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The Wind Swords

Raw Shark

Regular
I'm just finishing watching The Gathering again, it's been a while. Like all pilots, it's clunky, but interesting. The road not taken is always an interesting subject, especially in the B5 universe.

But the assassination plot is also interesting. The assassin is an unnamed member of the Wind Swords, one of the five clans of the Minbari Warrior Caste. He sneaks onto the station from a Narn transport, and tries to kill Ambassador Kosh. Leaving out how a physical poison could affect an <spoiler alert!> energy being, just what was the plan here?

The Minbari are supposed to hold the Vorlons in, what, high regard? Sacred status? No Minbari has killed another Minbari in a thousand years, on orders from Valen. Do they not have a similar law regarding killing Vorlons? And if they do, what would it take to break such a commandment? The only other thing we know about the Wind Swords is that they gave sanctuary to Deathwalker, the notorious Dilgar war criminal. She gave them "terrible" weapons, which they later offered to the Grey Council for use in the Earth-Minbari War. It is not known if the Grey Council accepted. But it does seem very unlikely that the Grey Council approved of the plan to assassinate Ambassador Kosh. The Wind Swords were acting on their own. It is assumed from the clunky pilot movie that they simply wanted the Vorlons to blame Commander Sinclair, and maneuver them into retaliating against Earth itself. As revenge for the death of Dukhat, that seems reasonable, although rather dishonorable for a Minbari mission. Has something changed?

Did Deathwalker's mere presence corrupt the Wind Swords, or their leadership? Was it her words, her ideology, her technology? There is something serious going on here, something that would cause a fanatical clan of Minbari warriors to defy the authority of the Grey Council, and even attempt to kill a Vorlon ambassador, one of the Minbari Federation's key allies.

Were there any consequences for this fiasco? The Vorlons are rather protective of each other, and would obviously want to discourage attacks on their representatives in the future. Making examples would help with that. If the Vorlons were ready to open fire on Babylon 5 over this fiasco, what sort of collective punishment would they have in mind for the Wind Swords trying to kill Kosh? The Grey Council should be ready to accommodate any demands from the Vorlon Empire.

But what is it about the corruption aspect of the Wind Swords' contact with Deathwalker? The Dilgar invasion of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds (which may or may not be aligned with Earth?...) was devastating for the races of the League. Their rapid and total military success in that campaign, combined with the corruption element, makes me think of the Shadows. And it is entirely possible that the Shadows just fell in love with Earth after Earthforce smashed the powerful and terrifying Dilgar, demonstrating their prowess in the true great game of the galaxy, the survival of the fittest. But before that, were they supporting the Dilgar in any way?

The point being, what else would cause such a powerful Minbari warrior clan to split from the Grey Council's rule, and attempt to kill one of the Minbari Federation's most important allies? They sheltered Deathwalker, but did she affect changes in their thinking and decision-making? Did she peel them away from the traditional Minbari-Vorlon alliance in some way? This is all unexplained.



Unfortunately, there is very little information on the Wind Swords or the Dilgar in the new B5 encyclopedia. But perhaps that will change.


Raw Shark

"We'll bomb those bastards like bastards have never been bombed!"
Richard Milhouse Nixon
 
WOW! A whole lot of interesting here. I love where you went, but I'm just not so sure we're supposed to think it was a Wind Sword plot. Maybe, but I think it could also just be one person. So does anyone know differently? Is the leadership of the Clan meant to be behind the attempt? I personally don't think it seems possible, but please speak up if you do know the truth about the origin of the assassination attempt.
 
Huh! Thanks, b5historyman. I hadn't seen those comments from jms (if it wasn't on the Lurker's Guide, I probably haven't seen it). My friends and I had long suspected a Shadow connection with the Dilgar, based on Deathwalker's philosophy, the forward leap in her tech, and the fact that the Vorlons appear to fire a warning shot right before they frag Deathwalker's ship. A warning to who? Probably whoever the Shadows had escorting Deathwalker.


It's funny, though. In one way, I'm pleased that my friends were right. In another, it feels like the B5 universe is now slightly smaller. One fewer mystery...
 
HOLD THE PHONE!!!!!! If this were true then wouldn't the Minbari government be forced to take action against the Wind Swords? Delenn knows the truth so wouldn't there have to be repercussions in the Warrior Caste? (Okay now show me where that part of the story is so I can read some more awesome facts. :guffaw::LOL::guffaw: ;))
 
In one of the Technomage novels, someone thinks (maybe Kosh?) about how the Shadows have evolved to the same extent that the Vorlons have, that they are energy beings, but still prefer to use physical bodies. I haven't read those books in a while, so I can't tell you which book or page, or the exact quote. I think that trilogy is considered 'mostly canon' or something along those lines.

