Babylon 5/Awesome

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Sinclair

  • From the Pilot after Sinclair tells G'Kar that there was a microscopic transmitter in the drink G'Kar just finished:

Garibaldi: I wonder if they'll ever find that transmitter you slipped in G'kar's drink.
Sinclair: No they won't. Because there is none. If I had put one in, sooner or later, they would have found it. This way, they'll keep looking.
Garibaldi: Are you aware of the tests they'll perform and the things they'll do to him?
Sinclair: Yes. Come on.
Garibaldi: There are some days I love this job.

  • In Infection (the 4th episode), Sinclair explains why humans must venture into space...

Reporter: I have to ask you the same question people back home are asking about space these days. Is it worth it? Should we just pull back? Forget the whole thing as a bad idea, and take care of our own problems, at home.
Sinclair: No. We have to stay here. And there's a simple reason why. Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes, and - all of this - all of this - was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars.

  • Sinclair's Xanatos Gambit proving that you shouldn't give someone the authority to use "any means necessary" unless you're 100% sure they'll decide to use the means you want them to, in the first season episode called (appropriately) "By Any Means Necessary". Specifically, invoking the Rush Act to use "any means necessary" to quell a workers' revolt-- and using it to tap into the military budget to hire more workers and replace the shoddy equipment that caused the strike in the first place. The crushed look on the face of the EarthGov goon who was expecting to see a crackdown was priceless.
  • Sinclair has taken Babylon 4 back in time. It takes a while for Marcus to realize what it means. Sinclair is Valen

Delenn: If my people had found Babylon 4 with a human on board, they would never have accepted it.
Marcus Cole: Dear God. A Minbari not born of Minbari!


Sheridan

  • Sheridan nuking the Blackstar.
  • His speech declaring B5's independence from Earth is the second of two awesome speeches from the episode "Severed Dreams" (see "Delenn" for the first one).

Sheridan: In the last few hours, we have learned that warships are coming this way from Earth, their orders are to seize command of Babylon 5 by force. As commanding officer and military governor of Babylon 5, I cannot allow this to happen. President Clark has violated the Earth Alliance Constitution by dissolving the Senate, declaring martial law, and personally ordering the bombing of civilian targets on the Mars colony. He is personally responsible for the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. Following these attacks Orion 7 and Proxima 3 have broken away from the Earth Alliance, and declared independence. Babylon 5 now joins with them! As of this moment, Babylon 5 is seceding from the Earth Alliance! We will remain an independent state until President Clark is removed from office. At the end of this current crisis, anyone who wishes to leave for Earth is free to do so. Meanwhile, for your own safety, I urge everyone to stay in their quarters until this is over. That is all.

  • Sheridan's smackdown on not one but two First One races in B5. From the episode Into the Fire of season 4:

Sheridan: The Vorlons ask only one question over and over: "Who are you?" You, for you the question is "What do you want?" I have never heard you answer that question. Who are you? What do you want? ... It doesn't matter which side wins this today. A thousand years from now, it'll start all over again. You're as trapped in this cycle as much as we are. But we can't afford it anymore. We don't need it. We don't need you. We've learned how to stand on our own. We'll make mistakes, but they'll be our mistakes, not yours. ... We refuse to take sides in this anymore. And we refuse to let you turn us against one another! We know who we are now. We can find our own way between order and chaos. ... It's over because we’ve decided it's over! Now get the hell out of our galaxy! Both of you!

  • From "Intersections in Real Time":

Sheridan: You know, it's funny I was thinking about what you said. 'The pre-eminent truth of our age is that you cannot fight the system.' But if, as you say, truth is fluid, that the truth subjective, then maybe you can fight the system as long as one person refuses to be broken, refuses to bow down.
Interrogator: But can you win?
Sheridan: Every time I say 'no'.

Drazi Ambassador: Captain, we're sorry. We thought you were dead.
Sheridan: I was. I'm better now.

