Babylon 5/Tropes Q to Z: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

----

=== ''Babylon 5'' provides examples of: ===

* [[Rescued From Purgatory]]

* [[Resignations Not Accepted]]: The only way out of Psi Corps is "feet first", according to Sheridan.

* [[Retroactive Precognition]]: {{spoiler|All of Valen's prophecies.}}

* [[Revealing Hug]]: In "Born to the Purple", Londo and Adira embrace, and the camera lingers on Adira's face as the happy facade she's been putting on for Londo slips away.

* [[Second Episode Introduction]]: Several of the cast regulars were not present in the [[Pilot Movie]]; Dr Franklin didn't show up for the first proper episode either.

* [[Schmuck Bait]]: Marcus escapes his jailer by pretending that his collapsible pike is some sort of medical scanner, and that you activate it by staring down the hole at the end. [[Tap On the Head|Pow]]. Marcus repeats this feat with another mook down the hall, this time using a tennis ball ("Exogenesis").

** On the other hand, often played painfully straight with casualty numbers. [[Word of God]] is that a planetary bombardment using [[Colony Drop|Colony Drops]] had casualties of only 3 million, while the casualties of the Earth-Minbari War were only a little more than those that have been suffered in the Iraq War so far.

**** JMS is of the opinion that the advanced civilizations would generally use more birth control and naturally have lower populations, too. It's his explanation for why Centauri Prime only has a few billion people living on it (though one episode put the total Centauri population at 48 billion), provides a decent explanation as to why we rarely see children on the show, and is evidenced by the families we do see or hear mentioned (many characters are only children who in turn have only one child [ie: Lise, despite three marriages, only gave birth to Garibaldi's child, Delenn and Sheridan only have one child, Londo had 3 wives and at least 2 lovers but never any children, and so on]). It seems like the Narns are the only major species with larger families since they seem to have litters (but even then the occupation seems to have left them with a relatively stunted population).

**** Considering that the Earth-Minbari war was largely fought in space, civilian causalities were probably low. That means that most of the 250,000 dead on the Human side were almost all soldiers.

**** A few battles took place over extended distances, such as the one in ''The Long, Twilight Struggle'', where we never see the two sides' capital ships in the same shot until the entire battle is concluded. A few long panning shots followed weapons fire to show the distances involved. Indeed, the battle also featured quite a bit of [[Old School Dogfighting]], but the fighters were so small compared to the capital ships that you can only discern them as specks and flashes of light around the bigger ships.

* [[The Scottish Trope]]: On one occasion, Marcus refers to "the Scottish Play." It is unclear if it's the character or the actor who averts referring to the play by its title.

** [[Word of God]] is that neither Marcus nor his actor had a problem with saying the name of the play, and JMS wrote it that way to avoid offending anyone else. See the entry below for why.

* [[Secret Test of Character]]: G'Kar pulls this on Lyta in "Darkness Ascending." {{spoiler|She passes.}}

** From time to time, Garibaldi will pull this on other characters who he suspects of doing illegal things for noble reasons. As long as they tell him the truth, he will usually help them find a better way to accomplish it. Of course, he only does this for characters who he believes will tell him the truth, but he always leaves them a little room to disappoint him.

* [[Seeking Sanctuary]]: Following the fall of their homeworld, the remnants of the Narn Regime order G'Kar to seek political asylum on Babylon 5. The decision is particularly hard on G'Kar, who is worried for his family back home.

* [[Serial Killer]]: Karl Mueller. Though convicted of killing three people on Babylon 5, his true body count is somewhere in the dozens, as shown when Talia peeks into his mind.

* [[Shoot Out the Lock]]: Sheridan [[Averted Trope|advises against it]]: The door his opponents are trapped behind is made of an alloy immune to PPG blasts.

{{quote| '''Sheridan:''' ''Ricochet's a killer.''}}

** The PSI corps greeting [[The Prisoner|"Be seeing you"]], complete with the eye-in-the-forhead gesture.

* [[Show Within a Show]]: The ISN Special Reports, which form the focus of the episodes "And Now For a Word" and "The Illusion of Truth." The fouth season finale "The Deconstruction of Falling Stars" features more special reports, and other video records, being examined by a Ranger {{spoiler|one million years in the future}}.

* [[Spring Loaded Corpse]]: A (supposedly) dead Markab discovered by Sheridan in Grey Sector ("Knives").

* [[Stable Time Loop]]: See [[You Already Changed the Past]]

* [[Stanley Steamer Spaceship]]: In "Mind War", the damaged area of the station includes several broken pipes leaking steam.

** And in the [[Distant Finale]], according to [[Word of God]], the same thing may have happened {{spoiler|to Earth.}}

* [[State Sec]]:

* [[Drugs Are Bad|Stims Are Bad]]

* [[Street Urchin]]: Alisa Beldon, when we first meet her.

