Babylon 5 Question

[andraste]

So, Londo and G'Kar turned up in my dreams last night. There was vague tentacle pr0n and Londo was helping G'Kar cook. And by 'helping' I mean G'Kar was forced to hit him with a spoon *g*. I think my muses are telling me that they want some attention.

So does screen canon ever make so much as a stab at establishing how old either of them are? Or how old Centauri are when they have their Ascension Days ...? B5 chronology makes my brain hurt, especially when I try to work out how old the aliens are meant to be chronologically.

The problem is that when the aliens say 'years' we can't necessarily assume they mean Earth years. For example, the B5 chronology gives the date of Londo's Ascension as 2229, counting back thirty years from the anniversary in 2259. But surely he must be counting thirty Centauri years, not thirty Earth years!

Basically, I'm trying to work out how old Londo would have been when G'Kar was spending his youth as a freedom fighter. Is there anything in canon that would determine this one way or another?

Comments

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Alas, there is nothing in canon that could help. Nada. Zilch. It's very frustrating!

[andraste]

It's very frustrating!

Of course, this also means that if I want Londo and G'Kar to be teenagers at the same time, nothing is stopping me ...

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Naturally!

[nomadicwriter]

This is cribbed second-hand from the 'official' annotated chronology in B5 magazine, but apparently in And Now For a Word G'Kar describes his father's death at Centauri hands as happening when he was "barely a pouchling", and it must have occurred before the Centauri occupation of Narn ended (which they call as 2209, but I don't know exactly where that date came from or how heavily fudged it is). So they give him an estimated DOB of 2201, but... shrug.

It pretty much flat-out states that all they have on Londo's age is conjecture that he and G'Kar are "about the same age", so it seems that on-screen canon leaves that issue wide open.

[hobsonphile.livejournal.com]

In my fanon, the Ascension ceremony takes place in late adolescence. Originally, I based this on the fact that Vir's cousin, who apparently was not considered to be "of age," looked to be around 16. My conclusion is further supported by the recently released Lost Tales, in which Vintari, who states that he has just become "of age," looks to be around 20.

Based on the above estimation (and on the assumption that Centauri years are not overly different from Earth years), Londo was approaching fifty when the series began.

There really weren't any clues for G'Kar, though. None that I can recall, at any rate. I've always had the intuition that he was a little bit older than Londo, though.

So, Londo and G'Kar turned up in my dreams last night. There was vague tentacle pr0n and Londo was helping G'Kar cook. And by 'helping' I mean G'Kar was forced to hit him with a spoon *g*.

Hee! I can't wait for what this may spawn. *g*

[kangeiko]

As far as I can recall from the Encyclopaedia Xenobiologica, Centauri years are roughly comparable to earth years. I also seem to recall that the age of Ascension is around 20/21. Which would make Londo early fifties in S2.

Regarding G'Kar, there isn't much info given, but I suppose we can count back. Age ten, Narn children go on a quest or whatever and choose their new names. Therefore, using nomadicwriter's dates of 2209, and assuming that G'Kar spent his childhood in shelters (as per Gallery), I'd peg G'Kar at roughly mid-teens when the war ended, which makes him approaching 60s when the series started.

According to the EX again, middle age for Narn is 50 - 60, but the Narn year is 304 days, so I'd say that '50 - 60' is human years, as otherwise G'Kar would have been 72 or thereabouts at the start of the series.

Generally, I'd say that G'Kar was in his middle age, and Londo was entering his, during S1, which also explains Londo's sense of failure, as he was well aware of his impending anniversary of Ascension, with nothing to show for it.

[nic]

I can't help with canon, only add my voice to the general consensus that they are "about the same age".

(When I first saw B5, I figured that all of the ambassadors would be in the same age range, needing certain years of experience (and other similar roles) to be accepted.)