Racing the Night

[0:00] Before we start going, right, when something's off or weird, you just call it out. So you might notice this on YouTube more than on the audio, but I had a procedure done on my tongue. I had part of my tongue cut off earlier this week. I had a numb tongue. But now I have, like, stitches and a bunch of stuff here on the side of my tongue, so I'm good. Like, I'm healing up well and everything, but I have to shape my mouth kind of weird to make some sounds. So what is to be gained by fighting? Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot. I'd like to be the one to make that decision.

[0:30] Music. The year is 2024. The name of the podcast. Babylon 5. For the first time. Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin. And I'm Brent Allen. You know, Jeff and I are two veteran Star Trek nerds who also had podcasts that decided to watch Babylon 5 for the first time, and we fell in love with it so much that we're now continuing that journey with Crusade for the first time. And we'll keep doing that for the first time thing where we look for those deep messages, the morals, the things that it holds up to society, just those things that make sci-fi so amazing. We'll be looking for that stuff. But, Brent, this is not a Star Trek podcast. and those are not Star Trek references or Star Trek messages that we're looking for. And to keep us honest with that, we're going to play an old loved game here that we call the Rule of Three. That's a game that limits us to no more than three references to Star Trek per episode. That's it. Three. One of those places. No substitutions, exchanges, a refund. And Jeff, what happens if we make one or more of those references? You're going to hear this sound.

[0:33] I want you to know that this thing just made a very large dent in my ship.

[1:49] I'm going to make a prediction. we're going to hit them all today i think we might uh hey brent hey jeff we have a five-star review yes this one's off apple podcast and brent it's an interesting one so buckle in for this ride jared 10 says i'm sorry what yeah i don't know how to say the word jared 10 it's s-c-h Sten Jared Sten Sten, Some sort of Austrian thing. Let's go for that. Gergsten. Well, he says, they say, I don't know if I'll finish this podcast or ever finish all of Babylon 5. I've just been listening to random episodes of this podcast to bring back memories from my high school days. But the shadows and Vorlons always scared me. And when that storyline ended, my interest waned. I did catch the Call to Arms movie, and that was cool, but that was it for Babylon 5 and me. Maybe one day I'll watch the rest and listen to the rest of this podcast, but I get scared thinking about the shadows in particular. It haunts me. It vexes me. I shall have it.

[2:59] Hey, Jared, thank you so much for the review. Thank you for writing in. I love that you're just pulling out random episodes. Right? Like, that's fun. Do it. Hey, consume the show however you want to consume the show.

[3:11] If you are listening to this, and I'm not sure that you ever will, considering that you sort of are stopped, um can i really encourage you to keep going with the show because while while i will maintain that the end of the vorlan shadow war episode six of season four into the fire is the best episode of the series to me with one possible exception um and maybe it is still the best of the whole series might be there is so much more good to come out of this show than just that i would also encourage you when you get to season five i would encourage you to watch the whole thing but if you have to skip to episode 12 and go from there but i really really want to encourage you go back and watch the whole the rest of season four because there's some great tv after the vorlon shadow stuff ends like and not just some a lot a lot there is still a lot more to go with the show some of the i mean season episode two of season five jeff oh don't skip that episode don't skip that make sure you watch that one um phenomenal episode phenomenal i will say though if the vorlons and shadows were scary for them what comes next in season four might be even scarier because that's super close to home. Yeah.

[4:35] Literally at home. Hey, Jeff, we love our reviews, don't we? We do. They're the best. We love our games like The Rule of Three. Another game that we like to play at the end of every episode is where we make a prediction about next week's episode based on title alone, never having seen the thumbnail, never having read a show description or anything like that. It's just a wild... Stab in the dark of a guess right well here at this point of the show is where we look back on last week and see what we predicted this week was going to be about so jeff what did you say racing the night was going to be about and how close do you think you were racing the night made me think of racing mars and speaking of later season four episodes and so i thought this was going to be an odd couple episode and we'd see, uh, Matheson and Eilerson as, uh, the odd couple in this one. And, uh, Brent, no, that did not happen in this one at all. What did you think was going to happen? Well, I thought that this was going to be kind of one of those where they, uh, had to accomplish some goal by morning. And if they didn't, otherwise it would be all for not. I thought it was going to be a very literal episode title, meaning possibly even like a day of the dead type of sequel.

[5:48] Not at all what this episode was about. I was so far off. We couldn't have gotten much further off in this one, but Brent, I'm sure there are people out there who are randomly listening to episodes of this or who haven't watched crusade ever, or at least not in a very long time. So they might've thought we got these super, super right. Why don't you set them straight and remind everybody what Racing the Night is all about? Well, we open in what is clearly a flashback, or maybe it's a dream. Could it be a dream and a flashback? I don't know. I don't think my dreams have ever actually been a flashback, just sort of a twist on what maybe really happened. And I don't know. Whatever it is, I'm sure we'll find out at some point. But what's going on? And there's some Earth Force suit, and they're in a meeting with the Drazi, a Bercuri in a game, which would be the great start to any joke out there.

[6:39] By the way, you also would only know that that's the names of those aliens had you watch Babylon 5 prior to this. I'm just throwing that out there. It seems that they're negotiating the movement of the Excalibur across their respective spaces, and the aliens, they're not having it. Before long, we realize that we're actually watching this unfold through the eyes of Captain Gideon. You see, the aliens don't need these dirty humans spreading the disease across their space. After some exposition, which really just relates to us, the premise of the show, talks to us about the captain and explains what the ship is, almost as if we've never heard of any of this before. Or they agree to allow the Excalibur and crew to move through their space for the next four years with the agreement that if they haven't found the cure by then, then they will return to Earth and personally shoot out of the sky any ship trying to get out. They want this disease contained as doomsday approaches and people begin to panic. Well, that's when a chirping awakens a sleeping Gideon.

[7:42] Ah, so good. This was just a dream. he's needed which is why anybody gets woken up out of the dead sleep at night and that also means that we get a captain's log and a speeder bike ride flying through a city turns out they're on yet another dead planet where the population seems to have mysteriously disappeared without any sign of warfare so how many does that make now well in a scene that makes us feel like we're supposed to be the first time meeting eilerson he's been translating the text written on the walls. There are all kinds of equations for all sorts of cool stuff like transparent aluminum, trans warp, your grandma's chili recipe.

