A man is shot by a gun. Now, you can either do a story about the guy and
his life up to the moment he was shot and killed, or you can do a story about
the people who are affected by his death. The former story ends kinda fast.
But both are perfectly valid. The main thrust is how this story AFFECTS our
main characters. Would they have been more affected if it were the Drazi
rather than the Markabs? No. It would've been just the same. My job is not
to sit here and say, "Hmm...do I think audience members like the Drazi or the
Markabs more?" and thus base my decision based on that. I write my stories
based on what's right for the story, period. In this case, I knew it had to
be one of the League races, and in particular, those prosthetics capable of
expressing broad ranges of emotion, potentially sympathetic characters. The
instantly cut out the pak'ma'ra as primary characters. I considered the
Drazi, but my sense was that the prosthetics couldn't convey the depth of
emotion I needed. Finally, that led me to the Markabs.

Enough terrible things happened, and continue to happen, to our major
races; best to give them a break and see how they react when it's someone
else.

jms

This file contains messages posted by J. Michael Straczynski on GEnie from
Mar 1 - Mar 15th, 1995. Postings are copyright 1995 by J. Michael Straczynski
with compilation copyright by GEnie.

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Topic 1 Mon Oct 26, 1992
SF-MARSHALL [Dave ] at 18:50 EST
Sub: Babylon 5 - The Series (Non-Spoiler)

Welcome to the Babylon 5 General category. This is the main topic for the
hit SF series. We discuss all general information on the series in this
topic. Topic 2 is for SPOILERS! DO NOT POST STORY IDEAS!

878 message(s) total.
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