Best Babylon 5 lines

"He was the best of us…They struck without provocation, there was no reason! Animals! Brutal! They deserve no mercy…Strike them down, follow them to their base and kill them all! All of them! No mercy!"

The President’s Farewell to the Species speech at the end of In the Beginning never fails to choke me up.

I love Mollari’s lines, e.g.:

“Physics tells us that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. They hate us, we hate them, they hate us back. And so, here we are, victims of mathematics.”

“Good, Vir, you’r sobering up! I can see the synapses firing behind your eyes. A frightening sight, I might add.”

(to Vir) “What do you want, you moon-faced assasin of joy?”

Sheridan has a near-death experience and sees Kosh Naranek.

SHERIDAN: “So, this is the afterlife…”
KOSH: <warble> <warble> “There is no afterlife.”
SHERIDAN: “But then, how am I seeing you?”
KOSH: <warble> <warble> “I am your memory of me.”

In the 2nd season episode “Comes the Inquisitor,” which takes place after the Centauri (re)conquer the Narn homeworld using mass drivers, Vir says to G’Kar: “I’m sorry. I wish… there was something that I could do. I tried telling them, but they wouldn’t listen. They never listen… I’m sorry.”

G’Kar responds to this by slicing his hand, letting the blood drip onto the floor. “Dead,” he says as the first drop falls. “Dead,” he says again as the second drop falls. “Dead,” with the third drop, “Dead,” with the fourth drop, “Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead, dead… How do you apologize to them?”

Whenever I read some news story about x thousand people being killed in some far off war, it just feels like sanitized numbers. The tragedy of the situation doesn’t hit me. But when G’Kar points out each and every one of those deaths, one at a time, it conveys the personal loss of each death like nothing else does. The tragedy was obvious and palpable (if you’ll pardon the pun).

Since I’ve been beaten to “And I will wave. Like this.”, how about the lighter side?

“Next time, my way”. --A walk-on ambassador character to Ivanova, after a treaty negotiation didn’t quite go the way he expected.

Zach: If it moves, shoot it. If it doesn’t move, shoot it twice. It’s probably up to something.

That line was the best thing about Season 5

My favorite line, actually two, is also my Slashdot sig:

Mollari: “How is the eye?”
G’kar: “It sees.”

It helps if you’re also a Robert Anton Wilson/Subgenius/Steve Jackson Games fan, or even a Tolkein reader.

Another fave was:

Ivanova: “Trust Ivanova. Trust yourself. Anyone else – shoot 'em.”

“I don’t care how much it hurts! Don’t go passing out, that’s just running away again!”

It may have been on these boards somewhere, but the above quote was used as an example of the difference between Babylon 5 and Star Trek. Deanna Troi, or someone like her, would have said “Captain, I sense great anger and hostility in these beings.” And Lyta used the above statement.

A prime example of why I converted to Babylon 5, after being raised in Star Trek.

Ivanova was my favorite:

And just one more thing… on your trip back, I’d like you to take the time to learn the Babylon 5 mantra: "Ivanova is always right. I will listen to Ivanova. I will not ignore Ivanova’s recomendations. Ivanova… is god. AND! If this ever happens again, Ivanova will personally rip your lungs out! Babylon Control, out. huh Civilians. Just kidding about that god part, no offense.