[8:23] Really? Does that count? Anyway. Well, the truth is they're actually only half the equations, but Eilerson is just certain the other half are around here somewhere. He's just got to find them because who doesn't, you know, separate part of their equations from each other and hide them like it's a game. Well, Gideon clarifies for the audience, that's you and me, that the priority here is the cure, not the profit. Eilerson even tries to quote from the rules of acquisition, but Gideon isn't hearing it. I told you we're going to use them all. I know, quick.

[8:57] While the crew is busy puzzling out who these people were, what happened to them, or where they are now, Doreena, our resident thief, who is explained to us by Dr. Chambers that that's what she is, is exploring a tunnel and comes across a light, which is some sort of power source. We're not really sure what later we'll find out. It's a big generator. Also about this time, we see a red shirt. Get it. Well, what happened to him? He was vivisected. For those who don't know what that means, Dr. Chambers was nice enough to let us know that it means all his internal organs were removed. It's about that time Matheson calls down that they're detecting movement, and it isn't us. Dun, dun, dun! We're not alone!

[9:39] Gideon orders the evacuation of the team while he goes on a joyride on that speeder bike to act as a distraction while everybody else makes their getaway. It doesn't look good for Gideon as he's about to be captured when suddenly he's rescued by the never when you want him, but always when you need him techno mage Galen. Galen has a plan to figure out exactly what's going on down below. He's going to send down a holographic projection of himself to fool the people on the planet and see if he can't find their hideout. And before you know it, we're now in the movie Avatar, and it works, despite the really awful CGI and even worse acting by Galen, which actually means it was really, really great acting by Peter Woodward. They wind up seeing a graveyard of various alien race ships and another giant matrix type of a place, which we've seen before. And turns out this is basically cold storage for the people. And suddenly it all begins to fall into place. This race caught the plague. They put themselves into a deep freeze to stop death, and the machines are now experimenting on people to try to find the cure, cutting them open and stuff. This is all confirmed by a holographic transmission of the sole alien who is awake and confirms it all.

[10:56] Gideon is appalled that they would do anything like this to passersby, even setting them up with those half formulas to use as bait for keeping folks there long enough for them to be found. But the aliens like yo dude we've got 10 billion people here so what is it to kill 10 100 1000 10,000 people to find a cure after all Gideon, Wouldn't you do the same? Eilerson's like, you bet you I would. Gideon's like, maybe not. The alien tries to strike a deal with Gideon. They'll keep doing what they do, and they'll share any info that they discover with Earth. If Gideon will go out and send more alien species their way. And of course, if they find any information, they should share it back with this alien group. Well, Eilerson thinks it's a great idea. I mean, after all, they, meaning the crew of the Excalibur, they're not the ones being completely awful. So they might as well at least benefit from the knowledge that's going to be gained. And then taking a page straight out of Captain Janeway's book when she's playing around with the Vidians, he says, no way, Jose. And he blows the rest of the ships out of the sky.

[12:03] They beat it out of there and later they're meeting up with an admiral type person who gives them a list of potential next stops because gideon gets to choose where i guess wherever he wants to go gideon and galen have a little chat about the nature of their problem is this a story of job is this a test of faith who knows galen asked gideon why they chose this planet to go to after all this wasn't actually one of the places that was on the list that the rangers provided, Gideon says he has his sources, but he doesn't reveal that his source is a mysterious voice in a box. Jeff, when you watched this episode, what did you think of Racing the Night? Well, most of what I thought about, I can't say because, Brent, you've used all three of our references. I think you should take them all and combine that into one reference and we still get two.

[12:55] Almost have to. I think, well, because there's a specific episode of Voyager.

[13:02] You can't say that. We're done. The third series of an original thing. I'm sorry. Yeah. I'm trying to play the game here. Nope. You're right. There's a two-part episode in that where there's two of the ships run into each other. One who approached it the, like, ethical, you know, right way. And another one who's like, no, we're just going to straight kill aliens to get there faster. I believe that was the finale of season five in the opening of season six. I think that's right. Yeah. Five and six. But this was that episode. This was that two part. There was another episode of that exact same series where they met an alien doctor who basically was like a – he was a stand-in for like a doctor from Nazi Germany who had been experimenting on Jews and all the people and gained a lot of knowledge, but it was at the expense of really doing all this horrific stuff. And, well, shouldn't we be able to use that knowledge? At least the knowledge is there. We should be able to take it. Or does that actually make you complicit by using that knowledge that was gained, you know? A similar story for sure, too. It's also a Mass Effect story. When you do Morden's loyalty mission in Mass Effect 2, Malin does some research on the genophage that it's the same thing. Well, we could get this and maybe save an entire species. They called it the genophage? Mm-hmm.

[14:29] Phage. For the audio folks right now, you cannot see the smirk that is on my face at the word phage. That's not a reference. I didn't use it. They did. They did as a Mass Effect reference, and we're not limited on those. So that's what I thought. This episode was literally done time and time again by Star Trek, by Mass Effect, by so many different sci-fi properties out there. But it was awesome. Like, I loved how they did so much of this. They started off with this being a mystery before it turned into every single sci-fi episode that we ever saw. But we got to see, you said it in the recap. Galen was incredible, absolutely incredible in this episode, in the worst but best way. In fact, if you put on one side of the scale Gideon in his leather jacket and sunglasses on a speeder bike, and you balance that with Galen and his homunculus and just Galen in general, they balance each other out. Like, it's great. But ultimately, this episode had nothing to do with the story itself. At all. This was just here. They used this recycled story. I would be really blunt. It's very recycled story to ask one massive question that we'll interrogate through our discussion of the episode. And I'm sure you'll talk about in messages, but how far are you willing to go? That's what this episode was. I really enjoyed this one quite a bit. What did you think about it?

[15:58] Honestly, Jeff, I don't know what to think of this episode.

