Was there a hidden hand in the Earth-Minbari War? I am not aware of discussions on this topic elsewhere, but I have a theory.
I haven’t seen ‘In the Beginning’ for some time, and my copy’s buried in storage somewhere. But I have been thinking about the Minbari stories in B5 generally, and the murky factionalism we have seen.
The story of the war is exciting, violent, jarring. The conflict is portrayed as tragic and unnecessary, born of a misunderstanding. We are told as much in the series, by both humans and Minbari. But do these characters really know everything about this event they lived through? The events leading up to the war are also portrayed in this film, and thinking back to those conversations, perhaps the war was necessary to someone, and served a purpose. Perhaps it was engineered by a party that is unseen in the film, but is mentioned in one of these fateful meetings. And a potential motive is mentioned as well.
We don’t get a sense of how much time is passing between scenes, but the meeting on the Grey Council’s cruiser and the meeting in Earthdome deserve another look.
Let’s start with the Grey Council. First Ranger Lenonn meets with Dukhat and the Council aboard their cruiser. Getting an appointment was kind of tough, but here he is. He tells them that the Rangers are a diminished group with few members, starved of resources, and unable to properly carry out their mission to watch for the return of the Shadows. The prophecy from Valen says that they will return to their homeworld a thousand years after the last great war, and then they will launch a new galactic war. He wants greater support for the Rangers, a rapprochement with the Vorlons, and a reconnaissance mission to Z’ha’dum. Coplann, speaking for the Warrior Caste, is resistant to the idea of sending such an expedition, saying it is too dangerous and unnecessary. He doesn’t want to risk warriors’ lives, but also says they fear nothing. And then he casts doubt on the prophecy from Valen himself, which should raise some eyebrows from the others. He contradicts himself again, saying the system is protected by mines and ancient defenses, and that ‘other races’ have moved into the system to make their home there. That’s ‘races,’ plural, but how does he know that? He even mentions a previous expedition to the system that learned all this, and made it out to tell the tale. Who the hell was that, other Minbari? When, why? Was this JMS getting in a quick line to crack the door open for another story sometime? And why does no one question how the system is too dangerous to visit, and yet other aliens have been living there, apparently unconcerned with these dangers? Z’ha’dum does not look like the most inviting place in the galaxy, and at least three of the major races in our story know it is the homeworld of the malevolent Shadows. Someone should be asking who these ‘other races’ are, how long they’ve been there, where they came from, and if they work for the Shadows. These questions alone warrant an expedition to the system. If the Warriors are going to be at war soon, they should want to know, it should motivate them. If the Rangers aren’t equipped to carry out a reconnaissance mission to Z’ha’dum, the Warrior Caste should certainly be able to do so. Specialized reconnaissance units are common in every advanced military. But according to Coplann, they don’t want to. Why is that? We’ve already learned quite a bit in this meeting, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. When Dukhat says the Warriors will not have to go, Coplann seems satisfied, thinking the matter settled. He then appears horrified when Dukhat announces the entire Council, their cruiser and their escorts will go instead. It is much like the ripping sound of a needle sweeping across a record player as the music stops. With his stubborn, dismissive refusal to cooperate, Coplann has just made things much worse, and now Dukhat has upped the ante considerably. If Coplann is truly concerned about dangers on this journey, now his life is on the line as well. And he probably doesn’t know there are two Vorlon representatives aboard their ship, that unpredictable element might scare him more. But his alarm may indicate that he knows something has just been set in motion, something that may be impossible to control. Perhaps a line is about to be crossed, and only he knows about it. A key question here is, does Coplann want to prevent a mission to Z’ha’dum for the murky reasons he has laid out for the Council, or for other reasons he has not expressed? Is he in contact, directly or indirectly, with the ‘other races?’ Is there some secret arrangement to stay away? And if there is, is Coplann under an obligation to tell someone the arrangement has been violated? Lots of ‘ifs,’ yes, that’s what this is all about. The theory swamp is a murky and bubbly place. For his part, Dukhat looks pretty satisfied, a smiling fellow waltzing into trouble.
