If you could create your own B5 spinoff...

Jan said:

I think for years that it was. JMS mentioned zigging and zagging the story to accommodate TMoS, for instance. Chances are, the contract simply expired.

Jan

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He told me in no uncertain terms that we'd never see TMoS in book or comic form.

I worked out more details on my hypothetical B5 spinoff, if anyone wants to hear it.

Sorry if I was unclear; I didn't mean to imply that any part of TMoS was part of the comic. What I meant was that events in the comic might be changed depending on decisions he made about what happened in TMoS which, as he said, went through many revisions.

Jan

Jan said:

Sorry if I was unclear; I didn't mean to imply that any part of TMoS was part of the comic. What I meant was that events in the comic might be changed depending on decisions he made about what happened in TMoS which, as he said, went through many revisions.

Jan

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No, I understood you. You just said that its contents were somewhat dependent upon TMoS. Since TMoS is unquestionably dead, it follows that the hypothetical comic that deliberately avoided touching on it is dead as well. I didn't make that clear. My bad.

I would like to read some of your spin-off ideas. Not sure if you want to post them or send them privately, either way.

Raw Shark

"Actually Mr. President, that wasn't a bunker, it was a hospital. But it was a hell of a strike."
Rip Torn, Canadian Bacon

Raw Shark said:

I would like to read some of your spin-off ideas. Not sure if you want to post them or send them privately, either way.

Raw Shark

"Actually Mr. President, that wasn't a bunker, it was a hospital. But it was a hell of a strike."
Rip Torn, Canadian Bacon

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What can it hurt? It's not like anyone's gonna' make it.

B5 spinoff idea
Version 65.0
110 episodes, 22/season. 11 eps = 1 year, so the series would take five real-world years, but cover 2263-2273, allowing us to resolve all the dangling threads
The Series is basically knights of the round table, a new not-quite-rangers group we'll call "The Chamber" until I come up with something less goofy. There are seven lead characters. "Leader," Sheridan, Delenn, Lyta, a minbari ranger, a human ranger, and a narn ranger.
1st season features all seven characters integrally in every episode, iwht "Leader" in charge. He's a wizened old sage character, whom - for "Chamber" missions, anyway, Sheridan happily submits to in authority. Series starts out without explanation, the Chamber is just there, and no one questions it, though we're told it's new, we're not given any backstory on how it came to be.

1st block of 11 eps stars "Leader," front and center in every ep. 2nd block of 11 episodes stars Sheridan front and center in every episode. Emphasis is on swashbucking fun and adventure. in the season cliffhanger, Lyta goes rogue (We knew that was coming) and "Leader" is killed.the Chamber doesn't know she's gone rogue, however, and as the Telepath war starts in season 2, the format changes slightly: Instead of all the characters all the time, there's more teamups. We rotate through the characters ABCD, AEF, AG, AHB, ACDE, etc. A new main character is introduced to replace "Leader," but he's just a low ranking ranger (David Martel?)

Delenn takes the role of the new "Leader", and Sheridan has kind of lost heart for the whole thing, and increasingly concerns himself with presidential matters, less running around like the young arthur.

1st 11 episodes star Delenn front and center and of course they don't realize what Lyta is up to.
2nd batch of 11 eps for the season star Lyta, and the Telepath war, which culminates with her dying, and her side winning

Season 3 introduces Galen as a new character to replace Lyta, and the first 11 star the human ranger, who's a kind of smart ass-kicker. (I should also mention that Sheridan is shaken by how the war turned out, and he's only a recuring character from the start of season 3 on out.) format changes in the 2-part mid-season ep, and we go to something like a Justice League Unlimited format, where we rotate through our main characters, but they're teamed up with a new recurring character in most episodes.

Season 3 is also the "Crusade" season, and starts out with the Drakh attack on earth, as seen through other eyes. 3 eps this season will be the unfilmed Crusade episodes, and episode 10 will be the one that was intended to be the season finale for that show, with the ship going rogue and Giddeon dead on mars.

