• The new B5TV.COM is here. We've replaced our 16 year old software with flashy new XenForo install. Registration is open again. Password resets will work again. More info here.

Kosh and Lyta

RW7427

Super Moderator
I have a question. I never really thought about this until the last time I watched Divided Loyalties. I will make some spoiler space here in case not everyone has seen this ep.

S
P
O
I
L
E
R

S
P
A
C
E

Okay, my question is this: Lyta goes to Kosh's quarters and asks him if she can see him again. Now, of course, she saw him when she scanned him in The Gathering, so she could help find out what it was that the Minbari assassin had poisoned him with. So, he shows himself to her in Divided Loyalties. When he does, just what does she see? Does she see him in his angel form that he shows everyone at the end of season 2 when he saves Sheridan's life, or does he show himself as the creature we see battling Ulkesh in season 4's Falling Toward Apotheosis? When he appears as an angel, you hear like a whooshing sound like a bedsheet flapping in the wind. You hear that same sound when he shows himself to Lyta, so that makes me wonder if she saw him in that angel form or if she saw him like he was in Apotheosis.

Anyone have any ideas? I'd like to hear them!
 
Angel form.

They ALWAYS use that form for others, as they want us to react in a favorable way to it. The only reason Kosh #2 was seen in the other form in the episode Falling Toward Apothesis (sp) was because he was a bit "distracted" with doing battle with Kosh #1 and taking all kinds of fire from the B5 Security teams. He had to focus on the immediate danger and couldnt project the false image of the Angelic form to everyone present.

I assume the flapping noise you here when Delenn and Lyta see Kosh is his "wings."
 
Yeah, that was my guess too, but what about when he was unconscious or whatever during the scan in The Gathering? What did she see then?
 
I would have to assume the Angelic form, only because its CLEAR that is the form the Doctor saw (from his comments at the end of the episode). Perhaps, even with Kosh in his coma, he was cogniscent of the fact that his encounter suit was about to be breached and was able to use what little strength he had to put up his little disguise of sorts.
 
But if you were dying, would you worry about how you looked? That's like saying,"Oh my God, I have a hair out of place" in the middle of a heart attack. /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif
 
I don't think that Vorlons have to exert themselves overly much to appear holy. It may not even be a conscious effort. I mean half of the matter is already taken care of by what an individual was racially programmed to see by the Vorlons generations ago. They probably have a default state like a Vorlon poker-face that is translated to holy something by the onlooker. Unless the onlooker wasn't programmed, like the Centauri, in which case he or she will see nothing.

In Falling Towards Apotheosis, Kosh and Kosh-the-Sequel were driven out of that default poker-face state by the emotions involved in combat and betrayal by one's own kind ie. them's were pissed. Besides, seeing as the humans present were shooting at it, it doesn't take a Vorlon to figure out that the old look!-it's-angel trick is not gonna work.
 
I'd be distracted enough not to come off like a bumbling idiot in the presence of the gorgeous Lyta Alexander to show myself as an angel. ;-)
 
I don't think that Vorlons have to exert themselves overly much to appear holy.

But in the episode later during the series, Kosh explains his not being around much by saying it was a strain to be seen by so many at once.

I gathered that meant that appearing angelic as a bit of a strain, and this became much, much worse when maginfied by so many witnesses (and from so many different races/backgrounds).

Just speculation on my part, though.
 
It was even worse than Kosh maintaining his angle form. Kosh took over Lyta's P5 mind. This meant that she could not say what she had seen other than the meeting with the fake Sinclair. Kosh also inserted blocks into Lyta's mind such that the Psi Cops P12 back on Earth were unable to extract additional information. Lyta had a compulsion inserted into her mind such that she wanted to go to the Vorlon Homeworld.

This is a lot for a dieing entity; unless that entity prepared it in advance. This suggests that "The Gathering" was a test of Babylon 5 organized by the Vorlons.
 
