and welcome to Who Are You? It's the Babylon 5 watch cast by a couple of former strangers, now friends, who are getting to know each other over one of their favorite shows from their childhood, Babylon 5. I'm Laura,
Xhafer:And I'm Ja'far.
Laura:and Jaffer, today I get to ask you, where are you going?
Xhafer:Well, where I'm going is I'm going to the motherland.
Laura:Ja'far?
Xhafer:Well, the source of my incredibly distinct name is my father's family, and they're all from Albania, which is where I'll be going for the first time in October. I'm very excited. I am a multi generation American North American through my Albanian family. So I'm not particularly, I, I have relatives there.
Laura:Uh Huh.
Xhafer:There, there are no one I've ever met. And I'm going with my sister her boyfriend, who's also one of my college roommates. Uh, I'm going, Beth is coming along. My uncle is going my mom declined.
Laura:Okay.
Xhafer:really her family or her people anyways.
Laura:Yeah.
Xhafer:And then I might have a couple of cousins. We had at one point about 75 people invited to this trip to Europe.
Laura:Wow.
Xhafer:not many were able to accept for a number of reasons.
Laura:Sure. Yeah.
Xhafer:But I'm real excited. My sister's been once. My uncle's been about 10 times.
Laura:How does one get to Albania?
Xhafer:An airplane.
Laura:Well, like, I mean, is there just like an Albanian airport? What's the major city? Like, come on.
Xhafer:Yeah, no no, I'll be, I'll be flying in through the capital Tirana, which is a moderately, like Albania is in the European union. It is a NATO country. Like, no, no, it is not large. I will be seeing approximately half the country on my trip
Laura:Yeah.
Xhafer:and that's taking it slow.
Laura:I've got to do this now because we just brought up the size. I need to know the square miles.
Xhafer:Oh, it's like Rhode Island sized.
Laura:Yeah. I love these European countries where you can get from like one side to the other side in like, I don't know, an hour.
Xhafer:Yeah. Well, it's mountainous where we'll be.
Laura:Okay. Oh, that'll be pretty. That'll be nice.
Xhafer:a handful of spots picked out where I'm going to be hiking. there's a couple of really scenic places. The coast is like slowly becoming a very famous party place.
Laura:Ooh.
Xhafer:in Europe. Not quite Ibiza, but it's working its way there. so I'm gonna be having a lot of fun there on that trip. We're doing 12 days in Albania working our way through the southern region of it uh, which is where my family is from. My grandfather's family is from the capital. My grandmother's family is from a village of like 120, which Is about how big it is currently. I've definitely got living relatives there.
Laura:Wow.
Xhafer:on the old family lot. Um, my, my great uncle actually had a gravestone installed for him and his siblings there. none of them are buried there. They all died in North America. Uh, but I'll probably go visit that
Laura:Yeah. That's neat.
Xhafer:There's apparently, the village specifically is, like, it has a cafe. I will walk in, be choked out by cigarettes, get a couple strange looks, and leave.
Laura:Yeah.
Xhafer:Um, and then I will go to the nearest town where we're hanging out. That's, yeah, so there's all that. And then at the end of that 12 days, I'm going to Prague. And we're going to spend four days in Prague, and then we're going to come home.
Laura:Mm. That'll be really cool.
Xhafer:I am so excited.
Laura:Yeah.
Xhafer:there.
Laura:In Prague or just all both places in general.
Xhafer:Albania. is so cheap. Like,
Laura:I bet
Xhafer:like five star hotels are like 40 bucks a night. Like, it is so cheap there. The dollar is so strong.
Laura:BRB planning my next trip going to Albania so they're not on the Euro.
Xhafer:They are on the Euro.
Laura:Oh, okay.
Xhafer:it's just the uh, The local level of inflation and cost and everything is like, oh, you have currency?
Laura:Yeah. Yeah, I get it. Okay, man.
Xhafer:I think they actually, I know that they're EU, but I don't think they really use the Euro that much. I think they stick to, at the very least it's preferred to use LEC, I think.
Laura:Oh, okay.
Xhafer:It's the local. I was told that I didn't need to worry about it and that I would just show up and buy a bunch when I got there, and that that was the way to do it.
Laura:And that's fine. Yeah.
Xhafer:Yeah.
Laura:All right.
Xhafer:Yeah. English, not gonna be super prevalent everywhere.
Laura:That was my next question. Yeah.