[16:02] I I've seen in the comments, This is a favorite from a lot of the folks out there for me. I don't know. I'm not saying I didn't like it. Yeah. Not saying I didn't like it. I'm just saying this is an episode that to me feels like what JMS wanted the pilot to be. Okay. And I'd love for people out there to confirm, like, was this JMS's intended pilot? Because I believe our friend Nia, maybe some other people, I don't remember exactly who, told us that the way JMS originally wanted to start this show was kind of an in-media race type thing, right? Like just pick it up right in the middle of what's going on in the action and go. This episode had all the hallmarks of a pilot episode. We got the background of how Gideon became the captain. What is the Excalibur? What's the mission? How are they going to get out there? We meet each character in turn, and we learn something like the basic of each character. Here's Eilerson, who's this money-grabbing guy who only cares about money, but maybe there's there. Here's this scientist who actually turns out to be the doctor, but we don't know that yet. Here's the scientist lady, and then there's our resident thief and tunnel rat, Darina. And then there's our techno-mage who only appears when you don't want him, but only appears when you do need him or something like that. Also, he can do all kinds of cool stuff.

[17:25] There's our Lieutenant Commander Matheson. We don't really know anything about him, but there's all of that. And then we're just reiterating this is about finding the cure, finding the cure. We got to find the cure. We got to find the cure.

[17:35] You know, we're introducing ourselves to everything. Hey, we're going to use the big gun. Well, we're going to be dead in the water for about 90 seconds afterwards. I know that. Let's go. I read the driver's main. Like everything about this episode to me felt like what a pilot episode would be like. Again, this sets out the problem with the plague.

[17:56] It puts us face to face with the society. Like I love this part. It puts us face to face with the society that has already encountered the plague. And they choose a course of action which is very different to our own personal morals and characters and what our characters would have us do, right? It sets out the, we would do anything to find the cure, but I won't do that. It's more of what I said the other week, Jeff, about this testing again and again and again of the idea of, do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few? We're testing that idea, bumping up against that quite a bit. Do the needs of earth outweigh others needs the other thing that i felt was this episode didn't feel like it came to a conclusion as much as it just sort of stopped like we were going we're going we're going we're going and then we're done and i was like wait this it just didn't feel like it like it came to an actual conclusion like they're having the conversation with the alien dude and then they blew up a bunch of his ships and like oh well we'll see each other again oh Well, maybe not because I'm going to be dead in six months. Okay, well, let me turn my hologram off and then that's it.

[19:06] OK, I guess I just wasn't ready for it to be over yet. You know, like I needed to conclude. Have you ever listened to a song? Yeah, you've done. I know you've done this, Mr. Musician. Have you ever listened to a song and the song doesn't have a resolving note? Oh, my God, it's the worst. That's what this felt like to me. Like, I know there's that little bit at the end, but it just wasn't a resolving note on the plot of the whole episode. You know, so I'm left feeling kind of frustrated by this episode. A little WTF might.

[19:33] Also, I have this thought, too. If this was the intended pilot and I saw this episode first, I don't know that I would buy in and keep going. Not like I did with Warzone. And I know JMS didn't want to write Warzone. I know the studio kind of forced it on him. And this might be a case, and JMS, I'm so sorry to say this. I'm really so sorry to say this. This might be a case where the studio was right because I loved Warzone. Warzone pulled me in. Totally. It's not that I didn't like it. I just, I'm kind of left wanting a lot out of this episode. You make a good point on it. If it were the pilot, would it hook you? And I think this would hook me more if this were the pilot for a Star Trek series.

[20:14] Oh, look at these big questions we're going to, you know, we're going to run into and, you know, big moral quandaries. It's very Star Trek thing. And I feel like it was built around that, but you're right. It's kind of like at the end was like, oh, we're not really going to answer the question. And we're just going to kind of dance around how we got here a little bit. But another thing you said that really resonated for me is I'm starting to feel like even as I was writing my notes for this, a bit like a broken record on a couple of themes. Like, I think I've really enjoyed the series so far. In fact, at this point, we're past the halfway mark. Like, we're halfway through the entire series now, which is kind of mind-blowing and disappointing. But like we've been hitting the same nail over how far are you willing to go needs of the many versus needs of the few. What are my ethics? Like we've been hitting the same kind of points and they're hitting them. Well.

[21:06] You know what i mean it just kind of feels not only does the song not have a resolving note it has too many verses maybe of the same words again and it's trap rap is really what it is, it is yeah yeah just kind of goes and goes but you know but here's the thing i think that question do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few is that is that a true statement that is a question that is deserving of being continually asked and examined and done in many many different ways unfortunately we know that there's only 13 episodes so it's going to feel very this is what we got kind of a thing last note i'm being halfway over yeah still no lockley right halfway through no lockley and 18 words from matheson and most of them were in the last episode here's the thing it wouldn't shock me if you actually went and counted and that was a real number i should have i might i want to talk a little bit about that opening dream sequence yeah because there was some interesting stuff i think in there uh they talked about gideon being a gambler did you catch that whole yeah i i bought that he was a gambler about as much as i did that sheridan is a conspiracy theorist not for this episode this time this once he was they're gonna I need it for this conversation. The big thing I pulled out of that whole sequence is a thing, a drum I beat to death during season five of Babylon five.

[22:31] The interstellar Alliance brand is not an alliance. It's a group of worlds and races that John Sheridan gets to tell what happens. And we saw that in action. Those, they were all right. They're like, Hey, we didn't get consulted. We get a say in this and no one asked us. So now we're going to try and interject ourselves, but that's all because Sheridan just said, this is what's going to happen. Not a good president. And I know it's not a popular thing to say, but I.

[23:00] Objectively i'm sorry he's a great guy and very charismatic i love i love john sheridan but not a good president you know i i want to say it was game of thrones that had a line that was similar to this i'm gonna mess it up some but basically um it's easier to win the throne than it is to keep the throne or sit on the throne like some people are better at winning the throne than they are at actually sitting on the throne um and that that may be true of sheridan i think so He's the Kurt Angle of Babylon 5. It's always fun to watch Kurt Angle chase the title, but once he got it, it's like, eh. Yes. Although, Jeff, to be fair, now I'm going to speak completely about our Americanism here.

[23:40] I think if we get to the end of any president's term or set of terms, if we knew the number of unilateral executive orders that particular president, I'm not even picking on one. I'm talking about all of them. the number of unilateral executive orders that that president just says, this is what's going to happen. We would probably be appalled. Yes and no. So one, the actual executive orders get numbered. You can see how many there were, but I think very rarely does a president in a vacuum issue an executive order. They're consulting with their cabinet. They're talking to, you know, interested party. Like there's more than the president and his wife in a office saying, well, let's do this. I think this sounds good pepper this isn't a babylon five episode this is a crusade episode it is a crusade episode it is very true you get back to the crusade stuff i caught one line that i thought was really brilliantly placed in that flashback sequence gideon and the crew of the excalibur this was from uh that that whole scene was just like straight out of a late 90s cd-rom video game where it's like your perspective and like they're telling you all this stuff he looks in the window and he sees his reflection in the window yeah yeah.

