0:58 I like how the Shadows, in spite of their vast firepower, still have the presence of mind to use tactics. Keep one of their ships in reserve to use for an ambush. A powerful enemy is bad enough, here you got a powerful smart enemy.
I like how when they go to leave, the ships each take another shot at the station. At first I thought it was to ensure no survivors/recordings, but the more I look, I believe they where trying to mask that the damage was to precise. That last one just ran it's beam up the edge of the debris.
Two years later Londo Mollari returned to his homeworld and discover, to his horror, that his people were trembling in terror of the childish maniac that this attack had put on the throne.
Good point and a salient one for our times and for all times. People that consciously trade their freedom and agency to a a leadership promising security and strength end up giving everything away for nothing. They lose their freedom and their security.
@@MROJPC Actually, I was thinking about how Londo thought that starting a war with the Narn would help his people to stand proud again. Instead, he ended up doing almost as much harm to his own people as the Narn.
@@ethenallen1388 Oooh, he ended up doing MUCH more damage to them than the Narn ever could have done. The Narn only freed themselves and fought some small skirmishes. Londo narrowly avoided the entire destruction of his homeplanet, then ended up being a slave to Shadow allies and ruling his much-reduced people as a satrap, basically.
I like how, even when you can see a shadow ship in full, the black, shimmery, changing surface still makes it hard to be really sure quite what you're seeing
@@ochykysh Well the difference between the NARN and the Shadows. Is that the shadows completely annihilated the NARN. There was no chance of success or at least life, it was one shot one kill. The Shadows guaranteed Extinction of an entire species. I think the NARN would have preferred to be conquerors not murderers.
Both equal sides of the same coin... If it didn't happen with the former it will happen with the latter... Both deserved what they got and in the end had to settle for what little chance of change that was given to them... So they can build a better future one that hasn't been achieved when they were at the height of their power
I'd read a description of this episode saying that the colony fire visible at 1:30 is actually lava - the three Shadow beams converging for a second or two was enough to breach the crust of the planet.
@@InfernosReaper I would say it's lava - the Shadows with some of the striked didn't even attacked the dome, but shot next to it - right into the ground.
The lacked the political will to attack an institution of that size. The battle group Reifa sent could handle the contingent sent to investigate, but not what the Shadows had destroyed.
The Narn were pushing hard and were quite motivated. The Centauri were rudderless. One had been preparing for the war during a generation while the other fell into complacency and decadence. My money would have been on the Narn.
They couldn’t have before those reinforcements arrived. Then it would have been a slug fest. The centauri not only lacked the authorization to fight, but they had no real desire to fight either.
@@mikecimerian6913 - The Narn sacrificed most of their economy to build ships and military. But other parts of their society suffered. Narn planets were suffering a famine and Narn people were starving. Ambassador Molari told Narn Ambassador G'kar to stop building so many ships, and to focus on feeding the Narn people. G'kar refused to listen.
There was almost no chance that the Narn could take out or even knock off enough debris from a cruiser to maybe show the shadows were there. If they had used their fighters there's a chance that some of them could get destroyed or disabled and show a third party had been there.
@@nomi001 The way the Shadow fighters are protrayed, I think one Shadow cruiser and a wing of Shadows fighters would make short work of the Narn cruisers, especially with surprise on their side. Since it was the Centauri that arrived, they would dispose of any "unusual" debris found, assuming the Narn got lucky.
90s sci-fi technobabble maybe? It could also be one of those generic names for that region of space. A sector divided into smaller quadrants where there's a quadrant 1 to 14 in that sector and each of those quadrants have 4 divisions??? I'm guessing
Yes but if you recall the bad guy I forget his name approached the Narn ambassador first and was rebuffed/rejected. He then went to the Centauri ambassador Molinari I think his name was and they made a deal. It could have been the other way around and the shadows would have attacked the Centauri.
Morden did say getting rid of the Narn was good (for the Shadows) as it reduced the odds of them telling the younger races about their weakness vs. Telepathy. I don't think the Shadows would've worked with the Narn, not ambitious enough for the invisible giant killer spiders.
How it is in Stardrive against the remnant when you hit stardate 1300.0 and they bomb your good worlds with ancient fleet swatting away your frigates and starbase in 30 seconds.
A state calling itself "republic", while being ruled by de-facto monarch, who prefers a low-class fashion style and is insanely paranoid, aggressively reconquering the neighboring states which broke off when "republic" was established reminds me of early years of USSR. Even the quote about "waging war on twelve fronts" puts number of new "members" of Centauri Republic really close to USSR's 15.