  • How he ended up on Z'ha'dum! They screwed with his wife, and replaced her mind with a false personality. So, he went to their home planet, and crashed his White Star into it...while it was loaded with nuclear weapons. He'd said that if he went down in Z'ha'dum, he wouldn't go easy or alone. He basically took the capital city of the Shadows with him.
    • They asked him to go to the dark side. He gave them a gigaton worth of "no". To put this in perspective: the energy unleashed by a one-megaton explosion could run your house for a hundred thousand years. Sheridan used one thousand times that.
  • Sheridan again, making his feeling on the subject of Nightwatch very clear:

Sheridan: No more! No more of you! No more Nightwatch, no more hostages, no more lies! Not on my station! Not On My Watch! No more! No more!

    • And this is while he's physically pummeling a Nightwatch hostage-taker and saboteur in full view of station civilians. That had to be one hell of a water-cooler story the next day.
  • Sheridan's "apology" in The Fall of Night. Even if he only gave it to a mirror, the implication is that he was fully prepared to actually say it.

"I'm sorry we had to defend ourselves against an unwarranted attack! I'm sorry that your crew was stupid enough to fire on a station filled with a quarter million civilians, including your own people! And I'm sorry I waited as long as I did before I blew them all straight to Hell!... As with everything else, it's the thought that counts."

  • "You tell your government that the only man to survive Z'ha'dum sends this message. We can end this, not just for now, not just for the next thousand years, but forever!"
  • When Sheridan's liberation fleet finally confronts Earth itself:

This is Captain John Sheridan. We are here on the authority of a multi-planetary force, that can no longer stand by and watch one of their greatest allies falling into darkness and despair. We are here on behalf of the thousands of civilians murdered under orders from the current administration, who have no one else to speak for them, and on behalf of the EarthForce units that have joined us to oppose the tyranny that has darkened Earth, ever since President Santiago was assassinated three years ago. We are here to place President Clark under arrest, to disband Nightwatch, and return our government to the hands of her people. We know that many in the government have wanted to act, but have been intimidated by threats of retaliation against your families, your friends. You are not alone anymore. We call upon you to rise up and do what's right! We have drawn their forces away from Earth and disabled them. The time to act is now! This is not the voice of treason. These are your sons, your daughters, whose loyalties have never wavered, whose beliefs in this alliance has [sic] forced us to take extraordinary means! For justice, for peace, for the future…we have come home!

  • Sheridan and Delenn's actions in "Come the Inquisitor" where they are both willing to die for the other, alone, away from all friends and those who would remember them. It shows the Inquisitor that not only are they good people, but the right people in the right place at the right time.


Ivanova

  • "Ivanova is always right."
  • "Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova. Commander. Daughter of Andrei and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance... and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am Death Incarnate... and the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me.". AWESOME
    • To paraphrase the creator, "Yes it went over the top. That is so the rest of us can know where the top IS!"
    • This troper feels that it also allowed the audience to see just how PISSED Ivanova was at the EF Higher-ups for their warcrimes.
      • The subsequent battle also counts. Ivanovas 20 White Stars destroy 20 Advanced Earth destroyers and their fighter complements after being basically ambushed by them.
  • From "No Surrender, No Retreat":

Lt. Corwin: "I guess the operational phrase is trust no one."
Ivanova: "No. Trust Ivanova. Trust yourself. Anybody else, shoot 'em!"

  • "You'll resist, I hope."
  • In "Voices of Authority" she goes to one of the First Ones, and after they refuse to join the Shadow War, she follows them and basically tells that the Vorlons told the humans that they had bigger dicks than these guys. She told this to THE FREAKING FIRST ONES and got them to agree to fight by pissing them the fuck off!


Garibaldi

  • 500 years after the end of Season Four, a hologram programmed with Garibaldi's personality to take part in a propaganda film will hack the computer projecting him and use it to warn one faction of humanity's government that the other (Orwellian) half is about to attack their civilian population centres. A hologram...
  • He discovers a certain group tried to kill him AND his wife, and accidentally wounded his wife. The board of directors of his own company. He finds these people, reveals he knows all their secrets, blackmails them into running away, reveals he has made their worst enemy the head of intelligence of the galaxy, and has set up a contingency that if he dies of ANYTHING but old age, they will have a $100,000 bounty on each of their heads.
  • Garibaldi, having tracked down the thugs who kidnapped Lise, introduces himself by throwing in a flash bang grenade that, just before it goes off, plays a Porky Pig "T-t-that's all folks!" Who could have guessed Garibaldi's love of Looney Tunes would have such a badass payoff? (Also counts as a Crowning Moment of Funny.)
  • Another crossover with Crowning Moment of Funny: At the end of the Centauri Prime trilogy, when Vir has just gotten the Drakh leader to confess to all manner of Bad Things that they've done, Garibaldi pops up out of a just-delivered wardrobe with the line, "What's up, Drakh?". (Garibaldi then proceeds to Shoot Him A Lot.)


