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Patrick

Patrick is a mid-40 year old geek with an undergraduate degree in mathematics and a master's degree in Information Systems. Nothing he says here has anything to do with the official position of his employer or any other institution.

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12 Responses

  1. Jaybird says:

    Murdock aside, this episode was throwaway for me until the last 5-10 minutes. At that point, they said “yeah, let’s hit him with the plot development” and the episode became really, really good.Report

    • Patrick in reply to Jaybird says:

      IIRC from the first time go-around, this is where I started getting antsy with the long plot arc. Okay, everybody knows there’s a Big Bad out there, and everybody knows G’Kar knows something about the Big Bad, and G’Kar is being somewhat inscrutable about it, and the station is still sorta dominated by Politics as Usual.

      I mean, here we have G’Kar and Londo and Sheridan in the same room but there’s no Delenn and nobody’s pow-wowing about this Big Bad that we all know is coming. And it’s not just us, the viewers, all the main players know it, too.

      Vg qvqa’g uryc zhpu gung ng guvf cbvag, gur jevgref unir cerggl zhpu orra gryyvat hf gung T’Xne vf tbvat gb or urycshy naq Ybaqb vf tbvat gb or fhobearq, naq V yvxrq Ybaqb zber guna T’Xne, fb V jnf nyfb jbaqrevat vs gung sberfunqbjvat jnf tbvat gb pbzr nebhaq be vs gurl jrer tbvat gb fjvgpunebb ba zr.Report

      • KatherineMW in reply to Patrick says:

        I don’t think G’Kar’s being inscrutable at all. He told the Council about his suspicions, sent a ship to check it out, the ship was destroyed, and the Council took that as reason not to believe him. He reached the (correct) conclusion that someone on the Council was in league with the ancient enemy and had informed them of the Narn ship’s arrival. Since nobody’s willing to believe him anyway, sharing more information with a group that’s got an informer in it would be foolish – at least until he knows who the informer is. (I’m sure he suspects Londo, but he can’t know for certain, and there’s always the chance that anyone he did discuss things with might mention the matter to Londo.)

        Vapvqragnyyl, vg naablf zr gung jura T’Xne fnlf gurer’f n qnatrebhf napvrag fcrpvrf bhg gurer, rirelbar xvaq bs oehfurf uvz bss. Ohg jura gur Zvaonev fnl gurer’f n qnatrebhf napvrag rarzl, jryy, GURA gur pbzznaq fgnss unf gb oryvrir gurz, orpnhfr gurl’er gur Zvaonev, naq gurl’ir tbg gb or gehfgrq qrfcvgr nyzbfg rkgrezvangvat uhznavgl.

        Naq cneg bs vg’f gung gur Zvaonev ner perqvoyr orpnhfr gurl unir n uvture yriry bs grpuabybtl, ohg gur ernfba sbe gur Anea’f ybjre yriry bs grpuabybtl (naq ynpx bs gryrcnguf) vf gung gurl gbbx fhpu n orngvat urycvat svtug bss gur Funqbjf ynfg gvzr.Report

      • Patrick in reply to Patrick says:

        Gb or snve, gur Zvaonev unir nyjnlf orra gehfgjbegul, va gur frafr gung gurl’ir yvirq hc gb gurve cebzvfrf naq jungabg. Gur Anea unir n erchgngvba bs orvat fuvsgl.Report

      • KatherineMW in reply to Patrick says:

        How so, Patrick? Two of the main things we’ve seen from the Minbari so far are:

        – Interrogating Sinclair, wiping his mind, demanding that he be the Commander of B5, and not telling him why (Delenn was going to do so before her transformation, but that’s still several years, and one year on-station, of concealing something VERY major from him).

        – Delenn stealing her mentor’s body, causing a major diplomatic controversy, not revealing what she’d done until she was outright caught by the young telepath who read her mind, and then insisting that everyone stick to a lie about what actually happened.

        The Minbari are very far from appearing trustworthy. Nonetheless, everyone just seems to believe them.

        G’Kar’s very clearly dead serious about this, to the point of being able to convince his government to send a ship to a world everyone else was convinced is deserted. There’s pretty strong circumstantial evidence supporting him (as he observed in the final episode of season 1, none of the currently-known powers who have any interest in attacking the Narn would have the power to complete destroy their colony; and a ship exploding just as it leaves hyperspace in a place that’s supposed to be deserted is, combined with that, at least a little suspicious). Plus, he’s previously demonstrated that he has some knowledge about the stranger things in the galaxy, as when he rescued Catherine Sakai. He thinks something creepy is going on. The station staff think something creepy is going on (due to the thing Lt. Keffer saw in hyperspace, and now the ‘soldier of darkness’). He’s sure as heck a lot more credible than Amos was in this episode. And yet everyone is simply choosing to ignore him.Report

      • Patrick in reply to Patrick says:

        I mean, generally, from episode 1, it’s been established that people believe the Narn – first and foremost – were about the Narn. Whether or not this is the way the Narn are, or their actions are supposed to lead us to believe they actually are, isn’t relevant. Similarly, the other races seem to regard the Minbari as kind of insufferable asses, but they fee like if they deal with Minbar, they’ll get what they think they’re trading, whereas the Narn (and the Centauri) are going to get something out of the deal that you don’t want to give up. The humans clearly started the Terra-Minbar war, they shot first.

        Now, again, this is about the public perception, not about the actuality. The prejudices regarding the aliens and how those do and don’t affect how they interact is part of the show, right?Report

      • Pinky in reply to Patrick says:

        I recall the writer of the show saying that G’Kar was based on Cassandra, who could see the future but couldn’t convince anyone.

        Anyway, to mix elephant metaphors: there’s an elephant in the room, but all the races are blind men. They have no idea that the things they’re encountering are the same thing, partly because it doesn’t occur to them that they’re dealing with something so big.Report

      • James K in reply to Patrick says:

        @katherinemw

        I think there’s three things going on here.

        1) G’Kar. Recall that the unofficial nickname for G’Kar last season was Snidley Whiplash. Now Snidley Whiplash has many things: A stylish outfit, an epic moustache and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of rope. But one thing he doesn’t have is credibility. G’Kar kept scheming and plotting all through Season 1 making himself seem unreliable and unsympathetic, and now no-one believes him.

        2) The Minbari have a … complicated relationship with truth. Yes, they mislead through omission and they manipulate, and they don’t even feel guilty when they do it. But they don’t just lie to your face rkprcg va n fcrpvsvp fpranevb juvpu cebirf gb or vzcbegnag yngre. For this reason a flat declaration from a Minbari carries weight.

        3) Furevqna yngre qrirybcf crefbany ernfbaf gb oryvrir Qryraa.Report

      • Dman in reply to Patrick says:

        James K is right. G’Kar was one of the big bad guys from last season and the others have not forgotten. Still, I find it odd that no one thinks the Narn ship blowing up is anything other than coincidence (maybe the ship had a made in China stamp on it). I can let this pass though.

        For the Minbari, while on camera they might not have been the best, off camera…. We have had comments from most of the ambassadors claiming the honesty of the Minbari when dealing with them. Right or wrong, the races all trust them. Of course, superior fire power that is held in check can help make people ‘trust’ you too.Report

  2. KatherineMW says:

    The guard doesn’t much like “Lurkers”, a nice pejorative for the possibly mentally unstable.

    “Lurkers” is a pejorative term for the homeless people who live in Downbelow, which is basically the slum area of Babylon 5.Report

  3. James K says:

    He might be Murdock to you, but to me he’ll always be Barclay.Report

  4. Damon says:

    The shiz is getting deep now 🙂Report