[24:53] So, I mean, it's perfect. But he's talking to his commanding officer or whoever, the Earth Force guy. And he says, Gideon, you and the crew of this ship are the last best hope for Earth. He said the thing. He said the thing. That whole sequence was literally just like, hey, hi, we're Babylon 5. Babylon 5, we're still that right here. Don't forget us. Don't forget us. So let me ask you a question. It felt to me watching this that this was the, again, if this was the pilot, this is how Gideon started his command of the Excalibur. They talk about we picked him, we did this, this is him becoming the new captain, and here's what the Excalibur is and all this sort of stuff. Is that actually how Gideon became the captain? Like, does that actually contradict what we saw in Warzone, or does Warzone contradict what was said here? Because I feel like it does. It may not. it may not but I feel like it kind of does either way this isn't exactly how we saw it happen like we didn't see anything about him making a bet with somebody and you know losing their shirt on a bluff or something like that and will you go with me because I had this kind of thought yeah if this is a.

[26:02] This was like JMS's original idea of how it was to go and then later he writes Warzone and turns out it went to happen a different way right which we understand that stuff like that happened with this show Lots of studio interference and stuff, right? It would occur to me, and I think I might have said this in my recap, like I have never once in my life had a dream that was an exact memory replay of a real event that happened. Yeah, you've also never been on a TV show.

[26:29] You don't know that. Never been a character on a TV show. You don't know that. Pretty confident. I almost was once.

[26:36] Yeah, I definitely believe that. Yeah. Might be in the future. Dude, that'd be awesome. I'd be all for it. I'd be all for it. So, um, but, but here's, here's the thing. Even if like, if this was just a dream, um, it does not necessarily mean that that is how he became captain. That's fair. You know what I mean? Like, cause dreams don't really dictate or reflect real life. It's possible. Cause I think in Wars and they just said, you've had more first contacts than anybody else and you do what it needs to get done. I mean, I think in this one, it's just, Hey, you are handpicked by Sheridan. Like, I think that's really all it said, but there was seem like there are some other stuff in there that, that we've never been privy to. Yeah. They added a, uh, And we all know Gideon's resume. He's had more battles in peacetime than most do during a war. And then they slip in the gambler line that didn't fit. I had to go back a couple of times. What are they even trying to say here? Well, it gave the Drazi a chance to come up and be like, okay, since you like gambling, Mr. Gambler, dude, how about this? It gave way to rise that. Let's talk about that. I thought the Drazi's request of, look, you can go for four years, but at year five, if you haven't found that cure yet, you're back home and you're blasting your own people out of the sky if they try to leave. I thought that was very reasonable and made a lot of sense.

[28:00] Absolutely. I totally agree. Also, there's no way Gideon should agree to do it, but it makes a lot of sense. Yeah, not his place to make that commitment at all. But yeah, it makes to contain the plague.

[28:12] Because he's right. the closer you get to doomsday the more people will panic and we don't need your junk getting out into the end of the universe right they're on month one of 60 and they're already rioting and have death cults going on because let's just face it you guys wouldn't be wearing a mask when you come off that thing well they might might be one of those plastic ones that squirts nanobytes into their lungs oh i see you talked about eilerson being introduced yeah in a call to arms I forget the character's name, but the IPX lady who was kind of became the villain behind it. Like she was really just like, hi, I'm evil corporate lady. Like I want to be profitable and I want all those things. I got a lot more of that in Eilerson in this one than we have in the other episodes, which really supports your theory around the pilot. But it made me wonder, knowing that this was meant to be a five-year story that JMS was telling if that was one of the themes he wanted to, to really dive into was just the evils of corporations versus like medical and scientific advancements. You know, what, what, What are we not enjoying from a medical standpoint? Because it's just not profitable.

[29:23] I got to tell you, you and I have both talked about Eilerson and how we have problems with his character. We have problems with him and it really may be the actor unless the character in some, at least I've said that. I don't know if you've said that. I've certainly said I don't love the way this guy acts the part. Yeah. I think I know who would make a much better Eilerson.

[29:43] Who's that? Ed Begley Jr. Oh my gosh. I could see that. Because Ed Begley Jr. Has played this role. He's the guy who gets the technology from a future, from a civilization he has no business getting it from and then turning a big profit and kind of becoming the evil genius Elon Musk of his day. He plays that guy really well, and it feels like that's who this guy could be. Yeah, because I think part of what Max is supposed to bring is just that sliminess, and Ed can totally bring that as well. That's a good that's a good call i like that and he you know listen he says good business is good for everyone by the way that's a great that's a great business line and that's true good business is good for everyone because it's good for you as a company it's good for your employees it's good for your shareholders and it's good for your customers and it's good for your not customers too when you do it right there's a concept in in business today called conscious capitalism.

[30:40] And there are some companies, Whole Foods used to be one of them, another part of the Amazon umbrella, but Patagonia was one, I think Costco. But these are companies that they're driving to make a profit. They're clearly a capitalist company, but they want to do so in ways that enrich communities and serve underrepresented businesses and suppliers and things like that. Ones that understand that they have an obligation beyond the bottom line. And those companies tend to be very... Very successful because like you said, good business is good for everyone. I support, I would support good businesses. You know, I, I, I certainly, if, if it's a bit, I believe in their mission and what they do and how they work, I'm going to go to them more than I am other people. I, I, I will. Yeah. And oftentimes you'll probably pay a few more bucks for it and you do so happily cause you know, it's going to make a good difference.

[31:35] Not always happily, but some sometimes happily. He also later says it's all about profit. and I'm going to ride the coattails of a reference I made earlier. Oh, okay, okay. He totally sounds like a Ferengi. You said it. He quoted the rules of acquisition almost word for word.

