The Memory of War

Jeff: Welcome to Babylon 5 for the first time, not a Star Trek podcast. My name is Jeff Akin.

Brent: And I'm Brent Allen, Jeff and I used to be, well, I guess we still are two veterans, Star Trek nerds and podcasters who decided to watch Babylon five for the first time. And you know what? We fell so much in love with it. We just had to keep the journey going. And so now we're doing crusade for the first time.

Jeff: And just like always, we're going to be searching for those deep hidden messages. Maybe not so hidden messages that we find in the series, but don't worry. Remember, this is not a Star Trek podcast. So to reinforce that and make us not look for Star Trek messages, we're going to keep our long running game of three, the rule of we're going to keep our long running game, the rule of three running, and that's a game where we are limited to no more than three references to Star Trek per episode.

That's it. No substitutions. Exchanges are refund.

Brent: And Jeff, what happens if we make one of those references?

Jeff: Oh, people hear their favorite noise in the world. Brent,

Brent: Hey, Jeff.

Jeff: Brent, we have a five star review. This one is from audible.

Brent: Shout out audible. Good job on you checking audible. Cause that doesn't just pop in our feed. Sometimes

Jeff: exactly. I just thought I'd make this and there's a couple, there's a couple on there. We have to catch up on. This one's a very recent one. It's from the trace and the trace says. I recently came across this podcast and have absolutely loved joining Jeff and Brent on their journey. Having a deep base of sci fi knowledge from another great show that treks across the stars does help them with some of their theories, but also adds an extra flavor where Babylon 5 can subvert their expectations by doing things In its own unique way.

They also have YouTube videos where you can watch behind the scenes and see how the spoo is, um, spooed or something. Not sure what you call that, but anyways, definitely rate their show as 65 Delta Furies or white stars or whatever they are.

Brent: trace. Thank you for that. Jeff. Okay. This is such a special review

Jeff: It's amazing. So,

Brent: there are so many references buried in here that if you've been a fan of the show for a while, if you've been watching the show, then you're going to know exactly what they're talking about. But if not, you just read over it and have no idea there's, um, uh,

Jeff: but we have the treks across the stars.

Brent: The treks across the stars. I like even this whole thing. Babylon five can subvert their expectations by doing things in their own unique way. Well, that sounds familiar. Also, we've had quite a few conversations about what it means to subvert expectations. Or not subvert expectations. Um, love the YouTube video sign a shout out, but Oh my God, this right here, you can see how the spoo is spooed.

I am using that from now on all credit goes to the trace, but I'm taking it and I'm going to be using it and putting it out there. Um, that is amazing. This is how the spoo gets spooed. Love it. Love it. Great review of a trace. Thank you so much. Also, also just the Delta Furies or White Stars or whatever the heck they are.

You know what? Jeff and I, I think, are about the same way on that. Like, eh, whatever it is.

Jeff: they get it. They get it. It's just whatever. It's a whatever and 65 of them. I, that's a, that's a great one too.

Brent: I, you know, it's like one of the most perfect numbers ever.

Jeff: Exactly. Works very well.

Brent: I have my, sorry, hey YouTube, guess what? I have my, uh, stop, stop, stop. I have my manservant bringing me drink and refreshment. All right, shoo away maddened servants. Sorry, the instructions were quietly and don't get on camera

Jeff: Strikes one and two.

Brent: All right, um, I'm so sorry Jeff where were we uh,

Jeff: We're going to the

Brent: oh there it is I see yep, I'm with this I'm with this Jeff phenomenal review. I'm all for it. Uh, we love reviews here at the show. We love our games, the rule of three. There's another game that we like to play at the end of the show that is quickly coming to a close where we try to guess what next week's episode is going to be about based on title alone.

This is the part of the show though, where we revisit our predictions from last week and see just how close we were. So Jeff, what did you think? The memory of war was going to be about and how close do you think you were?

Jeff: I thought this was going to be a Matheson episode and we were going to get the memory of the telepath war. Completely off and my expectations were actively subverted because one of the first things we saw was Matheson coming onto a screen and I was like, Oh my gosh, it's going to be, Oh, nothing.

Brent: Not at all, not at all close. No,

Jeff: What about you? What did you think it was going to be?

Brent: I said it'd be, I said it'd be somebody dealing with PTSD, um, or that we would be back to the Drock and there's some callback and fall out from the Vorlon shadow war thing from so long ago. And we said the word Drock a few times in the episode, but that's about it.

Jeff: That is about it. Closer than me by that much. And a lot of you probably have no idea what we're talking about, or you're wondering, like, is this that episode that I I mean, it's one that has Matheson in it, right? So is it the one I'm thinking about? I don't know, but you are about to find out because Brent is about to lay on us a recap of the memory of war.

Brent: Hey, stop me if you've heard this one before. There's a strange planet down there that's unknown, it's dangerous, and the crew has heard nothing but rumors about it. There's a prophet like character telling the captain, If you go there, you will die. Sounds so familiar, doesn't it? I just can't quite place my finger on it.

Oh well, that is exactly what's happening here though. The Excalibur is in orbit of a planet where all life has died out. But the strange thing is, There's no signs of war, natural disaster. It's almost as if they were all wiped out by like a plague or something. Perhaps if they could figure out what happened there and what they already tried to do to stop the plague, even if it was unsuccessful, it'll put the earth scientist way ahead in the game of trying to come up with their own cure for this drug plague thing that we got going on.

However, Galen is around flashing all the warning lights, the klaxons blaring red alert, red alert, danger, danger. Will Robinson, danger, danger. And nobody listens. And for all of his efforts, Galen is offered a front seat on the shuttle down to the planet, but he says, no way, Jose down on the planet. The crew is setting up their base camp and well, wouldn't you know it?

People start behaving kind of weirdly and more weird stuff begins to happen. And just like that, this episode turns into a horror episode. And this one has it all. There's mysterious sounds coming from behind that crate over there. There's a woman screaming like she's in an old Hitchcock film. People alone are feeling like they're being watched.

Ghosts are jumping out of the shadows and killing people. There's mysterious writing on the wall. Back up on the Excalibur, the Doctor and Galen are checking out the victims of some of these ghosts. Turns out, it actually was a virus. A manufactured virus. A nanovirus. Little, tiny nanobots even have the signature of Wait for it A Technomage!