Xhafer:So there is a, at this point he is a friend of the family, because he is the guide for all of my family when they go over. And to my knowledge, this is all he does.
Laura:Just like translate for people, take them
Xhafer:No, no, no, just my family.
Laura:Oh, just your family.
Xhafer:Just when someone from my family goes over, you go see Ali. He takes care of you while you're there.
Laura:Uh Huh. Neat.
Xhafer:Um, and it's funny because he actually has a sister who lives about 15 miles away from me.
Laura:Wow.
Xhafer:Right? The world is so weird.
Laura:It is. That's the truth.
Xhafer:What are the fucking chances of that? Yeah, so, I'm looking forward to it. It's going to be a really fun trip. And uh, see, it will be the farthest away in miles I've ever been from home. Probably.
Laura:Jaffer, that sounds like. A long road. ha ha.
Xhafer:Episode 2, the long road in front of us.
Laura:Mm hmm.
Xhafer:we open on some random humans doing stuff. And we see this giant CGI eyeball in their window. Yeah.
Laura:we have this crew, they're doing something somewhere and then things get really shaky and the, the dude is screaming about, it's back, call for help then opens the curtain to this giant, not great CGI. Eyeball. That part can't be stressed enough.
Xhafer:Yeah. We cut over to the Excalibur. Where Gideon is on what is simultaneously the smallest and largest basketball court ever made.
Laura:My god, Ja'far. This, Aaron paused this because I was desperately trying to catch up my notes from the previous scene for a moment and he was like, no, no, no, you've got to see this. And It's very much that, like, the, the, the people, the humans are clustered in one side of the screen. And then we CGI'd the rest of this to look like there's a gym behind them.
Xhafer:but it's like the perspective is all wrong like This gym must be the size of like several football fields. The way that it's set up, like it just looked insanely massive to me for a basketball court, but we also only ever see anyone on about five feet of it.
Laura:Yeah, yeah, there's like one shot where we're like above Gideon on the basketball court and you can see people on like exercise machines off behind him and then the rest is just CGI background. And then, yeah, and then we get,
Xhafer:workout equipment. Mm
Laura:to Gideon, so we get another shot from, like, their height. And behind Gideon is just blank space of, like, this awful tile pattern that goes on into eternity. Like,
Xhafer:Ad infinitum. It is just insane how big this gym is! I, I literally just was paused here and I'm just all like, I, how does this happen?
Laura:Right, like, how did this pass quality control?
Xhafer:Mm hmm. Yeah, but uh, they're gonna move the plot forward some more here and go help these miners. As we cut over to the mobile infantry,
Laura:yes, Aaron, Aaron paused here as well and said, Tell me those aren't the helmets from Starship Troopers.
Xhafer:They are exactly the helmets from Starship Troopers. Actually, so, fun little fact. Starship Troopers was one of the last big sci fi, big budget sci fi films to do full, like, non CGI outfits for people. And so, they made thousands of these fucking helmets for extras. Because if you think about it, None of the humans in that movie, I believe, are CGI. And think of, like, the waves of people that you see at certain points of that movie.
Laura:Yeah. Yeah.
Xhafer:visible. So, around Hollywood, for at least a decade after that film was made, This stuff was just floating around and super easy to get your hands on.
Laura:There's like a warehouse just full of old Starship Trooper
Xhafer:Yeah.
Laura:Like, oh, you're doing sci fi? Here, come get some stuff.
Xhafer:Right? Like, yeah, it's like you know when you got a big circle of friends and everyone's, like, having kids? It's all like, oh, it's your turn. Here's all the baby clothes that all of your friend's kids had. It's that. But for sci fi helmets, you can google this. Like, you can google, like, Starship Troopers, fi Extended Universe, or like, proper usage and stuff, and just see all of the crazy places this shit turned up. Because it's much more than you expect.
Laura:Yeah, yeah, that's fun. I really like that. Reduce, reuse, recycle, people, yeah.
Xhafer:sure. They're perfectly good sci fi helmets. There's no reason to not reuse them.
Laura:yeah.
Xhafer:And and it's podcasting gold for us. So
Laura:And here they're going to face off against our CGI dragon to theme.
Xhafer:this looks like it's straight out of reboot to me. That's how bad the CGI is.
Laura:Yeah, it's not good. It could be a lot better.
Xhafer:I think PlayStation one had better graphics.