Episode 11 has "The Chamber" stepping in, "What do you think you're doing? Why did you think it was a good idea to go rogue with the fate of the earth hanging on your shoulders? Why are you playing fashion patrol rather than trying to solve the plague? What about the Drakh? You know The Hand are still around! Oh my God, is that an Apocalypse Box? What in the holy hell is wrong with you people!" Etc

The 2nd batch of 11 for the season stars the narn ranger, and the new JLU format has him teamed up with other Chamber members, but also a revolving series of guest stars from the previous serieses, new characters, etc.

season 4 More JLU-ing, with eps 1-11 starring the Minbari Ranger, and eps 12-22 starring Galen. Season ends on a massive, massive, massive cliffhanger.

Season 5 does *not* resolve the cliffhanger. Instead, episodes 1-11 are entirely flashbacks to before the series started, telling us the origins of the Chamber, who "Leader" was and why he was in such high regard, etc. It features all of the original seven "Together again for the first time," but it stars "Leader" as the main character, and maintains the JLU format, retroactively introducing a lot of characters we've already met.

The big mid-season 2-parter culminates with the first scene of the 1st episode of the series, wrapping up the epic-length flashback, and then resolves the cliffhanger.

The final 11 episodes star all seven of the current main cast all the time, as well as our JLU auxiliaries. Culminating in a big 3-part series finale (Eps 107,108,109) in which at least one of our principles will die, and a goodbye, farewell, amen coda in 110 in which the members realize they've done all they set out to do, outlived their usefulness, and decide to disband the Chamber. We get flashes of the futures of the charcters - in non-straczynskian mode, most of them are happy - Martel as Ranger One 30 years in the future, the Narn ranger teaching a bunch of Centauri recruits, one of our characters - I don't care who - in prison for life, Galen happily married and with kids, Delenn weeping at John's memorial serivce.

And then it ends.

so. Whadya' think?

Sooooooooooooooo that's my overall scheme of the week. Pointless feedback would be pointlessly appreciated.

1000 years have passed since the legend of Babylon 5. Earth, now a sparsely populated
wasteland, is slowly being rebuilt with the help of the Rangers and the ISA.

Meanwhile the Rangers are fighting a war against the Drakh and their allies that has
lasted the past 1000 years.
Ever since that first attack on Earth it has been the same pattern taking place. The
Drakh attack ISA members in sudden and massive assaults that are driven back or
stopped en route and they are pursued to their bases and destroyed, for a time there is
peace and security and then they attack again.

Despite the ISA's best efforts and pouring huge resource into intelligence, they have
been unable to stop the Drakh. The problem is that all Drakh believe the ISA are the
enemy and none will betray their leaders or the ideology that the Shadows gave them.
The Drakh have also learnt the Shadows great patience, they wait silently, hidden for
decades or centuries and then strike when the ISA are at their weakest, hoping to
fracture the great Alliance and seed the galaxy with chaos once more.
The ISA had tried everything to change the mentality of the Drakh, even abducting young
and trying to educate them on ISA worlds. It all proved useless. The Drakh had been
genetically altered by the Shadows so that their belief in the cause was built right into
their genetic blue print. Nothing the ISA had could change this.

After a thousand years of fighting the ISA has had enough. After so many dead and no
end in sight, the member worlds vote.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The first episode starts with the blurb and cuts to the council chambers for the finality of
discussion and then the vote.

Next it goes to some guy in Ranger Command (so to speak) that is being briefed by the
president. This guy is our head military dude and will assemble the forces and control
the dirty stuff. He will be of high rank and questionable past. He needs to be a guy that
will get his hand dirty and will get the job done. He should also be honourable in that he
does not try to pin his choices on others. This will make people not only respect him but
prevent them from liking him. Kind of a Bester in charge type gig. Officially he will be in
charge of the prison facility but we will get the idea from the briefing that the President
would like him to do more. He is than meet by some Intelligence goons who hook him
up with a butt load of cash and weapons, plus contacts to a bunch of killers and other
seedy criminals.

I would like to find a way to make that the first episode and leave a sense of worry about
where things are heading.



The show would be the same format as B5 time wise; 1 year story is 1 year viewing. I would
say the more episodes a year the better but you know, 24ish sounds good.