Well, this sends Galen into a full on friz Well, this sends Galen into a full on frenzy, and having lost all fear of the planet down below, he flies down to deal with this rogue Technomage alone, before the virus can take hold of everyone else who is down on the planet and causes them to start going and causes them to start acting like it's the Purge.

Well, it's not long before the nanovirus activates, and Everybody starts doing the purge thing. No worries though. Galen knows exactly what to do and he identifies and goes straight to the source of the virus. Like he's got some sort of divining rod. He runs into a fellow techno mage, sorta. Actually, this guy's like an artificial life form built from those nanobots.

And. And he looks like, and lives like a techno mage. Uh, it turns out he's actually like the source, the sort of the CPU of the nanovirus sending them constant instructions. And now that he's been awoken again, because of their arrival down on the planet, he's determined to stay alive and stay awake, which can only happen as long as the killing continues.

And then as Galen begins to monologue, the guy disappears in the same way. Galen disappears. Whenever Gideon's talking to him. No matter though, Gideon quickly goes to a room where there's this big machine thingy and I guess that's what the guy is now over there. Gideon and Darina turn up and they're pitted against each other as if they're going to shoot each other, which you know, once one takes a shot at the other and one might get hurt that really pisses Gideon, I'm sorry, that really pisses Galen off.

And so he reaches back, lets out a guttural scream and throws his staff in slow mo all the way to the Computer structure thingy, and it goes, boom, and so much for the techno mage virus back on the Excalibur Galen is lamenting the loss of a staff. It was pretty important to him and kind of a part of his identity as a techno mage come on more like a control stick.

Almost something we're not really sure exactly what all it is. And it's about that time that a very dirty and disheveled Doreena comes around the corner. You see, she went back down to the planet against orders. And found a stick. Ah, he's a good friend. And if you think that's where this ends, well, my friend, you would be wrong.

It turns out this episode was running a bit short on time. So we had to add a few extra scenes. Uh, so here you go, Gideon and Doreena. They have a big powwow. They hug it out. The doctor, her name is Sarah, by the way. I still haven't caught her last name. I'm sure Jeff has Brent hasn't if you're new here, that's nothing new.

So, uh, anyway, Sarah has some fun news. You see, after all those nanobots like got deactivated because the thing blew up, she was able to go down and just scoop a bunch of them up with some buckets and brought them back with her. And she's invented this inhalable prophylactic against the drug plague.

That's not a cure, and it's not permanent, but it will help stop folks who are uninfected from becoming infected.

And then, there's one more scene here in this little time buffer though that we get. Gideon's back in his quarters. He opens a box. And it starts to glow and he begins to have a conversation with someone talking about the temporal cold war or something like that. Oh, no, wait, sorry. Wrong show, wrong show. Uh, honestly, we know absolutely nothing about what's going on with this thing or who that was talking or what's going on, but all we know are two things. One, the voice says don't trust Galen and two Galen is really awful taste in music. Jeff. What were your thoughts on the memory of war?

Jeff: Well, um, this Brent was a Star Trek episode. Original, original series, Star Trek episode. Um, there was like eight of them where it's all, uh, Like, oh look, uh, there's a computer here with old instructions and it's either keeping people under the thumb or killing them or, or whatever. That's all this was and the thing is, and I don't know if this is a popular opinion or not, but most of those episodes, they weren't very good. And this one falls into that category. This is the fourth episode we've watched, so we're almost a third of the way. Through this series and this is the first stinker that I've watched and I think those are pretty good numbers for a you know She's in one thing, but we did get a couple things out of the episode that stood out to me

Brent: Jeff, if I may. So what you just said is four episodes in three episodes have been really good. Now you and I have been around 90 sci fi long enough to know if you get three good episodes in a full first season,

Jeff: that's amazing

Brent: a good ratio. And you're saying we've had three good ones at the beginning. I fully agree with you by the way.

But, you know. Let's buckle in because I hope we get better. Sorry. Go ahead. I

Jeff: Nowhere to go but up, but no, I honestly, like a good thing out of this one, I like Gideon even more like he's I just, every time I see him, that character is so great. Gary Cole plays him amazingly for the first time. I liked Doreena. I liked her in this episode. I, I kind of understood what she was doing and her purpose.

And it was cool. I liked learning every opportunity we've had to learn more about the techno mages I've liked. This is cool, I've enjoyed it. It seems that we, uh, the Technomages, Galen specifically, might be more machine now than man. But ultimately, like, between the Catherine Powers level pacing, the freaking soundtrack, and Max Eilerson, I couldn't with this one.

But if I had to sum the whole thing up in one phrase, It would be, uh, from the closing scene and it would just be mecca, lecca, hi, mecca, hiney, ho. Am I wrong? That thing was totally like the zombie box.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff: What did you think about it?

Brent: Oh, Jeff, you know what? The memory of war is something I'd rather forget. Bye Much, much like that one guy from like the first 11 episodes or so of season five. I would just rather never remember this particular memory, you

Jeff: I'm not sure what you're talking about, but I'm sure it's very important to forget

Brent: somebody might, might, I'm not entirely sure. Anyway, uh, Jeff, you're, you're absolutely right.

Look, this could have been any season one, bottom of the barrel, season two, maybe an incredibly weak episode of a season three. For any 90s sci fi show out there. There was nothing that was, uh, specific to crusade or the Babylon five universe about this particular episode. Um, I thought it was, it was rushed the how Galen, like we spend 20 minutes of the first half of the episode, 25 minutes milling about getting down and setting up base camp.

And about the 25, 26 minute mark, all of a sudden they figure out what's going on up in the ship. Galen shoots down knows exactly where to go. He's not having to search for this guy. He knows exactly where to go. He's right there. They have a quick conversation. He turns around and all of a sudden he's this big machine. And there's 20 seconds of, of a tense stare off. And then the entire answer is he's going to throw his stick at it and slow mo. And that's supposed to resolve the whole thing. Oh, and the show still came in six minutes under where we had to add a bunch of stuff there at the end. Like what? Yeah, not, not the, not the greatest, not the, not the, not the smartest, but here's the thing, Jeff, to your point, Three episodes have been really good.

