"Ink on a page" is easily my most favorite line from Refa bar none. The perfect amount of vitriol and zealotry that shows he's not only in control, but that he'a going to wield his power how he sees fit.
@@dragonstormx eh kinda. Breaking treaties and agreements simply because you feel like subtly weakens you in a number of ways. Other powers will presume betrayal and will be reluctant to work with you, you shut down avenues of expansion your nation loses prestige etc etc
@@kenle2 Actually a truly colossal amount of residual radiation from all the radioactive elements in the rock. They don't do any real harm in the ground, but now they're powdered and in every level of the atmosphere, to say nothing of other toxic airborne particles like rare earth metals. Cancers for all!
Not only that: relying on a power much greater than you to weaken everybody else can only turn out bad for you when that power now only has you to deal with.
@@bargainbin6162 as the Narn and Drazi do in the 5th season citing the use of Mass Drivers in the fall of narn as justification. And the number of league worlds that take the position 'they got what they deserved' is rather damning
The lack of pity for the Centauri in S5 after the Narn and Drazi fleet repaid the favor is telling. Perhaps the humans and Minbari felt some pity, but everyone else said serves them right.
I really feel bad for Londo. His ambitions made it impossible to escape his fate. You can get a sad sense he knows it but has to play it out. No matter what he does; everyone he touches gets hurt by the darkness. Unlike the other characters who grow and decide their own fates for better or worse; he's trapped and can never escape. It's worse than death. ☹
You can see him struggling to pull things back from the brink even at this stage, where he tells Refa how the Centauri must see to their own destiny rather than depend on others. They really did an amazing job showing how corrosive Londo's Faustian deal turned out to be.
"What do you want?" Morden asked and Londo answered truthfully. And Morden delivered exactly what he said he wanted. The problem was that by the time Londo realized the actual cost of what he was asking for it was much too late to change his mind.
@@SirMarshalHaig I think that is what was going through Londo's mind when he was talking to Rifa. The Technomage turned out to be just as accurate as the Empress.
Seeing the Centauri using MASS DRIVERS is the reason you understand right away that the Na'vi of the movie AVATAR would have been absolutely fucked if they drove humans off the planet.
Except they drove the RDA off, not Humanity. And the UN would wipe RDA out if they tried using WMDs. (The UN actually has teeth by that point) Per Avatar's lore, also, btw, the UN has a treaty with RDA, and if they use WMDs, or even just axcessive force, they lose all rights to off-earth resources. Not just Pandora. RDA owns pretty much EVERYTHING in the Solar system, which would kill their profits about a thousand times as much as losing Pandora.
1. The corporation in _Avatar_ wanted to exploit minerals and biological resources from Pandora. Can't do that if the planet's crust is a slag heap. 2. Humans in Cameron's _Avatar_ are still leagues behind technologically the space-faring civilizations in _Babylon 5, so it's uncertain they would even have the tech to hurl asteroids at a planet._ Earth tech in _Avatar_ still lacks faster-than-light engines! And humans in both _Avatar_ and _B5_ lacked true artificial gravity and thus anti-gravity as well (while acceleration/deceleration was kinda handwaved away). THey also lack tractor beams, which the Minbari had. They're closer in tech level to humans in _The Expanse..._ granted, the Belters in _The Expanse did hurl asteroids at Earth, but in _The Expanse_ months and years pass until those asteroids reached Earth and the Belters "cheated" by using classified tech to mask the asteroids from the inner planets' sensor net. But if you want to bombard a planet with asteroids, you first have to go where the asteroids are, usually way out in an asteroid belt or the equivalent of our Kuiper belt, which at sub-light speeds will take months or years. Then, either you have giant ships that can load whole iron-based asteroids whole, jump back to the planet in question, and accelerate those rocks via railsguns to increase their mass via speed, you have a problem. You grab those giant asteroids somehow, change their vector and accelerate them towards the distant target, while that target (a planet) is moving, and other planets and moons in that solar system are also moving which can throw your asteroids off-course with their gravity.