Laura:Yeah,
Xhafer:this is, this is if Lara Croft Tomb Raider had to fight a dragon. And they forgot to render the dragon for Tomb Raider 1.
Laura:yeah, yeah, like, I mean, maybe I'm having a little bit of bias Baldur's Gate right now and that's some fantastic graphics. Uh,
Xhafer:is so good.
Laura:Have we had any dragons yet in Baldur's Gate? We have not. I don't know if dragons show up in Baldur's Gate. Then, heh. They've sure been mentioned alot because Tiamat and whatever, but, yeah. I feel like that, having that perspective of like playing this game at the same time you're looking at the CGI dragon. Mmmmmm.
Xhafer:Like, I've been playing Dwarf Fortress lately, which is notoriously low res, like, old school graphics.
Laura:Aha. Yeah.
Xhafer:Still feels better than this.
Laura:Yeah. It's a golden dragon, which is important to a plot point.
Xhafer:Yes. Not just because uh, Galen's a total D& D nerd. And, and knows that golden dragons are good dragons. Metallic dragons are good guys. So. We're fine. Mhmmm.
Laura:Victor from last time on would be pretty pissed because Gideon is reading a paper report on the dragon attack, uh, to Galen.
Xhafer:Yeah.
Laura:Where do we get paper in space? One of the great mysteries.
Xhafer:so Galen and Gideon go over to the Medusa.
Laura:Oh, I didn't catch the ship's name. Everything was going a little fast for me, making notes, you know?
Xhafer:Yeah, I didn't get the ship's name until later in the episode. I left it blank. Uh, I do that a lot in my notes. I'll be like, oh, missed it. Just blank. They'll tell us later or it won't be important and I won't say anything.
Laura:Yeah. So that's smart. That's smart.
Xhafer:But yeah, it's an earth force destroyer. And they catch them up on their strip mining of the planet for its antiviral mineral that also extends everyone's lifespan. How they figured out that there was something to even look for here is the average lifespan on this planet is 15 years longer than anywhere else in Earth's space, despite them having no technology.
Laura:Yeah, we've already established that like Earth lifespans are already longer because Bester's like, like a hundred years old or something in our book.
Xhafer:Hundred years old and getting down in Paris.
Laura:Yeah. Ooooo. Ooooo. Yeah, this society is a real, like, up the long ladder situation. Uh, If you remember that episode of The Next Generation, it's that, that's the Space Irish episode. So, they're not, like, racist caricatures of anything, but they are, like, a medieval society that has shunned all technology, and they're doing the whole agrarian thing. but they're, they're, like a human colony that decided like, we're going to get rid of everything that got us here and just hang out and farm stuff.
Xhafer:Not spoil this fucking planet.
Laura:Uh, Yeah, yeah,
Xhafer:we lived in Babylon 5 Universe, my option one for me is Technomage, if Technomage isn't available. this. be an agrarian colonist somewhere and just live.
Laura:there's just like no, nothing in between. Either I am the, the most technological or I am the least.
Xhafer:I'm not interested in any of the middle ground. I've done enough fucking updates of Windows to not be interested in that lifestyle.
Laura:I mean the Babylon 5 future, um, like a Star Trek future, I don't know why you would choose the agrarian stuff, but a Babylon 5 future, I can kind of get that, yeah.
Xhafer:Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, Star Trek, I'm doing something different with my time for
Laura:Yeah, there's, there's more, more things, more fun to be had.
Xhafer:got a lot more options.
Laura:Yeah, yeah,
Xhafer:Like fucking in the holodeck man, so I've been rewatching Voyager and I forgot how horny they get about holodeck fucking in that show
Laura:I had forgotten too, because I watched it when I was quite young.
Xhafer:Yeah, I'm in season six and they've got the the Irish town I Just watched yeah, I just watched a couple of those episodes. It's just like man Even Shikote's all like, Well, yeah, but you fuck holograms, right? Because it's totally normal to fuck a hologram. I'm just like, oh shit. Okay.
Laura:I have always told people that my favorite Star Trek was Deep Space Nine, but then when I was re watching Voyager, I was like, oh, could I be wrong? Was it maybe actually Voyager all along? I don't know. No, I still love Deep Space Nine. I won't give that up.
Xhafer:I mean, I'm always just going to be a TNG fanboy. But that has a lot more to do with, like, that show's place in my personal history
Laura:Sure. I think that that is true for everybody, actually. And whether or not you recognize it, yeah, that's okay, but
Xhafer:Yeah the same thing happens with uh, Final Fantasy games. Everyone's favorite Final Fantasy game is the first one that they really got into. Regardless of when that was or how much they played it.