You, I will, I will say this, was, this is by far the weakest episode, spoiler alert. If you guys don't know where this is going to go on the ranking later on. Okay. Um, but, uh, this is the weakest episode we've seen so far. This is not, however, the weakest season one sci fi episode I've ever seen.

Jeff: I can agree with that for

Brent: You know what I mean?

Like, like, even though it's not the best of the four that we've had so far. It is it is not as bad as it could have been. I a thousand percent agree with your comparison back to Star Trek with the computer thing. We've seen it. It's all been done before. They didn't add anything new to that, to that, to that mythos or that that plot line or anything.

They still did it kind of OK, like that. It wasn't offensive. Let's put it that way. I never got pissed off watching this episode.

Jeff: I just got bored

Brent: Hmm. So how about those messages? Which I mean, like,

Jeff: think, go ahead. I think there was a couple of things in here and like this, there was a really the, the very opening scene of this. I enjoyed immensely where Gideon's just watching TV, right? He's getting an ISN broadcast, reminding us of the stuff going on, but man, They will first two things.

They had one Pope Bernadette the second. I love that she's the second because that means like

Brent: She's not

Jeff: female Pope. Yeah. Female posts are just a thing. Like I think that's so cool. That got mentioned back in, uh,

Brent: I was going to say, you remember, this is not the first time we've heard of a female Pope. Yeah.

Jeff: So we got it. But I also loved that they said that the Pope had called for a day of prayer and fasting

Brent: Mm hmm.

Jeff: for people to trust in science and to help the doctors find a cure.

Like literally. You don't get more Catholic than trusting in science. It's, I mean, I'm not, I'm not being sarcastic at all. Like, the Catholics are, I mean, look at the Jesuits. Look at Pope Francis. He has multiple doctorates, including one in chemistry. A few others, like science is a fa Big Bang Theory, a lot of the genetic theory stuff that's out there.

Those are Catholic theories that Catholic monks and scientists came up with. Yeah, they

Brent: So, Jeff, um, you and I have made no secret that we are, we are both people of faith, although be it different, but still we are both people of faith. And one of the things that I might've misinterpreted what was being said, but there was this sort of subtext of like, Hey, we're going to call these people to do the religious thing.

Um, Yeah. And just trust science. There is this idea that floats out there. Um, Oh, I'm sorry. Let me back up just a little bit. I'm a person of faith. I'm also a person of science. I, you know, um, I've, I've, I've been there before. Uh, it's still there actually. Um, There seems to be this overriding idea out there.

There's nothing to be. It just is. Uh, and, and let me preface this by saying, I know a lot of our community. A lot of our listeners are, are atheists or of some other faith or, or whatever. And, um, I totally want to honor that. Right. But there's this idea that somehow religion and science have to have to butt heads and cannot be, um, coexistence.

Existence. You know, and I just find that to be the furthest thing from the truth. Um, what, what I, what I find is, is, is elements of my faith actually are bolstered by science, you know, and, and, and I, I'm not going to say science is defined by faith that, that is absolutely not the case. Um, but there, there really is a harmony between the two.

The two are not diametrically opposed and, and it just seemed to me in that statement that you're talking about there. It just sort of seemed to be the subtext of like, okay, religious people, let's just kind of get on the science bandwagon for right now. And I was like, hmm,

Jeff: To me, it totally rang true. Like where it's just like, yeah, that is a hundred percent. In fact, it's a thing that happened with Pope Francis during the response to the pandemic.

Brent: the covid pandemic. Yeah.

Jeff: Let's all pray that the doctors can come together and the scientists and figure things out. Like we're not going to pray this thing away, but you know, we can do what we can to bolster the great brains that are working on stuff. the best part of that scene, Brent was the worst tease ever. We got a Dr. Franklin drop and they're like, we're going to go to Dr. Franklin and to hear about this cool thing. The screen changes and it's Matheson like what you can't. They did that on purpose. That was so, so intentional. It was great. And awful.

Brent: I did. I did love that we get a name drop. I, I do enjoy, I enjoy these little things that are shout outs to Babylon five, like it kind of, I mean, uh, kind of like we say with club 65, if you know, you know, and if you don't, you don't, and that's okay, it'll go over your head if you don't understand it.

But if you do know, and you know what it is, nobody has to indoctrinate you or guarantee you into it. If you're just in it, you know, and if you do know, there's no question that you do know. You don't have to ask, like, am I right about this?

Jeff: Because it's the thing. No, you, you, you know

Brent: then you don't know. Yeah.

Jeff: I love that Galen said the thing that we have in

Brent: said the thing, he said the thing, it's put a very large dent in my ship.

Jeff: I, I like Galen. I like

Brent: too. Me too. But his, his next line right after that is like, he's like, clear me for docking. Put away the breakables. I'm coming in.

Jeff: That's kind of ridiculous.

Brent: pretty sure that's what I say to my wife.

Jeff: But I think like, so we got a lot of Galen stuff in here and he was so mad about the possibility of them even maybe going on to the planet surface, but he never said why

Brent: Well,

Jeff: it's like, dude, I know you're a techno mage, but if everyone's going to die now is not the time for riddles. Just tell us what's up.

Brent: you know, by their own admission, they don't spend a whole lot of time with people. So the social cues don't often get hit. You know,

Jeff: That's fair.

Brent: I would tell you though, like you, when I see Galen come in an episode, I'm already just expecting your great episode because I, I like Galen. Um, At the same time though, to your point, stop with the riddles. Just tell us what's up. If, if this is, what's going on. It's probably a good idea though. At this point where you and I are in the show. Now let's, let's assume that the order that we're watching in is the correct order and is the chronological order by which events happened in this universe.

Jeff: Okay,

Brent: You and I know there's some trickery with that, but humor me here, given what's happened with war zone called arms, long road, especially the long road, probably a good idea right now to just listen to the techno mage.

Jeff: yes,

Brent: You know what I mean? Just listen to him, but human pride and human hubris just won't allow it.

Jeff: although I mean, yes, but also again, Gideon was so great because Gideon was basically like, I hear you Galen, but the risk is too, like the, the possibility of the reward is too much. We're going to go like, I hear

Brent: Mm hmm.

