- How did Sinclair get the chrysalis machine? Did the
Vorlons supply it? It seemed to do a much more thorough job on
Sinclair than it did on Delenn; in appearance, at least, Valen
was a pure Minbari, not half-human.
An odder explanation is that Sinclair got it from Delenn, who got
it (indirectly) from Valen; in that case, the machine was never
actually invented.
- When and how did the Vorlons board Babylon 4? There
were two Vorlon ships next to the station when the Minbari cruisers
approached it; did they come back in time with Sinclair, or did
the Vorlons of a thousand years ago know where and when B4 would
appear? Perhaps Sinclair called them.
- Delenn's transformation took several weeks. Presumably
Sinclair's was comparable. Did it take that much subjective time
to travel back 1000 years, or did the station sit unnoticed in the
past until Sinclair was ready? If the former, then the Vorlons
must have boarded the station while it was in transit through time
(assuming they gave Sinclair the machine.)
- Why did Sinclair choose to call himself Valen? Was it
simply because of the contents of his letter? In that case, nobody
ever actually invented the name; it was chosen because it was the
name he ended up using.
- Did the Grey Council realize that they'd captured Valen
at the Battle of the Line? Most likely not, or Delenn's counterpart
wouldn't have ordered her to kill him if he remembered what happened
("And the Sky Full of Stars.")
- On the other hand, if Delenn's transformation was really
in part an attempt to restore the balance upset by Sinclair's change a
thousand years earlier, then Delenn must have known about Valen's
true nature for quite some time. Perhaps she alone recognized
Sinclair's true identity at the Line, but couldn't tell the rest of
the Council, who almost certainly would refuse to believe what she'd
discovered.
- Why did the machine transform Delenn into a hybrid human
and Minbari, while Sinclair (from all outward appearances) was
transformed into a full Minbari? Did Delenn choose to only transform
herself halfway? If so, has she truly restored the balance between
humans and Minbari, or is there still something left to do?
- Besides Delenn and the people on the White Star bridge,
how many others know Valen's true identity? If it became widespread,
the information might seriously alter the face of Minbari religion;
learning that their greatest spiritual leader was actually a member
of a race many of them hold in contempt would probably test the faith
of many Minbari.
- Sinclair flashed back to the Soul Hunter telling him that
he was being used, presumably by the Minbari
("Soul Hunter.")
Exactly what did he mean by that? Perhaps there was a Soul Hunter
present at Valen's death, and Sinclair was familiar to them already.
Or maybe the Soul Hunter found out about Sinclair's eventual identity
when he peered into Delenn's mind.
- Probably of less significance, Sinclair's other memory
was of Neroon
("Legacies,")
who eventually ended up on the Grey Council. What impact, if any,
that had on Sinclair's tenure on Minbar is unknown. Given Neroon's
dismissal of the reason for the Minbari surrender at the Line
("All Alone in the Night")
it seems any respect he had for Sinclair was short-lived, and that
if the Council did know of Sinclair's true identity, Neroon didn't
believe it. Neroon was also Sinclair's prosecutor in comic issue 3,
"In Harm's Way."
- Now that Sinclair has travelled back in time, the accuracy
of Valen's prophecies is probably at an end. Valen could predict
the start of the Shadow War, and the breaking of the Grey Council,
because he'd lived through it, but anything after his departure to
the past is a complete unknown to him (unless, of course, the
Vorlons have some way of telling him.)
- The appearance of two Vorlons next to an unfamiliar
Minbari might not have been such a shock to the Minbari warriors
who found Sinclair. In
"In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum,"
Delenn claimed that the previous Shadow war marked the last time the
ancients walked openly among the younger races. So it's entirely
possible that the appearance of a Vorlon was, if not commonplace,
then nothing resembling miraculous.
On the other hand, the two Vorlons were flying above encounter suits;
maybe they've been secretive all along, and even when they walked
openly among the other races, always hid behind masks. That would
make sense if they wanted to maintain the illusion of angelic
appearance, since as Kosh said in
"Matters of Honor,"
maintaining that appearance in front of a lot of people is a great
strain on a Vorlon.
- Did Babylon 4 travel through space as well as time, or
did it appear in what would later become Sector 14? If the latter,
does its appearance there have anything to do with the location of
the Great Machine?