A lot was cut out but I didn't like this scene. The Narn were once slaves to the Centauri, won their freedom established colonies, ships ect respected, then the Centauri hired the shadows to do their dirty work here so the Centauri could come and mop up to put them back into slavery again. Smh, jacked up.
What that area of space is called in the show. Sorry, I'm not one of the writers of B5 and thus can't quite explain it. JMS has probably answered that question somewhere at some time.
@@InfernosReaper Quadrant seems to be the translation of what the Narn named areas on their map, and for obvious reasons the Earth and others took this naming too. The earth forces have divided their parts into "Sectors". Perhabs the Narns had only a 2D map of their area and then put a raster onto it and it's not Quadrant 14, but Quadrant 1-4 (the 1 would show, that it's right at the edge of their territory)
@@SonnyBubba The best AMIGAs had in 1993 up to 4 MB of RAM and were compared to Macs (in black and white) and PCs (with Windows 3.0) much better equipped to handle graphical tasks. Although from the middle of Season 1 on they changed to a PC version of Autocad. But yes, the scenes were quite awful. But what could you expect from an area BEFORE you had dedicated GPUs with Polygon rendering? Star Trek in 1993 and even up till the 4th season of DS9 and Voyager mostly used models for that reason. But it's crazy when you think of the fact, that in the 1990s THIS was state of the art 3D graphics and nowadays even indie games can render such graphics with low end graphic chips :D
@@Stranglars1 According to my own two eyes. Dems tell vaccinated people to be afraid of unvaccinated people. Dems divide people by playing the racism card really hard. Vote democrat or the racist boogeyman is going to get you. Dems try to make people think there is a racist hiding behind every bush.
@@nemo99nemo83 I don't subscribe to the Shadow ideology. I just acknowledge it. I am more of a Vorlon leaning ideology. I am more of a Minbari leaning ideology.
Babylon 5 was made in the days of Yugoslavian conflict... Those Shadow ships look a lot like the US stealth bombers... And G'Kar sounds like an anagram for (Radovan) Karadžić
I'm not sure anagram is the right word. There's a lot of real world stuff that influence B5 and it wouldn't surprise me if there was a little bit of that. For example, in the first episode of season 1(not counting the pilot), that Centauri colonists monotonously reading a prepared statement to "legitimize" the actions of the captors is reminiscent of American POWs in Vietnam and Iraq
No other sci-fi race captured that sence of Lovecraftian horror like the Shadows did. B5 was a masterpiece
The Reapers from Mass Effect were another race that did it well
0:58 I like how the Shadows, in spite of their vast firepower, still have the presence of mind to use tactics. Keep one of their ships in reserve to use for an ambush. A powerful enemy is bad enough, here you got a powerful smart enemy.
That's no battle...
That's a massacre
"This is not war. This is pest control!"
Narns: "We'd like to Buy a Break for 200 please?"
Michael Straczynsky (creator of B5): "NO!"
I like how when they go to leave, the ships each take another shot at the station. At first I thought it was to ensure no survivors/recordings, but the more I look, I believe they where trying to mask that the damage was to precise. That last one just ran it's beam up the edge of the debris.
Two years later Londo Mollari returned to his homeworld and discover, to his horror, that his people were trembling in terror of the childish maniac that this attack had put on the throne.
Good point and a salient one for our times and for all times. People that consciously trade their freedom and agency to a a leadership promising security and strength end up giving everything away for nothing. They lose their freedom and their security.
@@MROJPC Actually, I was thinking about how Londo thought that starting a war with the Narn would help his people to stand proud again. Instead, he ended up doing almost as much harm to his own people as the Narn.
@@ethenallen1388 Oooh, he ended up doing MUCH more damage to them than the Narn ever could have done. The Narn only freed themselves and fought some small skirmishes. Londo narrowly avoided the entire destruction of his homeplanet, then ended up being a slave to Shadow allies and ruling his much-reduced people as a satrap, basically.
Ahead of its time ... Great story and space scenes
I like how, even when you can see a shadow ship in full, the black, shimmery, changing surface still makes it hard to be really sure quite what you're seeing
I always felt sorry for the Narn, the punching bag of the galaxy.
Don't be, they handed out punches as well. Before Londo contracted the Shadows, the Narn were doing the same to Centauri...
@@ochykysh the Narn doing the same to Centauri was why they embraced the Shadows
@@ochykysh Well the difference between the NARN and the Shadows. Is that the shadows completely annihilated the NARN. There was no chance of success or at least life, it was one shot one kill. The Shadows guaranteed Extinction of an entire species. I think the NARN would have preferred to be conquerors not murderers.
