Who's fault was it? (mild 'In the Beginning' spoiler)

[The Eagle]

I don't agree with the majority here about the open gunports being a strange form of greeting. After all, ceremonial displays of weponry has been and still is used among humans for similar purposes troughout history.

This is simply a case of very badly handled culture shock.

 

[Jhary]

The Captain of the Promoteus violated his Orders "No first Contact" "Stay out of sight" He was stuborn and wanted a medal for his uniform. so people where, in ww2 called a man with neckpain. in meaning to the german Iron Cross.

 

[Chernobyl]

the guy in earthdome was pretty arrogant, given the warning from londo.
"we handled the Dilgar, we can handle the minbari!"

 

[Sulfurdown]

Don't suppose I can revise my opinion to Earthdome? (Sending in you're worst first contact person is just dumb.)

 

[steelvow]

Actually I reckon it was Gaius Baltar. I know he admits to being flawed, but mistakes were made, it was his fault, he is solely to blame.

Space him.

I protest.

Spacing is a presidential privilege, you have NO RIGHT to do that ! :lol:

 

[operative 6678]

Personally I think the person most directly responsible for starting the war was the captain of the Valentha (the Grey Sharlin) who took the first actions that could really be interpreted as 'hostile'.

1) He approached with gun ports open. Gesture of strength and respect my arse, this has to be the single stupidest non hostile greeting in the known universe. It's like surrendering by walking towards your enemy with a loaded gun cocked and pointed at his head 'so he can see it'.

I disagree, gun ports open, weapons charged/primed/powered up/fully wound or whatever its and targeted on the Hyperion is like 'surrendering by walking towards your enemy with a loaded gun cocked and pointed at his head 'so he can see it' - not gun ports open alone.

I'm with Jhary, the blame rests with the captain of the Prometheus. He disregarded his orders in the pursuit of his own personal glory.

As I remember it**, wanting more shiny medals he: -
· tried sneak up on the Minbari like a man tippy-toeing behind someone on a gravel path whist wearing combat boots
· panicked & shat himself with fear when they noticed that he was doing this (and by the look of fear he had it probably came out whiter than his face now was)
· ordered his gunners to fire and scored a lucky hit
· ran - in the same sissy way Scot does near the end of Austin Powers 3 - all the way home
· then finally hid in a cupboard and cried himself to sleep clutching ‘mr snuggles’ - his favourite teddy bear.




**Please bare in mind I haven’t watched ‘In the Beginning’ since early feb and I was hit in the head by a Fiat Punto in march, so I my memory might hot bee 100% accurist on this.


Yes I said Punto, they may look all small, cute and that they would say boo to a cycle courier – but wait until one gets you in its sights. Then it turns into a ConcussionCausingEyeSocketFraturingMetalMonster! with-big-poin-ty-teeth.

Its got a mean streak about a mile wide – it can leap about……….. look at the booooones!

So, the frontal attack was to no avail against the speed and ferocity of the evil Punto and we lost 3 Knights. After the retreat heralded by the rallying cry of “Run Away”, we recouped at the vantage point from which we first spied the small, rampant killing machine. King Arthur consulted his Knights and they remembered that Brother Maynard carries with him the Holy Hand Grenade of………An………Ti………..oh that’s not right is it………..um……………Iya, hmmm……….. well I think you get the gist of it.




It was the Prometheus captains’ fault

 

[Balance]

As a note to the "Late Delivery from Avalon" source being biased point, note that "In the Beginning" is the story of an elderly Centauri Emperor who's been known to spin things as second (if not first nature) and drinks. A lot.
And let's not start on the idea that he keeps a Narn around for some reason!

 

[CZuschlag]

Earthdome.

You bet ... there's a big advanced power out there that you've been warned about, so the most natural thing to do when you're still growing in the universe and have lots of useful things to do is to poke the wasp nest.

Poke, poke, poke.

And then you choose an egomaniac to do it and he decides to go one better and hit the nest with a bat.

Really frickin' clever.

From Children of the Mind, Orson Scott Card:

"And you have the same that we all have, the one that gets us in so much damned trouble all the time. You know that you're about to die, and you want to see it all resolved before you do. ... Humans are a short-lived species. We're the ones determined to make decisions without getting enough information, because we want to act now, while we still have time."

Sound like the basis for an Earthdome decision. Human nature -- sometimes, a mortal flaw!

 

[Da Boss]

Of course you have been warned off them by the Centauri - who have proved sooo very trustworthy and accurate in the past?

Didn't they claim that Earth was a lost colony etc?

 

[cordas]

You are all wrong its Keiths fault..... Everything is Keiths fault.

 

[Triggy]

More seriously...like any tragic incident that you could mirror in a historical context there is usually enough "blame" to spread around. It is a series of circumstances and underlying causes sparked by a single catatrosphic decision that acts to give those underlying causes severe consequences.

In this context, any one of the characters could probably have acted differently and so avoid the resulting EM war...however, the circumstances being such each character acted according to their nature, is one solely to blame? One could argue that it was inevitable...

Absolutely It's a bit like WWI - you may pinpoint it to the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand but a whole heap of factors including outdated European colonialism, etc. but at the end of the day many factors across many different people all contributed and without one or more of them the conflict may not have happened or may have happened regardless with the political and social pressures.

 

[H]

but what happened to the poor old Ostrich?

 

[Darzoni]

None of the above.

It was the Vorlons.

Think about it.

 

[Da Boss]

Yeah its always their fault - Shadows get all the bad press.........

 

[Shadow Queen]

Captain jankowski, his ship, his watch, he was ordered to make first contact not start a war, so the buck stops with him.

 

[Greg Smith]

I blame the Dilgar. If thaey hadn't been easy to defeat, the EA wouldn't have been so over confident.

 

[Tank]

I'll run with Greg on this one, if the Dilgar hadn't been such wussies then the EA may have been more cautious.

As to a war... well stretching it really, war is the last resort in politics and there weren't any politics involved just a holy jihad led by some one who really should have known better!!!

 

[Niemand]

I blame the First Officer of the Prometheus. He could have stepped in and taken command after the Captain pushed them in closer. Also, his reports paniced the Captain.

 

[Chernobyl]

yeah go ahead blame the poor XO... :lol:

 

[Target]

I blame the Dilgar. If thaey hadn't been easy to defeat, the EA wouldn't have been so over confident.

It's not their fault they don't have interceptors to stop all those flash missles & railguns.
Thats MGP so it's their fault.