Season 1 – Character Setup
We will introduce Mr Ranger Douche
We will introduce Mr President
We will introduce a team of 5 that are hunting Drakh. They are mercenaries and are just
mean nasty SOBs. They be rollin in their own pimpen custom ride thanks to the ISA too.
We will introduce Ranger One who is unaware of these mercenaries or Mr Douches
“larger mission”. He is opposed to the actions the ISA are taking. He is hoping that he
can change the minds of the member worlds before the ISA tries to force him and his
Rangers to kill Drakh indiscriminately.
We introduce Ranger One’s secret team who are setup to find out who is behind the
destruction of some Drakh colonies and execution of Drakh civilians.

These intros all take place during season 1. We close season 1 with Ranger One putting
his team together.
Most of season 1 would be about the mercs and their bloodlust, Ranger One’s quest to
stop this genocide and also dropped in would be seemingly random episodes about
different Rangers. These Rangers would then come together at the end of season 1 to
form Ranger One’s team.



The story will be about the hard choices of war and facing ones humanity.
It will ask questions like;
What if there was NO chance of peace with your enemy?
What is the price to maintain your humanity?
Can you be a free civilized society without threat?
Are you willing to sacrifice your humanity for security?

I see this series as giving people some small reason to feel sympathy for the Drakh,
showing them as pawns of the Shadows even 1000 years after they left.
I also see it as still maintaining the Drakh as the bad guys and Mr Douche, like Bester,
just someone who believes they are doing the right thing but has a seriously messed up
moral compass.
The President is just a politician doing what his advisors recommend (Like all of them)
The Intel Goons are doing what they do, which is plan on how to take stuff over or kill
people.



5 year ark seems enough to flush out a good story. We have the two masters and their
teams setting us up for conflict we also have the hidden hand of the Intel Goons with the
President which lets all different angles get played.
Question is what happens? Do they eradicate the Drakh or does Ranger One get his
support and force the ISA to change its policy? OORRrrrrrr does Ranger One perform a
military coup to prevent this from happening? Or.....

Just Carry on the B5 story from the time Delenn & Sheridan leave B5 into the Drakh War & Telepath War.... Job Sorted.

Hi! I've been lurking here for a couple months, and after having just watched the entire series for the first time over the last few months (and now rewatching it to catch stuff I might have missed earlier, with the perspective of knowing what's to come), I must say that I totally misjudged the show when it first came out. That it came out at around the same time as DS9, I pretty hastily thought it was some kind of ripoff of that show (I've since found out that if anything, it may have been the other way around), and didn't give it much of a chance. I'm glad I reconsidered recently and rediscovered this show, as I now think it was much better than DS9 (which was by far my favorite Trek series, even including the original). Definitely more noirish, which I like, with conflicts centered around themes more profound than just a bunch of powers struggling for space or dominance for its own sake, plenty of solutions that didn't involve having the biggest gun, and with alien races a bit more three-dimensional with their own internal conflicts and contradictions (just as the human race has). A beautiful work when all was said and done. The concept of "first ones" as guide races who we may or may not have seen in our spiritual experiences or legends was particularly intriguing.

I haven't seen Crusade yet, but I've just ordered it. And haven't read any of the books either but plan to. Have seen all the movies in the 5-movie set except the one about the Soul Hunters (for some reason they don't interest me as much as other items in this universe), but I'll see that one soon probably since I have it.

That intro out of the way, I have thought generally of some areas that would be worth further exploration. I'm not sure if any fanfic covers some of these (I too am not a big fanfic guy, but I might get turned on to something or other here or there). But here they are:

1) A more indepth look at what went on on Earth leading up to and following the Santiago assassination/Clark coup, up to Sheridan's liberation. Stories set on Earth (and Mars, where the biggest hotbed of resistance to Clark's emerging dictatorship seemed to be), showing ascendant power figures and their collaborators, those who resisted them, and the struggle for liberty that no doubt was going on but which we didn't see amidst the epic Shadow War that Sheridan and Co. were fighting (just as most Earthers never saw, or even knew of, the latter). The process by which the humans on the homeworld slowly (but really not that slowly) embraced or accepted such blatantly Orwellian (if many knew who Orwell was or what he wrote, at that point) rule, the Shadow envolvement with Clark and his people, etc. What were some other things that Edgars and other powerful industrialists and money men were up to? Or the Psi Corps? What did Clark's obsessive scrawling "the ascent of ordinary man" mean (aside from the final "scorched earth" order hidden within, of course)? And we know there was Drakh involvement and keepers placed on certain figures in that neck of the woods, too--who else might have gotten one of those?