Jeff: I'm just not going to, you know, I'll take into account what you, and I liked the scene after that, where Gideon was with Matheson.

And he's like, here's the codes, here's the stuff, and Matheson's like, you're taking Galen pretty seriously, and he's like, yes, I am. And I thought that kind of made everything work, in a way, where it makes sense for Gideon to say, we have to, we have to take a risk if there's a possibility of a cure. That's our whole

Brent: a complaint. I have a complaint about what you just said, though,

Jeff: okay.

Brent: not, not what you said, but regarding what you just said, Matheson, I have a complaint about Matheson.

Jeff: Matheson.

Brent: We have done absolutely nothing, nothing with Matheson's telepathic abilities. Do you think at this point we could have maybe gotten some insight that, hey, Galen's kind of freaked out right now?

Like he's legit, like, give me some Deanna Troi kind of captain. He's not joking right now. Type of empathic, like, just give me something with his telepathic abilities, because they said that he's a telepath and he's following some new rules, but they haven't done bupkis with it since.

Jeff: Period. He's been on screen, but this is Mike. Let's go. Let's open this complaint up. Matheson seems to be a very interesting character. Telepath, he's got a Bluetooth in all the time.

Brent: You can at least have a running gag of him talking to somebody on that thing and people missing it, like just a running gag of it, you know,

Jeff: But I look at that and I'm like, okay, they've done nothing with Matheson. Captain Lockley is in the opening credits. And we have not seen her at all.

Brent: I listen, our community promises. She's coming. They promise she's coming, but you're right. We haven't seen her yet. Although to be fair, I'm fairly aware that this episode was rather late in the airing run, and they probably would have seen Lockley by now in the original airing order. Again, we know there's all sorts of weird stuff.

There's no real true correct order to watch this whole show. And like, we're just this is the one we're doing so fine. But you're right. Four episodes in and no Lockley.

Jeff: nothing. And I feel, I feel like they're spending time developing some of the wrong characters. Now I don't know the story arc and things, but like, we know nothing about Mathison. This is the most we've seen Doreena do. The whole like almost even since the call to arms pretty much, but you know who we get a ton of time with Max Eilerson I can't man like

Brent: He's awful, dude. He's awful.

Jeff: I read a thing in our community where they're like, I think he's a character you're not supposed to like.

And I'm like, yeah, but I feel like in, in pro wrestling, right. That's the goal of being the bad guy, being the heel. You want people to not like you, but you want them to not like you to the point where like, they want to see you get beat up, like they will pay money to watch somebody get over on you. Then they have this thing that's called X Pac heat.

Where's the rest of my name X Pac in the late nineties. And early two thousands and, uh, no one cared. Like literally his music would hit and the crowd goes mild, just nothing. And it's like that, that to me is, is max. I think that said

Brent: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Wait, wait, wait. X Pac had his own music.

Jeff: he did it like this and then it was all just like a remix version of the DX theme,

Brent: I just, I was going to say, I thought he just came out to other people's music.

Jeff: but mostly cause they had to pair him with somebody for

Brent: That's what I mean. Like he was always coming out like under the DX theme or under somebody else's theme. Like

Jeff: Yeah. He had, he had his own, he had his own. But the thing about Eilerson though, is like, he does bring stuff to the table. You know, we're going and doing archeological gigs. We're having to decipher things or whatever, but, and, and they've outright called him insufferable. So it's like part of the plan, but I, I, I don't like to not like him.

I just don't like him. I don't want him on my screen. That's me.

Brent: You're talking about the heels and you're comparing, I think it's a good comparison to wrestling, you know, like a metaphor for life,

Jeff: it is. It absolutely is.

Brent: Jeff, what do you call the guy who is the heel, the guy you're supposed to not like, okay, but the guy also isn't good at his job. And just everything about him, you know, there's people that you don't like and everything about him makes your skin crawl.

Jeff: Mm hmm.

Brent: And then there's people you don't like and everything about them, like from their voice to their hair to the, just everything is just, I just don't like you.

Jeff: That's that is x pocket just like that is exactly what that is.

Brent: there's nothing about you that I like. And and that's the way that the actor or whatever his name is, is playing this role. I'm just going to live in the assumption that there was actually going to be some grand arc for this character over the course of the show.

And we saw a little bit of that last week with appearances and seats. Right.

Jeff: it's like this is this is Crusades Dr. Franklin, I like that. I like that. I'm gonna I'm gonna grab on to that with some hope a

Brent: don't don't hold on too tight because it's not going to get fulfilled one way or the other. So.

Jeff: I think it'll help me with my you know when we get to the end of this and we have to kind of make up what happens in our own heads just cuz we'll Need some sort of closure on the whole thing and that'll be part of mine Like he goes on his walkabout

Brent: go.

Jeff: less that's of an ass

Brent: Jeff. I got one for you. So you and I literally just prior to recording this episode, we were guest on another show where we did this debate thing. Okay. I would like to propose one to you here. Be

Jeff: All right.

Brent: it resolved that if Carrie Elwes was unavailable, Peter Woodward would have made a fantastic. Wesley in the princess bride and let me give you one line that he says I would hate to lose you and have to start all over I'd hate to die more than having to start all over

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: watch this guy. I'm like, dude, he's Wesley from the princess bride.

Jeff: That's such a great call. And I even went through this little exercise in my head, I'm like, God, Karyawas is just a gorgeous person and that's part of what makes him work. So is Peter Woodward. Like if he did. Yeah. If he did like the thing like, like that Karyawas

Brent: The Dread Prior Roberts deal. Yeah, he could. He could pull it off.

Jeff: Oh my God. Great call.

It's resolved. I agree.

Brent: go. The gavel down. Um, Hey, one more thing about techno mages. Well, two, two more things. Um, okay. First of all, techno may just speak Latin.

Jeff: Yeah, why not? It's a mage thing, I guess.

Brent: I guess, um, those contacts that he has, like, like those are, I mean, those are baller contacts, man. I want that set of contacts in my eyes

Jeff: That's like Google glass that works.

Brent: Oh my gosh. Right. Uh, that was, that was something else too. Um, Oh, I'm sorry. One more thing and then I'm off Galen. Uh, Did, so if, if the princess bride thing doesn't work for Galen, I've got one other role.

