Day Thirty-One -- Babylon 5, Season 3

Yeah, there's ten this time, because season three is my favorite. So sue me.


"Your Ambassador Delenn has a wonderful phrase: 'Faith manages.'"
-- Brother Theo to Sheridan in Babylon 5:"Passing Through Gethsemane"

"For you, personally, what is the defining moment of your belief? Not the history, the doctrines,
but the emotional core of it."
"On the night before our Lord was crucified, he spent the night alone in the garden at Gethsemane. And he knew they were gonna come for him, and in a moment of weakness, he asked if this cup could pass from him. If he could be spared the pain and death that would come with the morning. And of course, the cup would not pass, and the soldiers would come to Gethsemane. But he did not have to be there when they arrived. He could have chosen to leave, to postpone the inevitable for a few hours or even days. He knew what would happen, but he chose to stay. To sacrifice himself, and thus atone for the sins of others. It's a very fragile, human moment. And I've often thought about that night. And I honestly, don't know if I would have had the courage to have stayed."
-- Delenn and Brother Edward in Babylon 5:"Passing Through Gethsemane"

"I thought the purpose of filing these reports was to provide accurate intelligence."
"Vir, intelligence has nothing to do with politics."
-- Vir and Londo in Babylon 5:"Point of No Return"

"This is Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw, .. or be destroyed." [in the White Star!]
"Negative. We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ship."
"Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else."
-- Delenn and Captain Drake in Babylon 5:"Severed Dreams"

"Everything I was, everything I had, all of it died that night. I don't have anything left to give."
"And that is exactly what you must give up. Yes, you have lost much, endured much, sacrificed greatly, but you cling to the memory of your sacrifices, of all the things you have lost or left behind. They drag behind you, like chains of your own making. They can have a terrible power over you, Marcus. The power of grief, and loss, and regret. Yes, you have let go of the people, the places, the things, but you have not let go of the pain. You have not forgiven yourself."
"For what?"
"Being alive."
-- Marcus and Delenn in Babylon 5:"Ceremonies of Light and Dark"

"No. No. No. No-no. Not good. No, no."
"Come on, find what you need and lets get away from here. We are running out of time."
"Can not run out of time, there is infinite time. You are finite, Zathras is finite. This is... wrong tool. No. No. Not good. No. No. Never use this."
-- Zathras and Ivanova in Babylon 5:"War Without End #2"

"I'll wake you in four hours."
"Thanks. That's assuming I can get any sleep in these. The Captain warned me about these things, but I had no idea.."
"They are wery restful, good for the back."
"Well, someday I want to be stationed in somewhere with big four-poster bed, canopy, and maybe a window with a view of a garden."
"I like gardens, .. and big four-poster beds. .. Right. See you in four hours."
-- Marcus and Ivanova in Babylon 5:"Shadow Dancing"

"You had to find your own way?"
"I ran away. I realized that I always defined myself in terms what I wasn't. I wasn't a good soldier like my father, I wasn't .. the job.. I wasn't a good prospect for marriage or kids. Always what I wasn't, never what I was. But when you do that, you miss the moments. And the moments are all we've got. When I thought I was going to die, even after everything that's happened, I realized I didn't want to let go. I was willing to do it all over again and this time I could appreciate the moments. I can't go back, but I can appreciate what I have right now, and I can define myself by what I am, instead of what I'm not."
"And what are you?"
"Alive. Everything else is negotiable."
-- Sheridan and Franklin in Babylon 5:"Shadow Dancing"

"Who are you?"
"Now, that's really not important."
"Who are you?"
"Who decides that the workday is from 9 to 5, instead of 11 to 4? Who decides that the hemlines will be below the knee this year and short again next year? Who draws up the borders, controls the currency, handles all of the decisions that happen transparently around us?"
"I don't know."
"Ah! I'm with them. Same group, different department. Think of me as a sort of middleman, and the name is Justin. Come in, sit, sit. The tea is getting cold."
-- Sheridan and Justin in Babylon 5:"Z'ha'dum"

"It was the end of the Earth year 2260, and the war had paused, suddenly and unexpectedly. .. All around us, it was as if the universe were holding its breath, waiting. All of life can be broken down into moments of transition or moments .. of revelation. This had the feeling of both."
"G'Quan wrote: 'There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way. The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender. The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.'"
-- G'Kar in Babylon 5:"Z'ha'dum"

Day Twenty-Four -- Babylon 5, Season 2

I am in love with Babylon 5, and have been for a very long time. Thus, I bring to you today's installment of B5 quotes, this time from Season 2:

"You will have to wear a cast. And it's gonna hurt."
"Swell. Ouch."
"I can give you something for the pain."
"Oh, great, now you can give me something for the pain. Where were you when I was going through puberty?"
-- Franklin and Ivanova in Babylon 5:"The Geometry of Shadows"

"Then I will tell you a great secret, Captain. Perhaps the greatest of all time. The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff, we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. As we have both learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective."
-- Delenn to Sheridan in Babylon 5:"A Distant Star"

"I never forget the feeling of helplessness. I never thought there could be anything worse than being all alone in the night."
"But there is. Being all alone in a crowd."
-- Sheridan and Delenn in Babylon 5:"There All the Honor Lies"

"No dictator, no invader, can hold an imprisoned population by the 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 can not stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years, we will be free."
-- G'Kar in Babylon 5:"The Long, Twilight Struggle"

"The city was drowning in decay, .. chaos, immorality. A message needed to be sent, etched in blood, for all the world to see: a warning. In the pursuit of my .. holy cause, I .. did things, terrible things, unspeakable things. The world condemned me, but it didn't matter, because I believed I was right and the world was wrong. I believed I was the divine messenger. I believed I was--"
"Chosen?"
".. I was .. found by the Vorlons. They showed me the terrible depth of my mistake, .. my crimes, my .. presumption. I have done 400 years of penance in their service. A job, for which they said I was ideally suited. Now, perhaps, they will finally let me die."
"I think that might be wise."
"Good luck to you in your holy cause, Captain Sheridan. May your choices have better results than mine. Remembered, not as a messenger, remembered not as a reformer, not as a prophet, not as a hero, not even as Sebastian. Remembered only .. as Jack."
-- Sebastian to Sheridan in Babylon 5:"Comes the Inquisitor"

"I apologize. I'm .. sorry. 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."
-- Sheridan in Babylon 5:"The Fall of Night"

Day Nineteen -- Babylon 5, Season 1

Sorry friends--I realized as I was checking my sites this morning that I never actually hit publish post. This was written at approximately 7 pm last night. We will resume our regularly scheduled posts tonight.

This Friday's Filler is my favorite five quotes for Babylon 5 from season 1. Enjoy!


"Commander, please. On the issue of galactic peace, I am long past innocence and fast approaching apathy. It's all a game -- a paper fantasy of names and borders. Only one thing matters, Commander. Blood calls out for blood."
-- Londo Mollari, Midnight on the Firing Line

"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, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars."
Jeffrey Sinclair, Infection

"Ambassador Kosh has been a busy boy today."
"They say God works in mysterious ways."
"Maybe so, but He's a con man compared to the Vorlon."
---Michael Garibaldi and Jeffrey Sinclair, Deathwalker

"The universe is driven by the complex interaction between three ingredients: matter, energy, and enlightened self-interest."
--G'Kar, Survivor

"Sleep well?"
"Sleeping is not the problem. Waking up -- that is a problem. I've always had hard time getting up when it's dark outside."
"But in space it's always dark."
"I know, I know."
--Jeffrey Sinclair and Susan Ivanova, Signs and Portents


Happy Friday!