Much as I liked Dodger, Large, and Wang, I knew that they would end up getting killed.

This episode qualifys for the "Thanks For Keeping Prozac In Buisness" Award.

I know it's an obvious statement here, but Gropos are the starship troopers of the B5 universe!

One of the ships carrying the troops looks like an Omega class destroyer, but without the rotating section in the middle. Either this is an Omega variant or an older class of ship that the Omega's were based on.

(Note; Although not stated on the show or films this type of ship has been identified as Nova class dreadnought. An older class of ship that the Omega class was based on and replaced).


Nit/question; Does/would the military really send a couple of thousand troops to a military base without bothering to inform the local Commander first?

The situation in this case is made even worse since;

Any cover story about the troops being intended to relieve a garrison will fall flat about a minute after the ships exit the jump gate. If this was a normal troop movement the the Commander would have been aware of it ahead of time and informed security to expect a sudden increase in station numbers - and this information would have become known to half the station about five minutes after that. Instead Earthforce is gambling that not a single crewman on the station is going to complain that no one bothered to warn them about the arrivals - and hence make someone wonder what the marines are really doing here.

Babylon 5, while a military base, is primary serving a diplomatic role at this time. Having a couple of thousand troops show up without warning is hardly diplomatic, even if you do own the station. Worse, the people you don't want asking questions (The ambassadors) are going to do so.

Evidently even in 2259 'military intelligence' is an Oxymoron.

This is an episode of which I saw portions some years ago. I remembering seeing the scene in which Delenn was harassed, I think I recall the near-confrontation that occurred between P.F.C. Large and that B5 regular whose quarters were appropriated, and I remember the closing shot showing the deaths. Seeing the entire episode was a nice revisit to something I had seen before, but with the context of the entire story. The Franklin-Franklin story was solid, predicated largely on the authentic-sounding dialogue, which is often not present in plots involving familial conflict on shows like this.

Wouldn't it have helped ease the territorial feelings on the part of the B5 personnel whose quarters were appropriated if they had at least been informed in advance that their quarters would be thus used, maybe have the soldiers assigned to each quarters report to the quarters' regular users as a show of respect, and have those soldiers assure them that they were just following orders, and that their quarters and belongings would be shown the proper respect, in order to make the situation go a bit more smoothly?

Why couldn't the GROPOS just stay on the transports that brought them to B5? If they didn't have such facilities, that implies that the journey to B5 was short. But if it was short, then why go to B5? Why not go from wherever they were stationed directly to IO via the jump gate?

Why couldn't the GROPOS just stay on the transports that brought them to B5? If they didn't have such facilities, that implies that the journey to B5 was short. But if it was short, then why go to B5? Why not go from wherever they were stationed directly to IO via the jump gate?

First, the marines were not just passing through the area. They were also refurbishing B5's defensive grid - prior to this B5's defence grid was not really intended to deal with combat. Now it has been upgraded to be equal to the weaponry of a cruiser. (This upgrade is also the excuse for why the troops are there in the first place).
We are not given any real indication as to how long upgrading the defences took, but given the vast increase in firepower a week or so would not be much of a stretch. This leads nicely into;

Two, Earthforce doesn't have any form of artificial gravity they have to rely on rotating sections to provide gravity for their ships (such as the Omega class destroyers) and stations (such as B5 herself). It is, therefore, safe to say that as none of the ships that arrive have rotating sections they don't have any gravity.
In this situation having a large number of troops crammed together in zero-g for any length of time would only reduce their combat effectiveness and moral. It is worth noting that it is unclear as to how long they might be hanging around before being given the orders to attack. (Eisenhower was faced with similar problems with the Normandy invasion forces in 1944).

In context allowing the troops off the transports makes sense. However failing to inform B5 they were on their way still makes no sense at all - regardless of the cover story of upgrading the stations defences turning up unannounced like this would only raise a lot of questions...which if I recall were asked anyway.

The Normandy invasion forces didn't have any place to stay with gravity in it? Sheesh, and I thought their situation was depicted as pretty bad in Saving Private Ryan.

Ah yes, Churchill's great parliamentary "No Gravity" debate - I remember it well in the history books. ;-)

Luigi, wanna hear some crazy stuff. I just happened to pop this episode in and was watching it when I logged onto nitcentral and you had just made a post about it today.

I think the problem with leaving the troops on the transport is that the transports are outfitted like a plane rather than a big ship on an oceanic voyage. I believe that most local star-to-star jumps on B5 are talked about in the time frame of a 1 or 2 day jump. That's fine for everyone to grab their gear and pile on for 24 or 48 hours; I know that my Dad talked about spending like 20 hours in a military cargo plane bound for Thailand when he was in the Army. However keeping them on the transports for 3 extra days when there's a space station right there is something else. As for the time it takes. They could have come from a base that was 2 days from B5. They must have come from an Earth Colony outside of our solar system as they were officaly relief troops for IO, which is in our solar system. If the battlefield is say 24 hours from B5 than 2 days to the station, a few days on it and one day to the battlefield is a huge difference than 72 hours like sardines in a can.

Brian: Luigi, wanna hear some crazy stuff.
Luigi Novi: Always.

Brian: I just happened to pop this episode in and was watching it when I logged onto nitcentral and you had just made a post about it today.
Luigi Novi: STOP FOLLOWING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! STOP READING MY MIND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(runs away screaming.)

Well I do like light reading to keep my skills sharp. LOL J/K dude.

Ooooooohhhh!!!! Snap!