ALT.SF4M

  B5

   • m*******e@a****.***u.edu
     15/02/1997 00:00:000 UTC

     1. An extended war doesn't work if your enemies are a billion years
     ahead of

     you in technology. Therefore, the war had to be concluded quickly or

     there wouldn't be any humans left to fight.

     2. Other than catch a few ships by surprise with atomic bombs (B5
     doesn't

     have "deflector screens"), Sheridan's fleet didn't do much; it was the

     other First Ones, of about the same tech level as the Vorlons & Shadows

     who blew up the planet killer. And even then, it took several
     civilizations

     to do it.

     3. The business with Earth is about to be resolved.

     Other than being a bit talky, I had no problems with Into The Fire. War

     stories get boring quickly; one nice thing about B5 is that it isn't
     like

     other stories like Space: Above & Beyond. It's something new and
     different,

     not another rehash of something that was done to death in Elfquest.

     In particular, I enjoy the ballsy galaxy-spanning aspects of it. I also
     like

     Benford's Galactic Center series & Doc Smith's stories for the same
     reason.

     I was always a sucker for awe-inspiring profound revelations.

     Speaking of B5, if you want to play around with creating cool scenes of
     your

     own on the computer, there is a powerful freeware ray-tracing program at

     http://www.povray.org which I have enjoyed playing with off and on for a
     few

     years.

     --- Brian