So, sort of a parallel saga of the troubles of the homeworld (and their very divergent path from their human counterparts on Babylon 5), to match and synchronize with the epic Shadow War and confrontation with the First Ones. Whereas most races seemed mainly spiritually tied with either the Vorlons (Minbari) or Shadows (Centauri), there really was a huge struggle between them both for the heart and allegiance of humanity. As Kosh said, humans really seemed to be the "key" to the fate of the galaxy in a way no other race was.

2) A story of the last Shadow War and what Valen did. Probably not a series, maybe a miniseries or movie. One question: how long are 1000 Minbari years in Earth years? Based on that answer we can know what humans were doing on Earth at that time (early or late Middle Ages, or maybe even the time of the Roman Empire?). Might the Shadows and/or Vorlons have been making secret plays to shape the direction of human events and development during that last war? We see obvious ties between the Vorlons and alleged sightings of angels, and also know they'd visited and abducted individuals like Jack the Ripper, and candidates for the telepath genes they were developing. Shadows would be behind "deals with the devil" and such that powerful people may have made. What else might there have been?

And the other races' involvement would be shown too, like the story of G'Quon and the Narns (they were spacefaring then apparently, but not much else is said about that time in their history, other than the genocide of their telepaths carried out with Shadow involvement). And what were the Centauri up to? Was that when they wiped out the Xon? Is this also when the Drazi developed their "purple/green" "natural selection" death-game? And what of the Dilgar at that time? They seem obvious Shadow proteges, although they were defeated and wiped out before the next Shadow War came. The Vorlons sure had the remaining Deathwalker in their sights in a big way.

Other ideas to throw out there, not as fleshed out, probably mini-series or movie ideas rather than full series:

3) The story of the Dilgar War

4) The humans' first contact with the Centauri and general first experiences as spacefarers--and how this would shape their growth into the larger universe and the posture therein they would develop (were the Centauri mainly a good or bad influence, or more likely a combination of both, in the humans' first steps outside the nest?)

5) The conflict 500 years after B5 between spacefaring humans (the ISA, still?) and the homeworlders (the "goodfacts" guy--Orwell again!), and what brought that to a head

6) Some other of the "many, many horrible mistakes" the Vorlons made, per Lyta (c.f. Thirdspace)--maybe something their successors can learn from if revealed to them

7) That Minbari sect that harbored Deathwalker (forget their name)--were some Minbari "touched" by Shadows after all, just as some (many) humans were? This could maybe tie in with story #2 (the last Shadow War) and/or #3.

8) Where did G'Kar and Lyta go in their wanderings?

If there is any fanfic or "canon" books addressing some of these areas, I'd be interested in reading them. As I said, I haven't read any of the books yet. Otherwise, they seem ripe areas for further examination.

PryLon said:

1000 years have passed since the legend of Babylon 5. Earth, now a sparsely populated
wasteland, is slowly being rebuilt with the help of the Rangers and the ISA.

Meanwhile the Rangers are fighting a war against the Drakh and their allies that has
lasted the past 1000 years.
Ever since that first attack on Earth [...] policy? OORRrrrrrr does Ranger One perform a
military coup to prevent this from happening? Or.....

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I gotta' say I'm pretty impressed. It's a wholly original story, a different format, and one I wouldn't have come up with myself. And it's independent enough that it could function as a standalone series that would work for people who maybe haven't even heard of the original series.

Not bad at all. Quite a bit better than my "Justice League Rangers" concept.

vorlonlovechild said:

Just Carry on the B5 story from the time Delenn & Sheridan leave B5 into the Drakh War & Telepath War.... Job Sorted.

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Ok, but in what format? There seems little point in continuing the story at B5 itself. So where's our new main location? Tuzanor seems obvious, but maybe not. Is it a planet of the week thing, or a crisis of the week thing? Do we follow the rangers? That seems most attractive to me. Is it an anthology?

