Babylon 5 viewing order
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B5 is story driven, not character driven, and that's what the story required of him.
No, none in e-form.
Book 9 To Dream in the City of Sorrows written by JMS wife Katheryn Drennen is Canon and is about Sinclair's story after he left Babylon 5 as Ambassador.
Book 7 The Shadow Within by Jeanne Cavelos is canon and is about Anna going to Zhahadum.
Also by Jeanne Cavelos is The Technomage Trilogy which is canon. The Centauri Trilogy by Peter David and the PsiCorps Trilogy by Gregory Keyes are also Canon
All very good, and of course, there's a little here and there that disagrees with Canon, but, canon for the most part. The other 7 books (1-6 and 8) aren't very canon and aren't all that good.
Only in that episode, not necessarily the origin of G'Quon worship.
Yea, when they took a break airing the series after War Without End, I expected when it came back for more episodes we would follow Valen into the past, and I was upset that didn't happen. Of course, now that I've seen the whole Series, I understand why that didn't happen, but, it would be really cool to get a movie of Valen in the past.
The initial story plan didn't involve Sinclair going into the ancient past. As Joe watched the story unfolding, he started realizing that Sinclair seemed very Minbari in attitude, and then a revelation hit him that Sinclair should become Valen. It was analysis of the Sinclair character that brought this aspect out.
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I hate to start off a sentence this way since it seems arrogant, but I think its really accurate.
No. It was the studio not being happy with O'Hare and wanting him replaced that caused JMS to replace Sinclair with Sheradin.
Characters change, the story goes on.
I wasn't referring to any reason that Michael O'Hare left (of which we have zero first-hand knowledge); I was referring to the Valen aspect. The connection between the character and the Minbari is apparent in season one. Neroon even says it to him.
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Or to put it more bluntly:
JMS said:
Volume 3 of The Babylon 5 Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski.
Jan
But he’s correct of course. ; )
B5 was getting hammered by the critics at the time.
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117900504/
http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,300956,00.html
The main complaints were O’Hare and not much action. Season 2 saw a new lead and the action ramped up.
Doug Netter turned up after a meeting with Warner and told him straight, your off the show (or so I've been told, twice) – jms had no say in the matter other than to write a work-around. Becoming Valen was a really nice twist – and with a bit of dubbing in the ‘special edition’ of the pilot movie, and you have (some) fans convinced the foreshadowing was taking place as early as then. (cough ; )
Honestly, it's silly to think that the network wanted him gone and that was that. If it was that simple, there would be zero reason for Joe not to just mention that now. Doesn't matter what the critics were saying, the show was getting the ratings it needed. Unless you heard it from Doug himself, I call bs.
(And again, my point wasn't about this in the first place. It was about looking at the character of Sinclair and saying "yes, he makes sense as Valen.")
(And again, my point wasn't about this in the first place. It was about looking at the character of Sinclair and saying "yes, he makes sense as Valen.")
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And my point, in answering the question, was that the reason Sinclair could be a soldier, then an ambassador, and then a Ranger, and then Valen was because thats what the story needed him to be.
Well, actually, it needed him to be a military commander, president of the Alliance, and Delen's husband, but that job went to Sinclair when they booted O'Hare off the show, so Sinclair ended up with something almost as "cool" in being "the one that was".
Ambassador, head of rangers, and Valen weren't separate decisions made about Sinclair's character; they all tie in to each other. Being the ambassador was a *cover* for the rangers, which becomes clear in "The Coming of Shadows" (as well as being hinted at in "Points" and "Geometry".) The Valen aspect is also hinted at in "Points" with Lennier's explanation of the surrender at the Battle of the Line.
In the outline we have seen, Sinclair was not going to be the head of the Alliance. That job would go to his & Delenn's child after he was hyper-aged by Babylon 4's time-travel effects.
In the outline we have seen, Sinclair was not going to be the head of the Alliance. That job would go to his & Delenn's child after he was hyper-aged by Babylon 4's time-travel effects.
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Not quite. 'To Dream in the City of Sorrows' is considered 100% canon by JMS (he says so in the introduction) but as far as I can tell, he's only ever confirmed that the "A-plot" (the Icarus mission story) is canon. So that means the "B-plot" with Sheridan on the Agamemnon is dubious at best.
No, the image Kosh projected wasn't G'Quan, it was G'Lan. G'Quan was a real, flesh and blood Narn leader who rallied the last of the Narn telepaths and drove the Shadows off of Narn. G'Lan is a much older mytho-historical figure, though I think JMS mentioned G'Lan did turn up around that time and supported G'Quan. So clearly the Vorlons were actively involved in that little corner of the galaxy too.
It's never been made clear if Kosh *is* G'Lan, Valeria & Droshalla or if that's simply the image that all Vorlons project.
Exactly. Also, it should be noted that it wasn't really that much of a stretch to make Sinclair an Ambassador given his job on B5 was just as much diplomatic as military. Of course he only got the post(s) because the Minbari asked for him and I'm sure Clark jumped at the chance to get him off B5 and replaced by Santiago's own second choice; a man who on paper looks like an easily controlled jar head.
What I've never been clear on though, is where was the Minbari soul thing supposed to come from before JMS decided to re-jig the plot to make him Valen? I mean *something* about Sinclair must have convinced the Grey Council to cease fire and surrender, no? So if he wasn't originally supposed to be Valen, what set off the triluminary?
The alt-future transmission from Susan in WWE always annoyed me a bit. Partially it was the horrendous monolog, but now that I think about it, it's actually more than that.