That he could substitute in for

Jeff: All right.

Brent: he would have made a fantastic Darth Vader. Did you see how he entered the ship?

Jeff: Oh, right.

Brent: He's, he's got the hood up and he's, and he's just doing the walk down the hallway. Just like Darth Vader, man.

Jeff: That's great call. It was almost right out of, uh,

Brent: please, please. Somebody in the community, please. Clip Galen walking onto the Excalibur, but put the Imperial March behind it.

Please somebody do that for us.

Jeff: it's almost straight out of Rogue one where he walks out and then it was just make a lightsaber, you know, light up and it's like a great call. God, that's good stuff.

Brent: Well, yeah, listen, I got to, we got to make this show interesting.

Jeff: right? Somehow I was interested in the other techno mage though. It was, I don't know. I, in my

Brent: techno mage that wasn't a techno mage,

Jeff: right?

Apparently I was a hologram of some kind, but I guess he

Brent: he a hologram? My, my understanding was he was just this like amalgamation of nanobots that joined together and became like the central processing unit. That was

Jeff: Oh, really? I thought that there was like the machine

Brent: yeah,

Jeff: and then he was like a projection, like a holographic projection or

Brent: Oh, kind of like, um, Epsilon three, like with,

Jeff: Yeah. When draw was doing his

Brent: drawl. I was, I was trying to say drock and I was like, it's not dropped. What's his name?

Jeff: That'd be, that'd be not cool, but I, I think in my head, the techno mages, I don't know, I had like a, like a level of honor or what? Like, like if you were a techno mage, it meant a thing or whatever, but I mean, they're just human, they can be bought, there's no safeguards in the order or whatever,

Brent: Mm hmm.

Jeff: putting stuff out into the world, like, I don't know.

And he kind of called it out to where he said, cause I think Galen was just like, you know, Oh, but the order or something, he says, you can't do this. And he's like, the order says a lot of things does some of them and believes in less. I thought that was interesting. It's as idealized as I have the techno majors in my head.

This is starting to add that level of like prequel Jedi realism to the whole thing.

I was interested. On the Technomage conversation near the end, when Gideon was like, Dude, you threw your little stick. Like, that seems like a pretty big deal. And, what did Gideon say? Only Technomage can destroy another Technomage's work. Energy responds to energy. My question, Brent, be it resolved, wouldn't a nuke have taken that thing out too?

Brent: Well, but Sheridan was off doing other stuff. You can't do it in the Sheridan's around, you know, that's, that's, uh, that's there. We learned a new word in this one today. I loved it. Technomancy.

Jeff: Technomancy. That's a

Brent: like that word. I like that word. Also, um, Galen's jacket. Like with the peacoat buttons and the way it was folded over in the hood and the leather with the cloth textures, man, that's a kick ass jacket, dude.

Jeff: That's different than what he's worn in the other episodes. We've seen him,

Brent: like it. It seems like it. We'd have to go back and look. I've never paid attention to it like I did in this particular episode, because you know what? I was distracted by good television in the other episodes. This one I was looking at his costume.

Jeff: I guess it's gotta be something to look

Brent: Right,

Jeff: This was a good Galen episode.

Brent: This was a Galen episode.

Jeff: Oh, okay. Okay. You don't think it was good for Galen.

Brent: Uh, oh, good for Galen. Sure. I'll give you that. Yeah.

Jeff: I'm not saying it's a good episode. I'm saying it's a good Galen

Brent: Right,

Jeff: episode,

Brent: right. Mm

Jeff: stuff to the end. So Jambi tells Gideon to not trust Galen.

Brent: hmm. Mm hmm.

Jeff: Curious what that's about. And I'm more curious about what this Glowy box thing is it's a viewing order thing, right?

This I'm sure somewhere else. We'll

Brent: So Jeff, the first thing I texted you after watching this episode was for the first time, I feel like the order in which we're watching this is biting us in the butt, because I feel like we should know what that thing is. Now, this does not feel like. Hey, we're going to introduce this thing to you. There's been this thing that's been happening with Gideon and we're just now going to show it to you out of nowhere. Although that would told to be a JMS thing to do,

Jeff: Mm hmm.

Brent: I, it just doesn't feel like that. Like, it feels like we should, we should have known what this thing is. I know I've seen people's comments saying if you'd watched it in different order, you'd be more familiar with what it is.

Um, Fine. We knew that there'd be issues like that, but I'm, yeah, I, I really, what's in the box? What's in the box?

Jeff: Do you have a theory about it or a guess or a hope or anything?

Brent: I mean, could it be another techno mage? Maybe. Could it be a drock on the other end of that thing? Maybe Gideon in the future.

Jeff: Oh

Brent: I mean, you know, reaching back. Okay. Maybe like I, it, they could put anybody in there, probably with the exception of Sheridan or Michael Garibaldi. And I, okay. That's who it is then.

Like,

Jeff: Here's the big question for you. Do you think in the 13 episodes we have we're gonna get an answer to

Brent: Not at all.

Jeff: Yeah, I agree

Brent: Not at all. Not at all. I hope that it, that JMS has at least somewhere, like said, this is where it was going to go, this is what it was going to do or not, if he ever plans on like, Going back and redoing the show, which I don't think he does. Um, and he should go back and finish this one. Like, I know we keep wanting to reboot Babylon five and Babylon five is a show that is worthy of a reboot if done well.

Jeff: Maybe

Brent: You could go do crusade today and and you'd probably have a really good show.

Jeff: You could start at zero, forget everything that's out there. You know, it's only 13 episodes. Just call that the lost, you know, whatever. And then just do it over again. I am anti reboot. I've said this before it's fine. I'm anti, but I'm not anti Babylon five reboot. I'm anti reboot. I just let, yeah, let the thing be its thing, but yeah, do crusade for goodness sake.

It's a great, great idea. It's been a, it's been mostly a good show.

Brent: Yep. So can we talk about Gideon losing his tech because we're kind of now there at this part of the show? Um, he takes that staff and he throws it in. And again, this may be something that is more a product of the order in which we're watching it. But I feel like that would have meant a whole lot more to you and me as a viewer for the first time.

