The Man in Between

[nanorc]

Originally posted by Z'ha'dumDweller
[B I don't think your opinion on the quality of the fight takes anything away from the meaning behind it. That's why I liked it. [/B]

What a coincidence, I don't really give a shit about your opinion either.

Cheers

[Dr Maturin]

<<You take a Broom. Very Very slowly, you walk toward the place where you think the leak is at.
Waving the broom through Every Bit of space your Body will pass through.
When the end of the Broom falls on the floor, you've found the leak.
Because the hot steam Cuts right through the broomstick, like a knife through butter.>>

I heard the clipboard version, and it was not from a film...it was a story from a guy I knew when his CO took him and some guys on a tour of a sub. It was a "coincidence." Perhaps this is all an urban legend, given the varying stories.

We DO have a former sailor on board. grumbler?

[bakana]

The bullets in the pipe thing was Really bad. As has been said, the one Closest to the source of the heat would have gone off first.
As shown, there was almost a full second between detonations, so the suggestion that the First one hit the percussion caps of the others won't work either.
Too much lag.

Actually, if JMS had known more about high pressure Steam at the time, he woulnd't have bothered with the bullets.

Steam hot enough to set off gunpowder is under Very high pressure.
And steam leaking out at that pressure will Cut a person in Half. Almost instantly.
IOW, the steam itself is a Much better weapon than a Gun.
All Garibaldi would have had to do is use the steam hose like a Sword and he'd have had Zarg Fillets. Well Done.

Anyone else here ever seen the US Navy training films showing how to locate a Leak in a high pressure steam line?

You take a Broom. Very Very slowly, you walk toward the place where you think the leak is at.
Waving the broom through Every Bit of space your Body will pass through.
When the end of the Broom falls on the floor, you've found the leak.
Because the hot steam Cuts right through the broomstick, like a knife through butter.
Only better.

[Dr Maturin]

<<Grey 17. What a crappy episode. What a lousy demonstration of combat with really big sticks. I've seen better.
And forget the pipe, the whole entire grey 17 aside was a complete waste of time. All in all, the worst episode of S3 period.>>

I don't think your opinion on the quality of the fight takes anything away from the meaning behind it. That's why I liked it.

[nanorc]

All threads go off topic sooner or later. Thats the nature of the beast.

Edit: Hey, wait a second. That last bit better not be a quip at my expense.....

[Bonehead]

If I remember correctly, Grey 17 was also the episode where Neroon tries to stop Delenn becoming Entil Za and has the big fight with Marcus, (Den Sha) to the death.

I thought this was far from crappy. I'd agree that the Zarg bit was a bit cheesey, but I thought the guest appearance by Robert England was ok. And all in all, there were some truely memerable moments:

Such as the dummy with the tranquiliser,
The Freddy Kruger homage,
The only true pike battle we've ever seen,
Marcus invoking Valen's name to Neroon,
Neroon appearing at the ceremony and finally backing Delenn (sparking their later friendship),
Marcus and Neroon laughing together in medlab (to the total surprise of Delenn),
Sherridan's 'Where the hell have you been' coversation with Garibaldi at the end etc.

For me the good bits far outweigh the dodgy steam and pipe gun bit. But, hey, I know it's not a fan favourite, each to their own.

Anyway, it's quite amusing to see where this thread has ending up, considering my original topic.

[nanorc]

Grey 17. What a crappy episode. What a lousy demonstration of combat with really big sticks. I've seen better.
And forget the pipe, the whole entire grey 17 aside was a complete waste of time. All in all, the worst episode of S3 period.

[Capt.Montoya]

Arena, the ST episode I don't remember seeing, is based on the short story of the same name by Fredric Brown, which I have read several times, always enjoying it. Brown is one of my favorite authors, master of the short-short story. There's a definitive anthology of his short SF by NESFA press, one of my favorite books.

Arena was deservedly voted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. (There's a book with that title, worth reading, it collects several good stories that were published before the SFWA gave Nebulas, but were considered as stories that would have won it.)
It can be found online: http://users.ev1.net/~holliser/Prescience/
(I suspect it's being there is a copyright violation, but as the guy that made those stories available I hope it might encourage people to read more of Brown's work.)

Going back to the steamy issue of Grey 17: Since bullets usually explode by percussion, with that percussive charge acting as detonator for the powder, or require high temperature (such as a flame), I'm not even sure the heat of the steam would have been enough to make the powder explode.
On the other hand, if the bullet further inside exploded first it could detonate the ones in front, by hitting the initiator cap, in a chain reaction, and the bullet closest to the pipe end could actually have been propelled at faster speed than if shot from a pistol...

[Dr Maturin]

<<all the bullets would have been propelled out the pipe at once, and probably at low speed.>>

My thoughts exactly. It was very Captain Kirk-ish. Sort of reminded me of Arena.

EDIT: BTW, Montoya, check your messages. I sent you one, man.

[Capt.Montoya]

Originally posted by Z'ha'dumDweller
And someone please tell whether or not sticking bullets into a pipe and running hot steam through the other end will make them shoot.

From the Lurker's Guide page for Grey 17:

Garibaldi's makeshift gun couldn't have worked as shown. Even if the steam were enough to detonate the gunpowder in one of the bullets, the first one to go off would almost certainly have been the one closest to the back of the pipe, where the heat was greatest; all the bullets would have been propelled out the pipe at once, and probably at low speed.

About Sakai: here's the link to the post where JMS states that she arrived in the past later than Sinclair.

http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-1679

The original question is not clear, but I take it it is about the "I found her" line, and JMS doesn't deny it referred to her (if it didn't it would be strange that he didn't deny it) See the posts which I linked before: it's likely that Valen found her and they lived happily ever after, married with children and all...