A bit more on the Grey Council. In 2260, as the final Shadow War is reaching a boil, the warrior-dominated Council makes the decision not to get involved in the Shadow War, the conflict for which they have been supposedly preparing over the last thousand years. The significance of this cannot be overstated. Their sudden ‘never mind’ indicates they (some or all) are listening to someone connected with the Shadows, someone with a different point of view, who is telling them to stay home and do nothing while Shadow warships inflict destruction across the galaxy. It does seem like someone has been whispering in the ears of some Minbari warrior leaders, perhaps the same someone who helped Deathwalker find sanctuary with the Wind Swords after the Dilgar War ended. As I’ve written elsewhere, it’s unlikely the galaxy’s most notorious war criminal would just show up and ask for, much less receive, sanctuary from a fanatical Minbari warrior clan, they would probably just kill her. An introduction would have to be made by another party, someone they already knew and perhaps trusted to some extent. Numerous things point to the Grey Council having been penetrated by alien influence. And Coplann, or someone else, could have tipped off the agents of the Shadows that the Grey Council was on their way to Z’ha’dum. Or, he could be in communication with a cut-out agent, like one of the Wind Swords, and thus be insulated from direct contact with any Shadow agents. He might have no idea what he’s involved in, that tendrils of Shadow influence have reached inside the Council. He might think he is merely talking with another Warrior, someone he knows and trusts. This is all speculation on my part, but working off the numerous red flags JMS has woven into the story. What is less speculative is that such an intrusion into the Shadows’ home system would be inconvenient for their agents, to say the least. I will get back to that below.
On to Earth. When Londo meets with General Lefcourt and the presidential advisor in Earthdome, things go very smoothly, right up until the Minbari are mentioned. Lefcourt says they have recently learned of the Minbari, but he does not say how they heard about them. Clearly it was not the Centauri government who mentioned them, and Londo seems really uncomfortable that Earthforce is planning to make contact. He gets pretty undiplomatic over it, telling the humans that they are being arrogant and stupid. He smells recklessness and trouble. But Earth has made up its mind, and they are going forward, just when the Grey Council is on the move. The timing is beyond suspicious. What’s their hurry? And what’s the opposite of serendipity? But Londo, ever the voice of reason, is ignored.
First contact. Earthforce’s expedition is led by Captain Jankowski, who is stated in the novelization to have been involved in the Omega Incident, which pushed Earth into war with the Dilgar. But he gets another shot at a prestigious first contact mission with a powerful alien race for some reason. I don’t think any of this is explained anywhere. The Earthforce and Minbari fleets encounter each other in deep space, as if by accident, and the odds against this are astronomical. Unless Earthforce was told what route to take, where they would just happen to run into the Minbari, traveling at the very same time. And the Soul Hunters show up, too, literally a moment before the shooting starts. As if they were invited, or again, tipped off. More agents of chaos arriving at the very worst possible time. Or, from another perspective, the very best possible time.
Which brings me back to the ‘other races’ mentioned by Coplann, a reference that sounds like it includes the Drakh. JMS has stated in online comments that there was a connection between Deathwalker and the agents of the Shadows, who were awake and active while their masters ‘slept,’ continuing the work of sowing corruption, chaos, destruction and death (possibly including the Dilgar War). Naturally, they would be keeping an eye on what’s going on in the galaxy, collecting intelligence for when their masters wake. And they would almost certainly have instructions to keep outsiders away from Z’ha’dum by any means necessary. Given the signs of heavy bombardment on the planet’s surface from some event or events in the past, a little bit of proactive paranoia would be justified. Arranging a war between two of the galaxy’s major powers would be an excellent way to change the subject, while simultaneously continuing their masters’ grand mission. It would plant the seeds of distrust and division between Minbar and Earth, and the result even has human ships firing on the Grey Council’s cruiser, which has two Vorlons aboard. If a couple of high-ranking Vorlon representatives were killed by Earthforce, and the Shadows and their agents were not directly responsible, it would drive a wedge between the Vorlons and Earth, which the Vorlons have been cultivating as a potential ally for centuries. All of this would mean more galactic discord, and thus more success for the Drakh. These results would be very pleasing to the Shadows when they wake up, and learn just how devoted the Drakh have been to the cause. And as far as we know, the subject was changed, the expedition to Z’ha’dum was not executed by the distracted Minbari, there was a war on instead. So if my theory is correct, the grand distraction worked perfectly. All it cost was a few dead Minbari, and 250,000 dead humans. And as always, the Drakh get away clean, without anyone suspecting their involvement, or even their existence.