No. You dont get it. The only reason humans are on their world. Is for the lush forest. And the ecosystem avatar 2 explains it. Humans cannot bomb the planet they risk destroying the fountain of youth. Oir greed defended them.
No, the analogy is of Imperial Germany in 1914 when the Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg called the Treaty of London of 1839, "A Scrap of Paper" when Britain threatened to intervene if it were violated and Belgium invaded.
At that point, nobody would have listened to Londo. And if Londo had spoken up or gone public with "the late Emperor wanted peace between Centauri and Narn!" the other Centauroi would have 1. laughed at him, 2. Refa would've arranged an "unfortunate accident" for Londo, 3. Londo knew House Mollari would also have suffered.
"Ink on a page" is easily my most favorite line from Refa bar none. The perfect amount of vitriol and zealotry that shows he's not only in control, but that he'a going to wield his power how he sees fit.
Unfortunately he was right. Treaties are only as powerful as the will to enforce them.
@@dragonstormx And the power backing it.
No refa is out of control he's just to zealous to see it in the long run it will cost Centauri prime dearly.
He died for his zelotry and his planet endured a long grusome civil war.
@@dragonstormx eh kinda. Breaking treaties and agreements simply because you feel like subtly weakens you in a number of ways. Other powers will presume betrayal and will be reluctant to work with you, you shut down avenues of expansion your nation loses prestige etc etc
The idea of Mass Drivers portrayed in this series was genuinely terrifying.
Its a very old concept....basically a space based trebuchet.
Mostly because of how the scene is filmed rathan than the actual concept. Mass drivers are essentially big slings.
Look up "Rods from God"
All the fun of strategic nuclear weapons and none of the residual radiation.
What's not to like?
@@kenle2 Actually a truly colossal amount of residual radiation from all the radioactive elements in the rock. They don't do any real harm in the ground, but now they're powdered and in every level of the atmosphere, to say nothing of other toxic airborne particles like rare earth metals. Cancers for all!
It kind of shows how sort sighted refa is. Failing to honor your agreements means people will be reluctant to engage in agreements with you.
It just invites the opportunity for others to do the same to them. An escalation can invite others to do the same to them.
Not only that: relying on a power much greater than you to weaken everybody else can only turn out bad for you when that power now only has you to deal with.
@@bargainbin6162 as the Narn and Drazi do in the 5th season citing the use of Mass Drivers in the fall of narn as justification. And the number of league worlds that take the position 'they got what they deserved' is rather damning
@@davidlewis5312You reap what you sow comes to mind
The lack of pity for the Centauri in S5 after the Narn and Drazi fleet repaid the favor is telling. Perhaps the humans and Minbari felt some pity, but everyone else said serves them right.
Refa: Relax, Londo, we know what we're doing!
Londo: Yeah, about that...
I really feel bad for Londo. His ambitions made it impossible to escape his fate. You can get a sad sense he knows it but has to play it out. No matter what he does; everyone he touches gets hurt by the darkness. Unlike the other characters who grow and decide their own fates for better or worse; he's trapped and can never escape. It's worse than death. ☹
You can see him struggling to pull things back from the brink even at this stage, where he tells Refa how the Centauri must see to their own destiny rather than depend on others. They really did an amazing job showing how corrosive Londo's Faustian deal turned out to be.
"What do you want?" Morden asked and Londo answered truthfully. And Morden delivered exactly what he said he wanted. The problem was that by the time Londo realized the actual cost of what he was asking for it was much too late to change his mind.
"Your victims"
Words that probably haunted Londo for the rest of his life.
@@SirMarshalHaig I think that is what was going through Londo's mind when he was talking to Rifa. The Technomage turned out to be just as accurate as the Empress.
Seeing the Centauri using MASS DRIVERS is the reason you understand right away that the Na'vi of the movie AVATAR would have been absolutely fucked if they drove humans off the planet.
