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Shadows and Time Travel

dmezynski

New member
The Vorlons had the technology (or knew who had the technology) to pull B4 across time and send people back in time. What would prevent the Shadows from doing the same, unless they didn't have the technology to do so?

Was this addressed at some point? I searched the site and the web but didn't see anything.
 
Not sure it was ever addressed.

Interestingly enough, they never really addressed WHO created the Great Machine. I think everyone assumes it was the Vorlons, but it was never established. So we don't know for certain that the Vorlons were able to acheive Time Travel, let alone the Shadows.
 
Nobody had time travel technology per se. Nobody could just build a time machine and hop around the centuries at will. What somebody (presumably the Vorlons, but as Recoil points out, even that is unclear) developed was technology to control the temporarl Rift in sector 14 - which was a natural phenomenon. (And similar rifts, one assumes, unless the sector 14 object was unique, which is possible.) Absent the rift, time travel would be impossible for anybody.

Regards,

Joe
 
The way I understood it, Varn's people created the Great Machine some 500 years before B5 came online.

I don't think the vorlons invented time travel, I think they were aware of the properties of the rift in Sector 14... and probably knew of other rifts that weren't essential to the spot in B5.

All the technology that was used in transporting B4 and the White Star back and forth seemed to originate from the Great Machine. Perhaps Varn's people themselves had left the present through the rift which they may have used like a jump gate to explore time and space... which could be why the technology was created in the first place. They had obviously tried enough times to make sure the equipment worked.
 
Well Varn's people were "caretakers" of the Great Machine, but I don't think it was ever said that they built it.

Even so, its still plausible to believe that the Vorlons, being the great puppetmasters they are, manipulated whoever did build the machine, and pulled strings to ensure that B4 would be built there, so they could use it to suit their purposes in the Shadow War.

Still, all conjecture though, again, I don't think any of this was ever directly said.
 
The way I understood it, Varn's people created the Great Machine some 500 years before B5 came online.

Everybody says this, but I could swear that Varn said he has been the caretaker of the GM for the past 500 years, not that it was built that long ago, nor do I recall his ever stating that his people built the thing. I'll have to watch the episodes again this weekend - and take notes this time. :)

Regards,

Joe
 
The way I understood it, Varn's people created the Great Machine some 500 years before B5 came online.

Everybody says this, but I could swear that Varn said he has been the caretaker of the GM for the past 500 years, not that it was built that long ago, nor do I recall his ever stating that his people built the thing. I'll have to watch the episodes again this weekend - and take notes this time. :)

Regards,

Joe

I'll be getting to that episode myself as I'm watching season 1 again at present albeit on humble vhs.

I think I read that Varn's people made it in the timeline that was published in the B5 magazine as well.
 
I wonder if the presence of the Great Machine was why that sector of space ended up between the great empires of the galaxy and apparently never claimed by anyone.?

It would be no problem for the Great Machine to make Minbari, Human, Narn, Centauri, Vorlon.........probes, ships, etc. to "disappear" mysteriously.
 
Well, I think even the Great Machine might have had trouble with the Vorlons. And the Vorlons may have been involved in its construction somehow. But the lesser races might very well have steered clear for a bit.
 
Weren't the aliens who attempted to take control of the Great Machine (in the episode where it was introduced) supposed to be related in some way to the Machines creators? Though they didn't build it themselve?

They didn't bring to mind any Vorlons.
 
They didn't bring to mind any Vorlons.

I imagine few, if any, in the Grey Council realized that Dukhat was heavily under the influence of two Vorlons. If the Vorlons worked so behind the scenes with Dukhat in beginning to prepare for the coming Shadow War, what makes you think they'd be blatantly open working with heads of Varn's people when it came to the building of the Great Machine?
 
Since we don't who built the GM or when, that leaves room for our minds to play, and I like the idea of the Vorlons helping Zathrases and the Varns to build the GM, maybe because the Varns happened to live near the sector of space that would suit the rift best and they already had sufficient technological capability that only required a little push from the Vorlons (like they did for the Minbari with the whitestars). Maybe the Vorlons convinced the Varns that it was for the greater good, and maybe they even sent Sebastian to interrogate some great Varn leader.

I see an awesome fanfic brewing...
 
I wonder if the presence of the Great Machine was why that sector of space ended up between the great empires of the galaxy and apparently never claimed by anyone.?

Maybe it wasn't worth claiming. There are no planets in the area of the Rift at sector 14. In the Epsilon system itself there are three planets, only one of which we see. That's Epsilon 3, a planet not only uninhabited (as far as anyone knows), but uninhabitable, since it lacks a breathable atmosphere. Epsilon 1 and Epsilon 2 must be just as bad, since otherwise it would have made more sense to put the station in orbit around one of them to provide an emergency evactuation site where people could survive while awaiting rescue. Most governments would probably want to establish their space "borders" at a point sufficiently far from their actual colonies and population centers to form a buffer zone, so it makes sense that an area at the metting place of several borders would be about the most worthless and barren chunk of space imaginable.