Do we continue to follow the B5 characters now that they've gone their separate ways? I wouldn't mind 'em showing up, but given how much of the cast is dead, well, suffice to say "The Fightin' Lt. Corwin Chronicles" doesn't hold much draw for me.

Alioth said:

I pretty hastily thought it was some kind of ripoff of that show (I've since found out that if anything, it may have been the other way around),

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Yeah, it's pretty well established that DS9 was a knockoff of B5 that made it to market before the source of the knockoff.

Alioth said:

I haven't seen Crusade yet, but I've just ordered it. And haven't read any of the books either but plan to.

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It's inherently frustrating.

Alioth said:

What did Clark's obsessive scrawling "the ascent of ordinary man" mean (aside from the final "scorched earth" order hidden within, of course)?

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The theory is that Clarke was trying to fight back against the Shadow Keeper in a way similar to how Londo eventually did. The thing he was scrawling was a veiled message to warn people. I think this is interesting in that it makes Clarke a tragic figure, rather than Just Another Hitler.

Somewhat tangential to what you're saying, Crusade had written, but did not film, two episodes that explored the backstory of the Earth Civil War a bit: The Excalibur stumbles across a secret earthforce base that had been working with Shadowtech since before the war, and was continuing to do so. It's theorized that they were responsible for the "Shadow Omegas."

Alioth said:

2) A story of the last Shadow War and what Valen did. Probably not a series, maybe a miniseries or movie. One question: how long are 1000 Minbari years in Earth years? Based on that answer we can know what humans were doing on Earth at that time (early or late Middle Ages, or maybe even the time of the Roman Empire?). Might the Shadows and/or Vorlons have been making secret plays to shape the direction of human events and development during that last war?

Click to expand...

"Years" always refers to human years, unless specifically otherwise stated. Thus "A thousand years ago" means in the 1200s. Curiously, that's the period when a Scotsman named Sinclair is said (In legend) to have discovered America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_Sinclair,_Earl_of_Orkney#The_alleged_voyage_to_North_America

One of my kids once suggested a show about the Shadow War in which Sinclair/Valen took a bullet in the head and died in the first battle (She never liked the actor), and that the entire series focused around the attempt to keep the war going without anyone knowing the central figure wasn't actually there. In fact, Valen was really more legend than reality from the outset. I liked that idea a lot. Very unpredictable.

Alioth said:

Was that when they wiped out the Xon?

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Remember "Secrets of the Soul," the 5th season episode about how the Hyach were going infertile/extinct? My hunch is that this was originally an intended subplot about the Centauri (Hence: "They are a dying people") but with the Xon instead of the Hyach Do.

Alioth said:

3) The story of the Dilgar War

4) The humans' first contact with the Centauri and general first experiences as spacefarers--and how this would shape their growth into the larger universe and the posture therein they would develop (were the Centauri mainly a good or bad influence, or more likely a combination of both, in the humans' first steps outside the nest?)

5) The conflict 500 years after B5 between spacefaring humans (the ISA, still?) and the homeworlders (the "goodfacts" guy--Orwell again!), and what brought that to a head

6) Some other of the "many, many horrible mistakes" the Vorlons made, per Lyta (c.f. Thirdspace)--maybe something their successors can learn from if revealed to them

7) That Minbari sect that harbored Deathwalker (forget their name)--were some Minbari "touched" by Shadows after all, just as some (many) humans were? This could maybe tie in with story #2 (the last Shadow War) and/or #3.

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"The Windswords."

I like the idea of miniseries a lot. A whole lot!

Alioth said:

If there is any fanfic or "canon" books addressing some of these areas, I'd be interested in reading them. As I said, I haven't read any of the books yet. Otherwise, they seem ripe areas for further examination.

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There's a lot of fanfic out there, most of it utter crap. I tend to avoid it. There's a bunch of B5 books, but the quality control of the first batch was low, and despite assurances that they're canon, their canonicity is dubious, and only "Parts" of them may count at best. F'rinstance, "Voices" has maybe one line that is considered canon. "To Dream in the City of Shadows" is all canon. "The Shadow Within" is considered 50% canon: The "A" plot happened, the "B" plot didn't. It's frustrating.