A bit more on the timing. ‘Lines of Communication’ aired in the U.S. in April 1997, and ‘In the Beginning’ aired in January 1998. Following the departure of the Vorlons and Shadows, the Drakh were introduced as the new villain race, and they excel at galactic-level skullduggery. A year after they appear, they engineer a war between the Interstellar Alliance and the Centauri, while seeking to keep their fingerprints off that conflict as well. Acting in secret to turn major powers against one another is their modus operandi. My theory fits their patterns.
Another indication that Shadow agents are manipulating the Minbari warriors: During the Earth-Minbari War, the Wind Swords offered the Council what Lennier called ‘terrible weapons,’ for use against their hated new enemy, Earth. We do not know what these weapons were, if the Council accepted, or if they were used. Nor do we know what became of them, or if they are still extant. This is the sort of offer the Shadows would make to entice new allies into the fold. Advanced weapons are sexy and tempting, and the Shadows know it.
So after writing all of the above, I dug my copy of ‘In the Beginning’ out of storage and found that the scenes of the meetings I was writing about were not in the order I thought they were. My theory would make more sense if the Grey Council meeting took place before the EarthDome meeting, providing an unspecified amount of time between the two meetings for other parties to make covert moves. I have rewritten all this quite a bit, but decided to leave my mistake as is. The Shadows’ agents would still have a need to keep outsiders away from Z’ha’dum, that motive would be unchanged. And the Drakh M.O. fits like a glove, just nine months after they were introduced in the series. To paraphrase JMS, they have been hiding in the shadows, but operating covertly, the entire time. Not unlike the two Vorlons literally hiding in the shadows in Dukhat’s quarters aboard the Grey Council’s cruiser. The Forces of Light have their hidden hand, too.
The Minbari force posture for apparently the last thousand years is kind of baffling. The Warrior Caste maintains vast forces and guards their territory against vague threats, while downplaying the prophecy, from Valen of all people, that the Shadows will return. They present the primary threat, clearly, the existential threat. Valen even tells them when, a thousand years after the last great war, but they tend to ignore this vital piece of information from a highly-trusted, and even revered, source. Why? Even though they are equipped with large numbers of fast, powerful warships, they don’t really bother to look around the galaxy for signs of trouble. Even at the well-known homeworld of the Shadows, Z’ha’dum, they do not have regular patrols or surveys to scan for signs of activity. Again, why? Were the Vorlons protecting the Shadows during their ‘sleep,’ by instructing the Minbari to stay away? Minbari reconnaissance and intelligence operations seem to be sorely lacking. Let’s be honest, they aren’t that busy. Surely they could spare a handful of cruisers to go check things out. That they simply don’t want to is very suspicious, and I don’t think it can be explained away by them simply being difficult. They’re standing guard against the ancient enemy, but not really. And they’re prepared to fight the Shadows once they return, but not really. Even before the distraction with Earth, they were not really focused on the threat from the Shadows. I think there are reasons for this, which involve someone trying to discredit Valen, his prophecy, and the Grey Council itself. But that’s another huge, convoluted subject, which would take us back to Babylon 4, and back a thousand years to the last Shadow War.
Raw Shark
“You do have a suspicious mind.”
Captain Sheridan
I haven’t seen ‘In the Beginning’ for some time, and my copy’s buried in storage somewhere. But I have been thinking about the Minbari stories in B5 generally, and the murky factionalism we have seen.
The story of the war is exciting, violent, jarring. The conflict is portrayed as tragic and unnecessary, born of a misunderstanding. We are told as much in the series, by both humans and Minbari. But do these characters really know everything about this event they lived through? The events leading up to the war are also portrayed in this film, and thinking back to those conversations, perhaps the war was necessary to someone, and served a purpose. Perhaps it was engineered by a party that is unseen in the film, but is mentioned in one of these fateful meetings. And a potential motive is mentioned as well.
We don’t get a sense of how much time is passing between scenes, but the meeting on the Grey Council’s cruiser and the meeting in Earthdome deserve another look.