- What is Londo's "keeper?" Who gave it to him? What
exactly is it forcing him to do, and why? The fact that it's invisible
when awake suggests that it's associated with the Shadows, who have
mastered the art of invisibility.
- Does Morden have a keeper too? Is that why the Shadows
treat him as an equal -- because they know he'll never betray their
cause?
Or maybe the Shadows are being controlled by some other
party, though that seems unlikely.
- "We all have our keepers," Londo says. Does that include
Sheridan and Delenn? Perhaps there's a connection between Londo's
guest and the dream sequence in
"All Alone in the Night,"
in which Ivanova and Garibaldi both have birds on their shoulders.
- By granting a reprieve to Sheridan and Delenn, Londo may be
fulfilling one of his chances for redemption
("Point of No Return.")
Morella told him he must not kill the one who is already dead;
perhaps that refers to Sheridan -- who certainly qualifies as "the
one" now in another context. Londo's greeting in part 1, "Welcome
back from the abyss, Sheridan," tends to support this possibility,
though of course it's not clear what Londo meant by that.
Kosh's warning to Sheridan in
"In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum"
and
"Interludes and Examinations,"
"If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die," probably also ties into this,
especially since, judging by Delenn's plea, it seems that Sheridan has
gone to Z'ha'dum at some point in the intervening seventeen years.
The "death" Kosh referred to may simply be the death of innocence
as noted by Delenn, and not literal physical death.
Londo's death at G'Kar's hand may also be the last part
of Morella's prophecy; death may be Londo's greatest fear, or perhaps
death with the knowledge that he hasn't righted his wrongs.
- Londo's dream in
"The Coming of Shadows,"
in which he sees a fleet of Shadow ships flying overhead while he
stands alone in a desolate wasteland, may be a vision of the Shadows'
minions coming to Centauri Prime as he says they did.
- Kosh's prediction to the Centauri Emperor in
"The Coming of Shadows"
appears to be literally true: For Centauri Prime, the war has
ended in fire.
- What were the Centauri, or perhaps someone else, trying
to get out of Delenn? She refused to answer their questions, she says;
what were they trying to learn? It appears the Centauri captured her,
which implies there's still a conflict of some kind going on, even
after the Shadows have been driven off. The presence of Londo's
keeper makes it unclear that the Centauri were the ones trying
to question her.
- "We created something that will endure for a thousand
years," Delenn tells Sheridan. What will they create? And what
happens in a thousand years -- will the Shadows return again and
break up their creation, much as Valen's creation, the Grey Council,
has recently been destroyed?
- In the Centauri cell, Delenn tells Sheridan, "Our son is
safe. Nothing else matters." Why is David in danger, and what has
Delenn done to ensure his safety?
- What could possibly happen to G'Kar in the intervening
seventeen years to cause Londo to refer to him as an "old friend?"
Londo, of course, may simply have been speaking facetiously -- but
in that case, what was G'Kar doing in the Centauri palace?
- Is death at G'Kar's hands Londo's greatest fear, and
thus his final chance for redemption
("Point of No Return?")
Or is his fear more abstract than that, the fear that his death dream
will come to pass as he's envisioned it?
- When Londo sees himself strangled by G'Kar in his dream,
does he know that it's at his own request? How much of the context
of his death does he know already?
- In
Babylon Squared,"
the crewman who sees the blue-suited figure
appear in the hallway tells Krantz, "It's back." Presumably the
B4 crew had seen Sheridan appearing and disappearing, since Delenn had
only recently switched places with him.
- Delenn appears in the hallway in the present time (or
rather, the same
timeframe she'd reached via the White Star,) so in that specific
instance there was no time-shifting, just movement through space.
How did she do that? Perhaps, as she implied in Part One, the Minbari
have the technology for rudimentary time manipulation, so she used
something from the White Star.
- The woman at the door in Delenn's
flashforward causes her to drop the snowglobe in shock. Very few
people would cause someone as poised as Delenn to do that. One of
them, though, and one whose arrival has been foreshadowed, would be
Anna Sheridan.
- Why does Delenn urge Sheridan to avoid going to Z'ha'dum?
If he has already gone there by the time she is thrown into the cell
with him, then Kosh's prediction about Sheridan dying if he goes there
is wrong, or at least not as immediate as it originally sounded.