Um, and it would have been way more climactic. If they had set up all that, you know, all that information that Gideon just expo dumps on us at the end of here's how important it was to me. If they would have put that earlier in the episode. Even just within the context of this episode, put it there. Let us know that this is really super important so that when we see him doing this thing where he's checking, cause really it's just, oh, my friends are here.

I'm really bad now. And it blows everything up and you're like, really? That's. You threw a stick at it and it's going to blow the entire thing up like really if they would have set that up, it would have made a lot more. I think it would have had more of an impact as a scene than doing it on the back end.

Right.

Jeff: gross holding that staff, that was freaking amazing.

I loved that.

Brent: it would have been really good to see, like, what the muck is that she was going into. Like, if you see the thing oozing or whatever, and, and, or, you know, it's just the, the bio waste of the planet or something. Um, just other than she's really, really dirty and looking nasty. Although the makeup on that and the way she came in was awesome.

Jeff: it was great. I'm fine with not, it's just, all it said to me was I kind of went through hell. In a really short amount of time to get this thing for you in that moment, like when they grab and they kind of touch each other's hands,

Brent: Oh, Jeff,

Jeff: what

Brent: please tell me they're not going to become a couple.

Jeff: they had better not

Brent: Please tell me they're not going to become a couple.

Jeff: yet. I don't, and I don't think so. I think that what we've, what we're creating is this, um, I was going to say love triangle, but that's not at all what I mean. Um, But this triangle of Galen Gideon and Doreena of just like they're almost like yeah, we got one left They're like the Kirk Spock and McCoy Together they are you know Like a better person and and like we got some of that from Galen When he was talking to Gideon about how the techno mages were his family and when he was kicked out of the order He had no one Until he had Gideon.

And so it's like, there's that connection with Gideon and Galen. Clearly a connection that I don't think is a relationship. I think it's just a hot and I've said this so much. I hope it's a high level of professional respect where they care about each other, whatever, between Galen and Doreena. And I I'm here for that whole thing.

However, that plays out.

Brent: Can we talk about Darina for a little bit? We've talked a lot about Galen. Can we talk about Darina? This is our first episode with her really, uh, doing anything. Um, so she goes down to the planet and she climbs the side of the building or whatever, and it's just chilling up there. Like she's freaking Batman or Spider Man watching the city.

I'm sorry. Timeout. Why are alien cities always made of spires? Um,

Jeff: to build all of their their ruins then the Asari follow suit It's just it's the way it was set up 50, 000 years ago. We're just copying the same

Brent: Oh, I see, I see, I see. Anyway, she, she gets up there and, um, first of all, mad skills for her getting all the way up there. Even if she came from inside the building or crawled out a window still, that's she's like, you're not going to want to send your people up here. They're not going to like the view the way I do, you know?

Um, but then she goes up there and she's, she's like walking around. She does whatever she finds a lever and just pulls it.

Jeff: Why not?

Brent: Why not just pulls it like, really, you're all the way up there and you're going to pull the lever. And then she turns around and there's this like Indiana Jones leap of faith bridge going across and my note says there is zero chance I'm making it across that bridge without falling. Especially with as high as the winds up there must have been, you know, there is no way you're making that like. No, no.

That bridge was tiny, like, like balance being tiny,

Jeff: Brent. She's just that good. I was thinking though, not always that thing tiny, who would put it there? What a stupid spot to put it. So I have to like shimmy around this thing and almost fall to get onto it.

Brent: Mm hmm.

Jeff: go to this other building where you have a tiny little lot, the whole thing made zero sense. And I was fine with it.

Brent: you know, a part made me absolutely just cackle. Like, and I laugh and it's I'm sorry if this offends anybody. All right. But she's she's going across the bridge and it gets to the end where like the bridge is starting to fall apart. And she does that thing where she leaps and she grabs onto the statue and she grabs onto the statue by the boobs, just full on two handfuls of heart.

I was like, oh, my God. I

Jeff: like when Frank Drebens falling off the building and he grabs the. I haven't watched that in a long time. Oh my

Brent: Oh, my word. Doreena, Doreena. Um, so you got Doreena there. The the doctor. Can we talk about the doctor for a minute?

Jeff: Dr. Sarah Chambers.

Brent: Sarah Chambers. There you go. There you go. I got Sarah.

Jeff: You did. That's just

Brent: me credit for Sarah or Sarah, as you know, it looks like it's spelled. sorry.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure, Jeff, this is the first time that we have seen The just wave a light over it, medical procedure in crusade, you know? Um, but I, I had this thought when they bring the people back up to the ship. Right. And she's really mad at Galen. I'm like, she has no right to be mad at Galen for not going.

He told them he wasn't going to go and that they shouldn't have gone either. They didn't listen to him. He told them bad things would happen and death was going to happen. And guess what it did. Why is she getting mad at him? Like I told you not to go.

Jeff: I thought I had a note on that. I'm just looking. I couldn't agree more. Like, he's, he's literally, cause what did she say? How many lives could you have saved if I, if you'd gone down there? And he's like, I could have saved all of them. If they just would have fricking listened to me, I did my part

Brent: tried. You didn't listen. What do you want? What do you

Jeff: the second though. Like, so she's doing her thing. And the second she goes, Oh my gosh, it's nanotechnology. I was like, Oh, here's how they're going to deliver the cure. And I actually liked that. It's not a cure that she developed. It's like a halfway point sort of a thing.

Brent: Right, right. It's a, Hey, it only works for 48 hours and you can't take it there. There's a, I like how they're building into this show, like limits on the stuff that's a little overpowered,

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: the big gun on the Excalibur. You can do it, but it's gonna knock the ship out for a minute. can take the stuff, but you can't take it again or else bad stuff's gonna happen, like not too quickly. You can't take, you can't do it too quickly. Um, I do like that there's limits that they're putting in on this, this stuff.

Jeff: very realistic. And what this sets up for us ultimately is that, uh, We're going to, she's going to get to go to earth and see her sister. Like that's going to happen at some point where she's going to go. And then something's going to happen and someone's going to take it twice. And something horrible is going to happen.