Delenn

  • "Only one Human captain has ever survived battle against a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else." They complied.
  • While that was unquestionably a CMOA, it did sound more then a bit like Can't Argue with Elves . I liked better her speech earlier in that episode when the Grey Council was broken:

"Three years. For three years I warned you this day was coming. But you would not listen. Pride, you said, presumption. And now the Shadows are on the move. The Centauri and the younger worlds are at war, the Narns have fallen. Even the Humans are fighting one another. The pride was yours, the presumption was yours. For a thousand years we have been awaiting for fulfilment of prophecy, and when it finally happens, you scorn it, you reject it. Because you no longer believe it yourselves. 'We stand between the candle and the star, between the darkness and the light.' You say the words, but your hearts are empty, your ears closed to the truth. You stand for nothing but your own petty interests. 'Problems of others are not our concern.' I do not blame you for standing silent in your shame. You, who knew what was coming, but refused to take up the burden of this war. If the warrior caste will not fight, then the rest of us will. If the Council has lost its way, if it will not lead, if we have abandoned our covenant with Valen, the Council should be broken, as was prophecied. We must stand with the others now, before it's too late. Between the worker caste and the religious caste we control two thirds of our forces. Do you, I say, listen to the voice of your conscience? Break the Council, and come with we. Our time of isolation is over. We move now, together, or not at all."

    • It should be noted that this particular speech was infused with significant Reality Subtext; Mira Furlan, a native Croatian, drew on her fury with the European powers who failed to help as the Balkans went to hell to give this speech its punch. In that context, this speech is a CMOA not just for Delenn, but for Mira as well.
    • The moment just before that should be included as well, when she vented her righteous indignation at the cleric who was blocking her way (and unlike the moment in the end of the episode, she was confronting one of her own race):

"I served the Council for sixteen cycles. I was the chosen of Dukhat to replace him! I held him when he died! His blood is on my hands, his spirit in my eyes, his word on my lips! You will step aside in his name and mine, or—in Valen's name—I will tear this ship apart with my bare hands until I find them! Move aside!"

  • Of note would have to be becoming QUEEN OF THE MINBARI! By SETTING HERSELF ON FIRE!
  • In the Distant Future, one sentence. "Sheridan was a good man." A hundred years after the events of the series, an ancient and possibly dying Delenn, who hadn't been seen in public for many years, breaks into a TV studio to interrupt a live debate over whether Sheridan was the hero the series portrays him as. With that one line.
    • Same scene, different line: after saying the above sentence, one of the talking heads asks her "You came all this way just to say that?" Her response: "You came just as far to say less." BURN
  • One of her best moments was when the Markab were plague-stricken and she locks herself in a room crowded with Markab just so they won't die comfortless.
  • Just the way she can go through a Space Battle without losing her composure or disturbing her robes one bit. Her propriety is Made of Iron!
  • Sheridan and Delenn's actions in "Come the Inquisitor" where they are both willing to die for the other, alone, away from all friends and those who would remember them. It shows the Inquisitor that not only are they good people, but the right people in the right place at the right time.


G'Kar

  • G'Kar gets to do some impressive bit of philosophizing about ants in "Mind War". It arguably becomes a Crowning Moment retrospectively once you realize this is the first time he lets his true self show to the audience.
  • G'kar had several, many in conversation with Londo.

Londo: (after being thanked by G'kar for saving their lives) You would have done the same for me.
G'kar: Yes, but I'm a better person than you are.

  • After the end of the Narn-Centauri War:

Narn Warrior: I never thought you were a coward, G'Kar. We suffered and died during their occupation. Where were you? What have you endured?
G'Kar: What have I endured? Hahahahahahaha! (G'Kar walks out of the room, still laughing Considering that he's been tortured days on end by professional torturers... I mean Pain Technicians, trotted out for humiliation after humiliation, and had his eye plucked out...)