[31:50] So we see Gideon flying through the city on a speeder bike. We have unlimited Star Wars references, right? We do. I think we work one or two in just about every other episode. Every now and again we get something in. But, man, he's flying through this. Now, listen, again, I'm assuming this was meant to be episode one, and we're six episodes into it now where's that speeder bike in these other episodes right i want to see that thing man because that thing looks cool it's it's grow it's not in later episodes because it got blowed up they just use the vehicle replicator making that's science right everybody has that well it's one of the equations that eilerson found but you know the keystone equation that everything is related to apparently is is still hidden but that scene and honestly a lot of the scenes in this episode, they relied really heavily on CG in this episode and to this episode's detriment. It looked really bad. It wasn't good. Bad green screen work. I mean, fully animated Galen that looked like he belonged in an N64 at best. That was awesome. I mean, it was so bad, but like for what it was trying to communicate, I thought was.

[33:06] So good his little head in the thing he he looked awful but what really sold it for me was how over the top galen was acting that part oh no look i where did i leave that shuttle i could have sworn it was around here somewhere man i hope nobody shows up to do anything bad to me oh look this person has shown up to do bad things to me no stop ow ooh not oh there's my liver i wonder where it went yeah i wonder where i put that it's i love that line oh the indignity of it right oh the indignity it's so funny homunculus jeff i need to start working this word into my everyday vocabulary yes just find a way to use it homunculus oh it's great i used it i used it twice in meetings today actually at work so i just happened to have two meetings where most of the people were in a room meeting and i was up on the team's board the face and i just said i'm like i'm sorry i can't be there in person so i've sent my homunculus via this team's board to be there with you and literally went over like this now my the audio listeners aren't going to see it so.

[34:16] Just imagine what i'm doing they just turn to the board and they're like for the audio listeners out there jeff has his eyebrows cocked at two different angles and his mouth slightly open looking in a very puzzled manner yeah it didn't go over well they didn't quite they didn't quite good i thought it was great though jeff i want to back up just for a minute to the speed racer scene where get gideon's flying around he's being chased i know what would have made that scene a hundred times better please listen uh um our friend adzy did this a couple weeks ago when i asked for galen entering into the theme of the imperial march here's what i need somebody i need somebody to take that scene of gideon flying through the city where he's being chased highway way to the danger zone no no put the beverly hills cop soundtrack behind that axel f yes yeah yes that that whatever that whatever the name of that song is it's at the beginning of all four of those movies he's running through the city driving around and it's it's that put that theme song to it and it will elevate that scene a hundredfold so good we'll see so good i'd go with I'd go with the Top Gun look on this one. Just, I mean, because they had him with his shades. I mean, I just wait. I feel the need, the need for Gideon Speed.

[35:34] It was ridiculous. I just thought the whole, that whole idea was too much. But like you mentioned, Galen getting vivisected and the other guy did also. It made me wonder on top of the reference that you used, which was beautiful because I have it in my notes as well from a certain race, from a certain show. But it also hit me that that's the same way the Centauri, that's how Cartagia was going to kill Jakar. Right. Does JMS have a thing for vivisection? I don't know. I put those two pieces. See, I couldn't remember where we heard it in Babylon 5 because I remember when we watched Babylon 5, I didn't know what vivisection was. I'm watching it here and I went, I know what that is. And then Dr. Chambers explained it for us once again. And I was like, I was right. I remembered what that was. I can learn. It's so good. I can be taught. There was an ongoing kind of theme storyline between Galen and Doreena.

[36:28] Yes. yes galen walks in sitting on a subway which by the way looks just like the set that we had with bester and garibaldi back on mars it looked like the exact like just pull that out of mothballs and stick it right here just take the little posters off for the the red planet hotel or whatever and basically like he's trying to avoid her eye contact like this is his ex-girlfriend or something like he's like he's like no the answer is still no and i literally said well what was the question he's like you're not ready to become a techno mage or whatever his answer was like oh okay thank you for answering the question for me darina wants to be a techno mage or at least learn their ways for revenge against the drunk and galen says yeah you're not ready yet we we've talked a lot on this podcast and stargate podcast on the idea of justice versus revenge.

[37:24] And I think, and I don't know her name, but the actor who plays Doreena did an incredible job in that scene. Like when Galen kind of rejected the need for revenge, the look on her face was like, like she couldn't believe. And it wasn't like, I can't believe you don't want revenge. It was, I can't believe you don't want the logical thing to do in this situation. Like she couldn't imagine anything other than revenge. I thought that was a really well executed scene and it added so much to her character just in that little moment, not just that she wanted to know the techno mage stuff, but the, fury that she has towards the Drock. I mean, but I love the whole, listen, you can't, you're not ready to do this. You're not ready to become this. I can't teach this to you yet. When you realize that this is not the way to go, then maybe you'll be ready. But I love this, and this comes at the very end. She looks at him, and he's like, yeah, you're not there yet. You're not there. You're not there yet. And she looks up and she goes, so you're telling me there's a chance!

[38:31] Or she said so you're telling me there's hope and he goes there's always hope pardon me while i write something down another theme that we've been hearing throughout the series but she she did a thing in this whole little theme that i thought was inexcusable and that gideon should have been all over her about is they're debriefing their time on the planet and she starts talking about the skulls that she found of all the different races and then this big generator, with all these cryo frozen and he was like why didn't you bring this up and she's like well because uh you know whatever galen just said if i was gideon i would have been all over that i don't care what petty dispute you have with this techno mage this is critical information you pull something like this again you're off this ship But she had a great defense. Like, look, this didn't happen until after all this other stuff happened. So it wouldn't have made a difference anyway. We were kind of moving. We were kind of moving at light speed. I didn't have a chance to tell you. Well, I don't think it mattered on the planet, but when they were debriefing it, that should have been the first thing. Hey, I found this when I was out crawling around everybody. I felt this is probably important for the stuff you're trying to put together. Maybe if they would shut up and let her talk, she would.

[39:43] Hey, military talking over here. Like, just watch yourself. Right. Right. So, down on the planet, we have Galen's homunculus. He gets vivisected. His head gets chopped off. Yeah. They find the alien spaceship. Did you back it up at all and look for any other sci-fi series ships that were in there? I did not. Go try it because while it's not exact, there are several in there that I'd sit there and go, that looks like a Battlestar Galactica. That looks like an Enterprise. That looks like uh like like i felt like i could see some other all right other ships in there i did catch a couple low like local b5 ones i was like oh that looks like a drossy that's the free looks like a flying saucer but i don't look for anything outside of outside of b5 my my guess is they're all supposed to actually be b5 universe ships and not like let's let's throw this in as a dig or a punch at them. That'd be fun if they did that.