Let’s start with the Grey Council. First Ranger Lenonn meets with Dukhat and the Council aboard their cruiser. Getting an appointment was kind of tough, but here he is. He tells them that the Rangers are a diminished group with few members, starved of resources, and unable to properly carry out their mission to watch for the return of the Shadows. The prophecy from Valen says that they will return to their homeworld a thousand years after the last great war, and then they will launch a new galactic war. He wants greater support for the Rangers, a rapprochement with the Vorlons, and a reconnaissance mission to Z’ha’dum. Coplann, speaking for the Warrior Caste, is resistant to the idea of sending such an expedition, saying it is too dangerous and unnecessary. He doesn’t want to risk warriors’ lives, but also says they fear nothing. And then he casts doubt on the prophecy from Valen himself, which should raise some eyebrows from the others. He contradicts himself again, saying the system is protected by mines and ancient defenses, and that ‘other races’ have moved into the system to make their home there. That’s ‘races,’ plural, but how does he know that? He even mentions a previous expedition to the system that learned all this, and made it out to tell the tale. Who the hell was that, other Minbari? When, why? Was this JMS getting in a quick line to crack the door open for another story sometime? And why does no one question how the system is too dangerous to visit, and yet other aliens have been living there, apparently unconcerned with these dangers? Z’ha’dum does not look like the most inviting place in the galaxy, and at least three of the major races in our story know it is the homeworld of the malevolent Shadows. Someone should be asking who these ‘other races’ are, how long they’ve been there, where they came from, and if they work for the Shadows. These questions alone warrant an expedition to the system. If the Warriors are going to be at war soon, they should want to know, it should motivate them. If the Rangers aren’t equipped to carry out a reconnaissance mission to Z’ha’dum, the Warrior Caste should certainly be able to do so. Specialized reconnaissance units are common in every advanced military. But according to Coplann, they don’t want to. Why is that? We’ve already learned quite a bit in this meeting, and it doesn’t make a lot of sense. When Dukhat says the Warriors will not have to go, Coplann seems satisfied, thinking the matter settled. He then appears horrified when Dukhat announces the entire Council, their cruiser and their escorts will go instead. It is much like the ripping sound of a needle sweeping across a record player as the music stops. With his stubborn, dismissive refusal to cooperate, Coplann has just made things much worse, and now Dukhat has upped the ante considerably. If Coplann is truly concerned about dangers on this journey, now his life is on the line as well. And he probably doesn’t know there are two Vorlon representatives aboard their ship, that unpredictable element might scare him more. But his alarm may indicate that he knows something has just been set in motion, something that may be impossible to control. Perhaps a line is about to be crossed, and only he knows about it. A key question here is, does Coplann want to prevent a mission to Z’ha’dum for the murky reasons he has laid out for the Council, or for other reasons he has not expressed? Is he in contact, directly or indirectly, with the ‘other races?’ Is there some secret arrangement to stay away? And if there is, is Coplann under an obligation to tell someone the arrangement has been violated? Lots of ‘ifs,’ yes, that’s what this is all about. The theory swamp is a murky and bubbly place. For his part, Dukhat looks pretty satisfied, a smiling fellow waltzing into trouble.
A bit more on the Grey Council. In 2260, as the final Shadow War is reaching a boil, the warrior-dominated Council makes the decision not to get involved in the Shadow War, the conflict for which they have been supposedly preparing over the last thousand years. The significance of this cannot be overstated. Their sudden ‘never mind’ indicates they (some or all) are listening to someone connected with the Shadows, someone with a different point of view, who is telling them to stay home and do nothing while Shadow warships inflict destruction across the galaxy. It does seem like someone has been whispering in the ears of some Minbari warrior leaders, perhaps the same someone who helped Deathwalker find sanctuary with the Wind Swords after the Dilgar War ended. As I’ve written elsewhere, it’s unlikely the galaxy’s most notorious war criminal would just show up and ask for, much less receive, sanctuary from a fanatical Minbari warrior clan, they would probably just kill her. An introduction would have to be made by another party, someone they already knew and perhaps trusted to some extent. Numerous things point to the Grey Council having been penetrated by alien influence. And Coplann, or someone else, could have tipped off the agents of the Shadows that the Grey Council was on their way to Z’ha’dum. Or, he could be in communication with a cut-out agent, like one of the Wind Swords, and thus be insulated from direct contact with any Shadow agents. He might have no idea what he’s involved in, that tendrils of Shadow influence have reached inside the Council. He might think he is merely talking with another Warrior, someone he knows and trusts. This is all speculation on my part, but working off the numerous red flags JMS has woven into the story. What is less speculative is that such an intrusion into the Shadows’ home system would be inconvenient for their agents, to say the least. I will get back to that below.
