Babylon 5: was Earth involved in the ~1260 Shadow War?

[hxclespaulplayer]

At first, I thought "of course not, we weren't a space-faring race" but after watching "Matters of Honor":

G'Kar: They came to our world over a thousand of your years ago --- long before we went to the stars ourselves. They set up a base on one of our southern continents. They took little interest in us. G'Quan believed they were engaged in a war far outside our own world.

Maybe we did play a role, after all. Speculation about real-world events in the 13th century that might support this are welcome.

[USS Avenger]

This may not all be coherent, I am going off pure memory here but here goes. I think there are wood carvings and paintings from around that time frame that show what some have interpreted as aircraft or spaceships doing battle above the skies of medevil Europe. We also know there were at least two battlecrabs buried in different loacations within the system. I am not sure if it was ever stated when they were buried however. The Narn also had teeps already at this point in their history. G'kar said it was the remaining mindwalkers (I am pretty sure that was the term) that forced the Shadows to leave Narn. Mankind had no teeps yet, but perhaps the process had already begun by the Vorlon and thats why the Shadows showed a peripheral interest in our system?

[maneth]

Interesting theory Avenger. I like it!

[hxclespaulplayer]

USS Avenger wrote:

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We also know there were at least two battlecrabs buried in different loacations within the system.

That reminds me of something I picked up out of "Messages From Earth":

Kirkish: Seven years ago, I was stationed on Mars. We were always getting false leads on artifacts supposedly buried beneath the Martian soil for thousands of years. Nothing ever came of it. And then one day our sonic probes picked up something three hundred feet beneath the surface of Syria Planum. We didn't know what it was, except it wasn't a natural formation.

So, they were at least using the Sol system in the last Shadow War. But they've been there for over 1,000 years? It sounds like Mars has been involved for several Shadow Wars.

[Reverend]

^Actually the source of those rumours were that IPX actually DID find artefacts on Syria Planum back in the 22nd century, which is why Mars Dome One was built on nearby Solis Planum, rather than somewhere more sensible like Vallis Marineris. The reason that they're only rumours a century later is because it was kept reasonably quite by Vacit and the IPX higher ups. As for how long they'd been there, keep in mind those tests were just estimates, it seems unlikely they'd be left there through the last Shadow War.

The Vorlons and probably the Shadows have certainly been active on and around Earth in the past. For one thing a Drakh took up residence in Wallachia around the 15th century and became the source of all those Anne Rice novels...or something.
I doubt it played a very significant role, to be honest, I think there'd be much stronger legends if the Shadows had used Earth as a base in the same way they had on Narn. Indeed, the fact that they stashed a few ships here demonstrates just how out of the way were were at the time. It'd be a bit stupid to stash them close to a major battle site or even a minor outpost. Plus of course it's not as if those two were the only ones; they scattered those things across half the galaxy, mostly in remote, insignificant systems.

[Pemmer Harge]

I don't recall any references to Earth being directly involved, but obviously the Shadows left ships on Mars and Ganymede. Could be the Shadows went to Earth at some point like they went to Narn, but it's not implied. Of course, the Vorlons have been to Earth, but whether they did anything there at that time, who knows?

[CobraCommander]

I doubt that the Shadows went to Earth at that point. I don't think that the Vorlons even came until after the mid 20th century. Until 1945, Earth was a low level savage world. When the human technology began to evolve, then Earth could have been taken seriously. One interesting note is how the Ranger in 3262 was smuggling technology to Earth in the attempt to rebuild the planet. The Vorlons (or another race) may have been doing that with Earth in the past. Cobra

[Brent]

CobraCommander wrote:

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I doubt that the Shadows went to Earth at that point. I don't think that the Vorlons even came until after the mid 20th century. Until 1945, Earth was a low level savage world. When the human technology began to evolve, then Earth could have been taken seriously. One interesting note is how the Ranger in 3262 was smuggling technology to Earth in the attempt to rebuild the planet. The Vorlons (or another race) may have been doing that with Earth in the past. Cobra

Um, well, no, I take it the Vorlons had interfered with Earth LONG ago, like possibly caveman days and onward

[Reverend]

I doubt that the Shadows went to Earth at that point. I don't think that the Vorlons even came until after the mid 20th century. Until 1945, Earth was a low level savage world. When the human technology began to evolve, then Earth could have been taken seriously. One interesting note is how the Ranger in 3262 was smuggling technology to Earth in the attempt to rebuild the planet. The Vorlons (or another race) may have been doing that with Earth in the past. Cobra

Well for one, we know for a fact that the Vorlons were on Earth in 1888. Aside from that they have absolutely been visiting Earth (and a hundred other worlds) for at least a million years or so. To start with they came to collect DNA and/or live subjects from which to engineer their 'Nephilim' templates back when Homo erectus was still around. They they must have checked in every few centuries or millennia to monitor our progress and introduce the new telepath genes by increments. In the mid-21st century they set up shop in Antarctica to begin the final round of implantations that'd produce viable teeps.
It's a bit unclear if that's just because it happened to be ready or because we were getting close to interstellar travel. From what the Centauri Ambassador said in 'Dark Genesis', most races that have teeps tend to produce them just as they're getting into space. He believed that it was a natural sign of a race's ascendency, but perhaps the Vorlons intentionally held off until a race was at a certain point in technology. And no, I don't think the Vorlons were intentionally pushing forward technological development. There's no evidence of it and it's really not their style. On the other hand of course, they may be the ones who built the jumpgates for everyone to find, but again there's no direct evidence of that.