A Babylon 5 "what if"

BEWARE OF SPOILERS TO THOSE WHO HAVEN'T WATCHED SEASON 3 OF BABYLON 5

What if instead of Sheridan, Garibaldi was the one who went down to Z'Ha'Dum and bombed it while meeting with the Shadows? Would he have been brought back to life by Lorien? What would have been the consequences of such a change in direction?

Do you have anything else to ask, or are you going to continue with these endless "what if?" type posts, hmm?

The only way I could see that happening is if Sheridan asked Garibaldi to do it, and he agreed out of loyalty or something like that. Sheridan would have to have something really, really important he had to do instead, or he would never ask such a huge sacrifice from his best friend (they were basically best friends by now, right?)

As for Lorien, it's hard to say if he'd bring Garibaldi back or not. It also would completely eliminate the need for Kosh's "If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die" line, which was a major moment in Sheridan's development. Like I said, asking Garibaldi to do it would mean a major sacrifice, and Sheridan would have to know the man would die. I can't think of a reason why he'd make such a request, but if there were some other plot going on that demanded Sheridan's attention, it could have worked.

OmahaStar said:

Do you have anything else to ask, or are you going to continue with these endless "what if?" type posts, hmm?

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I thought you were a big B5 fan, hmm? What-if discussions are a perfect fit to this multi-layered and heavily plotted series.

I agree with JMS that only Sheridan could go to Z'ha'Dum. Garabaldi had no motivation to go to Z'ha'Dum whereas Sheridan did.

It'd be the same with Sinclair. Had Sinclair (and O'Hare) stayed, then the outcome of events would no doubt be different in regards to the Shadow War.

Lorien brought Sheridan back to end the war once and for all. Garibaldi didn't fit that bill.

He COULD have done it as a means to get to Sheridan.... but dramatically it wouldn't have worked.

It poses an interesting question and the episode "Whatever Happened to Mr. Garibaldi" would certainly take on a different meaning. G'Kar searching for Garibaldi and avoiding running into Shadows while still end up being captured by the Centauri. I think also though if Sheridan doesn't go it takes away the tension and falling apart that was going on at the station without him. Delenn and Susan barely were able keep a full blown riot from occurring. Having Sheridan still on board Babylon 5 this drama and tension would more than likely not happen. One of my favorite moments in the series was that moment when Sheridan appears out of nowhere with Loiren at his side. If Michael goes to Z'Ha'Dum I suppose that he could have survived with Lorien and be mistrustful towards John. I am not sure you could do the whole Psi Corp/Bester subplot if Mike went to Z'Ha'Dum.

What if Garibaldi knocked out or drugged Sheridan somewhere and made the sacrifice on Z'Ha'Dum so Sheridan wouldn't do it and get himself killed in the process because Garibaldi believes he's too important to die at this time?

Joe Washington said:

What if Garibaldi knocked out or drugged Sheridan somewhere and made the sacrifice on Z'Ha'Dum so Sheridan wouldn't do it and get himself killed in the process because Garibaldi believes he's too important to die at this time?

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That could have worked. Sheridan was able to bring the League together in a way that no one else had been able to before. I can definitely see Garibaldi doing this. Though, if this happened, we wouldn't have the arc where Bester messed with his mind. It was a great arc but it was very difficult to watch. I do wish JMS had shown Garibaldi getting his revenge in season 5, or perhaps even one of the movies that was made. Would have been nice to see it ended on the screen.

I still can't see Anna taking Garabaldi. Londo would have been very interesting though.

Anna might not have taken Garibaldi but perhaps Lise Hampton could have been with the Shadows. Remember that too was one of the other reasons why Z'Ha'Dum was so important to Sheridan's arc was the back story involving Anna Sheridan. If Michael goes instead you would most likely have to re-write that part of the character arc.

I could see a compromise on the Psi-Corp arc and an entire divergent time line where Garibaldi goes to Z'Ha'Dum. Discovers Lise alive but Shadow controlled (perhaps with a Drakh keeper) is disgusted by this and then does the bombing thing with the Whitestar crashing down unto the planet. Then we have him waking up with Lorien who saves him telling him that he is not the one who was meant to come. Mike says yeah I know I had to knock that guy out and do it myself, he was too important to sacrifice. I'm nobody. Then Lorien reluctantly heals Michael but instead of coming back with him to Babylon 5...Michael wakes up inside at the Psi Crop holding facility on Mars and goes through the conditioning session with Bester. He has his mind wiped and he is put inside of a shadow cocoon type of object and sent back into the system where Z'Ha'Dum is where Zack finds him and brings him back to the Station.

What if I took a massive dump on my keyboard? What if Hitler were reanimated using leftover parts from a toaster? What if a gabaedoefloo gababababagaf a WFALHRopaihgas.

Tyson said:

What if I took a massive dump on my keyboard? What if Hitler were reanimated using leftover parts from a toaster? What if a gabaedoefloo gababababagaf a WFALHRopaihgas.

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Wow. that was insightful. And disgusting.

The reason I don't think Garibaldi would have made the Z'Ha'Dum thing work is that he couldn't do the whole LEAP of faith thing from the balcony. Sheridan did. The two characters think differently. Garibaldi would have tried to do things differently, ended up dead and never met Lorien.
But then that is a Writers thing. Anything could have happened Garabaldi could have gotten from Point A to Point B if the Writers really wanted him to. Going along that line, The writers would have had to re do the whole Kosh/Sheridan to Kosh/Garabaldi, just so the "vertical exit" fit within the entire story. Looks like a lot of work.

I think the series would need to undergo too much plot deformation to make Garibaldi going to Z'ha'dum realistic...in other words there isn't really any way to know how events would have unfolded because they would have had to have undergone drastic changes to get us to this point to begin with.

Anna wouldn't take Garibaldi to Z'ha'dum, which means Anna wasn't the one who the Shadows controlled. The obvious candidate is Lise, but that would necessitate changing events both before and after Z'ha'dum, since if Lise is Shadow-controlled then S4 needs to be significantly changed.

In the meantime, if Sheridan doesn't go to Z'ha'dum then I suspect the Shadows end up destroying B5, much as they were prepared to do before the Z'ha'BOOM. There's no reason for them -not- to destroy such an obvious threat to their plans, and no realistic way Sheridan's forces at the time could have fended off an all-out attack on B5.

A What-If we might have better ability to work with would be "What if Susan had been in Garibaldi's place?" The Shadows and consequently Psi-Corps would have abducted her instead...Garibaldi needing to hold things together on B5 would have been some interesting character development. Does the Edgars thing pan out with Garibaldi, or is that plot shifted so that an altered Ivanova ends up involved in it, minus the personal attachment? If Sheridan still gets abducted later on and Ivanova's gone, does Garibaldi take command of the fleet beating back Clark's forces? He never really struck me as the type for that, but Sheridan had reservations about Delenn, for instance, leading that fleet, and for good reason. I suppose Marcus and Ivanova could essentially reverse roles...Ivanova realizing that she loved Marcus after he'd been critically injured might be a bit of a stretch of her character though.