[40:46] But we get in there and we realize we're in cold storage. We're in the matrix again. How many times are we going to see all of the people plugged into the wall? Because that would, we saw this back in what called arms as well, you know? And then we saw, we've seen it here. I feel like we've seen it in at least one other episode. Well, every species apparently has that technology except us. Well, we have it, but it's reserved for only people like Walt Disney. Right. Those folks. Okay. Can we talk about this though? Oh, I'm sorry. I think five miles below the surface. Yeah. You know how far five miles below the surface is? That is deep. And do you know what kind of pressure you're dealing with at that point? There's a lot. Some of those thoughts, the science thoughts was going, oh, wait a minute. That's a lot of rock. That's a lot of gravity getting sucked in right there. Okay, let's play a game, Jeff. We like our games. Let's play a game. Okay. I want you to, this is going to be cool or not cool. Who did it better, Babylon 5 or Crusade? Today's edition. You ready? All right. The Star Fury launch. Babylon 5. I don't know. The stick coming down with a whole bunch of them attached, kind of all sitting in different situations and going.

[41:58] What I liked about it was it was the stick, and the stick rotated. Yeah. Like, it still did the throw-it-off kind of a thing. That was pretty cool. That was cool. Although, I got to tell you, watching the door on Babylon 5, watching the doors open and them just being flung out into space, it looked like they were being dropped. Oh, so good. I love that one.

[42:19] I might agree with that. I think Babylon 5 might have done it better. But still, we got a Star Fury launch, Jeff. We got a Star Fury launch? We got a space battle. Cool episode. Which also, also Babylon 5 did better. You know, for a show that's coming post Babylon 5, as good as stuff looked and at the end of Babylon 5, this stuff looked very season one, season two, Babylon 5. In a call to arms, they started using a new jump gate style. And I was hoping that would carry over. Like this had a different feel to a lot of the CG and some of it was really good. But, yeah, to your point, it was not. I mean, it was good. It was a good space battle. I enjoyed watching it. But, in fact, if I had to sum up this entire episode, maybe I'd need to go redo my opening thoughts. This isn't a Star Trek episode. It is a late 90s CD-ROM video game with the intro to the space battle. I like the enemy ship flying right in front of the Excalibur just as the Excalibur is about ready to launch its weapon. I know. What was that? Why are you going in that direction?

[43:33] Like, how about you don't fly right in front of them when they're doing that? Yeah. Little tiny drone. I got it. I'll get you. Don't worry. Yeah, that thing's blowing right through you. Oh, my gosh. I didn't understand that, though. So what it looked like to me was the Star Furies kind of blew up five miles worth of the planet to expose that core. And then they main gunned the core to blow everything up. But then dude, Kulan, still alive and just holograms himself. Like that whole main gun blast did nothing?

[44:08] See, I'm not sure. Because the main gun blast to me just destroyed the ships that were in outer space. Didn't actually hit the planet. I didn't get that they were doing anything down on the planet and destroying the folks down there. Like he kind of left. I mean, because Gideon left them alive. He didn't turn around and kill them. It's what I thought, you know, no, well, no, because he said to the guy, he's like, no, listen, we're going to do this a different way. We're going to go find the cure. And if we find it, we'll come back and we'll give it to you free of charge because we're good human beings.

[44:43] So he had to have left him alive, right? Like, but to that said, Jeff, you often watch stuff and pick up on it. The first watch that I don't, it takes me multiple watches to go back and see it. So maybe you're right. And I'm completely wrong. I just didn't catch that, that that's what happened. The scene didn't make sense i wasn't sure what was going on and like i don't know they would use the main gun against them there are little drones flying around like they weren't big old capital ships you know i don't know it didn't make a lot of sense so i want to skip to the end here with galen just for a second and i want to come back to the conversation that we had with the guy because i think that'll that'll wrap this piece up when they're doing the denouement of the episode and everything, and Galen's leaving. He's in the elevator with Doreena yet again, and he gives her the, there's hope. There's always hope. You can do this. And the door opens, and he says to Doreena, she's like, will you be back, or will I see you? He's like, oh, I will be back in the fullness of time. Expect me when you see me. Literally, my note is, all right, Gandalf. No. It's a direct lift from Lord of the Rings. And we know JMS likes to lift his Lord of the Rings references. And to back that up, my note was, all right, Jakar, because Jakar said the same thing, because it was a Gandalf reference.

[46:06] I also loved it because in the fullness of time, that's from something. That's not a thing people, I think, say. It's from a Rush song. I know that. The Garden, actually, from their 2012 record, Clockwork Angels, which is the perfect track to end their career on. But I wanted to believe it was a preemptive rush reference by JMS. It's a biblical reference to fullness of time in the full in the fullness of time talks. It talks about when Mary being pregnant, ready to to birth the baby Jesus. Yeah. Uh, when the fullness of time that, that when the fullness of time had come, he came into the world. Okay. And, and I say that just knowing JMS often puts little references like that in, into the script. I prefer to think of it more as a rush reference though. Although a hundred percent I could see Galen being like, yeah, I'm totally the Messiah. So I will be here in the fullness of time.

[47:01] Right. Pretty on brand for him. Well, you know, I mean, Gandalf kind of felt like he was the Messiah as well, right? Like he could just kind of. Well, he did come back. So, you know, he was resurrected. That is for sure. So then Kulon comes on hologram and we have the big, the big exposition dump of everything. Which is, which basically they figured out what it was and then he just confirmed it.

[47:23] They have sacrificed themselves over 500 times. Every two years, one of their people wake up and it's their duty to maintain the machines and see what happens. And when they die, somebody else wakes up. I found it interesting though. So my understanding was that they have a five-year window on Earth because what I learned in the Legions of Fire book was the plague was originally engineered for the Minbari.

