Lorian was my personal fav
*points at thread title* By no possible definition could Lorien or his race (the Speakers) classify as a "younger race". Lorien was
The First One.
You have the religious caste, which is very cultured and has lots of fascinating rituals , and then there is the warrior caste being just good old bad-a**.
Actually, the rituals aren't exclusively religious. All the castes have a huge amount of ritual, whether religious, warrior, or even worker. It's a Minbari thing. If you watch closely the warrior caste people, especially Neeroon, there is a great deal of ritual in everything they do too.
In actual fact the Minbari and Cantaiuri along with the Drakh are considered middle races have developed after the old ones but a 1000 years or so before the majority of the younger races. We do know that the Minbari was at least at the same tech as the EA in the last Shadow war 1000 years before the series.
Not quite. It was mentioned both on-screen and by JMS that the Minbari are "the eldest of the younger races", followed by the Yolu and Hyach. Whilst there are middleborn races, most of whom have passed, although some remain (the Tal'kona'sha), and although the Minbari are old enough to be quite advanced at the time of the previous Shadow War 1000 years ago, and powerful enough to wipe out the Garmak (a major empire on par with the Centauri of the time) without breaking a sweat 700 years ago, they are not old enough to be in this classification.
Then again, terms such as "younger races" and "middleborn races" are subjective; the races that a Gaim would refer to as "middleborn" would call themselves "younger", whilst not even acknowledging a Gaim as being sentient (as at that time, they wouldn't have been).
the EA were kinda jerks and the bad guys for most of the show
The EA were being influenced and corrupted by a small amount of people. The EA as a whole wasn't "the bad guys", as all those ships who defected to Sheridan's side during the Civil War, and their crews... and in fact Sheridan himself... were Earth Alliance ships and people.
The important thing to remember with Babylon 5 is that it never portrayed anyone (on a personal level nor a racial one) as "good" or "evil". It ALWAYS showed multiple sides of them. G'Kar and Londo are the perfect examples of this, as G'Kar started as bitter, angry, bent on revenge, but transformed into one of the most noble characters in the show. Londo became darker, more tragic, as the series progressed.
I'm gonna go out on a random tangent here and say I love the Mar'kab (or whatever they were called) because not only were they completely made extinct as a race, which I felt to be one of the most daring things I'd ever seen in science fiction, but they followed up in subsequent episodes and Sheridan took measures to put an end to "grave robbing" on their world. Brilliant television is often daring and even shocking. I was more surprised that things DIDN'T work out for that race
Reading the JMS notes on that episode, it was a very difficult one for him to write, as it meant getting rid of a race he'd built up over the previous year and a half. It had to be a prominent one, not just one you saw in the background at League meetings. It was very nearly the Drazi.
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The notes of JMS make for some very interesting/insightful reading, should you ever get the chance. I haven't yet read the books that have been published on the matter, but once I've got a little bit saved up, I'll be sure to get them.
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As for my favourite race, I've got to go with the Narn too, although the Centauri and Minbari aren't far behind them.
I think the main reason many people like the Narn are because they are both noble and powerful, and they have much potential but have a lot to learn before they can make use of it properly. It's very familiar.
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