The Psicorps Trilogy, the Centauri Trilogy, and the Technomage Trilogy are all considered 'canon' but apart from Psicorps they're all pretty frustrating in that they tease at stuff without really revealing much. They're side-stories, they're interesting, but we don't get to see the central trunk of the tree. The Psicorps trilogy itself kind of fizzles out in the end, but it's the best written of the bunch, and the first book in that series is far and away the best book in all of B5.

There's also a gaggle of short stories published by JMS and others. Mixed bag of vignettes and 'why bother' stories. One of 'em is about one of Lyta/G'kar's travels. It's pretty lame. Another is about Lyta/Garibaldi in the Telepath war. It's pretty good. Another is about Londo/Keeper and another is about Ivonova revisiting B5. Those are both pretty Meh. The rest are similarly random, and kinda' hard to come by.

The comic books are canon

Republibot 3.0 said:

The theory is that Clarke was trying to fight back against the Shadow Keeper in a way similar to how Londo eventually did. The thing he was scrawling was a veiled message to warn people. I think this is interesting in that it makes Clarke a tragic figure, rather than Just Another Hitler.

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This actually makes a lot of sense, too. Yeah, if they were using keepers on Earth (as they had one on that one Mars Resistance guy), it makes sense they'd have one on Clark as they did Londo, eventually anyway.

But Clark was still a lot more of a powerhungry sonofabitch than Londo, it seemed--at least in the context of how far he'd go relative to starting point and how much he'd go beyond the limits of his office. The Centauri "Republic" was already a monarchy that was probably more absolute than constitutional (despite having a "prime minister"--was there a parliamentary body of any kind?), with a lot less of a tradition of individual liberty (beyond the upper classes anyway)--whereas Earth had a lot more of that tradition for the most part, and their universal government was democratic when Clark made his "deal with the devil".

Londo's somewhat likeable, Clark just seems to ooze slime.

(Londo's "deadly sin", if you will, was sloth--it seemed he was often (and somewhat oddly) oblivious to a lot of stuff he shouldn't have been, in his position (I can't think of specific examples right now, but it's something I've noticed here and there in different episodes), and really didn't care enough to know more until it started causing him problems. The initial problem with the Narn outpost that Morden "solved" for him--well, he wanted it solved, but didn't really care (or put any thought into) how. And after initial repulsion to Morden's methods, he went back to him again just the same when he needed another problem "solved". I'd say lack of that kind of conscientiousness in doing your duties, preferring whatever expediency is available over being bothered with more thought or work, is a form of sloth. As is his general propensity to cheat and cut corners where he can. As is the whole nature of his rise to power, on Shadow coattails ("remora" indeed). Clark's "deadly sin" was more of a "greed" (for power) or maybe "wrath" (against his political enemies) kind of thing--not sure, since the arc of his rise isn't given from his point of view (it would be more in my scenario #1), so we can't see too many clues. But I get the impression he's a lot more cutthroat by nature, and it's more... personal.)

"Years" always refers to human years, unless specifically otherwise stated. Thus "A thousand years ago" means in the 1200s.

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Even when the Minbari are talking amongst themselves (as in In the Beginning)? It would seem to "fit" better if it were Minbari years--Valen was a figure of their religion, and if he said "this will happen 1000 years from now" he'd be speaking of years in Minbari terms, not the terms of some undiscovered (to the Minbari) planet around an obscure GV star inhabited by a race they didn't know about (even though he, of course, did). Now sure, Valen might have actually said "1231" or "887" or whatever non-round-number equivalent of Minbari years makes 1000 Earth years (and whenever we hear Minbari speak of it amongst themselves we hear it "translated" to "1000 years" just as we hear their language translated to English), but somehow that doesn't seem to sit as well. Or, more likely, Valen was giving a general figure, "1000 years" in religious-poetic-prophecy language--he may not have wanted to be precise, figuring the timeline would work best if the Minbari looked for signs of it themselves, acted on faith (with some doubt that would be inevitable as well), and basically figured out for themselves how to prepare beyond his initial guidance and whatever input the Vorlons would give when the time grew near. But it seemed the "1000 years more or less" kind of meaning than the more poetic "a long age" kind of meaning for "1000 years"--i.e. some precision, so they could prepare generally. In which case, if a Minbari year is pretty close to an Earth year (if their suns are very similar and thus their habitable zones, which is probably the case), in general terms "1000 years, more or less" would be the same for both.