[47:50] I thought you said it was originally engineered for the Centauri. Minbari, because the Drak were on Centauri Prime during all this. And they wanted revenge. They wanted Sheridan and Delenn. They wanted the humans in Minbari. So they were going to planet eater earth and they were going to plague, uh, min bar. And that's where the five years comes from. It's going to take about five years for it to adapt to human physiology. Right. But also with these people, it took five years. So. Am I to believe then it's going to take five years to adapt and then five years for everyone to die? Well, not just five years, but it took five years a thousand years ago. A thousand years ago, the Mimbari were a baby race. Well, I imagine what I headcanon for myself was they have like this plague, the shadow plague, and then they kind of adapt it to a species. Yeah. So in this case, shadows came a thousand years ago. We're going to put a base on your planet. and they're like no no you're not and they're like oh well instead of just because you're pre-flight instead of just making a base on your planet because we can like we did to the narn instead of that we're gonna shower you with this plague that we've now engineered specifically to kill you and later the drock being the minions figured out how to do that and they started applying it for the mimbari and then eventually applied it to the human well they start applying for the mimbari.

[49:15] Knowing that it would also hit the humans in a few years, but it just oddly also would take a very specific five years. Like, he's like, I've got six months left to live. And I'm like, wait a minute, it's that specific. You can put on a, on a, on a calendar when you're going to expire from a plague. I think that's a Babylon five thing, right? Sheridan, they knew the day, the Sunday he was going to take off. These people knew exactly when they were going to go in for three months sick or three, four and a half years sick. Dude looked good yeah standing up clear spoken really good looking beard like make me jealous i don't see the downside to this plague like oh so you're telling me i'm gonna know exactly what i'm gonna die and that's the thing die young make a pretty corpse exactly but you have that you have the question wouldn't you sacrifice 10 people to save your planet of 10 billion, wouldn't you do it for a hundred then how about a thousand why not ten thousand where does it end when does it become when does the cost for 10 billion become too much and honestly if it's not one you know what i mean it's like anything more than i don't know it's it's it's hard math to do and there's layers to that math that eilerson eilerson brought in would you kill a hundred.

[50:32] Narns not even your own people but narns to save earth and what i noted in that moment i also was passionate about it right he's like we gotta take advantage of this we're not the ones doing the bad thing this is good wouldn't you kill 100 narns gideon did not answer him he just kind of like paused looked away and changed the subject i think gideon is willing to go a lot farther than the Gideon we see today thinks he is. I think that's very true because he says he'll go as far as can. By the way, I just did the math on it. 100,000 people against 10 billion is 1,100,000th of a percent. So statistically, none. Right. You know, that's scary calculus, man, because this is the kind of math. Like here we are on this podcast doing the math to genocide people and justify it with numbers. It's statistically zero. I mean, it's really not that big of a thing. Holy crud, it's a huge thing. It's 100,000 people to try to find a cure. I think it was Eilerson. I could be wrong, though. I didn't write down who said this thing, but it was a great question. And it might be the question to transition us even into our next part of the episode. But where do you put your faith in? Somebody asked Gideon. That was Galen and Gideon. That was Galen. They're talking about, well, is this really just the story of Job? Aren't we all really the story of Job? Is this just a test of our faith? We close the episode with the zombie box once again.

[52:01] No new information out of that thing. Nope. It's telling Gideon a few weird things, and he's like, oh, well, I guess that didn't work out. Try this other place. And on that, Brent, we've been talking about a couple of them. What messages did you find here in Racing the Night? Well, we've talked about a few already. There's always hope. Now, let's be fair. In the context that it was used in this particular case, that's not as cool as it actually sounds. And here he's literally talking about, so you're telling me there's a chance that I could do this thing. Right. That's really what he was saying. But the phrase, there's always hope. You're telling me there's hope? Yeah, there's always hope. Yeah, that's true. I love his phrase. He says, there's always hope because that's only because no one has figured out how to kill it yet. Oh, so good. So good. You can keep hope alive. Jeff, how many times have you seen an episode of any sci-fi show? I feel like we've seen this recently in Stargate. I could be wrong. But where the whole point is, you have to kill their hope, kill their desire, kill those things, take away their hope, and then you can control them.

[53:12] Prodigy. This was a whole thing about Prodigy and the kids in Prodigy. If you take away their hope that they can escape, take away their hope that they can do this, then you've got them. You've got to kill the hope. But hope is the one thing. And how many times have we seen when you get to the end, like this is the thing that separates humanity from the aliens out there. This is what makes us different. This is what kind of, in other words, defines what humanity is. The fact that we have this eternal sense of hope that things can be better. Things can be better in the future. Things could be better right now. We can be the ones who make that hope happen. I mean, literally, that was why they brought Braytac into crusade was to deliver that message.

[53:51] There's there's also i think a real big discussion of so you have knowledge knowledge that is clearly beneficial and clearly will help but it was gained through immoral and ill-gotten means is it okay to use that knowledge the knowledge is there it exists we now have it if you don't use it do all those people die in vain or if you do use it do you sort of co-sign the manner in which those people had to suffer in order to gain it. And it's a good discussion. This episode didn't discuss it. It didn't dive into it, but it posed the question. How often have we seen, particularly an episode of Stargate where they pose a question and then they do nothing with it, you know? And it's both super frustrating and super great at the same time. But I think this really comes down to, I've said before and I'll say it again, this show as a whole is this examination of, do the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the And I think one thing that this shows us as a caveat, as a piece of that is the truth, the mirror to society of how often people will use this idea of the needs of it's better for the many to justify the.

[55:01] Intolerable actions against the few look it's better for all of these people if we do this even if it inconveniences or kills this hundred thousand over here and that's not okay no they're statistically zero percent chance a percent part of all of this but that's we still this is this is one of the things jeff as a star trek guy that i love the message like we value all life Why? Because it's life. This is a philosophy I carry it with me in my everyday life. Great book I've been reading recently. It's very faith oriented, but it's called Everybody Always by Bob Goff. Fantastic book. But the basic premise is what's our job? It's to love everybody always. Well, what about those? Everybody always. Well, what about when they piss you off? Everybody always. We love them all. Why? Because they're alive. Because they're life. We respect them. We honor them because of that. It really makes me think of the math on that, right? We can call 100,000 people statistically zero. Yeah. But the math, what that says is it's statistically zero, but one is too many because one is life. If those people come willingly, fine. But to take them without being willing, pretty awful. fully informed and willingly.