I think she had to arrive closer to Minbar or the Epsilon sector. Something to remember is that there were no jumpgates near Earth back then, only after first contact with the Centauri Earth became part of the network of jumpgates and beacons.
Thus to me any speculation about Valen and Sakai going near Earth is a moot point.

Also note that the quote saying that Valen didn't have children is from before showing the surprise on Atonement... from the Lurker's Guid for that ep:

In your comments on "War Without End, Part Two," you said Valen had no children. Is your message right, or is the episode?
What airs is considered canon; in 15 years, nobody's gonna be hauling these messages around. But the show will still be on the air. If it airs, it's canon.

And in another one of those posts, I did mention that on just a couple of small occasions, I have fibbed when asked major story arc questions to protect future storylines from being deflated....

"in 15 years, nobody's gonna be hauling these messages around." LOL

[Dr Maturin]

Speaking of not being into a section for years and alternative weapons...I watched Grey 17 is Missing today...only my second time since I first watched season 3. The Ranger stuff wasn't bad at all, but the Grey 17 thing was...out of place. I did like the Zarg, though. He reminded me of the mutant from This Island Earth.

And someone please tell whether or not sticking bullets into a pipe and running hot steam through the other end will make them shoot.

[bakana]

Meanwhile, back on Topic.

Let's all start campaign to BEG Kathryn Drennan to write the Sequel for To Dream in the City of Sorrows so that we can Find Out what happened to Sakai at the other end of time.

Lets see: She's stuck somewhere between 800 and 1000 years in the past.
Depends on whether the 1000 years is Minbari or Human years. I'm not sure.
Anyway, that puts her somewhere around 1200 - 1500 AD.
At that period in Human history, going home to Earth would be kinda rough for a Woman alone.
Almost anywhere she might go, women tended to be treated more like Property than People.
Sakai is not the sort of woman to be happy in that time period. Can you say Independent. "Liberated" Woman ???
She might have a few problems fitting in...

So, what DID she do?

JMS did say:

# How long did Sinclair live after going back?
He lived close to a hundred years as a Minbari; they're a long lived race, and they did all they could to maintain his health as one of their truly great figures.

# Valen did not have any children. And there's some difference of opinion over exactly what Valen's final fate was.

# There are some legends about Valen returning someday, but so far they've been only legends, nothing more.

# The Valen aspect was set up in the first season, long before anything was decided about Michael.

# I'd love to someday tell the story of Valen and Zathras in the most recent shadow war. It's quite a tale, actually....

So, lets take him up on it...

[nanorc]

Quick, somebody please shoot this guy before he says ''nitrocellulose'' five times fast.

[bakana]

Nitrocellulose (Cellulose nitrate, guncotton) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitrating cellulose (e.g. through exposure to nitric acid or another less powerful nitrating agent).
Uses

* Nitrocellulose was used until World War II as a smokeless propellant, replacing gunpowder.
* Used in plastics
* Used in films
* Nitrocellulose paper is a sticky membrane used for Western blots and immobilizing DNA.
* When dissolved in ether or other organic solvents, the solution is called collodion, which has been used as a wound dressing and carrier of topical medications since the U.S. Civil War.
* Collodion was also used as the carrier for silver salts in some very early photographic emulsions, particularly spread in thin layers on glass plates. To this day it is used in Compound W Wart Remover as a carrier of salicylic acid, the active ingredient.
* Magician's "flash paper", sheets of paper or cloth made from nitrocellulose, which burn almost instantly, with a bright flash, and leave no ash.

Guncotton

Guncotton was first observed by TJ Pelouze in 1838 and more properly developed and also named by Christian Friedrich Sch÷nbein in Basle around 1846. His preparation method was the first to be widely imitated - one part of fine cotton wool to be immersed in fifteen parts of an equal mix of sulphuric and nitric acids. After two minutes the cotton was removed and placed in cold water and washed to set the esterification level and remove all acid residue. It was then slowly dried at a temperature of less than 100 ░C.

The power of guncotton meant that it was adopted for blasting.
As a projectile force, it has around six times the gas generation of an equal volume of gunpowder and produces less smoke and less heating.
However the sensitivity of the material during production led to the British, Prussians and French discontinuing manufacture within a year.
Further research indicated that the key was the very careful preparation of the cotton, unless it was very well cleaned and dried it was liable to spontaneously explode.

Nitrocellulose web site

[Capt.Montoya]

Originally posted by bakana

There was a minor flap a number of yers ago when it was discovered that thousands of Hollywierds oldest films had actually become Explosive Hazards because 50 years of summer heat had changed the chemistry of the old celluloid film stock from Highly Flammable to Explodes If You Drop It .

Entire warehouses full of film cannisters were very carefully loaded onto barges, towed out into the Pacific and dumped into the ocean.

The stuff was so dangerous no one wanted to take a chance of trying to salvage any of the movies.

I didn't know of this incident, but I should note that the original film used for movies was nitrocellulose, which is highly flammable by nature. Because of this flammability the film material was changed decades ago. I guess the storage conditions may have made it even more dangerous.

You've made me reexamine the question of Sakai and Valen...

Here's a quote that states that Sakai didn't become a Minbari:

http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-10743

Given that I always assumed she couldn't be the mother of the Children of Valen, and Sinclair would have had some Minbari wife before finding Sakai... but I found the following:

http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-3065

Damn! Now I'm thinking that you are right... Elswehere JMS states that Sakai arrived back in time after Valen did, but maybe not that long after as I thought, but during the war.