On the other hand, the fact that they have a son is good evidence
the two of them will become much closer; perhaps the arrival of
Anna Sheridan (if that's who's at the door in Delenn's flashforward)
will complicate their relationship, and it's to avoid finding out
about Anna that Delenn tells Sheridan to stay away from Z'ha'dum.
- Are the flashforwards completely random, or might there
be something guiding people to visions of certain events? The Vorlons
appear to have some perception that extends beyond time; perhaps they
are manipulating that perception when it appears, even briefly, in
others.
- The assumption at the end of the episode seems to be that
by successfully pulling Babylon 4 back in time, the crew has averted
the Shadow attack on Babylon 5 in eight days, in which Ivanova sends
out the distress call heard in part one. Does that mean that
Sinclair's flashforward to the firefight aboard B5 has also been
averted? What about Lady Ladira's vision of the destruction of
Babylon 5?
("Signs and Portents")
If all those glimpses of the future are no longer true, how much
validity do the remaining ones have? Each of them could be from a
completely different possible future, none of which will end up ever
taking place.
- Was Zathras supposed to tell Sheridan, Delenn, and Sinclair
about The One? Were Draal's instructions simply to not reveal anything
until prompted by Sinclair?
Where did he come up with the term, and with its definition? If he
knows Sheridan is The One who will be, he must have been using the
Great Machine to peer forward in time (not unreasonable, given its
obvious time-bending abilities.) Will Draal be able to do the same
and offer insights into the events to come? Zathras implies that
perhaps he can do things even Draal can't, and that may be one of
them.
- The distinction between the three members of The One echoes
the migration of Minbari souls. Sinclair, after his transformation,
appears to be fully Minbari, and is The One who was. Delenn is
halfway between human and Minbari, and is The One who is. Sheridan
is completely human and is The One who will be. Perhaps it's symbolic
of a shift of power from the Minbari to humanity.
- YAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH.....
Well, I *finally* finished writing the two-parter, "War Without End,"
which is probably the toughest thing I've written for the series to
date. Given everything that has to fit in here, and the fact that
it's the other half of the B4 storyline (this ain't a spoiler,
that'll be common knowledge in ads and the like), it became a pretty
difficult job, moreso than when I'd originally thunk it up. It's
kinda like cramming 20 pounds of potatoes in a 10 pound bag...but I
*think* I got it all in, even though the initial drafts came out at
about 7 pages too long. As I commented to one person, "I'm
definitely dancing on the edge of my ability here." But I'm pretty
sure I pulled it all off...and I think folks are going to be quite
pleased.
But *man* that was tough....
Now, having written 16 and 17, only 5 scripts remain to be written
for this season. And there's still an awful lot to fit in before the
big season ender, which I suspect will raise quite a few eyebrows.
- In my last general posting to rastb5, I mentioned that from time to
time, I'd try to post the occasional "letter to home" just to keep folks
up to date on matters Babylonian. Now that I can catch a breather, I
figured I'd take this opportunity to do so (though since it's 3:15 a.m.,
this'll likely be short).
"catching a breather" refers to the script situation. I've just
finished writing 316 and 317, the two parter, "War Without End,"
which was a very difficult task, given the amount of story and
logistics that had to be put into it. While writing "Babylon
Squared," to which this is the flip-side, I figured, "Oh, sure, yeah,
I can get this all in on the other side, no problem," but when it
came time to do it, it got awful tight, but finally I fit it *all*
in. (Well, all except one teeny, tiny sentence, about where Zathras
was first seen, and how, 'cause to do what I'd first had in mind
would've taken another 3 pages, and I didn't have that, so that one
element I'll have to just deal with later somehow. But that's it.)
Hopefully, one need never have seen B2 in order to watch and follow
WWE. (Which was one of the hard parts, since B2 may or may not be
aired prior to this, all the background information *had* to be in
the episodes, so that's a lot of background to include.)
This now leaves 5 episodes to be written for this season. At this
point, Lyta should factor strongly in one or two of these, there will be
some direct confrontations between our side and the shadows, then a
really nasty final episode for year three.
- As I wrote the episodes prior to WWE2, I kept leading up
to that first kiss, over and over, but deliberately never quite getting
there. I knew that when it came time to do it, I wanted to do it in
just the way you describe...it would and wouldn't be a first kiss,
both at exactly the same time. So there's the moment everyone's been
waiting for, but not in quite the way anyone had expected.