I hadn't heard about those JMS posts on the assassination details, I'll check them out, thanks! I also mainly rely on the Lurker's Guide for such insights. That page is so great.

I find it kind of funny that I even brought all this up. I don't really enjoy The Gathering all that much, although I did enjoy some of the performances, and Stewart Copeland's soundtrack. JMS said that it was filmed using a five year old script, and clearly the story went in different directions once the series began. They largely moved away from the sinister Minbari Warrior Caste stories, with a few notable exceptions. But we never even saw a Wind Sword after The Gathering, either on-screen or in the books or comics, as far as I know. Yet another thing I always liked about B5, JMS' willingness to jettison plot lines in favor of more interesting ones he came up with along the way. The flexibility of his storytelling is really impressive. But I also like how the ongoing tensions, suspicions and resentment from the Earth-Minbari War never disappeared. For much of my childhood, the bitterness over the Vietnam War cast such a shadow over the United States, and it does take time to move on. It was refreshing to see such depth in a war story on a television science fiction series, I think exploring the psychological aftermath of a conflict was almost unheard of at the time.

Raw Shark

"The only good bug is a dead bug!"
- Some angry guy (who's made a lot of great films)
 
In one of the Technomage novels, someone thinks (maybe Kosh?) about how the Shadows have evolved to the same extent that the Vorlons have, that they are energy beings, but still prefer to use physical bodies. I haven't read those books in a while, so I can't tell you which book or page, or the exact quote. I think that trilogy is considered 'mostly canon' or something along those lines.

I hadn't heard about those JMS posts on the assassination details, I'll check them out, thanks! I also mainly rely on the Lurker's Guide for such insights. That page is so great.

I find it kind of funny that I even brought all this up. I don't really enjoy The Gathering all that much, although I did enjoy some of the performances, and Stewart Copeland's soundtrack. JMS said that it was filmed using a five year old script, and clearly the story went in different directions once the series began. They largely moved away from the sinister Minbari Warrior Caste stories, with a few notable exceptions. But we never even saw a Wind Sword after The Gathering, either on-screen or in the books or comics, as far as I know. Yet another thing I always liked about B5, JMS' willingness to jettison plot lines in favor of more interesting ones he came up with along the way. The flexibility of his storytelling is really impressive. But I also like how the ongoing tensions, suspicions and resentment from the Earth-Minbari War never disappeared. For much of my childhood, the bitterness over the Vietnam War cast such a shadow over the United States, and it does take time to move on. It was refreshing to see such depth in a war story on a television science fiction series, I think exploring the psychological aftermath of a conflict was almost unheard of at the time.

Raw Shark

"The only good bug is a dead bug!"
- Some angry guy (who's made a lot of great films)

I've nearly finished my umpteenth read through of the techno-mage trilogy and have yet to see any statement to that effect. Besides Joe has said the Vorlons are physical beings and I was never led to believe anything other than that when I was corresponding with him and Fiona during the compilation of the Babylon 5 Historical Database
 
Huh! Thanks, b5historyman. I hadn't seen those comments from jms (if it wasn't on the Lurker's Guide, I probably haven't seen it). My friends and I had long suspected a Shadow connection with the Dilgar, based on Deathwalker's philosophy, the forward leap in her tech, and the fact that the Vorlons appear to fire a warning shot right before they frag Deathwalker's ship. A warning to who? Probably whoever the Shadows had escorting Deathwalker.


It's funny, though. In one way, I'm pleased that my friends were right. In another, it feels like the B5 universe is now slightly smaller. One fewer mystery...

That whole "warning shot" thing, is just fan myth and people are making something out of nothing. To wit, an organic vessel jumps out of hyperspace possibly slightly disorientated from the energies of the jump point, has no firing resolution and takes a wild shot then locks on and destroys Jha'dur's flyer.
 
What? Millions of years of evolution and the Vorlons haven't a) dealt with that problem or b) learned not to shoot at random? It actually makes less sense than a covert Shadow/Drakh/somebody else escort.

I have no doubt jms said as much somewhere -- you seem to have much more access and resources than I do -- but this is one of those places where I have to say he's entitled to be stupid about his own show. I had a similar moment when he said that Sheridan was "the one who is already dead" that Londo must not kill, when Morden is such a vastly better candidate.
 
What? Millions of years of evolution and the Vorlons haven't a) dealt with that problem or b) learned not to shoot at random? It actually makes less sense than a covert Shadow/Drakh/somebody else escort.