{{quote| '''Londo:''' Say instead "They are a decadent people, interested only in the pursuit of...of dubious pleasures." The "dubious" part is very important. It doesn't mean anything, but it scares them every time.}}

* [[Subliminal Seduction]]: "THE PSI CORPS IS YOUR FRIEND. TRUST THE CORPS."

* [[Subspace Ansible]]: Tachyon relays.

* [[Summon Bigger Fish]]: you think the Shadows can kick your ass? {{spoiler|Wait until the Vorlons decide that they're done tiptoeing around the younger races and bring out their ''Planet Killers!''}}. So, with a galactic apocalypse coming down around their ears, what do the terrified and desperate younger races do? {{spoiler|they ''go and find ALL THE OTHER OLD ONES THEY CAN TO JOIN IN THE FIGHT!''}} Of course, by this stage they were so far beyond the [[Godzilla Threshold]] that Godzilla looked like a newborn puppy.

* [[Super Fun Happy Thing of Doom]]

** For the Earth Alliance, this is an execution method reserved for mutiny and treason.

** In "The Corps Is Mother, the Corps Is Father," Bester and another Psi Cop ''hyper''space a "mundane" who killed one of their colleagues.

** ''SOME'' are canon, others are disavowed. [[Word of God]] is that of the nine Dell books, # 7 is 90% canon and # 9 is 100% canon. The other seven books "[[Canon Dis Continuity|strayed too far from canon]]".

* [[Time Abyss]]: Lorien

** Also from Vir to Londo although Londo's warts were more obvious.

* [[We Are Everywhere]]: Played for laughs ([[Nightmare Fuel|sort of]]) in a televised Psi Corps recruitment ad.

* [[We Will Not Have Pockets in The Future]]: Averted.

* [[We Will Not Use Photoshop in The Future]]: Vir creates a phony Centauri bureaucrat named [[Sue Donym|Abrahamo Lincolni]] to divert Narns away from concentration camps. Ivanova assists him by whipping up a photo ID for "Lincolni": A doctored picture of Sheridan, albeit with a Centauri hairdo and medals.

* [[Weld the Lock]]: Garibaldi and the Mars Resistance blow the lock on an Earthforce outpost (depressurising it to immobilise those inside) then weld it shut again.

* [["Well Done, Son" Guy]]: General Richard "[[In-Series Nickname|Old Firestorm]]" Franklin.

{{quote|{{spoiler|I'm Anna Sheridan. John's wife.}}|{{spoiler|Note- this is while Delenn is spending the (first) night with John.}}}}

** The last line of ''Comes The Inquisitor'':

** Subverted in "Deathwalker", when a war-criminal creates a serum for immortality. Every government wants it for themselves. The catch: for the serum to work for one individual, certain components which can't be produced artificially must be extracted from another member of the same race, a process which is fatal to the other person. She intends for the billions who will die for the immortality of others as revenge for the defeat and extermination of her people in a previous war. Even knowing this, Sinclair and the others can't stop her from walking away unharmed. {{spoiler|Then the Vorlons blow up her ship with her and her serum in it.}}

{{quote| '''Kosh:''' You are not ready for immortality.}}

* [[Will Not Tell a Lie]]: The Minbari like to think of themselves as this, but it's at best an [[Informed Attribute]]. Their definition of 'lie' is extremely flexible. Notably it doesn't include lying to save another person's honour (which forms the basis of the plot of the second season episode "There All The Honour Lies") or lying by omission. And some Minbari characters, including Delenn who is easily the most prominent one on the show, just plain ''ignore'' this supposedly deeply ingrained aspect of their culture; one fan quipped on Usenet that "the way to tell whether Delenn is lying is to check whether her mouth is moving", and no-one (including JMS, then a regular contributor to that newsgroup) disagreed.

** This is actually [[Lampshade Hanging|commented upon]] several times. Sheridan tells his old friend Captain Maynard that "The Minbari never tell you the ''whole'' truth." In season four, the Drazi Ambassador publicly states the same thing when speaking out against Delenn. [[Rule of Three|The sentiment is even expressed by Delenn herself, who states that the Grey Council "never tells the ''whole'' truth."]]. When Sheridan and Delenn meet in front of the "Universe Today" vending machine, she also states that she likes to read the "Eye on Minbar" section so she can learn things before the Grey Council tells her "What she needs to know and no more." The Minbari philosophy is stated on at least one occasion to be "Understanding is not required, only obedience" (no doubt they learnt this from the Vorlons). And of course, most importantly, the Grey Council never told the Warrior Caste why they ''surrendered at the Battle of the Line.'' It seems the Minbari do not think omissions are lies.

* [[You Don't Want to Catch This]]:

** Lake's Syndrome.

* [[You Have to Have Jews]]: Susan Ivanova and Rabbi Koslov, although Susan was not a practicing Jew.

* [[You Have No Idea Who You're Dealing With]]: [[The Mole]] to Garibaldi, after the latter asks him who is behind the conspiracy that assassinated President Santiago.

[[Category:Babylon 5 (TV)]]

[[Category:Babylon 5 Tropes Q To Z]]