@@Thereisalwaysmore I think you misunderstood my comment about the Narn. I was referring to Narn VS Centauri
Both equal sides of the same coin... If it didn't happen with the former it will happen with the latter... Both deserved what they got and in the end had to settle for what little chance of change that was given to them... So they can build a better future one that hasn't been achieved when they were at the height of their power
I'd read a description of this episode saying that the colony fire visible at 1:30 is actually lava - the three Shadow beams converging for a second or two was enough to breach the crust of the planet.
either that or the colony used geothermal power which becomes a problem with such attacks
@@InfernosReaper I would say it's lava - the Shadows with some of the striked didn't even attacked the dome, but shot next to it - right into the ground.
@@acmenipponair Domes do tend to have underground bits, possibly even geothermal power plants as well.
"As easy as killing younglings with a lightsaber." -Anakin S
Odd, Vader said the same thing.
Shadows vs. younger races is comically unfair without plot armor. Its like an elephant stepping on an ant.
B5 didn't pull its punches.
You ever step on an ant?.....better have smooth soled shoes or your mainly wasting your time
i like how the shadows didn't call the colony just to give them a yo mama joke... remember when things were good?
B5 could tell a mundane alien story and make you feel really bad for them.
The Reapers have come
The Reapers wish they were so powerful. Seriously. The Shadows would bitchslap The Reapers out of existence with ease.
Especially since the Shadows have planet killers and shit...
Ah yes, “Reapers.” We have dismissed that claim.
The expression of 'ripping you a new one" became actual here.
To be honest that Centauri fleet could have won the fight on it's own anyway, but would have taken longer.
The lacked the political will to attack an institution of that size. The battle group Reifa sent could handle the contingent sent to investigate, but not what the Shadows had destroyed.
The Narn were pushing hard and were quite motivated. The Centauri were rudderless. One had been preparing for the war during a generation while the other fell into complacency and decadence. My money would have been on the Narn.
They couldn’t have before those reinforcements arrived. Then it would have been a slug fest. The centauri not only lacked the authorization to fight, but they had no real desire to fight either.
@@mikecimerian6913 - The Narn sacrificed most of their economy to build ships and military. But other parts of their society suffered. Narn planets were suffering a famine and Narn people were starving.
Ambassador Molari told Narn Ambassador G'kar to stop building so many ships, and to focus on feeding the Narn people. G'kar refused to listen.
Surprised the Shadows used so many cruiser and no fighters.
There was almost no chance that the Narn could take out or even knock off enough debris from a cruiser to maybe show the shadows were there. If they had used their fighters there's a chance that some of them could get destroyed or disabled and show a third party had been there.
Ya as nomi001 said, about the only time you see fighters is once they are out in the open and everyone knows about them.
@@nomi001
The way the Shadow fighters are protrayed, I think one Shadow cruiser and a wing of Shadows fighters would make short work of the Narn cruisers, especially with surprise on their side.
Since it was the Centauri that arrived, they would dispose of any "unusual" debris found, assuming the Narn got lucky.
I am a huge Babylon 5 fan, but this just struck me: How can there be more than 4 quadrants? 🙃
90s sci-fi technobabble maybe? It could also be one of those generic names for that region of space. A sector divided into smaller quadrants where there's a quadrant 1 to 14 in that sector and each of those quadrants have 4 divisions???
I'm guessing
2d representation of a map
# 1 2 3 4 5....
1
2
3
4
...
1 4 would be column 1 line 4
You can also give them names or numbers
Early Star Trek used quadrants for small areas as well. The four quadrant system was only established in TNG
Hhahaa I see what you did
Just about to remake this ;)
Centari used Shadows to do their dirty work for them and then they enter after everything is done.
Yes but if you recall the bad guy I forget his name approached the Narn ambassador first and was rebuffed/rejected. He then went to the Centauri ambassador Molinari I think his name was and they made a deal. It could have been the other way around and the shadows would have attacked the Centauri.
Morden did say getting rid of the Narn was good (for the Shadows) as it reduced the odds of them telling the younger races about their weakness vs. Telepathy. I don't think the Shadows would've worked with the Narn, not ambitious enough for the invisible giant killer spiders.
The funny thing about quadrants... there's usually only 4 of them.
You meant they are four sided...
@@AKUJIVALDO That would be a quadrangle, a quadrant is 1/4 of a circle.
How it is in Stardrive against the remnant when you hit stardate 1300.0 and they bomb your good worlds with ancient fleet swatting away your frigates and starbase in 30 seconds.