- I knew everyone would be waiting for that
first kiss, so I made sure it was different, that it was a first kiss
for one of them, but not the other, that it was natural and totally
unforced and surprising. So for Sheridan, his first kiss of Delenn was
actually his second (by a long ways), and his second, when it comes,
will be her first.
Just can't do anything the conventional way on this show....
- Did you write WWE at the same time as B2?
No, I didn't write them at the same time, but I
did a basic outline of what the follow-up (WWE) would be, so it'd all
match up when the time came to show that half of the story.
- It all has to hang together, or it's kinda useless.
It just required working out the details of what was, is, and will be.
Then I walked on water....
- Did Sinclair's departure from the show cause changes
in the B4 storyline? Was it originally meant to go into the
future?
No, B4 was never intended to go forward in time. The aging was
done pretty much as intended. And the Soul Hunter meant they're using
him to create their old Leader. Still tracks. I'll have more to say
about all this after everyone's seen the episode.
- Foreshadowing is tough, because it implies the audience
is going to BE there x-years down the road to Get It, and you have to
risk the audience going "huh?" one time too many and wandering
away...but nothing good comes without risk.
- Why "War Without End?"
As Delenn says, the war is never entirely over...there are always new
battle to be fought. If it ain't the Shadows, it's the shadows over
Earthdome of a more human nature.
- "When dealing with an ep with a lot of flashbacks or
reused footage (WWE, especially part 2), how much freedom does the
director have? Does he/she have to match the style of the previously
show footage (in terms of angles, close ups, pacing, etc), or is
there more room for the director's own style?"
In the case of WWE, you had to match lighting and composition
pretty closely. That's about the only time it's really become an
issue.
"(one more question: if someone other than you had written
"Babylon Squared", would they have to be paid royalties for the reuse
of parts of that episodes script and footage in "War Without End"?)"
Anyone who writes a scene which is reused gets residuals.
Doesn't matter if it's me or anybody else, as a Writers Guild member,
it's guaranteed and required. Also the actors, the director, and
others get re-use fees of varying amounts depending on how long the
sequence is.
- The Garibaldi scenes in part 2 were all from the first
season.
- Zathras looked familiar. Was the character created
by the actor?
Well, Zathras appeared in Babylon Squared, so you might have
seen him there. Beyond that...no, the actor came to what was written
on the page and made it come to life, but didn't invent the character.
I just sorta thunk him up. It's what I do.
- Londo looks older, but Sheridan and Delenn
don't.
No, both Sheridan and Delenn *are* made up older. If you particularly
look at Delenn out in the light of later scenes in WWE2, you can
DEFINITELY see the difference. With Sheridan, it's a greying of the
hair, and some lining on the face. Londo, though, if you recall, is
much older than Sheridan to begin with.
- It was a good sendoff. (At one point, Bruce said to me
over lunch, with Michael sitting with us, "Hey, so how come HE gets to
go off and become the next best thing to God and I get the crap kicked
out of me?" I shrugged. "Seniority.")
- The scenes with Zathras pinned under the
strut were the same scenes from B2, we didn't reshoot that material.
The hardest shot was matching the lighting and composition in
the central corridor *exactly* for the Ivanova-on-the-link scene, and
the walk by seconds later by Garibaldi and Sinclair. That came out
pretty seamless.
- Why does Krantz have a leather strap on his uniform,
when there weren't leather straps in "The Gathering?"
The leather strip was also present when we shot the original,
Babylon Squared, in year one. I was kinda thinking at the time that
the change was gradually being introduced in various divisions of
Earthforce. Krantz is from the Marines division, I believe (note the
brown uniform), from that part which functions sort of like the Army
Corps of Engineers, overseeing the building of space stations and the
like. Since it takes time to introduce a uniform change across
divisions and light years, I figured some might have them earlier than
others, or to try them out. So I gave Krantz the leather strip.
- The B4 insignia looks like a 3.
Those aren't 3s, those are Bs in which there's a stylized 4.
- About the
"Babylon Squared" inconsistencies
Yes, the conference room thing is a glitch, in that I had the way
to do it, but it would've meant adding about 3 minutes to the episode,
and I just couldn't fit it in.
(It basically would've involved him being hidden in the room when
there's a timeflash.)
Ivanova et al *were* working actively to get the crew to evacuate,
using the fake reactor reading. If they hadn't really cared about it,
they would've let the station continue running through time to its
destination, or the present; they fought to stop it so they could let
the crew get off.