  • "Comes the Inquisitor": While arranging a deal to help the stranded Narns on the station:

G'Kar: This money comes from the life savings of those Narns who escaped the occupation. It is a limited resource purchased with blood. If it should be stolen or squandered, rest assured that while your body may one day be found, it could never be identified from the remains.

  • "No dictator... no invader... can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free."
    • What makes it even more awesome is that, at least twice during this speech, Londo opens his mouth as if to interrupt him, but falls flat. He literally can not find the words necessary to interrupt him.
  • He tears his chains apart even after they were reinforced, and he was thoroughly beaten, tortured and starved.
  • In addition to the above, there was that one time he decided to help King Arthur fight a street gang...


Londo

Londo: "Yes, your ships are very impressive in the air, or in space. But at this moment they are on the ground."
Morden: "Right...they're on the ground...but they can sense an approaching ship miles away! So what are you going to do, Mollari? Blow up the island?"

Londo: "Actually...now that you mention it..." [produces detonator from his jacket]

Morden: NOOOO!!

*boom*

  • This troper thinks that the entire story arc of the Londo-led conspiracy to assassinate Emperor Cartagia is a CMOA for the series as a whole.
  • And how he handles Lord Refa. Putting a person in a room alone with a race he tried to commit genocide on? With his bodyguards bribed to walk away? AND BLACK BAPTISTS SINGING A BIBILICAL HYMN! "No hiding place down here"? Awesome.
  • From In The Beginning, Londo Mollari descibes how Humanity fought during the Earth-Minbari war. It serves as a crowning moment for mankind. (The music and war visuals really help, too.)

"The humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the humans fought back with even greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In all my life, I have never seen anything like it; they would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones... and then throw themselves, without fear or hesitation, at the very face of death itself. Never surrendering.
"No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage... their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out guns, they used... knives, and sticks, and bare hands. They were... magnificent.
"I only hope that when it is my time that I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes in the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage... but in the end, they ran out of time."

  • A more minor one since it ended up being unnecessary, but it still shows how noble Londo had become: after destroying all the Shadow vessels on Centauri Prime, there's still a Vorlon ship preparing to destroy the planet, and Vir realizes that there's still one person on the planet who's been influenced by the Shadows: Londo himself. Upon realizing this, Londo immediately demands that Vir kill him so the Vorlons will have no more reason to destroy the planet.


Vir

  • Timid, milquetoast Vir telling off Morden when the Shadow agent tries to tempt him:

"I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I would look up at your lifeless eyes and wave...like this."

<waggles fingers, smiling>

"Can you and your associates arrange that for me, Mr. Morden?"

    • Made even better by Vir calling Morden's attention at the end of the conversation and waggling his fingers with the same smile.
    • A big part of the moment is the look on Morden's face, because he knows that the Shadows have arranged for every other request to be granted, one way or another. Although it would not benefit the Shadows for him to die, he knows that Karma is a bitch. You can see this here. That one was certainly his first Crowning Moment of Awesome. And the moment of awesome gets an extension when Vir actually gets his wish later on. *waves*
    • Also bears mentioning (adding to the awesome) that, while the Shadows technically grant everyone's wishes, Vir is the only one who gets what he actually wanted.
      • Vir's wish partially comes true. We say "partially" because he lives far longer than "just long enough" to do what he said he would do.
  • When he's sent by Londo to secure an audience with the Techno Mages, he has to face some huge, dangerous looking monstrosity. He simply stands there, giving his introduction, until the Mage controlling the beast finally gives up on sending him away. That boy's got balls!

Technomage: You are very brave.
Vir: When you work for Ambassador Molari, after a while... nothing scares you.

  • After it turns out that a Drazi vendor put a spying device into Vir's grocery bag, Vir calls him out on it, but gets taunted and humiliated in return. He walks away, having seemingly put up with it once again. He returns to their quarters, calmly walks past the rather perplexed Mollari to the weapon stand, grabs Londo's dueling sword, returns to the vendor and hacks his whole stand into pieces, puts the blade to the Drazi's neck and makes him confess about his scam. It makes Londo proud.
    • The line he delivers to the Drazi while doing so makes the moment both Awesome and Funny at the same time.