I call it the massacre of quadrant 14.
And the award for the scariest ships in sci-fi goes to.....
The name Centauri Republic is a contrast to what Centauri really are, an Empire led by a monarchy. Should've call it Centauri Empire instead.
That is the whole point. A bit like napoleon's french republic
I was thinking more Roman Empire would a more appropriate comparison.
A state calling itself "republic", while being ruled by de-facto monarch, who prefers a low-class fashion style and is insanely paranoid, aggressively reconquering the neighboring states which broke off when "republic" was established reminds me of early years of USSR. Even the quote about "waging war on twelve fronts" puts number of new "members" of Centauri Republic really close to USSR's 15.
Man I can't wait to see the new look the Shadow battle crabs sport in the reboot and hope their screams remain just as Orgasmic.
Go Centauri Go 👍
Thats rough buddy
The turkey shoot of Quadrant 14
I wonder if any UFO folklore inspired any of this
How do you come up with 14 when a quadrant means a fourth of a given area? 🤔
A lot was cut out but I didn't like this scene. The Narn were once slaves to the Centauri, won their freedom established colonies, ships ect respected, then the Centauri hired the shadows to do their dirty work here so the Centauri could come and mop up to put them back into slavery again. Smh, jacked up.
Babylon 5 .... pls new .. 2022 / now 2021
Those fighter pilots should have taken off rather than fix against the Shadows.
Erm… isn’t a quadrant, by definition, 1 part of 4? How can a quadrant be number 14? 😂😂
What that area of space is called in the show. Sorry, I'm not one of the writers of B5 and thus can't quite explain it. JMS has probably answered that question somewhere at some time.
Because they ended up having more than 4 quadrants after a while, thus a quadrant is probably either a single square on a grid or 4 of them.
@@InfernosReaper Quadrant seems to be the translation of what the Narn named areas on their map, and for obvious reasons the Earth and others took this naming too. The earth forces have divided their parts into "Sectors". Perhabs the Narns had only a 2D map of their area and then put a raster onto it and it's not Quadrant 14, but Quadrant 1-4 (the 1 would show, that it's right at the edge of their territory)
It it me or ironic the menacing scary ships fire pink laser????
I liked B5 but all the battles, ships and space scenes look out of a Nintendo S game.
That’s because they only had an Amiga computer to do the battle scenes with. The top end had 1/4 MB RAM.
25 year old tv special effects will do that.
@@SonnyBubba That's False. Amiga 2000 can be expanded beyond 256 KB of RAM. Amiga 500 in 1989 has 1 MB of RAM.
@@SonnyBubba The best AMIGAs had in 1993 up to 4 MB of RAM and were compared to Macs (in black and white) and PCs (with Windows 3.0) much better equipped to handle graphical tasks. Although from the middle of Season 1 on they changed to a PC version of Autocad.
But yes, the scenes were quite awful. But what could you expect from an area BEFORE you had dedicated GPUs with Polygon rendering? Star Trek in 1993 and even up till the 4th season of DS9 and Voyager mostly used models for that reason.
But it's crazy when you think of the fact, that in the 1990s THIS was state of the art 3D graphics and nowadays even indie games can render such graphics with low end graphic chips :D
That was such a brilliant ploy by the Shadows. They have a talent for playing people against each other. Kinda like the democrat party. LoL...
According to who? Mainstream media? 😉
@@Stranglars1 According to my own two eyes. Dems tell vaccinated people to be afraid of unvaccinated people. Dems divide people by playing the racism card really hard. Vote democrat or the racist boogeyman is going to get you. Dems try to make people think there is a racist hiding behind every bush.
No wonder a republic rat is a friend of the shadows. Just like Clark you obviously like a fascist leadership.
@@nemo99nemo83 I don't subscribe to the Shadow ideology. I just acknowledge it. I am more of a Vorlon leaning ideology. I am more of a Minbari leaning ideology.
@@razak4494 The dems didn't try to storm the capitol... 😏
Babylon 5 was made in the days of Yugoslavian conflict... Those Shadow ships look a lot like the US stealth bombers... And G'Kar sounds like an anagram for (Radovan) Karadžić
I'm not sure anagram is the right word. There's a lot of real world stuff that influence B5 and it wouldn't surprise me if there was a little bit of that.
For example, in the first episode of season 1(not counting the pilot), that Centauri colonists monotonously reading a prepared statement to "legitimize" the actions of the captors is reminiscent of American POWs in Vietnam and Iraq