No, Delenn hadn't been appearing/disappearing before this, but
Sheridan *had*, so it's reasonable to assume he was seen. Also, we
don't know how much time passed between the sighting we notice, and
the alert to Krantz.
We couldn't match the clothing properly, so we dispensed with it.
- I know about the sleeve...and actually she didn't touch
him in WWE2. It was one of those days when it was a hideous production
schedule, and I wasn't on set, and it slipped by everybody else.
- The element I couldn't quite fit into War....
In B2, Krantz says they found Zathras when there was a flash,
and he appeared in a conference room.
Now, I sketched out that scene when it came time to actually
write the whole WWE two-parter. What happened, basically, was that
Zathras was passing by a room where he saw the one piece he still
needed to finish his repairs on the time stabalizer. He slips in, as
best he can, unnoticed...the meeting goes on as he goes under a table
to get the piece of equipment...he finishes just as there's another
time-flash...as it ends, momentarily disoriented, he's discovered, and
captured.
This would've matched what was in B2, as I'd intended.
Unfortunately, it added several minutes of screen time that I couldn't
afford. I would've had to cut something somewhere else, and that
script was so tight it screamed as it was. So I had to fudge how I did
that and let the small inconsistency go. The only other thing I
could've cut, the one moveable piece, was Sinclair trying to radio
Garibaldi at the end...and I didn't want to lose that.
- No, WWE couldn't have been 3 episodes. Yes, it had enough
story for it, and then some, but you can't take one storyline and
stretch it out that far. I wouldn't have done it even if I could.
I'd've had to introduce a B story just to break it up a little, because
3 hours of just a straight line one-story plot is murder. And that
defeats the purpose of expanding it.
- Will we see Garibaldi's reaction to finding out
about Sinclair being Valen?
I think it'd be hard to just drop in Garibaldi's attitudes
about Valen without it having something to do with an episode; if it
doesn't move that particular episode along, it shouldn't be there. So
that sort of thing is tough to pull off, making the show more
unfriendly to new viewers.
- Wasn't sending a message to Garibaldi a big
risk? And why didn't he tell Garibaldi before the shuttle
left?
I think his message to Garibaldi was a momentary lapse, it
wasn't something he'd planned, his emotions momentarily got in the way
of his reason. To do so would be dangerous, so it wasn't done by him.
- Throughout the episode, whenever there's a tachyon burst,
pretty much everyone has a timeflash of one sort or another (as also
mentioned in Babylon Squared).
- Why did Delenn leave the White Star?
Mainly just a feeling she had, best to check everything out for
herself, make sure things were going properly, since they were getting
right down to the wire. Also, in case Ivanova got into trouble trying
to get into C&C, she wanted to be closer to the situation to help,
if necessary.
- When Delenn takes off her stabilizer and puts it on Sheridan,
taking on his suit for whatever small protection it might offer, at
that point he stabalized and she became lost/unstuck in time. So it
was she who appeared in the last sequence there. She took the risk to
ensure saving Sheridan.
- 1. Since you've stated that the Babylon squared time
travel incident
would be the only one for the entire series, is there any way we might
get answers to some of the questions that seemed to be raised from the
far future?
In a sense.
2. How much will Sinclair's knowledge of the future affect what is to
come?
Sinclair has no further knowledge of the future; he knows only what he
saw up through and including the White Star.
3. The question I'm really dying for an answer to though, is this:
Hasn't this episode in a sense made a large part of the arc
anti-climactic? I mean, we now know that the forces of light are
victorious again, at least to some degree, we know of David (named for
sinclair?), we know what becomes of Londo etc. Whenever most of the
major characters are in a life threatening situation, we now know that
they survive it (it would seem).
We also "knew" that G'Kar would strangle Londo...what you didn't have
was context. As we saw in part two, context is everything, and getting
there is half the fun.
- It's a literary...I hate to say the word trick, but it's the
most descriptive. You show somebody the end right off the bat, as we
did with the Londo/G'Kar scene. But how do we get there? What
happens? Yes, the war is eventually won...but what *was* the price?
And what does it mean to everyone involved?
The best magic is when it's right there in your face, and you
can't see how it's being done.
- What happens with the future of Londo and G'Kar...is what
you see. Course, how they got there is the meat of the story.