Laura:hmm. Sure.
Xhafer:Anyways so they go down after uh, Galen gets Gideon some normie clothes.
Laura:Yeah, Galen kind of takes this whole thing over. He's like, Oh, well, um, So, us two are just going to go down, no guards, no military stuff. We're going to do it in plainclothes, like, let us try to handle this first. And the EA captain is not, like, super into that.
Xhafer:Yeah, but fuck him.
Laura:Yeah.
Xhafer:piece of shit.
Laura:Yeah,
Xhafer:Galen kind of hints that he might know what's going on here.
Laura:Mm hmm. Yeah.
Xhafer:He's like, I got an inkling. And he's like, so you gonna tell me if I'm right? And what if you're wrong? Well that's not gonna happen. It's all like, okay dude.
Laura:I like Kaelin though, I, I really do.
Xhafer:Tunas? Is that the name of this drink that he
Laura:Oh, so we watch it with, um, with the subtitles on, cause I need that. And I think they're just called like Toonies or something. it's not Tuna, I think it's Toonie.
Xhafer:Toonies.
Laura:Yeah. It was definitely spelled with like, Uh, that's,
Xhafer:Yeah,
Laura:Uh,
Xhafer:And toonies. Yeah.
Laura:yeah, yeah, that's good. That's real good. they've like stumbled into the Firefly set or costumes or something. Like, it's not totally medieval, but it's definitely like leaning medieval Western, like on this planet.
Xhafer:For sure.
Laura:Yeah. Gideon makes the classic mistake of overpaying for his beers in a foreign place.
Xhafer:Oh, man. What a Rube, right?
Laura:indeed.
Xhafer:What's that even mean? I need to look up the etymology of that word before I say it.
Laura:Rube?
Xhafer:Rube. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that actually comes from.
Laura:Oh, yeah. Sometimes I've stumbled into that, for sure. But it's one of those things like the word gets so far from the original meaning that it's almost divorced of it and you're, you don't have any context anymore.
Xhafer:It's an abbreviation of the name Ruben. racist against
Laura:racist against Rubens. Ruben is a good sandwich. I really like a Ruben sometimes.
Xhafer:Yeah. Yeah, I'd get down on a Reuben. I like Thousand Island.
Laura:Yeah, me too. On a sandwich.
Xhafer:yeah, on a burger, I will, I literally don't get anything besides Thousand Island on a burger these days. Why would I bother with anything else? It's not going to be as good. Ketchup and mustard. Get out of here. Mayo, please.
Laura:have you ever done your Ruben with turkey? Like if you're trying to watch your Kcals or
Xhafer:I've,
Laura:Love a
Xhafer:turkey Reubens. Mm hmm.
Laura:So good.
Xhafer:Look, there's not a whole lot of show for us to talk about here. You want an hour long episode, this is the content you can expect from Crusade.
Laura:For
Xhafer:Lord knows the show isn't doing us any favors here by making us talk about it.
Laura:Yeah. So, because Gideon overpaid for his beers, he really overplayed his hand and the townspeople know that they are not one of us. But in addition to being like out of towners, they're also like probably out of planeters.
Xhafer:Yeah.
Laura:And they try to intimidate Gideon and Galen here in this inn, but they're interrupted by lightning and thunder and wind. Obviously another technomage at this point.
Xhafer:Yeah, yeah, Alwyn shows up through the fog machines. I like to think that, like, they talk about, like, their advanced technology and stuff. It is just fog machines and, like, light shows, right? They're just, like, effectively, like, middle school dance DJs.
Laura:Yeah, we've seen, what, one Technomage before in Babylon 5? Or do we actually have two Technomages? I forget. But,
Xhafer:Alrick. And he's important for later.
Laura:Yeah!
Xhafer:He comes back in this episode.
Laura:we had him. and now we have Galen, and we have Alwin. And, all Technomages do, as far as I can tell so far, is hollow demons.
Xhafer:They fuckin love their Hollow Demons, which comes up in a scene later in this episode that I actually really liked.
Laura:Yeah, yeah. So he's, he's doing the, the like bluff. He's passed his bluff check to make a D& D reference. And he says, well, these guys are mine. That coin that was, gave them away, that was supposed to be the signal to give them to me. Like, get out of my way. I'm going to, I'll take care of this, you know?