Regards,

Joe
 
There are several things I’ve been reading about the Great Machine ever since I discovered Babylon 5

1. The Great Machine was built 500 years ago
2. Possibly by the Vorlons
3. More likely by Varn’s people
4. For reasons unknown


In addition, some people have suggested that the alien intruders in the episode are a race unrelated to Varn’s people and that they may have built the GM.

I just watched “AVitW Part 2”, taking notes and transcribing dialogue and I can say that all of the above (except for the possibility that the Vorlons built the thing) is hooey.

Intruder: “We have been 500 years searching for this place. We received its call signal. This world belongs to us. We are last of our people. Searched 500 years. We will take.”

When asked by Sinclair if the Epsilon 3 belongs to the intruder, Varn says:

“No. Outcasts. Violent. My people cast them out centuries ago. Signal was not meant for them. Was put there to hide from them. Given to me when the rest of my people died. Sacred trust. Legacy for the future. I am guardian. Protector. I live in he heart of the machine. We are one. Five hundred of your years have I waited in the Machine. “

Some people seem to take Varn’s words about “my people” casting the others out to indicate that they are different species. But the intruders are clearly just a renegade group that was driven away by the majority. (I suspect they wanted to take and use the GM for their own purposes, instead of merely holding it in trust for the future. Since they have been searching through space for their home planet, they must have been taken elsewhere and abandoned without technology or navigational aids.)

There is nothing to suggest that the Great Machine is 500 years old. In fact all the evidence in the show is that it must be older than that, probably considerably older. Consider, Varn says “my people” cast out the others “centuries ago”. So his people were still alive when the intruders were expelled. At some time later they died out, leaving Varn as the final guardian, as post he has held for 500 years. How long did it take Varn’s people to die out? 50 years? 100? 500? How long for the others to start searching for the place again? (If they were dumped on some uninhabited and isolated planet it might have taken them a couple of hundred years to develop spaceflight again.)

One thing that the Intruders don’t suggest is that they once had the technology to build the Great Machine at least 500 years ago plus whatever advances they would have come up with in the interim. If anything they should have been more powerful than B5 and an Earth ship, and they should have stood up better to the weapons of the Great Machine.

Nothing in either episode suggests anything about who built the Great Machine. The intruders claim that the planet and its secrets belong to them, but that isn’t the same thing as saying they built the Machine. Varn never makes such a claim. And Draal never says anything about who built it or why.

Finally it is clear that Varn’s people are not native to the planet. He can’t breathe the atmosphere any more than Draal or Londo can. Whoever built the GM must have brought Varn’s people to Epsilon 3 to act as caretakers – and that same somebody probably arranged for the Outcasts to be taken elsewhere when they became a problem.

The Vorlons are certainly excellent candidates. I suspect they started building the GM shortly after the end of Valen’s Shadow War, basing their work and the location on things that Valen had told them. The Machine’s primary purpose was always to manipulate the time rift in Sector 14 in order to send B4 back in tim. The Vorlons probably moved Varn’s people to the planet as soon as it was completed. 500 years later a schism threatened their plans and they moved the dissidents far away – but they didn’t exterminate them, because they knew they would have to come back in 500 years in order to play their part in the events that placed Draal at the heart of the machine.

And we still have no idea where the brothers Zathras came from.

Regards,

Joe
 
Some people seem to take Varn’s words about “my people” casting the others out to indicate that they are different species.

Anyway, it says clearly in the script that Takarn is of the same race as Varn.

Joe, it's much easier transcribing from the script books... :p

Jan
 
I have trouble with tieing the Vorlons and/or Shadows to EVERY thing in the B-5 universe.

This isn't tying them into "everything". It is obvious that the primary function of the Great Machine was to take B4 and Valen back in time. The only people who could have arranged this are the Vorlons. (That this was its primary purpose and that the trip was originaly conceived as coming at the end of the series is evident from the fact that the GM becomes a rarely-mentioned embarassment after "War Without End' and JMS has to keep explaining why it isn't being used to fans on the newsgroup for the last half of the show's run.)

Regards,

Joe
 
Some people seem to take Varn’s words about “my people” casting the others out to indicate that they are different species.

Anyway, it says clearly in the script that Takarn is of the same race as Varn.

Joe, it's much easier transcribing from the script books... :p

Jan

I didn't realize that there were people who thought that Varn and the Outcasts were two different species. :eek: It's always seemed rather apparent to me that they were the same.
 

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