Dying slowly by poison is not anything like having a heart attack, so I don't think that analogy fits. It seems that the poison had a physical effect on Kosh, probably slowly shutting down his organs one by one, much like what the nastier variants of e. coli do to Humans. So while he was incapacitated and unable to move or communicate, his mind may have been fairly clear, making it easy to both fool Lyta and infiltrate her mind - if that is what happened - even while he was slowly dying.

This idea has the added advantage of not requiring a hypothesis like Vorlon foreknowledge of the event, or some sort of complicity in Kosh's plight. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif I'm not sure where you're getting your information on exactly what happened to Lyta at this point, Andrew. The compulsion to see the Vorlon homeworld may have been nothing more than a by-product of her contact with Kosh.

As for how much of a strain creating the illusion is - Kosh didn't say it was a worse strain than normal to be seen by so many - he just said it was a strain. I think it is just as likely that appearing to one or two members of a single species is no strain at all, and that only an event like the garden appearance is a problem. I found it a strain to deal with 100 or more customers on a busy night in the bookstore, often with 20 of them making demands on me at the same time, but it doesn't follow that working in the store was always a strain. On dead nights when we did no business it was quite relaxing, since all I had to do was dust, mop and read. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Regards,

Joe
 
But in the episode later during the series, Kosh explains his not being around much by saying it was a strain to be seen by so many at once.

So it said. Personally, I've always been suspicious of Vorlons bearing explanations /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif They did have their own agenda -- even Papa Kosh -- and giving away truthes wasn't part of it.
 
Joe DM, the simple answer is that Lyta said so in "Divided Loyalties". She was recalled back to Earth and questioned about what she had seen. I am guessing that the "questioning" includes a scan, failling to scan someone who claims not to remember would be out of character for Psi Corps.

Here is the Galactic Gateway's write up of the episode.
http://www.thegalacticgateway.com/episodes/041.htm
and the Lurkers Guide
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries/us/guide/041.html

The other pressure on Lyta will have come down from her Grandmother, as described in the first of the telepath books.
 
Hmm good question my thought angel cause the vorlons don't want there true id known at least not yet when Divided Loyalties aired.At least that's my opinion.
 
As for how much of a strain creating the illusion is - Kosh didn't say it was a worse strain than normal to be seen by so many - he just said it was a strain. I think it is just as likely that appearing to one or two members of a single species is no strain at all, and that only an event like the garden appearance is a problem.

Kosh could have been seen by up to a quarter of a million sentients, each one of which would have to be sent a seperate signal.
 
There weren't 250,000 sentients in the Garden, it isn't that big. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif And it isn't like the event was being carried live on ISN so the only people with a direct view of the Garden, not the 10,000 of thousands living and working elsewhere in the station, would see what was happening. Don't forget, you'd have to be pretty damned close to have any clear idea what you were even looking at. The folks with the best view were the few dozen close enough to see Kosh take off and land. Someone standing on the opposite "floor" of the station would see nothing, or perhaps a strange light.

Regards,

Joe
 
The Zen Garden is near the border between Red and Green Sectors. So, depending on the height, large areas of Red Sector may have been able to see the light.
 
Yah, but they'd likely just see light. If they didn't know that it was Kosh, there would be no reason for him to dictate what theyw ere seeing.
 
Kosh may want to be seen to show that Sheridan was the chosen leader of the Army of Light. This would make it a lot easier for Sheridan to get the aliens to follow him.
 
(A) Kosh didn't want to be seen at all. Delenn had to beg him to help, and even then he waited until the last possible second. (B) Kosh didn't need to make a spectacle of himself to large numbers of people in order to encourage the alien governments to support Sheridan. The alien ambassadors were all gathered in the Garden to hear Sheridan deliver his apology. The ambassadors are the one who count in getting their governments to support Sheridan. Showing them what is in Kosh's encounter suit was all that was needed to acheive the goal you suggest.

The Garden may be near Red sector, but that doesn't mean all of Red sector has some kind of giant window that looks into the Garden. Most of B5's many levels are nowhere near the central core, and few have any way of looking "up" into it. And you'd have to be looking straight up (as the folks in the Garden were) to see anything.

Regards,

Joe
 

Latest posts

Members online

No members online now.
Back
Top