Argh!

[andraste]

Simple thing that is not simple when writing Babylon 5 fanfic: character ages.

There is practically no information about the ages, relative or chronological, of the Narn and Centauri characters. We have two data points: G'Kar was old enough - just - to fight in the first war of liberation, which would be useful if the date of the end of the occupation were given consistently. (Some sources imply around 2209 and others around 2229.) We also know that Londo's Ascension Day was thirty years before Soul Mates, which would let us work out his age if we only knew how old Centauri are when they have Ascension Days.

Now add in the fact that when characters talk about years they rarely specify whether they mean Earth years, Centauri years, Narn years or years in some intergalactic universal calendar. Even JMS does it - there's a newsgroup post where he says the average Centauri lifespan is around one hundred and fifty years, but he neglects to specify if he means Earth years or Centauri years. Not that we know how long a Centauri year is. (I've seen more than one chronology that assumes that Londo's Ascension Day took place thirty Earth years before his party. It seems unlikely that Earth years and Centauri years are identical in length!) Further confusing things, in one of the short stories Londo encounters a girl of 'sixteen seasons' who seems to be the equivalent of an Earth teenager, except we don't know how Centauri count seasons or how many they have in a year. And we can't really draw any conclusions about lifespans based on how much Londo ages in the two decades between Season Five and his death, given his, um, circumstances during that time.

You would think that after all this time I would have learned not to bang my head against this particular wall, but no. I think I'm just going to have to cut the offending paragraph out of the story *g*.

Possibly it's just as well that JMS didn't end up coming to Melbourne last year, because he probably doesn't need crazy fans getting up during his talks to say 'BUT HOW OLD IS G'KAR AND ALSO WHY DO THE VORLONS HAVE A CENTAURI FETUS AND DID THE CENTAURI GET THEIR PRECOGNITION FROM THE SHADOWS???'

Comments

[aris_tgd]

... to the latter one, I'm pretty sure that all the fetuses were metaphorical visions--how Lyta was processing the information. That's my headcanon, anyway, and I'm sticking to it.

[andraste]

Oooo, interesting idea. I'd never thought of it that way before, but it certainly could be the case.

[aris_tgd]

I think I just took her explanation earlier that she couldn't tell half of what she saw on the Vorlon homeworld and the other half nobody would believe to mean that the Way Vorlons Do Things is just beyond our cognitive comprehension--it doesn't look like the way we do anything, so without reference our brains wouldn't parse it. I think I came up with this theory about the same time I started reading a lot of Stephen Baxter, who uses that explanation a fair amount. ;)

[lizbee]

Frankly I think it would have been REALLY AWESOME if JMS had come to Melbourne and you had asked those questions. BECAUSE THEY'RE IMPORTANT, DAMMIT!

[andraste]

I work hard at not being one of Those Fans who stands up in panels and asks obscure continuity questions, because I know most of the audience won't care. Besides, if something is incompletely explained in, say Doctor Who or Star Trek it's probably just because nobody thought of an explanation. But JMS being JMS, I bet he has answers to all of these questions and just hasn't told anyone.

I am crossing my fingers that he'll do a signing locally some day, so I could at least ask one annoying fan question.