I have no doubt jms said as much somewhere -- you seem to have much more access and resources than I do -- but this is one of those places where I have to say he's entitled to be stupid about his own show. I had a similar moment when he said that Sheridan was "the one who is already dead" that Londo must not kill, when Morden is such a vastly better candidate.

There wouldn't be any kind of Shadow/Allies escort, Jha'dur came straight from Minbar. Why would the Shadows allies be bothered with someone who, to all intents and purposes was dead?

We can speculate as much but the facts are the first shot just missed but got it's target on the second.
 
There wouldn't be any kind of Shadow/Allies escort, Jha'dur came straight from Minbar. Why would the Shadows allies be bothered with someone who, to all intents and purposes was dead?

We can speculate as much but the facts are the first shot just missed but got it's target on the second.

I myself have only recently heard the warning shot theory and I certainly WISH it were true. That doesn't make it true. I do feel like it would make more sense for that random shot to not be random. And I think the Shadows would definitely be interested in Jha'dur once they knew she was alive, which we know they likely would have known once it became public knowledge on B5 or any other planet, especially Earth. That being said I don't know why the Shadows would just take a warning shot and not see it as provocation for a direct conflict. One could argue they were playing it safe.

Anyway I love the conversation and I definitely think it would be more interesting if it really were a warning shot, but with most cases involving my wishes for Babylon 5 those wishes don't always make for reality. :LOL: Unless someone knows a quote from the show that proves the Shadows were there or JMS admits there was an original intention that we find out later the Shadows were there then it wasn't a warning shot.
 
Re: How does one poison a being capable of passing through material obstacles, or leaving part of themselves, capable in some way of functioning, into another creature's mind?

Well, maybe the answer is: "how does one shatter vapour with a hammer"? Maybe by waiting until it turns to water and then freezes.

My preferred way of resolving this apparent contradiction is to think that Vorlons could undergo a "phase change" from one form to another. Kosh might have used a more vulnerable form of existence out of habit, out of trust (after all, he knew Sinclair, just not the other way around), maybe for ceremonial reasons, or because he knew he would... kind of difficult to tell...

...but it makes enough sense for me. If you go to open an embassy, you don't burst out of your ship in the most defensible or dangerous form you can take. :)

------

Kind of reminds me of when I still used to write fanfic. :) I had to figure out for myself how to explain the Shadows. And I settled for the explanation that they were just information, pretty much programs of their own making... but a program needs a computer to run on. The same program inhabiting a fair-weather body might have one set of abilities... moving into a massive ship, it would gain different properties... falling out of normal space into hyperspace, or maybe further, it would change yet again... and in some forms it would be vulnerable to attacks, while in a condition of being distributed between different substrates, part in normal space and part elsewhere... it would be very difficult to harm. Except by poison: corrupted information. For which reason it might want to encrypt its memory, randomize its address space and split into multiple processes which check each other's liveness and functioning... which would eventually lead to an individual resembling a mini-society of countless modules (some capable of splitting off and some also rejoining later), just like multi-celled creatures are composed of cells.
 
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Re: How does one poison a being capable of passing through material obstacles, or leaving part of themselves, capable in some way of functioning, into another creature's mind?

Well, maybe the answer is: "how does one shatter vapour with a hammer"? Maybe by waiting until it turns to water and then freezes.

My preferred way of resolving this apparent contradiction is to think that Vorlons could undergo a "phase change" from one form to another. Kosh might have used a more vulnerable form of existence out of habit, out of trust (after all, he knew Sinclair, just not the other way around), maybe for ceremonial reasons, or because he knew he would... kind of difficult to tell...

...but it makes enough sense for me. If you go to open an embassy, you don't burst out of your ship in the most defensible or dangerous form you can take. :)

------

Kind of reminds me of when I still used to write fanfic. :) I had to figure out for myself how to explain the Shadows. And I settled for the explanation that they were just information, pretty much programs of their own making... but a program needs a computer to run on. The same program inhabiting a fair-weather body might have one set of abilities... moving into a massive ship, it would gain different properties... falling out of normal space into hyperspace, or maybe further, it would change yet again... and in some forms it would be vulnerable to attacks, while in a condition of being distributed between different substrates, part in normal space and part elsewhere... it would be very difficult to harm. Except by poison: corrupted information. For which reason it might want to encrypt its memory, randomize its address space and split into multiple processes which check each other's liveness and functioning... which would eventually lead to an individual resembling a mini-society of countless modules (some capable of splitting off and some also rejoining later), just like multi-celled creatures are composed of cells.