That future was said to be what would happen if they didn't go back in time. But if they didn't go back in time, then Babylon 4 would never have been taken, so B5 wouldn't even *be* there. Not to mention the differences in the Earth/Minbari war.....
That future was said to be what would happen if they didn't go back in time. But if they didn't go back in time, then Babylon 4 would never have been taken, so B5 wouldn't even *be* there. Not to mention the differences in the Earth/Minbari war.....
^ Yeah, that never made a lot of sense to me either. I think I read a fan theory somewhere that proposed that the alternate future glimpsed at was in fact the result of a different, but similar chain of events. Basically I think it went something along the lines of the original "Babylon Prime" plot, but I can't remember the details.
Of course we don't know for a fact that what we saw would be a direct result of not taking B4 back, just that this was what Delenn believed to be true. Apparently, when not serving as footwear, faith can supersede the logic of temporal causality.
Of course we don't know for a fact that what we saw would be a direct result of not taking B4 back, just that this was what Delenn believed to be true. Apparently, when not serving as footwear, faith can supersede the logic of temporal causality.
Oh, here's an idea I just thought of. I was flipping through "To Dream In the City of Sorrows" the other day, and noticed something that I hadn't before. Near the end Sinclair wants to give up because of all the stuff he's gone through, and Kosh tells him, "Only you can play the role as needed. Only you will see the difference." So maybe the alternate future was from someone else, maybe Marcus, taking Babylon 4 back to the past and becoming Valen, but not doing it right and trashing fewer shadows ships than he should've. That'd account for everything but the size of the Shadow fleet being the same. Though the time-loop is so tight, there really isn't any space for anything to go wrong. You could probably make quite the game of figuring out alternate Babylon 5 histories that don't have Valen, but do have the Babylon project, the Minbari uniforms, Ivanova, Sinclair, Garibaldi, and a "captain" who may or may not be Sheridan on-board a Babylon 5 in 2260. Hey, maybe the reason Ivanova said "Earth Alliance Station Babylon 5" is because they didn't break away in that timeline...
The whole Schrodinger's shadow fleet idea is really dopey on the face of it, so that's the only way to make it work.
As you say, the causality loop is so tight that if you remove any one element it all fall apart. So if someone other than Sinclair went back with B4 then his DNA probably shouldn't have set off the triluminary...then again having said that, I think Lennier did mention other pilots being taken in and "scanned" with a similarly positive result. But then, the way it's portrayed in ITB, that part appears to have been retconned. The decision seemed pretty much instant once Delenn saw for herself.
In theory I suppose those "others" could have been taken in the gap between her walking out of the room and Morann coming to get her. It's certainly within the bounds of possibility since the passage of time could have been several hours (but no more than 24, given how long Sinclair was missing.)
So if any human can set off Valen's triluminary like that (after all, Delenn herself could only have had a trace and probably not likely to be recognisable as Sinclair's specific DNA) then it's possible someone else could have gone back the first time.
But then (without getting into spoilers from 'City of Sorrows') that would require the circumstances around Sinclair's willingness to go back in the first place to be altered.
Another thought occurs; what if this alternate future has more to do with the events on Z'ha'Dum? What if Sheridan didn't nuke them but was killed instead? The Shadow fleet would have carried out it's threat to eliminate B5 rather than withdrawing. of course the timing of the event is wrong and I can't quite see how the events of WWE could have hastened them. Perhaps it's just the old butterfly effect and something very minor was different the "first time" through the causality loop?
In theory I suppose those "others" could have been taken in the gap between her walking out of the room and Morann coming to get her. It's certainly within the bounds of possibility since the passage of time could have been several hours (but no more than 24, given how long Sinclair was missing.)
So if any human can set off Valen's triluminary like that (after all, Delenn herself could only have had a trace and probably not likely to be recognisable as Sinclair's specific DNA) then it's possible someone else could have gone back the first time.
But then (without getting into spoilers from 'City of Sorrows') that would require the circumstances around Sinclair's willingness to go back in the first place to be altered.
Actually, now that I think about it, wasn't there some funny business to do with switching time stabilizers? It was never really explained why but I recall an intimation that either Drall or the Vorlons wanted certain people to have the *correct* time stabilizer, but Sinclair suspected they were up to something and switched his with Sakai's. Is it possible this could be a factor? What if Sinclair was originally supposed to go back through the rift on his own and it was Catherine who was supposed to later chase after him with the station? Still, how would that equate to a larger more aggressive Shadow fleet?
Another thought occurs; what if this alternate future has more to do with the events on Z'ha'Dum? What if Sheridan didn't nuke them but was killed instead? The Shadow fleet would have carried out it's threat to eliminate B5 rather than withdrawing. of course the timing of the event is wrong and I can't quite see how the events of WWE could have hastened them. Perhaps it's just the old butterfly effect and something very minor was different the "first time" through the causality loop?
Sure B5 had a very hammering plotline, but the plot was driven by character choices: Londo's choice to align with the Shadows, Sheridan's choice to go to Z'ha'dum, Delenn's choice to become a hybrid, etc.
Hence the show was very character driven.
I speculate that it was the Council found that Sinclair (and humans) was genetically compatible with the Minbari, and thus would be able to save them from extinction should they mate with them.
And that tracks with the whole "they're using you" bit in "Soul Hunter."
This probably wouldn't have sat well with the Warrior Caste, hence why in the early iteration Sinoval commits ritual suicide upon learning this tidbit.
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Maybe it's something like the recent time cracks in Doctor Who. Certain elements can be erased without everything else disappearing. Like someone's mom can be removed from the timeline, but the child remains (just with blank holes in their memory where "mom" should be). Of course it creates all sorts of paradoxes, so must be fixed eventually.
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