- Showing the end of a story at or near the middle is a
literary device that's sometimes used by novelists that can be very
effective, if used properly. It shows you what happens, but leaves
open *how* you got there, and what it means.
- The storyline began millions of years ago.
We're coming in in the middle of the story.
But then, that can be said of all of us.
- Does this blow the mystery of whether Sheridan goes to
Z'ha'dum?
Who said there was a mystery about Sheridan going to Z'ha'dum?
Kosh seems to treat it as a fait accompli; so does Sheridan. It seems
fated that he will go...the question is when, why, and under what
circumstances, with what results?
See, sometimes the story works in the shadows (so to
speak)...and other times we're right out in the open, we hand you the
playbook and tell you we're coming right up the middle. And *that's*
when you've got to really worry.
- Sheridan wouldn't know anything of what happened after
he blipped out of that future situation.
As for David, remember that Sheridan's father is also David.
- Sheridan's stabilizer basically broke into two major pieces,
the front section which fell off in the White Star, and the back half
which was still clipped to his belt, and later came off as Zathras
watched.
- Is David the Third Age of Mankind?
Not as such.
- Will we see him?
Well, I wouldn't want to preclude anything at this point.
- Were the Minbari fighting amongst themselves before
Valen arrived?
There was certainly some division among Minbari; Valen
straightened a lot of that out.
- That divisiveness has been growing lately, culminating in
the breakup of the Grey Council which Valen formed. There's bound to
be some fallout....
- Did the Council know Sinclair was Valen when they
demanded he be B5's commander?
No, they didn't know at the time; most of them were still trying
to figure the whole damned thing out; some refused to accept it, and if
he was indeed bogus, wanted him killed to avoid becoming a false
prophet and undoing Minbari society; some *did* believe it was him.
This disagreement in a sense became the first loose thread in
unraveling parts of Minbari society.
- Did Delenn know?
She had suspicions starting from the Battle of the Line; we'll
have more on that later.
Yes, the Grey Council knows [now], but the general Minbari population
does not know.
- Where did the chrysalis machine come from?
The machine came up with Zathras from Epsilon 3. It
first appeared with Sinclair, then later got into Delenn's hands. So
she still has that version of it.
- Re: the Chrysalis device...it came from Epsilon 3. There
was one shot that should've been made more of, where we see a long box
with a silver triangle on one side being set up, and left.
Unfortunately,
the shot didn't make much of it (you can see Zathras putting it out
there), and a later shot we dropped showing it again because it wasn't
properly featured and you couldn't really tell what it was. There was
so much in this episode that had to be pulled off, in a short amount of
time, that sometimes things in the background don't get framed as they
might be. But that's where it came from: from Epsilon 3 to Sinclair to
Delenn, who still has it.
- It was on Epsilon 3, then taken into the past
with B4, held on Minbar until Delenn got it, and still has it.
- And the triluminary?
It originated on Epsilon 3.
- The Londo stuff is just incredibly powerful...very moving.
As for the voice...well, we'll just have to wait a bit, won't we?
- Re: G'Kar and Londo changing positions as Sinclair and
Sheridan have done, these two moving from certainty to uncertainty in
either direction, that ain't bad. That ain't bad at *all*. I like
symmetry, and both journeys are interesting explorations. What I've
been doing in complex terms, you explained in an astonishingly few
words.
- I seem to recall, after that Londo/G'Kar
scene was shown the last time, posting somewhere that folks now knew
*what* has happened, but they don't yet know the *context*. Very few
picked up on that and thought to actually reverse what they *thought*
they were seeing to what they *might* be seeing.
- Will you see Londo and G'Kar together later this season?
Hmmmm......
Yes and no.
- Whose eye opened during the strangulation?
The eye was of the keeper on Londo's shoulder, you can see
G'Kar's fingers gripping a part of it. It woke up.
- About G'Kar's eye
One of his eyes had been plucked out some time before.
- Londo does not currently have a Keeper attached to him.
- You needn't concern yourself with the keeper...for a while
yet.
- Vir doesn't have a keeper. They would, of course, try to
take care of that detail afterward.
- It's not a shadow host, no, but one of the many things
that work for them.
- Will we see Kosh in the past?
Not exactly, not as you might think, but in a sense....
- Suffice to say that Kosh knew Valen from way, way back....
- If Kosh recognized Sinclair as Valen, why were the
Vorlons so anxious to extradite Sinclair in
"The Gathering?"
