As computing power increased Netter also adopted a bit of a George Lucas approach to everything, chucking in tons of ships and beams in lieu of keeping things clear and well-directed. Netter Digital, who replaced them, showed considerably less care and attention to details (such as the proper Newtonian movement of the ships in 3D space). Later seasons would also feature large-scale space battles, but they lost a little something when Foundation Imaging was controversially fired from the show at the end of the third season. Unfortunately, the above video is the only decent one I can find online and omits the ending of the battle, when newly-arrived reinforcements almost force the station to surrender but Minbari cruisers led by Ambassador Delenn force them to retreat or be destroyed (and risk plunging Earth into an interplanetary war with a race who wiped the floor with them last time). This was a hugely important moment for the show and it delivered in spades. The crew of B5 are finally forced to make a stand. As full-scale civil war erupts, two rebel Omega-class destroyers take refuge at Babylon 5 and are cornered by pursuing forces. In the resulting chaos, the colonies on Mars and Proxima III break away and are subjected to retaliatory bombings and air strikes. Having spent a season and a half covertly investigating the murder of the Earth Alliance President, the crew of the Babylon 5 station inadvertently force his tyrannical successor to declare martial law across the Alliance. The biggest of these came at almost exactly halfway through the show. In addition to Foundation Imaging's brilliant visuals, Christopher Franke (ex-Tangerine Dream) also delivered a killer score fit for the occasion.īabylon 5 was also the first show to feature a pre-planned (if not in quite as much detail as claimed at the time) five-year story arc which had several major paradigm shifts for the concept and format built into it.
#Mass effect space battle series#
What made this battle more interesting was a greater use of tactics: the Narn use long-range energy mines to try to disrupt the Shadow attack and later concentrate their fire on one of the Shadow ships to cripple it (the first hint in the series that the Shadows aren't completely invulnerable). The defence of Gorash VII was handled by the Centauri's redoubtable allies instead, the powerful Shadows.
#Mass effect space battle drivers#
The Centauri chose to instead launch a full-scale assault on the Narn homeworld using mass drivers to propel asteroids into the planet's surface and lay it waste. The Centauri Republic learned that the Narn Regime was going to attack their supply depot on Gorash VII and cut their supply lines leading into Narn space, forcing a temporary stalemate. The first two seasons had many, many great space battles but the most emotionally draining one came at the climax of the Narn-Centauri War. Scepticism from more established shows (who preferred to use models, although they were more complicated, limited and expensive) was replaced by them rushing to embrace computer models after Babylon 5 pioneered the concept. Babylon 5 was the first SF show to feature 100% CGI spaceship shots and space battles.