It was all set up

Brent: then she's gonna have to go get that. She's gonna go over to see Dr. Franklin and she's gonna get that machine and she's gonna do the thing where she transfers a life force back and forth.

Jeff: exactly.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: She's going to Marcus Marcus somebody,

Brent: There you go.

Jeff: but I loved the scene when she shared the nano, uh, the vaccine sort of thing, the prophylactic with Gideon, because Gideon's like, he was totally like Jack O'Neill where he's like, I have no idea. What you're, I don't understand a word you're saying. It sounds really smart, but just, he's just like, this is major.

This is huge. What you've done. And you should be very proud. Like that moment. That was like a shining leadership moment for him. Oh, that was beautiful.

Brent: You know what else I liked, and I'm, I'm, I honestly do not remember why I made this note, but here's the note, Jeff, maybe you can figure it out. Gideon is going to follow a friend into hell. Oh, uh, Galen, when Galen

Jeff: Yeah. Cause he

Brent: going to follow Galen into hell. Like he's going to follow his friend into hell. I like that about Galen.

Or I like that about Gideon. Like he's that kind of guy.

Jeff: I've, I've two last substantive notes. Uh, one of them, I just have to share because I like making my references to other things. And this is a reference to the hundred that, uh, the, the excellent seven season show that aired on the CW sometime ago, but there was in the sixth season, the big, I think it was the second episode of the sixth season.

They were on this planet and there was this red sun eclipse thing that happened. That made people go nuts violent and try and kill each other this felt so much like that now It's like oh look at that. It's the red sun thing, which is kind of cool and brent the soundtrack Did you have thoughts on the soundtrack on this one?

Brent: Um, well, this one, we've, we've typically heard this like sort of futuristic keyboardy felt like we almost have like an Asian feel at one point and this week we got the African beat coming into it.

Jeff: Okay. Okay.

Brent: So it's very worldly, but Galen's music choice is awful, dude.

Jeff: I know he needs a new,

Brent: your style of music, more power to you, but it ain't good.

Jeff: he's got to clean up his Spotify algorithm,

Brent: Right.

Jeff: there were, I noticed in this episode, there were quite a few scenes that had no soundtrack

Brent: Mm.

Jeff: it was beautiful. It was so good. Like when Doreena was walking across that little high wire thing, it was just quiet. And I'm like, I could watch, I could watch this for an hour,

Brent: You know, there is a way to use silence effectively. You know, there, there is a way to artistically use silence. There's also just a thing of going, Hey, you probably should have put some extra sounds in here,

Jeff: something.

Brent: just been silent the whole time. Um, but I could see, I could see what you're talking about with bringing up Like way up top and the, I mean, cause that's, it's the sereneness of that. Right.

Jeff: Exactly.

Brent: Yeah. Yeah. I get you on that.

I'm with you. Um, I've got, Oh,

Jeff: I've gone skydiving before and like when you're up there and that's to me one of the most magical things about it is after you pull the chute it's just a level of silence that like you can't comprehend until you're in it and it's it's amazing

Brent: I just felt like it'd be really loud.

Jeff: when you're free falling it's very loud it's almost impossible to breathe I they tell you that like if you fell and your chute didn't open you die before you hit the ground 100 percent agree with that like you generally free fall for like 60 seconds and if it was 62 seconds I think I would start to die Just from panic because it's hard to get that breath in it's so loud Flapping you in the face like it is it sucks.

It hurts. It's

Brent: How, just personal question, how long are you in free fall before they pull the shoot?

Jeff: 60 seconds.

Brent: You're in free fall for 60 seconds.

Jeff: Mm hmm

Brent: And then they pull the shoot.

Jeff: Yeah, so you're up on the the plane and that joke, right? You know, why would you jump out of a perfectly good airplane? Well, where I skydive that was not a perfectly good airplane, but yeah, we like so you jump up Exactly. You have like 15, 000 feet and you get to the door and then you Poof.

And then you start a 60 second timer

Brent: Interesting.

Jeff: and then just they pull the shoot and magic. It's pretty great.

Brent: So this episode turned into a ghost story.

Jeff: Ultimately,

Brent: And then it turned into the purge. But regardless, at first it was, I mean, literally there's the woman who was screaming and then there's the dude who's walking around. Who's there? Who's there? Who's there? Who's there? Like. going on, guys? Come on,

Jeff: And then it almost turned into Aliens at one point when they're just like getting these massive shotguns and like, we're going to, there was a scene where Gideon's going around being like, Hey you, get, get into there, lock the door. And then he grabs just this honking rifle and he's like, and Eilerson's right there behind him.

And for a second I was like, Oh my God, please shoot Eilerson. Just, just

Brent: know what it looked, my finger slipped on the trigger. It was an accident. I'm sorry.

Jeff: Put in more time on the range. Like, I just, I don't know. I don't know.

Brent: Yeah.

Jeff: The burdens of command. I don't know about you, Brent, but I think it's time for us to kind of boil this thing down, peel the layers back. See if there's a, any messages in this thing, anything that holds up a mirror to society, anything that shows us there's a hope that we can be better people in the future or anything that just kind of teaches us a really important lesson.

What do you, what do you got on this one?

Brent: I want to, I want to start with a message that I completely reject this. I understand this may be some people's personal life philosophy. For whatever reason. I completely reject this, but I recognize it in here. Uh, at the end of the day. Here's the message at the end of the day, we're all alone. We are all alone.

I think Galen said this at some point, um.

Jeff: Yeah.

Brent: there's there's you know, we all have to walk our own path. We all this is, you know, at the end of the day, we're all alone. And I, I don't want to dive too far into that, but I just completely reject that idea. I don't I don't find that as a message that is true.

Or valuable or helpful. Um, just won't put that out there. Anyway, I did like this one, though. And I thought this was, uh, more showing rather than telling. You know, Galen goes down to the planet prior to that. He's kind of freaked out by the planet. Some, some worlds are good. Some worlds are bad. Some worlds are healthy.

Some worlds are unhealthy. Some worlds are safe. Some worlds are dangerous. That world is a bad, dangerous, unhealthy. I think he said, diseased ridden place, and I'm not going there. And he's, he's scared. Galen's Galen's scared to go down there. But as soon as he figures out now, this is another techno mage.