[56:25] Now, the part of the question that I think hasn't really fully been answered is, so those 100,000 people die. We now have the knowledge. Is it okay to use that knowledge? Some people would say no. Some people would say yes. I think this is not the, the show didn't debate it. So I don't know that we're really going to debate it here. And I'm not here to pass judgment because frankly, I don't know. But you know what I know good sci-fi does so often is it poses a question and it doesn't answer it and it lets you have to chew on it. So I'm not going to answer it very much here because the show didn't, but it is a thing I think to really answer is, does it mean that those people's live went to waste or.

[57:05] Does it mean, does it mean that, that you're complicit with, with the actions of what's going on? I don't, I don't know. I don't know that I have an answer to that. I feel like I should, I feel like I should know my stance on that. And the truth is I don't. So, you know, I, it makes me again, so many things make me so eager for you to dive into Mass Effect. And this is one of them because you have to make that decision in the second game. You have to decide. And it has impacts. Like, things happen. And it's interesting because those impacts happen in the third game. But depending on which way you went, it provides, the story provides justification for the choice that you made. It's interesting. Like, neither, there's not a right answer. I mean, there is. There's not. And we're not going to know it. Like that's math done on a whole different level i think so those are the messages that i that i found that i kind of dug out of this this whole um shindig this whole episode jeff i'm looking for messages this week you my friend get to uh rank this episode you get to put it into our 100% completely accurate, absolute, definitive, immutable ranking of Crusade. Now, our current top five as it sits right now, number five is, oh, this is going to push somebody out of the top five, Jeff. Yeah, first time. We're going to push somebody out of the top five. The number five episode is Memory of War, or it could. I don't know. This could wind up number six. So whatever.

[58:31] Memory of War is number five. Number four, our episode from last week, Appearances and Other Deceits. Number three, Warzone, our pilot episode that we liked a whole lot. Two, The Needs of Earth. I'm sorry, Needs of Earth was last week. Appearances in other seats were two weeks ago. And then our number one episode currently right now is The Long Road. Jeff, don't do me dirty. Where are you placing in this ranking Racing the Night? I feel like there's only one place to put this that would be doing you dirty, and I'm not going to do you dirty. This will be a top five episode.

[58:58] And I think what I'm going to do, and it's tough. I'm really torn on where it's going to sit. But there's one scene in the episode I'm going to put above it that, in my opinion, kind of pushes it over. And I'll tell you, the two scenes I'm pitting against each other are the Galen homunculus scene, which is great. And Kevin, the fashionista, sitting next to Matheson and solving the problem of straight of what lines mean. In there those are both amazing scenes but brent kevin sitting there and figuring stuff out was amazing it was such a great message it was fun to watch it made so much sense it made the entire episode this is going to be our new number five him figuring that out, It justified his presence in the entire episode for what should have just been written off as a as a comedic laugh that today would play really poorly. But it justified it being there. Instead, it was perfect. Absolutely perfect. I think that's a great spot to put it. This is not better than memory of war, but I'm sorry. This is much better than memory of war. But I think this is in the right spot. Good job, Jeff. I would agree. Well, Fred, that does it now for Racing the Night.

[1:00:15] Next week, we're watching an episode called Visitors from Down the Street for the first time. We've never seen these episodes before. We don't know anything about them. And we love playing this game where we guess what the next episode is going to be based on the title alone. So, Brent, what do you think Visitors from Down the Street is going to be about? Visitors from Down the Street? That's the name of the episode? It is. Okay. So a title like that calls to mind something that I literally just watched the other day with my daughter. I watched an episode of strange new worlds titled those old scientists. And it's, it's a crossover episode from the animated lower decks with the live action, uh, strange new worlds. And what certainly was funny because if you're going to throw the lower decks folks in there, it's going to be funny.

[1:01:03] But for whatever reason, the visitors from down the street, it has that sort of a feel. So I'm going to say this is a comedy episode. We're going to get Lockley and possibly at least one other, if not more, and I'm not just talking Corwin. I'm talking like DVD cover folk, people from Babylon 5. Really? The visitors from down the street. It it's where we're going to bring in the Babylon five folk into crusade, but I think it's going to be a comedy episode, but at least luckily we're going to get luckily at least her possibly at least one other, but it'll be a comedy episode. All right. Okay. How about you? It's interesting. It makes you think of another episode of a show. It makes me think of one, a twilight zone episode, maybe my favorite twilight zone episode. The monsters are due on Maple street. Okay. Have you ever seen it before? No.

[1:01:58] Oh my God, Brent, you have to watch it. It's amazing. Even the original, like they've redone it in a couple of the iterations of Twilight Zone, but the original one is still done to perfection. But the gist is these aliens come down and start sowing just little rumors and bits of discontent in this neighborhood, and it causes the entire neighborhood to turn in on itself because we're paranoid people and are quick to not trust. And so what I think this one is going to be, kind of riffed on that, I think this is going to play off of Matheson. In a way, I keep saying that. I just want more Matheson. But it's going to be because there's going to be a telepath. You're going to manifest a Matheson episode eventually, Jeff. You know what? It worked so well with the telepath war.

[1:02:43] We still have a few more. We have a few more episodes. There's still hope. There's always hope, Jeffrey. There's always hope. There's always hope. You're saying there's a chance. There's going to be some telepath thing from Matheson. It's basically going to infect the crew. They're all going to start getting paranoid, almost to naked now. I was going to say, I feel like I've heard this episode before. Oh, yeah, 100%. Many of these are rehashed plots, but I think this is going to be.

[1:03:08] Kind of a psychosis on the ship, and they start turning on each other, and the visitors from down the street are just them, you know, and the paranoia that comes from all that. And we'll find out right here next week. Thank you, everybody, so much for joining us. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you're listening or watching us. Leave us a rating, leave us a review. And please, please share this podcast, share this show with somebody that loves Babylon 5 and Crusade or Crusade or just needs to watch it for the very first time. So until next time. Hey, Jeff. Yeah, Brent, what's up? Hey, I know we've got some busy schedules coming up. When do you think, when am I going to see you again? When are we going to have our next episode? Well, it'll be in the fullness of time. Expect me when you see me. Okay, well, I'm going on an adventure. But one does not simply walk into Mordor. Even the smallest person can change the course of the future. Yeah, all that is for us to decide what to do with the time we're given. Well, we've had first breakfast, yes. But what about second breakfast? Elevensies? Lunch? Tea? Supper? Dinner?

[1:04:23] You shall not pass! What do you want? Where are you going? I don't know.