Vir: Now... want to finish our little conversation, spoo-for-brains?

  • Oh, how about the time he is discovered running the underground railroad, smuggling Narns to freedom? Apparently, he took G'Kar's comment to heart...
    • As with the one above with the Drazi merchant, it also counts as a Funny. The fake name that he used to set the operation up was "Abrahamo Linconi."


Marcus Cole

I am a Ranger! We walk in the dark places no others will enter. We stand on the bridge, and no one may pass. We live for the One, WE DIE FOR THE ONE!!.

  • Marcus gets one when a man arrives at the station, claiming to be King Arthur, refusing to give up his sword. Marcus (a descendant of a British colony) arrives, gets the security officers to back off and let him try something. Then he kneels and calls Arthur "My Lord."
  • Marcus is looking for the Nightwatch agents who kidnapped Delenn. So he goes into one of the roughest bars on the station, sits down at a card table and states that they don't tell him what he wants to know, in five minutes he'll be the only one at the table still conscious. And if he still doesn't get the information he needs five minutes after that, he'll be the only person in the bar still conscious. Ten minutes later he shouts out what is arguably the single funniest line in the entire series.

Bugger! Now I have to wait for someone to wake up.

Others

JMS: And yeah, that little closing card is going to remain on the show for its life...which will be long, long after its detractors (and admittedly myself) have gone to dust. On the one hand, it is a statement of hope to anyone else out there who has a dream, to follow it no matter who speaks against you, no matter the odds, no matter what they say to or about you, no matter what roadblocks they throw in your way. What matters is that you remain true to your vision.
On the other hand, for the reviewers and the pundits and the critics and the net-stalkers who have done nothing but rag on this show for five years straight, it is also a giant middle finger composed of red neon fifty stories tall, that will burn forever in the night.
In billiards, we call that a bank-shot.

  • The speech given by President of Earth at the climax of the Earth/Minbarri War:

"This is...This is the President.
I've just been informed that our midrange military bases at Beta Durani and Proxima 3 have fallen to the Minbari advance. We've lost contact with Io and must conclude that they too have fallen to an advance force. Our military intelligence believes that the Minbari intend to bypass Mars and hit Earth directly and the attack may come at any time.
We have continued to broadcast our surrender and a plea for mercy. And they have not responded. We therefore can only conclude... that we stand at the twilight of the Human race.
In order to buy more time for our evacuation transports to leave Earth, we ask for the support of every ship capable of fighting to take part in a last defense of our homeworld. We will not lie to you. We do not believe that survival is a possibility. We believe that anyone who joins this battle... will never come home. But for every ten minutes we can delay the military advance several hundred civilians may have a chance to escape to neutral territory. Though Earth may fall, the Human race must have a chance to continue elsewhere. No greater sacrifice has ever been asked of a people than I ask you now... to step forward one last time... one last battle, to hold the line against the night. May God go with you all."

"I was born Warrior Caste, but now I see the calling of my heart was Religious!"

  • Following his Heel Realization, Zack Allen plays a key role in the Batman Gambit to force all the Nightwatch members off the station, packing them all in a tight space before racing out to the hallway and diving through the closing door.
  • When Na'Toth encounterss Jha'dur:

Na'Toth: "Deathwalker? Deathwalker! DEATHWALKER!"

    • This is followed up with a spanner beatdown.
    • Or how about that one time she spent oh...forever in a Centauri prison...and was still snarking.
  • Lennier picks up Marcus Cole. With one hand. One can see why you Can't Argue with Elves...
  • The Dilgar War in the backstory is a major Crowning Moment of Awesome for Earthforce. Before Earthforce entered the war, the Dilgar were kicking the collective asses of the technologically superior League of Non-Aligned Worlds, the Narn had been scared into looking the other way and the Centauri were doing nothing. Then Earthforce enters the war with a technology inferior to what the Dilgar had, and two years later the Dilgar military has been destroyed at Earth's hand, and what had not been destroyed was being dissected and studied to equip the next generation of Earthforce warships. Kinda explain why the Earth Alliance in the series is still a major power: the beating suffered at the hands of the Minbari reduced them at the same power they were before the Dilgar War, when they could defeat someone more powerful than the entire League.
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