He could only recognize him once he
actually saw him, and that didn't happen until he arrived at B5, after
which he wasn't in any condition to talk to anyone until after things
were over.
- But surely they must have known he was B5's
first commander?
Bear in mind that there have been lots of folks named Sinclair
in the last 900 years; that we don't know how much Valen told anyone
about his prior life; that the Minbari had had little to no direct
contact with the Vorlons in well over a hundred years and likely would
not have told them what they found at the Battle of the Line until such
time as personal contact had been made again, which only happened at
Kosh's arrival...and there wasn't exactly time to make a report after
he rolled into B5 for the first time.
- How did they know to meet Babylon 4?
Prescience?
Well, the other obvious solution, since the Vorlons were then
out and running around and actively involved in the war of that time
period, he just sent out a signal, and they got there first.
- But they accepted the station right away.
Given that there's a massive war on, they just had
their major starbase destroyed, they were left without a platform from
which to stage the last part of the war...and here comes someone
offering a 6 mile long, perfectly empty and eminently useable base for
the last phase of the war, no charge...hell, I'd take him up on it too.
- Did B4 have more firepower than B5?
Yeah, B4 had more firepower, and it had one thing B5
doesn't...engines that can move it forward if necessary.
- Did the Minbari recognize the Vorlons?
They'd recognize them from legends of their own past, yes. But
bear in mind that the Minbari and Vorlons had already been working
together in the war effort.
- When you see a LOT of vorlons together, that's when it's
time to run like hell.
- 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....
- Is this Zathras' exit from the series?
I'd love to see Zathras again somehow....
- I'm often tempted to create Zathras' brother, Mathras, or
somesuch, if only for the look of terror in their eyes when he says, of
Zathras, "Ah, yes...Zathras...was the quiet one in the family...."
Who knows, it might be something I might do someday....
- Is Zathras "the man in between" from Sheridan's dream
("All Alone in the Night?")
No, Zathras isn't the man in the middle. Someone else is. And
it isn't/wasn't Sinclair, either.
- Valen only knew what Sinclair would've known. Zathras
wasn't speaking from what Sinclair had told him, but on the basis of
things he'd figured out on his own.
- What happened to Babylon 4?
B4 survived the prior shadow war, but in very bad shape;
didn't last much longer after that.
- Does the future with the Shadow attack no longer
exist?
Yes. Up until that moment, the total forces available to the
shadows were an unknown to us...sort of like Shroedinger's Cat, is it
alive in the box or is it dead? It could be either one. If they
didn't go into the past, didn't affect the outcome, it would be one
reality; if they did, then it'd be another. As soon as they achieved
one or the other of those two, the two possible results collapsed into
the one, singular possibility.
- Will Delenn and Sheridan have to pay too high a price
for their victory and happiness?
Depends on how you define "too high" a price.
- What they were after from Delenn was info relevant to that
time, some of it related to their son.
- The reason Delenn dropped the globe will be gone into by
the end of the season; as for "when will (you) no longer be confused?"
that's rather outside my purview. Have you considered meditation?
- Was Delenn a passive observer in her flash?
She more just saw it as a passive recipient, whereas he was
actively There.
- There's not much point to asking me "when are we going to
learn who Delenn saw in her flashforward." Or similar questions. I
will not throw away the impact of something happening in an episode by
blowing it out in a message. There have to be surprises along the way.
You'll see it when it happens.
- Time travel isn't that easy, and at this juncture it will
never happen again in the B5 universe.
- Sheridan, by taking the actions he took to keep history on
track, has now pretty much assured that the events we see *will*
happen.
- Events will unfold as we saw them. Sheridan might try to
use his knowledge to change things...but who knows, that may just bring
them about.
- Of course there's free will. But if I pull a trigger, and
the bullet flies out hitting someone in the head, what happens between
the moment of the trigger, and the impact, has nothing to do with free
will. Sheridan made the choice -- free will -- to do what was done in
WWE. There were two probable results, depending on whether he did or
didn't do as asked. Once he did that, the two probabilities folded
into one actuality (a la Shroedinger's Cat).
Which doesn't mean to say he won't *try* to change things....
- What did Zathras mean when he said he was the oldest
living caretaker of the Machine?
Just that Zathras has worked on the machine, and survived
it, the longest of all the others.
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