This really made me lose some of my enthusiasm for the series. I really liked Kosh and the way he seemed to become fond of Sheridan and Humans in general. He even displayed a sense of humor of sorts. Then we see his replacement who s a total buttwad. Then the Vorlonns start wiping out other planets, human and non-human. I hated this aspect of the series.
The louder paranormal "debunkers" argue,the more terrified they are it's all true.
This really made me lose some of my enthusiasm for the series. I really liked Kosh and the way he seemed to become fond of Sheridan and Humans in general. He even displayed a sense of humor of sorts. Then we see his replacement who s a total buttwad. Then the Vorlonns start wiping out other planets, human and non-human. I hated this aspect of the series. - Jetfire1959
About Kosh and Ulkesh, the other Vorlonshare
No, I wouldn't call them friends. They had a certain respect for one another, but Ulkesh always thought Kosh was soft, and Kosh always worried that Ulkesh was dangerous. In their own ways, both were right.
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/111.html#JS
Yes, having them depicted as "beings of light" was very deceptive.The automatic assumption was, of course, that the Vorlons were the basis of angel legends. The two that stood behind Valen/Sinclair in WWE looked exactly like angels. Hard to think of them as bad guys. Then, when Kosh had to leave his suit to rescue Sheridan, everyone who saw him saw a religious figure from their own cultre except for Londo, who saw nothing. That really had me convinced that the Vorlons were good guys. I would very much have preferred that they have the Drakh be the bad guys and the Vorlons allies. I can't help but think it was a change in his long term arc plans for reasons we don't know.
I remember the various dark things Kosh did at times, but I always attributed that to him doing what he had to do. I guess I got really attached to Kosh when he came to Sheridan in a dream as he was being murdered. He appeared as Sheridan's father (played by Ron Howard's father, Rance) and made a very heartfelt apology. I started to see that maybe Kosh was unique when Ulkesh showed up and treated Lyta like dirt. BTW, why did he tell Lyta that his name was also Kosh?
The louder paranormal "debunkers" argue,the more terrified they are it's all true.
I started to see that maybe Kosh was unique when Ulkesh showed up and treated Lyta like dirt. BTW, why did he tell Lyta that his name was also Kosh? - y Jetfire1959
Is the new ambassador the same as Kosh?share
Actually, no, the replacement isn't Kosh, as you say, it's another Vorlon, with a very different personality...the "we are all Kosh" is more of a conceptual thing....
Is the new Kosh really Ulkesh from the novel "To Dream in the City of Sorrows?"
The new Vorlon was Ulkesh, yes...the Kosh thing was meant in a Vorlon philosophical sense. They ain't wired up like the rest of us.
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/guide/062.html#JS
Remember, it was said I think at least a couple times in the show, that the Vorlons "PROGRAMMED" the other races to see them that way. It was not a definite "reality" to be trusted.
shareJMS seems to believe that life is much more shades of gray than a simple black and white, that it isn't always easy to tell who the good guys are, and that seems to often mirror real life. Complex characters/races are also much more interesting than simple white/black hats. I thought the show summed it up nicely in saying that the Vorlons and the Shadows had lost their way and started caring more about being right [than doing right]. That's a very real world scenario. Kosh's speech to Sheridan was very touching, and I was left with a clear sense that Kosh was the good guy we expected, but couldn't control what the Vorlons collectively thought or were going to do.
"The men people admire are daring liars; those they most detest are men who speak the truth"
Kosh's speech to Sheridan was very touching, and I was left with a clear sense that Kosh was the good guy we expected, but couldn't control what the Vorlons collectively thought or were going to do.
Consider the way Kosh tortured Talia and denied the younger races immortality in Season 1's "Deathwalker". Or the fact the Vorlons hired Jack the Ripper to be their emissary in Season 2's "Comes the Inquisitor".
So much potential lost.
The things Kosh did, were not necessarily 'dark' or 'evil' - if you look at it from the right point of view.
Consider the Zen Koans - the Zen masters do SEEMINGLY awful things to the students, but as the result of these things, the students become ENLIGHTENED.
So if you have the choice between being a normal, egomaniacal half-animal idiot roaming this planet doing meaningless things in a frustrated pain - but with full physical faculties for the short duration of your incarnational visit here, OR being enlightened, completely at peace with yourself and the Universe, being encompassed in Cosmic Wisdom that you can take with you when you leave this world, BUT you are missing one finger for the short duration of this incarnational visit here..
.. which would you choose?
