concept.. a group or order of some sort made up of numerous races in much the same way as the ISA is but its evil counterpart.. instead of unifying thier forces and technology for the defence and technological promotion of all they do the same for strength and dominion.
 
Some interesting ideas there Neo :) I like the idea that the Hand are a concept, but if you remember, in LotR they found a "doorway" which I always assumed was preventing the darkness from returning - some kind of prison maybe? Maybe whatever is behind that door was some kind of weapon used by the hand?

Another related question psrings to mind. Does anyone know the name of the race of Minister Kafta's people - I don't think the name of their race is mentioned in the movie but it may have been mentioned elsewhere?
 
ShadowScout said:
Wanna know about "the hand"?
Read "Darkness & Light" - the Vorlon history section. It's all explained... :wink:

Sure, tease us!

My personal take on it is that The Hand is a group that managed to avoid the last shadow war, and has traditionally been relatively isolationist. They're a bit of a fraud, referring to the Shadows as insects - truth be told, Shadows do look like insects, or maybe arachnids, but that's splitting hairs. So going along with the writeup I did for them, they turned back the shadow during the first Shadow War, and weren't bugged again. When they learned of the first ones leaving the galaxy, they decided that the time to expand their otherwise small empire (consisting of only a few nearby systems) and forged an alliance with the drakh. I can only assume that they had already been dealt with in one way or another by the time Crusade began.
 
There are tpnnes of possibilities about the Hand if you resort to speculation. Some people say the Hand are spreading the word of them being so powerful just to intimidate their foes and gain allies among the younger races. Or perhaps the Thirdspacers are actually the leaders of the Hand I mean it was said that they controlled some Vorlons so maybe these corrupted Vorlons have kept the Hand alive for thousands of years till it was ready to release their masters. Like i said, tonnes of speculation.

Also it was said that the 'gateway' led to another dimension and a probe that was sent came back distorted and changed. We can only speculate that the Hand did not esclate into a war like the Shadow War since there was no mention of it in Crusade, so it might very well be one of those secret wars which the rangers fight and get no thanks for.

And cool, another reason to get Darkness and Light :D
 
...actually, Ivanova mentioned six remaining neutral First One races during Season 3. With Lorien's help, she only recruited five. Count the number of non-Shadow/non-Vorlon First One ships at the Battle of Corianna 6: You'll see five show up.

--this means the Hand either could not be reached, or told Ivanova to fuck off NB
 
Nero's Boot said:
...actually, Ivanova mentioned six remaining neutral First One races during Season 3. With Lorien's help, she only recruited five. Count the number of non-Shadow/non-Vorlon First One ships at the Battle of Corianna 6: You'll see five show up.

--this means the Hand either could not be reached, or told Ivanova to **** off NB

Yet Lorien states once she had recruited them that it was the Last of them.. and that he did not want to go to the last battle without them as you later see that is because he wanted to ensure they all left for the rim with him. So whatever races Ivanova thought were First One races obviously were either only legends, had already left for the rim or were not First Ones at all.

Afterall Lorien would know he was the FIRST :D
 
ShadowScout said:
Wanna know about "the hand"?
Read "Darkness & Light" - the Vorlon history section. It's all explained... :wink:

Gimmie... Gimmie... Gimmie... Gimmie... :twisted:
 
ShadowScout said:
Wanna know about "the hand"?
Read "Darkness & Light" - the Vorlon history section. It's all explained... :wink:

Yeah true, but despite that I wasnt too smitten on that explanation it was all a bit too underplayed.

Of course if a sourcebook was to be released detailing that particular period of history more extensively...well ;)
 
Neo said:
Of course if a sourcebook was to be released detailing that particular period of history more extensively...
Give them time. Sooner or later Mongoose will run out of stuff to cover in the "current" (meaning B5-ere and connected time periods) B5 universe, and then they might take a closer look at the first ones and their history... as long as they get enough players(=potential customers) shouting for it that they consider it an marketable product...
 
ShadowScout said:
Give them time. Sooner or later Mongoose will run out of stuff to cover in the "current" (meaning B5-ere and connected time periods) B5 universe, and then they might take a closer look at the first ones and their history... as long as they get enough players(=potential customers) shouting for it that they consider it an marketable product...

As long as they keep making B5 RPG books, I'll keep getting them. I've paid far more for far less (in other words, the half a shelf I have dedicated to the B5 RPG is dwarfed by the 2.5 shelves that I have dedicated to official 3rd edition products, despite the fact that only a handful of those books are ever used in my games).
 
It always kinda bugged me that in the Legend of the Rangers the Hand are said to make the Shadows look like Insects as we know the LAST of the Ancients and First Ones left for the Rim with Lorien at the end of the conflict with the younger races during the second great war.

yeah this bugs me as well its like ow man we got these uber dangouse aliens they are like GODS. 2 months later næ they werent that bad but know we got even ubrer aliens and tey are so MEAN.

i think many tv series and films have done mistakes ther. buy constatly trying to make somthing thats bigger and bader
 
Matt said:
i think many tv series and films have done mistakes ther. buy constatly trying to make somthing thats bigger and bader

I still think that this was all from their own point of view. Either they're exaggerating their power, or they're just making a comment about the physical appearance of the shadows.
 
If memory servs correct the doorway was built by vorlons that went mental, so did the other vorloons take them all out when they deactavated the doorway???
 
Shadow Queen said:
If memory servs correct the doorway was built by vorlons that went mental, so did the other vorloons take them all out when they deactavated the doorway???

Do you mean the thirdspace gate doorway? That was made by the combined Vorlon race but only the rogue elements under the command of the TS aliens hid it in hyperspace.

If you mean the LotR gateway i dont think it was mentioned who defeated the Hand.
 
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