Joe has said the Vorlons are physical beings, I've posted links upthread. There's NOTHING in the canon to say they are energy beings. It's fan supposition nothing more.

http://www.jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-7422&query=poisoning

This explains the reasons for the attempt on Kosh's life from Joe's post on GEnie

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!search/Dilgar$20museum%7Csort:relevance/rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated/CQfnYONJn2U/44hNPGDTNQEJ
 
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Well, everything is physical.. including stuff we don't know about. :) And these critters sure seem to be at the far end of physical...

...especially when angered. That's the point where I recall the assassination of the second Vorlon ambassador by B5 staff, at the point when open war with weapons of mass destruction was already being waged...

...and Lorien, who most likely was competent in the matter, described the being that finally confronted Ulkesh... as some of himself and some of Kosh (who was quite dead by average humanoid standards by that point). In that fight, neither Ulkesh nor the creature that fought it seemed to respect the idea of not passing through walls, treating solid matter as a barrier and generally "behaving like a nice material creature".

So I think JMS was stretching the meaning of "physical" to hold the story together. :) I'd say the Vorlons were no ordinary matter, but quite exotic at the very least. A poison to kill a Vorlon would likely come from those who were acquainted with fighting them. That leaves to me a handful of possible makers, with only one species having the obvious motivation. Whether they made it or gave the necessary background knowledge... who knows.
 
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Well, everything is physical.. including stuff we don't know about. :) And these critters sure seem to be at the far end of physical...

...especially when angered. That's the point where I recall the assassination of the second Vorlon ambassador by B5 staff, at the point when open war with weapons of mass destruction was already being waged...

...and Lorien, who most likely was competent in the matter, described the being that finally confronted Ulkesh... as some of himself and some of Kosh (who was quite dead by average humanoid standards by that point). In that fight, neither Ulkesh nor the creature that fought it seemed to respect the idea of not passing through walls, treating solid matter as a barrier and generally "behaving like a nice material creature".

So I think JMS was stretching the meaning of "physical" to hold the story together. :) I'd say the Vorlons were no ordinary matter, but quite exotic at the very least. A poison to kill a Vorlon would likely come from those who were acquainted with fighting them. That leaves to me a handful of possible makers, with only one species having the obvious motivation. Whether they made it or gave the necessary background knowledge... who knows.

I posted previously as to where the Wind Swords got the poison from and where Jha'dur got the poison from to give to them.

Regarding the Vorlons, yes they're phsyical. But like ALL living things there is also energy. Both times Vorlons were killed there was an energy discharge that destroyed their physical bodies. There was no body in Kosh's quarters and we do not see any remains of Ulkesh either. The Kosh/Lorien hybrid obviously destroyed Ulkesh's physical form causing the immense energy charge that runs the exterior of the station into Ulkesh's vessel.
 
Going back to the Wind Swords, am I missing why we never heard anything about the Vorlons being upset with them? If all of this is true then Deathwalker was an acting Shadow agent being protected by a Minbari Clan who plotted to assassinate a Vorlon. Pretty HUGE deal! Did I miss where it was discussed why the Vorlon's didn't go after the Wind Swords? If it is in one of the novels don't tell me. Just tell me to read the books already. :guffaw: ;)
 
Going back to the Wind Swords, am I missing why we never heard anything about the Vorlons being upset with them? If all of this is true then Deathwalker was an acting Shadow agent being protected by a Minbari Clan who plotted to assassinate a Vorlon. Pretty HUGE deal! Did I miss where it was discussed why the Vorlon's didn't go after the Wind Swords? If it is in one of the novels don't tell me. Just tell me to read the books already. :guffaw: ;)

1. The extremist elements in the Wind Swords were intent on disrupting the Babylon Project by framing Sinclair for the attempt on Kosh's life.

2. Jha'dur gave them the means to poison Kosh, no one apart from some of the Council knew she was even hidden on Minbar.

3. The Vorlons would have taken Sinclair back to the Vorlon Homeworld, to investigate whether he ws a Shadow agent as it could have only been an ally of the Shadows who knew how to kill a Vorlon.

4. Delenn clearly identified the responsible parties as an "extremist element" within the Wind Swords opposed to the Babylon Project. Not the entire Clan, so those elements would have no doubt been routed out and punished accordingly. Whether that came at the hand/tentacle of Ulkesh and the rest of the Vorlon Empire or whether they were incarcerated.

5. The fact that the Vorlons were still working with the Minbari, suggests a suitable form of punishment was agreed for both parties and the matter quietly dropped.
 
1. The extremist elements in the Wind Swords were intent on disrupting the Babylon Project by framing Sinclair for the attempt on Kosh's life.