Yeah. It's not bad. It's not unhealthy. It's not dangerous. This is another techno mage and I can, I can handle a techno mage, you know, Jeff, sometimes bravery comes from knowledge.

Jeff: Hmm.

Brent: When you know what you're doing, I can run in and go do it. It's not a big deal. My knowledge of it, the scary, the scary thing more often than not is not knowing, you know, the scary thing is not knowing what to do. I gotta tell you, um, In my house, we started having, uh, this is, this is a result of really hot, humid summer and air conditioning that works really, really well in my house, like really well.

And insulation right behind some of these walls back here that has fallen down. And when hot and cold meet in humidity air that creates moisture. And right now there's some moisture back there and this whole room up here is going to get jacked up soon because it's got bad stuff growing back there, you know, um, don't worry.

It's okay. I'm not up here very long. I'm safe. It's fine. Um, but when, when we first kind of discovered this, I really was kind of frozen with a, I don't know what to do.

Jeff: Yeah,

Brent: You know, I, I just, well, what are we, who are we going to call? What are we going to do? I'm like, my wife is asking me, I don't know, baby. I don't know.

Like, I'm, I'm kind of scared to go figure this out because I, I, I have a fear of what this could mean. And you know, it turns out I wound up calling somebody in who knows what they're doing with this stuff. And they came in, they're like, yep, you have this, you have this, here's what you need to be worried about.

Here's what you don't need to be worried about. And here's how we're going to fix it. And here's what this looks like. And here's how we're going to pay for it. And here's this and the other. And you know what? They took me, they walked me through it. And I was like, Oh, now I'm fine. Bravery comes from knowledge. That's the message I got out of this one.

Jeff: I like that. I did a lot. I got one piece on that like, oh, we already talked about that. Never mind I like that. I think that's a great message

Brent: Well, Jeff, I do messages on a week like this, you, my friend, get to add this episode to our 100 percent completely accurate definitive ranking of crusade. I don't know that this needs to be a long conversation. Our current top three are the long road war zone and appearances and other deceits. Jeff, where are you placing the memory of war?

Jeff: there's what 13 episodes in this season?

Brent: Yes, sir.

Jeff: So it's gonna be no, no, it's not not gonna make

Brent: There's a, you know what, if there was a time to do it right now, it would be it because I would, I would really be interested to know at what point an episode would be worse than this, that would push it up, but I don't know that it was that bad to

Jeff: Exactly. I'm gonna put it number four because I think I I imagine there are worse episodes than this

Brent: I hope not.

Jeff: I really hope not. But at the same time, I, I mean, I don't know. I could see it. This is a, this is late nineties, early 2000s sci fi. So that was riddled with problems and all the, all this stuff.

Right.

Brent: I, I got to tell you though, Jeff, I really liked late nineties, 2000s sci fi,

Jeff: I know me too.

Brent: is so good.

Jeff: We've actually kind of made a thing out of late mid to late nineties, early 2000s sci fi, because. We like

Brent: That's where we are. Mm

Jeff: of war.

Brent: hmm.

Jeff: And next week we're watching an episode called the needs of earth. We don't know anything about this episode other than what it is called title alone.

And we love to play the game where we guess what the next episode is going to be about based on the title alone. So Brent, why don't you go first on this one? What do you think the needs of earth is going to be about?

Brent: Well, it, what it conjures up in my mind, um, is one of the things we saw in was it the long road? It was a long road. The idea of what happens when a need for survival butts up against the needs and rights of other

Jeff: Okay. Oh, okay. Mm

Brent: my need for survival requires me to do this and do this as expediently as I can. What happens when that bumps up against somebody else's right and whatever to exist or for whatever they're doing, even if it's not existential to them, you know, it seems to me, as you talk about that, like the needs of earth, okay, well, the needs of earth are going to outweigh the needs of whatever else is out there, right? But it seems like this is an idea that this show could come back to and explore in many different ways in several different episodes, especially, Oh, here we go.

Especially because of the questions we have added, you know, Babylon five gave us, who are you, what do you want and where are you going or no. Yeah, right. It was those three we added to, we added for crusade. Who do you trust and who do you serve when we, when we consider those two extra questions, we really could, could, uh, could dive in.

So I think this one's going to be a similar theme. They're going to come across a planet or some group of people that have something that earth needs to survive. Maybe, Oh, Jeff, maybe it's the information that that alien who inhabited wells. Was like, Oh, you know, the information aid, maybe it's that information,

Jeff: I like that.

Brent: you know, like he wasn't just throwing something out there to get them to stop.

Like he, it's actually that maybe it's that information or something. Um, but it's going to be in conflict with the people who have that thing. And Gideon is going to have to decide if the needs of earth outweigh everybody else's needs. And I feel like this one could be just chock full of messages that we're not going to have to stretch very far to reach.

That's my guess. What about you?

Jeff: I think in this one, Sarah Chambers is going to go to earth and visit her sister. We can go to earth now. This is going to be a post, a post prophylactic episode where they're able to go on to earth. But so she's going to go visit her sister. We're going to get exposed to what's happening on earth, but there's going to be an effort by probably earth gov to ground the Excalibur crew because they were exposed.

Next. On the planet. And so it's going to be like this conflict of being like, no, the needs of earth require that we go off and continue our

Brent: Right, right. Hmm. Silence.

Jeff: super cool to see you. Um, and if you're watching us on YouTube, whatever, thank you for being here.

Please. Like subscribe, do all this stuff, leave us a rating and a review. Those ratings, not only do we like to read them here on the show, but they show other people that this is a, this is a podcast worth listening to, or a YouTube video worth watching. So get those things out there. But the thing you can do that will help us more than anything else.

And that we will appreciate so very much is to please share this show with someone who either loves Babylon five and crusade or needs to get introduced to crusade and Babylon. For the first time. So with that next time, we're going to come together. We're going to yes. Brent, what is, uh, what is up

Brent: Hey. Did uh, did you take my advice?

Jeff: your advice?

Brent: Yeah, I don't, don't, don't trust him.

Jeff: Trust who,

Brent: The Vorlons, Jeff, never trust a Vorlon.

Jeff: but the Vorlons Brent, the Vorlons taught me to listen to the music, check it out, computer music.