Zen masters (and presumably the students) knew the latter was the better choice, so they did SHOCKING things to shake these students into becoming True Cosmic Humans instead of lust-filled, miserable half-animals. Losing a finger or experiencing something similarly shocking was considered a SMALL price to pay for that.
In this show, Kosh seems to behave like a Zen master would - 'torturing' someone for a good cause. I would gladly be 'tortured', if the result is I will be enlightened instead of having to roam in a painful mode for who knows how many incarnations.
Kosh and the 'protagonist' in the movie 'V for Vendetta' seem to follow this Zen master trend of 'torturing a student for a good cause', but the fault here is, the result is not what it should be. The student never ends up enlightened.
There's a similar, Zen master-like teaching in an old Japanese drama, where a weird cowboy-character makes teen girls angry, but when they realize the reason, they realize what precious gift of spiritual insight they were given, and in the end, are grateful for the scary/shocking/scolding event that the cowboy arranges for them.
It's a bit of silly drama called 'Gal Circle', and you can possibly still find it somewhere - it has some really intense and interesting moments that elevate the show above the usual, drawn-out meaninglessness of western dramas, so I would still recommend it, as long as you are prepared to wade through some silliness.
So, Kosh COULD have been this 'ancient, wise Zen-master', but I guess the authors of this show aren't actually spiritual, so they messed up this wonderful opportunity. Now Kosh is just a mundane villain type, and the whole mystique is gone once you realize it.
Scorched earth? More like scorched planet.
Kosh became a 'rebel' by attacking the Shadows on Sheridan request, knowing the Shadows would kill him. When Lorien saved Sheridan, he also saved Kosh. Kosh then rebelled again with Lorien help to kill Ulkesh. Kosh must have known that the Vorlon would try to destroy the Shadows using Planet Killers.
Thinking about it, makes me wonder if the Vorlon's early intervention prompted deployment of the planet killers.
In that, it seemed the Vorlons were slightly weaker than the Shadows - the Shadows had been preparing for the war after losing the last one badly, yet the Vorlons, who had no reason to hide and knew the Shadows were coming, were still unprepared to actually commit themselves to the war.
Was it sheer numbers? The Vorlons were Lords of Order, rarely died, and the impression I got was that few new ones were being created - they had just as many as they needed/wanted, why have more? Something similar for their military. Older technology, perhaps the same ships, still impressive to the younger races but not necessarily a match for the battlecrabs. The Shadows would be into change, development, innovation, better hardware. Might not have the same numbers as the Vorlons, but they were sneaky and vigorous and fought tooth and nail when they had to.
One Shadow ship may be more powerful than a Vorlon ship, but the Vorlons group together, organize, to compensate. The Shadows can't attack head on, so they move around. Neither side wants to directly engage the other - Shadows don't want to get overrun or Z'ha'dum burned into glass, Vorlons don't know where the attack will come from.
But Kosh argued for the younger races and the Vorlons committed themselves to the war, out of position and weakened, but unable to back out. The Shadows seduced the younger races to fight amongst themselves and create allies (help us and we'll destroy your enemies, resist us and we'll destroy you). The Vorlons crunched their numbers, figured they couldn't win the war based on ships or guns or soldiers, so deployed the planet killer to balance the equation.
Because they'd lost sight of the objective, victory was all that mattered.
Jake Meridius Conhale, at your service!
"Old Man" of the BSG (RDM) boards.
But didn't the Shadows start using their planet killers first?
shareNot as I recall.
Ivanova and Cole find the Vorlon planet killer, then later on Ivanova is showing footage of the Shadow killer to Sheridan in CIC, with dialogue "At least with the Vorlon planet killer I could understand that, this, I don't even know what I'm looking at!"
Jake Meridius Conhale, at your service!
"Old Man" of the BSG (RDM) boards.
You may be right, but it seems like the Shadows actually started using theirs first, even if Susan and Marcus SAW the Vorlon one before realizing what it was for.
shareDoubtful.
Vorlon killer introduced at the end of 4x03, a running update on related evacuations and the destruction of planets by said Vorlons in 4x04, and the Shadow killer is introduced in 4x05.
Jake Meridius Conhale, at your service!
"Old Man" of the BSG (RDM) boards.
