B5 and Sir Isaac

I've been following the B5 Wars thread with some amusement, and
one assertion keeps cropping up again and again, from almost all 
parties that leaves me not a little baffled.

The assertion is that a B5 game needs some sort of Newtonian
mechanics because this is a major part of the show's appeal. 

Have I missed something? I like B5, indeed a few weeks ago I sat
down and watched years 2 and 3. It never occurred to me that I
found appeal in it's display of Newton's Laws. Am I weird?

Indeed I'm hard pressed to recall any particular examples of it's
display. I recall Star Furies (and perhaps the White Star) 
rotating 180 degrees to brake or return fire... and that's it. I 
don't recall any starships powersliding sideways or the like.

Ships, IIRC, move like... ships. Slowly and in the direction they
face. Fighters zip around them like aeroplanes. Shadow ships 
seemed to stop dead when attacked by telepaths in flat 
contravention of Newton's laws. Am I mistaken? I don't even 
recall anything resembling a tactical maneouver, just material, 
heroism and the occaisional new weapon.

So if the only tip of the hat to Sir Isaac is the occaisional 180
then perhaps B5 Wars is getting it right? I note a 180 degree 
turn would be easy enough to bodge onto FT if that's all the 
chrome it took to do B5 movement justice. I've seen it on the 
list that people allow a 180 flip along a ship's axis to swap 
port and starboard bearing weapons, and this is just the same 
thing on a different axis. Negative speed in FT isn't a problem.

I like Sir Isaac as much as the next man. A few years ago was his
350th birthday and I had a slap-up dinner to celebrate the day. I 
Imagine many of you feasted heartily as well that day. I don't,
however, rate his influence over B5 as much more that a little
chrome on top of the usual TV tales of heroic liberalism.

So where is it written that the Newtonian thing is a big part of 
B5's appeal? Is this just something zealous fanboys assert when 
recompiling their list of ten reasons why B5 is impirically
superior to Star Trek? I've heard plenty of people rave about B5, 
the stories, the CGI etc. but never about the underlying physical 
principles. Why are people asserting that only a suitably 
Newtonian system will do justice to B5?

Baffled am I,

-- 
David Brewer