MovieChat Forums > Babylon 5: In the Beginning (1998) Discussion > About the Centauri and Earth Alliance re...

About the Centauri and Earth Alliance relations


I only caught about 40% of all the B5 episodes and now saving up for the DVD collection though I did see this film. What i want to ask is, was there any reason why the Centauri helped the humans (to an extent) by giving them jumpgates and respecting their sphere of expansion at the time? The Centauri have never really respected other races (such as the narn) and had even enslaved them in the past. Was it because of their failure to occupy the narns that made them more receptive to other aliens? Or did the Centauri have a more complex reason to have good realtions with the humans because given the way it sounded at the start of the movie, human exapnsion it seems was met with mixed opinions from the league of non alligned worlds etc and frankly if the Centauri went heavy on the humans I don't think anyone would had battered a eyelid to care.

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[deleted]

And I thought the cardassians (Star trek) were dubious...

Anyway, thatnks, I'll remember the name of the author you told me about, never seen many Bablyon 5 novels, one graphic novel but not any novels themselves.

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The Centauri 'respect' MONEY. Better put they love it.
They also love power and they were not stupid they knew the Earthers are a great investment for THEIR (Centauri) future.

Plus, since the Centauri seemed to be the first to contact Earth they probably believed they could influence Earth for Centauri's needs & greeds before other races think of it.

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The Centauri were a very hedonistic race, and grew tired of their own culture. They liked all the many different human culture variants on a single planet and gave humans all sorts of advanced technology in exchange for cultural items. It would seem to a human rather bizarre why a Centauri would exchange advanced drive and gate technology in exchange for paintings, sculptures, and jewelery but the Centauri people never considered humans much of a threat anyway, but they were starving for new culture items for their elites. I kind of got the feeling that most Centauri were insanely rich, even the lesser families. When ya got money you want to spend it...
There was also the physical resemblance (well except for sex organs). Centauri resembled humans so they naturally gravitated towards them, even considering them a lost centauri race (not true, but it sounded good to them). All the other races the Centauri didn't respect because they looked rather hideous to them. I would think humans would gravitate towards Centauri for the exact same reason.

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What I got from the episodes and the movies was that the Centauri were not intersted in that part of the galaxy. Thats why they did not care. I don't think there were all that close and trying to make a military presense there would hurt them because there would be no supply lines or anything. Its just easier to make friends with someone who could become a power there.

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Per Garabaldi in "Midnight on the Firing Line" the Centauri Empire was already in decline when they met Earth. Also per Garabaldi they lied to Earth and tried to claim Earth was some long lost Centauri colony. They didn't have the means to invade Earth so they tried to make friends with and con them. And if Earth had access to resources and money that they would trade for technology so much the better.

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