Xhafer:Mm hmm. So, they all leave. They catch up a little. Galen calls Alwyn out on the Gold Dragon being, like, his calling card.
Laura:Yeah. That made sense, though. I was like, at least they, there was a reason that Galen, like, hopped to it to get involved in this.
Xhafer:Yeah. And uh, Owen has them over for dinner. Uh, We learn that he is a former Technomage. He has been removed from the Order. He stayed in the galaxy as a protest when the others decided to leave instead of participate in the Shadow War.
Laura:Yeah. This was interesting, and I really wanted them to, like, connect the dots between him getting kicked out for staying here during the Shadow War and, like, the responsibility he feels to these people. Like, he's got some, like, survivor's guilt about not Having been able to do more in the Shadow War, not explored at all.
Xhafer:Yet. Just, just hold on.
Laura:Okay.
Xhafer:There, there's more about the Technomages and the leaving for the Shadow War to come.
Laura:Okay. Alright.
Xhafer:We get some, there's very specific reasoning for why. Anyways yeah. So Alwin makes clear that from his perspective, he's tried everything to end this peacefully. And it's like, look, when they show up with guns, they're leaving in boxes. And then, you know, as he says this, IceCube's natural born killas just starts playing in the background. Everyone puts on sunglasses. Gets a lean on. Yeah. It's good stuff. I really like that scene. With the IceCube. The uh, locals, um, move in the night to halt the mining operation. Shortly thereafter here they kidnap a ton of people.
Laura:Yeah. Hostages. Let's talk fonts. Let's fontcast this
Xhafer:Let's fontcast. This is the exact moment I knew you were going to want to talk about. I knew immediately. Because the villagers, like, stab a note through the wall with a knife. Which, have you ever done that before?
Laura:but it seems probably like one of those things that's not as easy as it always looks in the movies.
Xhafer:Oh, it's totally as easy as it always looks. It's super easy. As long as you've got a decent knife, it's
Laura:Okay. Sure. I've probably never had a, decent knife.
Xhafer:I have done this. I have also had a friend do this at an apartment drunk off their ass in college. And it's especially noteworthy because he decided to do it by the front door, and he did it right above the power box.
Laura:Oh,
Xhafer:like the, we were all just like, Like, everything was fine. Uh, He missed all the wires, but he just threw a knife through it right there to put a
Laura:Yeah. Yeah.
Xhafer:terrifying in retrospect.
Laura:I want to know a couple of things about this.
Xhafer:Yeah, let's talk.
Laura:Where did this agrarian society get a printer? Because this is clearly a font.
Xhafer:That is the exact thing I have written in my notes, Laura. Ha
Laura:The other thing is, where did they get access to the Harry Potter font? Because
Xhafer:movies
Laura:this is.
Xhafer:out yet!
Laura:Yeah, that's what this is. This is, oh, maybe this is like an early, you know, we're, we're testing fonts for the next big magic book. I don't know.
Xhafer:Hey Turner was part of Time Warner, Warner Brothers made Harry Potter.
Laura:Oh,
Xhafer:that font's proprietary, it might actually just been like lurking in a database for them to use.
Laura:Crusade is now canonical Harry Potter.
Xhafer:How you gonna fuck this one up, Joanne? Fuck you. Anyways,
Laura:This, this note made me laugh. There's just a lot of reasons. Like, why didn't you have somebody handwrite this, like, in a big marker? Like, come on.
Xhafer:The only way this would have been better, in my opinion, is if it was the like, super stereotypical, like, cut together newspaper magazine stuff. Because you know that society doesn't have those things.
Laura:Mhmm. Well, maybe they have a subscription to Vogue. Like, you don't know.
Xhafer:Space Vogue.
Laura:Cosmo.
Xhafer:They don't even have to change their name!
Laura:I hope Cosmo makes it into 2270, whatever. I don't know. Just just for funds.
Xhafer:I really want Cosmo to turn into a spacefaring magazine.
Laura:Me too.
Xhafer:It's so good. Anyways we learned that Galen was Alric's apprentice.
Laura:Yeah, we remember him.
Xhafer:Yep, he's the one who fucked with Veer back on B5. We learned that Galen's parents were both Technomages as well. Another fucking Nepo, baby.
Laura:Oh yeah.
