EpDis: In The Beginning

[Jade Jaguar]

Well, yes, it had been going on before him, but it was still on-going when he was alive. So, although they had antagonized his race in the "distant past," they had also done it until recently. The memories were fresh enough to G'Kar.

[Elipsis]

It went on for 100 years, didn't it?

[GKarsEye]

Re-watched this last night. Something bothered me: Delenn regrets the war with humans shortly after it starts and wants to stop it but can't because the Grey Council wouldn't agree. At the same time they don't act against the Shadows because they don't know that the Vorlons initiated contact with any Minbari.

Why didn't Delenn just show the Grey Council that Vorlons were there? Yeah, the Vorlons move secretly and slowly, I get it, but if the Vorlons and Delenn and the Rangers, or at least their leader, new the humans were necessary to fight the Shadows, that wasn't important enough to show the Council that Vorlons were there?

Sure it would have looked odd to stop the war suddenly, but that's what happened anyway at the line.

[Jan]

As we learned though, the Rangers at that time weren't powerful and were underfunded, barely being maintained at all out of respect for their history. We don't know why the Vorlons wouldn't allow Dukhat or Delenn to reveal their presence but Delenn, as the junior member and Lenonn of the unpopular Anla-Shok were definitely not powerful enough to sway the Grey Council.

Jan

[fisheggs]

The Vorlons also "knew" that B4 and Valen were integral to stopping the earlier Shadow war.

[GKarsEye]

Originally Posted by Jan

As we learned though, the Rangers at that time weren't powerful and were underfunded, barely being maintained at all out of respect for their history. We don't know why the Vorlons wouldn't allow Dukhat or Delenn to reveal their presence but Delenn, as the junior member and Lenonn of the unpopular Anla-Shok were definitely not powerful enough to sway the Grey Council.

Jan

Right but the reputation of Lenonn and/or the Rangers or any of that stuff wouldn't matter if the Council just saw the Vorlons. One of them pretty much said that exact thing when Lenonn tried to convince them to prepare for the Shadows: show us a Vorlon and we'll believe you. Of course the whole time Dukhat was actually dealing w/ Vorlons.

Eh... I guess Valen must've told the Vorlons to do exactly what they did, let the Earth-Minbari war proceed and the Battle of the Line happen, etc. He probably told them the war would happen so the Vorlons were totally comfortably with the near extinction of the key race needed to defeat the Shadows.

[Sindatur]

Originally Posted by GKarsEye

Right but the reputation of Lenonn and/or the Rangers or any of that stuff wouldn't matter if the Council just saw the Vorlons. One of them pretty much said that exact thing when Lenonn tried to convince them to prepare for the Shadows: show us a Vorlon and we'll believe you. Of course the whole time Dukhat was actually dealing w/ Vorlons.

Eh... I guess Valen must've told the Vorlons to do exactly what they did, let the Earth-Minbari war proceed and the Battle of the Line happen, etc. He probably told them the war would happen so the Vorlons were totally comfortably with the near extinction of the key race needed to defeat the Shadows.

I think that's exactly it, the war needed to happen, in order for Delenn to become the person she became, and the war needed to happen in order to put Sinclair in the position to be a Minbari (mentally) and to ultimately become Valen.

[A_M_Swallow]

Without the Earth-Minbari War the Babylon stations would not have been built.

[Galahad]

I don't disagree but it's interesting to not the conflict in Sinclair/Valen on this issue.

He knows it is necessary yet still takes action to divert it on at least one occasion... (in a sequence in the comic "In Valen's Name", Valen tries to pass on a written message for Delenn in the future that will prevent the war... and is silently scolded by one of the vorlons).

I kind of wonder who played the stronger role there... Valen or the vorlons?

Kosh had touched Sinclair's mind and probably knew his memories. If the vorlons shared information telepathically, it may have been they who insisted on sticking to history.

Heck it slides nicely in with the whole "order above all" agenda.

Perhaps the vorlons don't subscribe to branch theory... or perhaps they "fear" it because it leads to an unpredictable more chaotic future (by which i mean thgat events cannot be predicted or controlled).

[GKarsEye]

I suppose it would be the case that, unlike Sheridan and eventually Delenn, Sinclair never came to the conclusion that the Vorlons could be as much of a problem as the Shadows and never lost the conviction that they must be obeyed.