BABYLON 5 is a deep-space station located in a strategic sector of space
that is heavily traveled, a jump point for journeys, with representatives from
various civilizations on board.
DEEPSPACE 9 is a deep-space station located in a strategic sector of
space that is heavily traveled, a jump point for journeys, with
representatives from various civilizations on board.
Funny...I don't see what's similar about them at ALL...even if there ARE
some other points of comparison that I can't reveal for fear of compromising
my OWN story.
As for the reason for rebuilding B5...it was an idea that was right, and
those responsible refused to knuckle under to what was, in effect, terrorism.
During WW II, someone asked Winston Churchill what he would do if a V-2 took
out Big Ben. "We shall rebuild it," he said. And what if they knock THAT
down? "We shall rebuild it again, and again, as many times as is required.
Because it is not theirs to destroy, it is OURS."
B5, at this crucial time, is the last, best hope for peace, and there are
people dedicated to pursuing that peace, whatever the cost, however many times
others may try to destroy it. Those aboard B5 know the risk, but come because
they believe in what it stands for, just as U.N. observers go into a country
knowing fully that they may be killed.
Why rebuild the Enterprise? Why make more shuttles after one blows up,
even though you KNOW that the odds indicate that at least one more will go,
sooner or later? Why continue with the Gemini space program even after those
astronauts died in that terrible fire?
Because the universe doesn't reward you for doing what's safe, and easy.
Because courage and persistence is what pulled us out of the seas and onto
land and dragged us through millions of years of evolution. What sets the
human race apart from everything else is our persistence, the stubborn, noble
dignity that propelled Washington's men, when offered the chance to stand down
during the revolutionary war, when they were tired and bleeding and
frostbitten, to refuse to knuckle under, and to go on.
During WW II, again, there were cases of planes sent in to bomb strategic
sites...and when one batch was shot down, another wing went off. And another.
And another. Until finally SOMEONE got through. Because it had to be done.
The consequences were too terrible otherwise.
We have come into an age when it seems passion is passe, when the very
common coin of our shared humanity, the willingness to put our lives on the
line for a cause or a belief, seems somehow suspect. Why do people rebuild
BABYLON 5 even though it's not safe? Why do they go there when it's not safe?
Because the Earth/Minbari war ALONE almost wiped out humanity. We can't
afford NOT to be there.
And these people are willing to put their lives on the line to see' that
that never happens again. Because they damn near won the first time, and the
next bunch might well finish the job.
One of my favorite pieces of verse is from Tennyson's ULYSSES. And it is
at the core of what BABYLON 5 is about. It concerns the final voyage of
Ulysses...older, tired, who has lost his family and most of his kingdom and
most of his men, betrayed and saddened...and he gathers up those few surviving
members from his earlier journey, and as they prepare to push off, he
concludes with a final benediction: "Though we are not now that strength that
in old days moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are: one equal
temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time and fate but strong in will, to
strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."
jms |
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