Xhafer:You just get inducted in the order when your parents are fucking techno maids. You just get born into your billion dollar lifestyle, Galen. Instead of having to fuckin earn it like the rest of us.
Laura:Well, so far all we've seen of techno mages is like, middle aged to old bald men and it is kind of nice White too. Yeah. It is kind of nice to know that theoretically, well, we don't know that Galen's parents were mom and dad, but maybe women are allowed to be techno mages too?
Xhafer:Yeah. right now is this is just what happens to Bezos. Like, everyone who's super rich in the future by the time you get to Babylon 5, like, instead of inheriting wealth, you just become a technomage and that's just, that's just how you flaunt your wealth around.
Laura:Yeah, yeah. That's, that's what Elon and, Bezos are all gunnin for it, right? They want to
Xhafer:Yeah. For sure. For sure. I mean, Bezos already's got the haircut.
Laura:Mm hmm. Yeah. The haircut is most of it, right?
Xhafer:For sure, it's haircuts and robes. Word makes it to Gideon about the miners being held by the locals. And we see the asshole captain send down his lieutenant and some mobile infantry to handle it.
Laura:Yeah. He's gung ho. He's like, this is how you earn your stripes, bro. Like, get down there and bust some heads. Combat.
Xhafer:You need some combat experience if you ever gonna be promoted, son!
Laura:Yeah. Bleh.
Xhafer:They fly through the dragon on their way down. And we've got, I'll just call him, I didn't write down his actual name. I'm calling him Lieutenant JGDB. Cause he's junior grade douchebag.
Laura:Yeah, I like that. Okay.
Xhafer:He pushes all the locals at the inn down. And starts making demands as Olwen and Galen uh, show up in the inn. No quicker, does he say, not to worry, they're all holograms, than does he get socked in the face by one?
Laura:Yeah.
Xhafer:Perfection.
Laura:I do like that. That's, that's got like overtones of Londo and the Hollow Demons.
Xhafer:Mm hmm.
Laura:Yeah.
Xhafer:I was here for it.
Laura:Pretty good. Pretty good.
Xhafer:and Galen are just watching this demon program destroy everything. And they're just like talking shop during this whole thing. Like they're just completely ignoring what it's actually doing. It's under control, whatever. Right. And they're just like talking about like the actual design and writing of the program and code and stuff in a very nonchalant manner while it is running roughshod over everyone. I have had this conversation. I have been in a, like, Security session. So in managed service provider world, one thing that we off service that we offer for our clients that they usually take us up on is security testing. So we'll do something called a pen test and that could be a phishing attempt or whatever, right? Like we fake a phishing email and send it to you. So then, and we know who clicks it so that we can, we can yell at those people, right? That kind of stuff. And so I have been in a like war room at the start of like an aggressive pen test. That we are conducting on one of our clients. And we're just like watching it run across their network as we're just sitting here talking about what it's doing very nonchalantly. And I was just transported back to that moment of my life while watching this conversation take place.
Laura:is a very Babylon 5 conversation. Like you could see Zack and Garibaldi sitting there having a conversation during something crazy happening or Lockley and Sheridan having this conversation. Like this is that kind of dialogue that I missed and we're not getting nearly enough of. Haha. Haha.
Xhafer:greed. Over on the Medusa, Lieutenant JGDB reports that the mission failed and that they are now all also hostages.
Laura:Oops. I want more of Lt. J. G. D. D. B. Damn, I can't do it. It's all yours.
Xhafer:it is six letters in my notes too because I abbreviate the lieutenant so it's LTJGDB.
Laura:Lower Decks journey now. Like, things aren't going well for you after you get taken hostage on the mission to take back the hostages, right? You're gonna be scrubbing some decks, is all I'm saying.
Xhafer:over at all wins the bar. Heep also, resistance leader wants to press their advantage as all wind says. They must let the hostages go. And this is when his daughter collapses?
Laura:Hmm, yeah, apparently the antiviral dust Not so good for the lungs.
Xhafer:take her up to the Excalibur for their Med Bay. Where our doctor, who I'm sure is an interesting character, will handle things, but we don't get to find out anything more about that person. Owen lectures the colonists with some indignation here. He's gonna settle this his way. The Excalibur and the Medusa talk as uh, Galen radios in. He's To describe Alwyn's plan here, he has set himself up in the mine, and he's going to use the circular nature of the mine as a reflection chamber to make a beam that is going to destroy the Medusa.