2. Jha'dur gave them the means to poison Kosh, no one apart from some of the Council knew she was even hidden on Minbar.

3. The Vorlons would have taken Sinclair back to the Vorlon Homeworld, to investigate whether he ws a Shadow agent as it could have only been an ally of the Shadows who knew how to kill a Vorlon.

4. Delenn clearly identified the responsible parties as an "extremist element" within the Wind Swords opposed to the Babylon Project. Not the entire Clan, so those elements would have no doubt been routed out and punished accordingly. Whether that came at the hand/tentacle of Ulkesh and the rest of the Vorlon Empire or whether they were incarcerated.

5. The fact that the Vorlons were still working with the Minbari, suggests a suitable form of punishment was agreed for both parties and the matter quietly dropped.

Yep. There is some cool reading between the lines. Talk about a show within a show, aka there could be an entire show devoted to the stuff like this that likely should have happened, but we didn't actually see it on screen. ;)
 
In one of the Technomage novels, someone thinks (maybe Kosh?) about how the Shadows have evolved to the same extent that the Vorlons have, that they are energy beings, but still prefer to use physical bodies. I haven't read those books in a while, so I can't tell you which book or page, or the exact quote. I think that trilogy is considered 'mostly canon' or something along those lines.

I hadn't heard about those JMS posts on the assassination details, I'll check them out, thanks! I also mainly rely on the Lurker's Guide for such insights. That page is so great.

I find it kind of funny that I even brought all this up. I don't really enjoy The Gathering all that much, although I did enjoy some of the performances, and Stewart Copeland's soundtrack. JMS said that it was filmed using a five year old script, and clearly the story went in different directions once the series began. They largely moved away from the sinister Minbari Warrior Caste stories, with a few notable exceptions. But we never even saw a Wind Sword after The Gathering, either on-screen or in the books or comics, as far as I know. Yet another thing I always liked about B5, JMS' willingness to jettison plot lines in favor of more interesting ones he came up with along the way. The flexibility of his storytelling is really impressive. But I also like how the ongoing tensions, suspicions and resentment from the Earth-Minbari War never disappeared. For much of my childhood, the bitterness over the Vietnam War cast such a shadow over the United States, and it does take time to move on. It was refreshing to see such depth in a war story on a television science fiction series, I think exploring the psychological aftermath of a conflict was almost unheard of at the time.

Raw Shark

"The only good bug is a dead bug!"
- Some angry guy (who's made a lot of great films)

I've nearly finished my umpteenth read through of the techno-mage trilogy and have yet to see any statement to that effect. Besides Joe has said the Vorlons are physical beings and I was never led to believe anything other than that when I was corresponding with him and Fiona during the compilation of the Babylon 5 Historical Database

B5historyman, thanks for the link confirming a Shadow-Dilgar connection! I had no idea JMS had ever addressed the matter. I am truly hoping to learn more about the Dilgar and their Shadow connections, in whatever form. I’d love to learn more details about many hidden aspects of the Babylon 5 universe, and I’m hoping they will not be kept secret forever.



As for what I paraphrased from the Technomage trilogy, check out book 3, chapter 1, page 7:



The context of the scene is that Kosh is thinking to himself in his quarters aboard Babylon 5, during the episode ‘Interludes and Examinations,’ after he has sent a Vorlon fleet to attack the Shadows directly in Brakiri space. Morden and his three Shadow escorts are coming to kill him, for violating the terms of the Vorlon-Shadow agreement that has governed the conduct of their great proxy wars for eons. Kosh accepts that there is a price to pay for his actions, and he has resolved to pay it.


“The door to his residence slid open, and the enemy entered. They too were creatures of light, yet they preferred a more material form, encasing themselves in jagged carapaces of blackness, adopting outer shapes that reflected the inner truth of their beings.”



I didn’t read the Technomage books umpteen times, just once, a decade ago. But I took notes.



Raw Shark


"Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts."
- Winston Churchill
 
Vorlons and Shadows are beings of light, by virtue of their natural luminescence. They both wear encounter suits but do not look the same out of them.

http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-11744&query=Encounter%20suits
http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-10395


Vorlons masquerade as "beings of light" as in higher beings from the cultures they have tampered with.



http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-14860&query=Angelic
http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-15168&query=Beings%20of%20light

Vorlons and Shadows are most definitely NOT beings of pure energy. They are physical beings. This is where the confusion arises when people equate beings of energy to beings of light.

http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-10284
http://jmsnews.com/msg.aspx?id=1-10270

I've had this discussion so many times, I confuse myself sometimes as I tend to carry a lot of this around in my head ! :-\

Much apologisings for the confoosion (In best Zathras voice) :D
 
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