IIRC, G'Kar spoke of the times of G'Quon (and his seeing the Shadow ships) as "about 1200 years ago"--meaning, I took it, Narn years. So I'm not sure we can assume alien races necessarily speak in terms of human years on the show, even when "translated" to our ears.

Curiously, that's the period when a Scotsman named Sinclair is said (In legend) to have discovered America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_I_Sinclair,_Earl_of_Orkney#The_alleged_voyage_to_North_America

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Looks like that was actually late 1300s, if it happened. Interesting though....

One of my kids once suggested a show about the Shadow War in which Sinclair/Valen took a bullet in the head and died in the first battle (She never liked the actor), and that the entire series focused around the attempt to keep the war going without anyone knowing the central figure wasn't actually there. In fact, Valen was really more legend than reality from the outset. I liked that idea a lot. Very unpredictable.

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Yeah that is a good one. Given that they seem less curious as a race and information is more compartmentalized (not sure this is the right term) among separate castes and interests, with Minbari generally accepting knowing "only what they need to know" and what their leaders tell them much more readily than humans. This would be harder to pull off among humans.

I wonder too, how many of the Minbari were actually involved in the war? Given that the details of Valen's first appearance to the Minbari, and what he appeared in, seem largely unknown among them except in the Grey Council. If this war involved most of Minbari society, 1000 years (at least in Earth terms) doesn't seem all that long for this knowledge to be lost. Again though, I guess Minbari aren't inclined to investigate too much of what they don't know. But our knowledge of what happened 1000 years ago on our planet, at least concerning major wars and such, seems a lot more complete and commonly available.

I wonder if Minbari, like humans in the recent Shadow War, were similarly split in allegiance, with a homeworld largely oblivious to the epic events going on in space around them (and maybe for similar reasons).

Brilliant creative idea from that kid of yours, though.

Republibot 3.0 said:

One of my kids once suggested a show about the Shadow War in which Sinclair/Valen took a bullet in the head and died in the first battle (She never liked the actor), and that the entire series focused around the attempt to keep the war going without anyone knowing the central figure wasn't actually there. In fact, Valen was really more legend than reality from the outset. I liked that idea a lot. Very unpredictable.

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Or how about Valen finding his way back to Earth (after retransforming) and somehow sneaking back onto the planet (a few people might have seen something strange in the sky--that kind of thing happens--but nothing came of it), and becoming his own ancestor like ol' Lazarus Long?

Not sure what I'd think of that, actually, but then he'd be in a more complete sense of the metaphor "the closed circle".

One other thought that just occured to me though: we know (or, think we know) that Valen had children among the Minbari, which is why the triluminary supposedly shines for his descendants. It seems that this device detects human DNA in general, since other humans brought aboard at the Battle of the Line confirmed their discovery. Since some Minbari also activate the triluminary, we can be pretty sure he had those children as was said. So your kid's idea will have to address that somehow (maybe figuring an alternate criterion for lighting the triluminary).

Ooh, ooh, something else I just remembered ....

In the episode where Londo is showing Lennier the various places of vice on Babylon 5, Lennier talks about his past studies, and says at one point "in my eleventy-seventh month of studies" or something like that (boring Londo to death as he was talking about it, until he mentioned "probability" and suddenly became a suitable gambling partner for him). But do the Minbari use a numerical base other than 10 (like, say, 12)? Their hands each have five digits like ours (I think, guess I never really looked closely though but I think I'd have noticed six fingers), but base-12 is more workable mathematically, and 12 is divisible by that sacred number of theirs, three.

But this could give a new spin to "1000 years" too, if we assume, again, that they're not talking in human terms. "1000" in base 12 is 1728 in base 10. If Earth and Minbari years are similar, the last Shadow war could have been around the final fall of Rome, or the time of Muhammad.