Laura:Yeah, Gideon in between, like, we're glossing over, Gideon is really trying. Like, he's saying like, you've gotta stop mining this stuff right now, it's killing their kids, like Uh, there needs to be a different solution and the Earth Force captain is just like, no, I'm not going to do that. Earth needs this stuff more than these people's lives are worth, basically.
Xhafer:Mm hmm.
Laura:I mean, we don't even know that this is going to be that helpful against the Drak Plague. I'm like, that's such a weak argument,
Xhafer:Agreed. I mean, they do say that the mineral has been showing promise in trials back home. That's all we hear of it, though.
Laura:Yeah, it's so vague. Also what's happening to the girl is very vague, like they're just like, oh, you know, you have to adjust to small quantities of the mineral over your whole life and she's been exposed to too much through the dust in the air and now she's dying and it's like, well, what's happening? Are her lungs failing? Is it building up in her blood? Can we get some more, like, details? Otherwise, I just feel like we're just kind of glossing over it and it's not important.
Xhafer:How does this stuff work? Is it replacing her white blood cells? Like, is her body, is it attacking her whole body now? Like, just A line. A line. It's not hard. And one of my classic metrics of how good an episode is. So,
Laura:Yeah. Good point. Continue.
Xhafer:So the Excalibur and the Medusa are talking, the captain in the Medusa here begs Gideon to just fucking fire the lasers down on the surface to kill all wind before he can blow up their ship. Like you would let these men and women die. And he, at this point, he just seems to be all like, well, you could just say you're gonna move the mine and he'll stop
Laura:Yeah. Sounds like you're going to let these men and women die.
Xhafer:Right? But, but this is the plan though. Obviously, this is the plan.
Laura:Yeah. I have a question. Is this the gun that's firing the, like, gun where we can't move afterwards? Or is this just, like, regular guns?
Xhafer:This is the gun that you can't move afterwards because it comes from the arms. When it's the death star and it's the lasers that become the big laser, that's the gun. You can't fire afterwards when it's just the normal guns. It's only at the front of the ship.
Laura:Okay. I feel like that should be clearer, like,
Xhafer:They showed us that in call the arms when
Laura:yeah. I don't know that it was super maybe I wasn't watching close enough because, you know, we're trying to take notes at the same time.
Xhafer:I'm also making excuses for a terrible TV show, so fuck me. Like,
Laura:no, no, I
Xhafer:they could also explain it.
Laura:yeah, I feel like if it was just one scene versus another scene, I easily missed it because I was making notes, like, if we saw the guns fire and they were just straightforward and then he's like, no, more power and now it's Death Star. Yeah, I, I totally missed that. So I was like, okay, what, happening? Like, is this the
Xhafer:would argue that you've missed nothing.
Laura:Indeed. Indeed. Okay. So we've destroyed the mine at the same time as we've
Xhafer:Glassed that shit. Yeah.
Laura:Yep. So we've got to move the mine now. So guess what, dude? Like, if you just agreed to move the mine, same effect here.
Xhafer:Right? Gideon and the barkeep discuss the colonists are going to help the miners find a new location that is safe,
Laura:Yeah. They feel a little guilty.
Xhafer:as well.
Laura:Mm hmm.
Xhafer:And we learn Alwyn wasn't dead, because of course. He waxes philosophical about uh, kind of like the point of living, like entering living memory becoming legend, living on past your death. know,
Laura:Yeah, and it was like time to leave these people because they specifically said in one of their heated moments, like, we don't need reason. We have this guy, and he's like, no, they're abandoning reason because of my power. So it's time for me to go.
Xhafer:Yep.
Laura:that was a really powerful message, actually, within this. episode.
Xhafer:I would
Laura:Uh, because I definitely feel like people around me have abandoned reason because of the power they think they have from their religion and then the power that they have actually from the systems around them. And it's like, I would like a little more reason, please. Somebody, anybody.
Xhafer:Please. Please. Fuck. We just had to watch those two old fucks debate.
Laura:I didn't watch it. I couldn't do it, man.
Xhafer:Oh, it's so bad.
Laura:yeah, yeah, What are we doing, guys? What are we doing?
Xhafer:I saw a TikTok the other day that has made me laugh more than anything else in the last several weeks.
Laura:Uh Huh.
Xhafer:And it was a guy in the mirror, and he's just fucking tired, right? He's just so exhausted. He's all like, It's happening again. Somehow, we have to choose between these two fucks. Again. It's like we're cursed. It's like we built this country on an ancient Indian burial ground.
