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Subject: Re: B5:LotR TLaDiS - Some Observations, Questions, etc. (SPOILERS
Date: 21 Jan 2002 07:14:23 GMT
From: jmsatb5@aol.com (Jms at B5)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated

>The Enfali is in a firefight with some raider fighters. Since when have
>raiders ever been able to do serious damage to a Minbari vessel, and why are
>no Nials around?

Even a lion can be brought down by a pack of smaller predators.  The Enfalli
was alone and the pursuit was a long one, and they just kept taking hit after
hit.

> Since when do raider fighters have aft guns?

Raider fighter craft come in as many variations as human fighter craft.  The
error is in thinking monolithically.

>or why we only saw Nials and Whitestars at Minbar, and
>possibly at B5. 

Bear in mind that there were only ever about a hundred, maybe a hundred and
fifty whitestars built during the Shadow War.  A LOT of those got wiped out
during said war, so now you've got maybe 80 or so.  You conserve your best
ships for big jobs, you don't have them doing this kind of grunt work.

>Tannier?  The same Tannier from Learning Curve?  I'd have double checked the
>actors name but every airing of TLaDiS had scrunched credits

Meant to be the same character, but it's not the same actor.

>I think hyperspace looked better in Lightwave.  Also, the new jumppoints
>seem to persist much longer than usual, before collapsing.

Hyperspace is now *much* more complex than it was using lightwave, with more
levels.  It was always meant to look pretty hellish, but we could never quite
pull it off with lightwave, it always looked 2d.  This is more what I
originally had in mind.

>In Dulann's vision (when he was in the hallway of the Liandra, checking
>systems before they took off), he saw Minister Kafka, the right side of his
>face already beaten up.  This hadn't happened yet.

Recheck your tape...that shot ain't there.

>Liandra is 20 years old in 2264, so it was built in 2244, before the
>Earth-Minbari war.  It's a small vessel and yet it *has* jump engines.
>Seems odd, since Sheridan thought it was a big deal when he found out that
>the Whitestar, another small vessel, had jump engines (2260).

He also didn't know everything about Minbari ships and classes.

>The Valen has weapons, so why were they never fired?  Maybe they were fired
>but we never saw them fired.

The Valen never had time to fire; they were hit within a second of the hand
ships coming out of hyperspace (actually *as* they were coming out)...the hits
disabled most of the systems on the new ship (you can see eruptions all over
the bridge).  The weapons systems were intact elsewhere, but the control
mechanisms were down.  That's why they kept hammering the Valen, to make sure
it wouldn't be able to fire.

>Why enter the tail of the comet?  Why not just put the comet between you and
>the enemy ship.  You don't have to be *in* the tail.

Two-dimensional thinking.  Only works if the comet is directly between you and
the enemy.  If it moves at any other angle, you're revealed.

>How is it possible to lose people for any amount of time at all on that
>small of a ship?

Given the small ins and outs and access hatches and panels and sub-halls and
the like...real possible.

>The Liandra, a 20 year old ship, hit the enemy ships, several times with her
>fireballs (why no traditional Minbari green slicer beams?)

Not a big enough ship with a big enough power source.

>I can't see the Liandra making any
>headway against a Shadow Battlecrab.  "Seems" inconsistent.

It wasn't a shadow battlecrab.  It was tough, but it wasn't one of those.  The
hand wouldn't give out that kind of power to flunkies.


 jms

(jmsatb5@aol.com)
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