From the JMSnews archives:

From: STRACZYNSKI [Joe]
Subject: Minbari use base 11, not base 10,...
To: GENIE
Date: 8/18/1994 6:41:00 PM >>


Minbari use base 11, not base 10, so twelve would be eleventy-first
year, and so on.

jms

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Jan

So "eleventy" is their word for "eleven" (their "10" in base 11)? I took it to be (11)0 (eighty 80, ninety 90, tenty (10)0, eleventy (11)0) in whatever base they used. And that the direct powers of the base number would be their "hundred", "thousand", etc. (i.e they'd have special words for them, as we do). In base eleven, a "hundred" would be our 121, a "thousand" would be our 1331, etc.

Funny number to have as a base. Wonder how it came about? (The one most commonly used in human cultures past and present, ten, is likely due to number of digits on our two hands--hence also the term "digit" with both meanings. I wonder how eleven is significant to the Minbari?)

Alioth said:

This actually makes a lot of sense, too. Yeah, if they were using keepers on Earth (as they had one on that one Mars Resistance guy), it makes sense they'd have one on Clark as they did Londo, eventually anyway.

Londo's somewhat likeable, Clark just seems to ooze slime.

(Londo's "deadly sin", if you will, was sloth--it seemed he was often (and somewhat oddly) oblivious to a lot of stuff he shouldn't have been, in his position (I can't think of specific examples right now, but it's something I've noticed here and there in different episodes), and really didn't care enough to know more until it started causing him problems. The initial problem with the Narn outpost that Morden "solved" for him--well, he wanted it solved, but didn't really care (or put any thought into) how. And after initial repulsion to Morden's methods, he went back to him again just the same when he needed another problem "solved". I'd say lack of that kind of conscientiousness in doing your duties, preferring whatever expediency is available over being bothered with more thought or work, is a form of sloth. As is his general propensity to cheat and cut corners where he can. As is the whole nature of his rise to power, on Shadow coattails ("remora" indeed). Clark's "deadly sin" was more of a "greed" (for power) or maybe "wrath" (against his political enemies) kind of thing--not sure, since the arc of his rise isn't given from his point of view (it would be more in my scenario #1), so we can't see too many clues. But I get the impression he's a lot more cutthroat by nature, and it's more... personal.)

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Interesting observation about Londo. I always took him to be the impotent man who's suddenly given power, and consequently has no wisdom in wielding it, but they made it pretty clear he was predestined for awfulness, so he's kind of tragic and had no choice in it. Clarke - well, JMS said that he didn't want to personalize Clarke as a kind of arch nemesis Hitler sort, which is why he was more a name than a personality. We're lucky we got as much as we did about him, but I suspect you're right: bad men need little cajoling to dance with the devil.

Alioth said:

Even when the Minbari are talking amongst themselves (as in In the Beginning)?

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Yup. All units of measure in the show are standard human ones, unless specifically stated otherwise. Think of it as being translated for our benefit. Like when Jules Verne novels were republished in English, and the metric stuff was converted to Imperial.

Alioth said:

IIRC, G'Kar spoke of the times of G'Quon (and his seeing the Shadow ships) as "about 1200 years ago"--meaning, I took it, Narn years. So I'm not sure we can assume alien races necessarily speak in terms of human years on the show, even when "translated" to our ears.

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But bear in mind that it could have been a long war, there's no reason to assume one couldn't last for centuries. The one we saw on the show was anomalous, and interrupted before it really got going.

Alioth said:

Looks like that was actually late 1300s, if it happened. Interesting though....

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It didn't happen. <G> There was a lot of "We got there first" fever after the Spanish rediscovered the place, no basis to any of it.

Alioth said:

I wonder if Minbari, like humans in the recent Shadow War, were similarly split in allegiance, with a homeworld largely oblivious to the epic events going on in space around them (and maybe for similar reasons).

Brilliant creative idea from that kid of yours, though.

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According to "In Valen's Name" (The comic book, written by JMS), they were *very* divided, and the castes were more like separate nations fighting amongst themselves.

I actually wouldn't have minded a B5 anthology series. It would be great to have seasons containing a few episode arcs, say one arc dealing with the telepath war, another dealing with Valen after he arrived in the past, maybe another dealing with the Dilgar war, ...

Obviously this wouldn't sell very well to a studio/channel, but I would have loved it.

I thought LoTR was decent in concept, as was Crusade. I think JMS told the story he wanted to tell in B5 and was stretching too much with those spinoffs.