Like I said, you may be right. I haven't seen those episodes for quite a while. And it could also be - although again, I'd have to watch them again to make sure - that while the Shadow planet killer isn't mentioned until 4x05, it might have been responsible for previous actions earlier in the timeline that had been undiscovered or unexplained. And assuming that those eps aren't another case where by the timeline they should have been shown in a different order, or something. But I think that was more of an issue in the earlier seasons.
shareNO. The vorlon started it after Sheridan "died" at Z'ha'dum.
shareYou discount the Vorlon attack against the Shadows in "Interludes and Examinations" which is 7 episodes before Sheridan "dies?"
shareThe question was about blowing up planets. It didn't start till season 4.
shareI was referring to the comment by jakeconhale - which you also mentioned/quoted - "Thinking about it, makes me wonder if the Vorlon's early intervention prompted deployment of the planet killers." That "early intervention" is what I meant from "Interludes And Examinations" which took place several episodes before Z'Ha'Dum.
Thinking about it, makes me wonder if the Vorlon's early intervention prompted deployment of the planet killers.
In that, it seemed the Vorlons were slightly weaker than the Shadows - the Shadows had been preparing for the war after losing the last one badly, yet the Vorlons, who had no reason to hide and knew the Shadows were coming, were still unprepared to actually commit themselves to the war.
One Shadow ship may be more powerful than a Vorlon ship.
"Scorched Earth?"
Amazingly good, old DOS game, by the way, to play with people. Or even alone, but it's most fun against people.
http://www.abandonia.com/en/games/70/Scorched+Earth.html
(The year is wrong in that website, though, this game is much older than that, it was definitely not 1995, even the readme says "Updated 11 January 93", so basically it's a 1992 game originally - and I remember playing it during those earlier years.
By 1995, life was alerady completely different, and "true 3D" games were starting to come out, who would've made a non-soundcard-supporting game that utilizes a weird, old VGA resolution in 1995? This game was way before Doom, and by 1995, even Doom II was already old)
I recommend this game in any case, it's hilarious fun, the more people, the more fun it becomes! (up to a point, of course)
"No one here is precisely what they seem." - G'Kar
By the wrap-up of the Shadow War in early S4, we've seen that _both_ the Vorlons and the Shadows have been manipulating entire species and wiping many of them out merely to argue a philosophical point with each other. But neither race is willing to hop in the trenches and get some skin in the game until Kosh complies with Sheriden's short-sighted request.
But no single major race stayed predictably consistent through the five year run. Centauri went from goofy to terrors, Narn went from terrors to stoic defenders, and the Minbari were ultimately revealed as being partially at fault for setting up a lot of the problems that led into the series. The story isn't about the Vorlons or the Shadows. It's about whether or not, when Humans reach that same point in their trajectory, we've learned from the more obvious mistakes of those who came before us. I'd argue that the fact that they're shown watching all those clips right before Sol is detonated suggests that we do at least learn to fight our own battles directly rather than entirely by proxy, even if we didn't figure out a way to stop fighting altogether.
Centauri went from goofy to terrors,
What they actually were is somewhat irrelevant to what they appeared to us, the viewers. We were presented with an image of a fading Empire, more concerned with reliving their ancestors' glory days than being movers and shakers in their own right. And you know what? That's exactly what JMS wanted us to see, and how he wanted us to think of them. Remember, this was coming off the glory days of ST:TNG, Land of the Status Quo. We expected that whatever we were presented with in the first episode would be the way things were in the last. That idea got shot to pieces partway through the first season.
However, the Centauri forces were only able to attack in such force because Londo's new allies guaranteed they'd protect their borders. Basically, they were able to pull every ship off of defense and send them in as a massive strike force, and they didn't have to worry about retaliation.
You know what noone tells you about cooking with the Dark Side? The food is really good!
It shouldn't have made you lose your enthusiasm for the series. It just should have made you lose some of your admiration for the Vorlons. Kosh is sort of a special case. He, possibly though innate temperament, or possibly through longer association with humans and the other younger species -- or possibly a combination of both -- seems to have developed a certain admiration and affection for them. This made him a far more sympathetic character. After he was killed, his replacement as ambassador to B5, Ulkesh, was probably a far more typical Vorlon: superior, condescending, impatient, etc. After all, the Vorlons are millions of years older, more evolved, with far more advanced technology. It's completely natural that they would look down on the younger species and view them as basically inferior. And when your inferiors don't do what you want, you tend to treat them poorly.
This was the whole point of Sheridan's "get the hell out of our galaxy" speech. The Vorlons may have started out with good intentions, seeking to shepherd the younger species, guide them, and protect them from the Shadows and their violent, destructive philosophy. But by the time of the second Shadow War, they'd lost their way, become arrogant, manipulative and rather tyrannical themselves, and it was time for them and the other First Ones to move on and let the galaxy's younger sentient species stand on their own now.