Except they drove the RDA off, not Humanity. And the UN would wipe RDA out if they tried using WMDs. (The UN actually has teeth by that point)
Per Avatar's lore, also, btw, the UN has a treaty with RDA, and if they use WMDs, or even just axcessive force, they lose all rights to off-earth resources. Not just Pandora. RDA owns pretty much EVERYTHING in the Solar system, which would kill their profits about a thousand times as much as losing Pandora.
1. The corporation in _Avatar_ wanted to exploit minerals and biological resources from Pandora. Can't do that if the planet's crust is a slag heap.
2. Humans in Cameron's _Avatar_ are still leagues behind technologically the space-faring civilizations in _Babylon 5, so it's uncertain they would even have the tech to hurl asteroids at a planet._ Earth tech in _Avatar_ still lacks faster-than-light engines! And humans in both _Avatar_ and _B5_ lacked true artificial gravity and thus anti-gravity as well (while acceleration/deceleration was kinda handwaved away). THey also lack tractor beams, which the Minbari had. They're closer in tech level to humans in _The Expanse..._ granted, the Belters in _The Expanse did hurl asteroids at Earth, but in _The Expanse_ months and years pass until those asteroids reached Earth and the Belters "cheated" by using classified tech to mask the asteroids from the inner planets' sensor net.
But if you want to bombard a planet with asteroids, you first have to go where the asteroids are, usually way out in an asteroid belt or the equivalent of our Kuiper belt, which at sub-light speeds will take months or years. Then, either you have giant ships that can load whole iron-based asteroids whole, jump back to the planet in question, and accelerate those rocks via railsguns to increase their mass via speed, you have a problem. You grab those giant asteroids somehow, change their vector and accelerate them towards the distant target, while that target (a planet) is moving, and other planets and moons in that solar system are also moving which can throw your asteroids off-course with their gravity.
No. You dont get it. The only reason humans are on their world. Is for the lush forest. And the ecosystem avatar 2 explains it. Humans cannot bomb the planet they risk destroying the fountain of youth. Oir greed defended them.
Skeptical Garibaldi is skeptical.
Because so many people could beam holograms into people’s living quarters like that. Sometimes I think Garabaldi’s cynicism gets the better of him.
Ivanova appears and blows Garibaldi's ranting right out of the water....🤣😁
He's about to slaughter an entire species...
Franklin trying to help gkar not realizing it
1:28 Oh there will be a need after this. Refa will have need of Londo's "associates."
Lando always has the most impressive fan hair out of all Centauri.
Ink on a paper. Sounds like the USA when it doesnt honor agreements and treaties
Realpolitick at its finest.
No, the analogy is of Imperial Germany in 1914 when the Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg called the Treaty of London of 1839, "A Scrap of Paper" when Britain threatened to intervene if it were violated and Belgium invaded.
Never mind Russia and the Budapest Memorandum...
WHy does this cut off in mid conversation instead of the whole scene??
I can't help but dislike Londo. Even though he has his regrets and his reluctance known about the Mass Drivers, staying silent was still wrong
It wrong on so many levels. However; like an avalanche, it's so far out of his control now there's nothing he can do stop it. ☹
@@adambrown3918 It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
At that point, nobody would have listened to Londo. And if Londo had spoken up or gone public with "the late Emperor wanted peace between Centauri and Narn!" the other Centauroi would have 1. laughed at him, 2. Refa would've arranged an "unfortunate accident" for Londo, 3. Londo knew House Mollari would also have suffered.
@@BalooSJ bingo
I dont have to like londo to appreciate the quality of the writing for his tragedy
Reefa... better off smoked! ... However this was Londo's biggest mistake ... biggest eyer opener!
Добрый Час Вам ,кто веер подарил? Павлин? А парикмахер кто?
Tell me you've never watched B5 without telling me you've never watched B5...
Eerily similar to Russia and Ukraine
Isn't Russia acting on its own?
@@geoffwilliams4478 Some others are involved on their side. Some North Korean forces. Belarusian Mercenaries and Steven Seagal.
Good Lord
"guy who has only seen Cars 3: getting major 'Cars 3' vibes from this"
More like the US and Iraq.