Laura:Oh. Hmm. Hmm.
Xhafer:Oh fuck! Anyways, the show. I hope you're here for anything but Crusade Pod. Yeah,
Laura:in the forest. We've gotta leave. Uh, Alwyn's gonna get back on the long road.
Xhafer:I am kind of sick. So, originally, listener Ben was going to join us for this episode. And when Well, that's the only reason he wanted this episode. He has never seen Crusade. And so he's all like, oh, what are the episode titles? Oh, that one, I can make a Star Trek Enterprise joke. Give me that one. Literally what he said to me. And I think he actually would have really enjoyed talking shit about this episode with us.
Laura:Oh, yeah.
Xhafer:This has been a bit of a very coded episode.
Laura:yeah, it leans hard into that, like, medieval fantasy stuff, which I, I love the, the fantasy part of Babylon 5, like, you know, a lot of sci fi is just grounded in hard science, right? But in Babylon 5, there's some fantastical, some mysterious, unexplained, you know, science indistinguishable from magic, like the technomages and then the first ones and whatever. And I like that. I think the show is trying to lean into it and it's not doing it.
Xhafer:Yeah. It's trying. It's trying real hard. It's trying so hard that it's time to rate this episode on a scale of one to four main guns fired.
Laura:Okay. Well. You've already alluded to your scale about dialogue, so let's go ahead and get your
Xhafer:Yeah, fair enough. Um, as I have stated countless times over the course of this podcast, if I feel like I could make the episode better with one line of dialogue, To fix a thing with the plot. To just explain just a little bit more than was explained. That drops it a whole rating for me.
Laura:Yeah.
Xhafer:That said, This episode was stupid fun. I really, I really actually genuinely enjoyed this episode of Crusade.
Laura:Okay.
Xhafer:not good.
Laura:Uh Huh.
Xhafer:But it was fun. It's fun in the way that you watch a B movie. and of everything we've seen between the other episode and Call to Arms so far, that moment with Galen and Alwyn talking about stuff calmly while shit was going everywhere felt very trademark B5 to me.
Laura:Yeah. That was a good moment.
Xhafer:And so I would probably start this episode at a three out of four guns.
Laura:Mm hmm.
Xhafer:And after my point reduction penalty. I'm gonna say it's two out of four main guns.
Laura:Okay, okay, I like that because we're a little bit flip flopped on this one and I'm not sure how it happened but
Xhafer:you hate this?
Laura:I didn't hate it. That's too strong. This one I felt much more, I felt very indifferent to it, um, We were having trouble staying awake during this one, and immediately afterwards, I needed a nap. Like, we finished this episode, and then I took an hour nap. Uh, So, I think I'm gonna give this one main guns for one hour nap. Oh,
Xhafer:week, we're skipping ahead to episode eight appearances and other deceits. What a JMS fucking episode title.
Laura:yeah. That's true. That's classic, too. Oh,
Xhafer:consciousness that takes over the Excalibur's crew. This also, from that description, sounds like a good episode. How will Crusade disappoint me this time?
Laura:It sounds like a very TNG episode, doesn't it?
Xhafer:It does.
Laura:I'm sure we've done this in Star Trek several times.
Xhafer:Yeah, most assuredly.
Laura:Every season. I can picture this in TNG, Deep Space Nine, and Voyager, and I'm sure someone in the Discord can give me the exact episodes, but yeah. Yeah.
Xhafer:in that field house for sure. You know what else is in our field house? Saying thank you. Thank you Jeremy Siegel for our lovely theme music. You can find more of Jeremy's work at jeremysiegel42. bandcamp. com and on your favorite streaming services as Nuclear Jaguar.
Laura:Yeah, and thank you to Angry Duck Time Machine on Instagram for our podcast artwork.
Xhafer:Aaron! This is probably actually the softball we're throwing here.
Laura:Yeah, yeah, this one's a little better. And
Xhafer:your contribution.
Laura:to you, the listener, for being here on this crusade with us. Ah, why didn't I say that last time? God damn it. Yeah,
Xhafer:Remember it for next up.
Laura:If you want to talk about any thoughts you have on Crusade, you can join us in the Discord or send those to whoareyoub5 at gmail. com. We would love to hear from you.
Xhafer:And we'll see you next week, internet.
Laura:Bye.
Xhafer:Bye.