On to Earth. When Londo meets with General Lefcourt and the presidential advisor in Earthdome, things go very smoothly, right up until the Minbari are mentioned. Lefcourt says they have recently learned of the Minbari, but he does not say how they heard about them. Clearly it was not the Centauri government who mentioned them, and Londo seems really uncomfortable that Earthforce is planning to make contact. He gets pretty undiplomatic over it, telling the humans that they are being arrogant and stupid. He smells recklessness and trouble. But Earth has made up its mind, and they are going forward, just when the Grey Council is on the move. The timing is beyond suspicious. What’s their hurry? And what’s the opposite of serendipity? But Londo, ever the voice of reason, is ignored.
First contact. Earthforce’s expedition is led by Captain Jankowski, who is stated in the novelization to have been involved in the Omega Incident, which pushed Earth into war with the Dilgar. But he gets another shot at a prestigious first contact mission with a powerful alien race for some reason. I don’t think any of this is explained anywhere. The Earthforce and Minbari fleets encounter each other in deep space, as if by accident, and the odds against this are astronomical. Unless Earthforce was told what route to take, where they would just happen to run into the Minbari, traveling at the very same time. And the Soul Hunters show up, too, literally a moment before the shooting starts. As if they were invited, or again, tipped off. More agents of chaos arriving at the very worst possible time. Or, from another perspective, the very best possible time.
Which brings me back to the ‘other races’ mentioned by Coplann, a reference that sounds like it includes the Drakh. JMS has stated in online comments that there was a connection between Deathwalker and the agents of the Shadows, who were awake and active while their masters ‘slept,’ continuing the work of sowing corruption, chaos, destruction and death (possibly including the Dilgar War). Naturally, they would be keeping an eye on what’s going on in the galaxy, collecting intelligence for when their masters wake. And they would almost certainly have instructions to keep outsiders away from Z’ha’dum by any means necessary. Given the signs of heavy bombardment on the planet’s surface from some event or events in the past, a little bit of proactive paranoia would be justified. Arranging a war between two of the galaxy’s major powers would be an excellent way to change the subject, while simultaneously continuing their masters’ grand mission. It would plant the seeds of distrust and division between Minbar and Earth, and the result even has human ships firing on the Grey Council’s cruiser, which has two Vorlons aboard. If a couple of high-ranking Vorlon representatives were killed by Earthforce, and the Shadows and their agents were not directly responsible, it would drive a wedge between the Vorlons and Earth, which the Vorlons have been cultivating as a potential ally for centuries. All of this would mean more galactic discord, and thus more success for the Drakh. These results would be very pleasing to the Shadows when they wake up, and learn just how devoted the Drakh have been to the cause. And as far as we know, the subject was changed, the expedition to Z’ha’dum was not executed by the distracted Minbari, there was a war on instead. So if my theory is correct, the grand distraction worked perfectly. All it cost was a few dead Minbari, and 250,000 dead humans. And as always, the Drakh get away clean, without anyone suspecting their involvement, or even their existence.
A bit more on the timing. ‘Lines of Communication’ aired in the U.S. in April 1997, and ‘In the Beginning’ aired in January 1998. Following the departure of the Vorlons and Shadows, the Drakh were introduced as the new villain race, and they excel at galactic-level skullduggery. A year after they appear, they engineer a war between the Interstellar Alliance and the Centauri, while seeking to keep their fingerprints off that conflict as well. Acting in secret to turn major powers against one another is their modus operandi. My theory fits their patterns.
Another indication that Shadow agents are manipulating the Minbari warriors: During the Earth-Minbari War, the Wind Swords offered the Council what Lennier called ‘terrible weapons,’ for use against their hated new enemy, Earth. We do not know what these weapons were, if the Council accepted, or if they were used. Nor do we know what became of them, or if they are still extant. This is the sort of offer the Shadows would make to entice new allies into the fold. Advanced weapons are sexy and tempting, and the Shadows know it.
So after writing all of the above, I dug my copy of ‘In the Beginning’ out of storage and found that the scenes of the meetings I was writing about were not in the order I thought they were. My theory would make more sense if the Grey Council meeting took place before the EarthDome meeting, providing an unspecified amount of time between the two meetings for other parties to make covert moves. I have rewritten all this quite a bit, but decided to leave my mistake as is. The Shadows’ agents would still have a need to keep outsiders away from Z’ha’dum, that motive would be unchanged. And the Drakh M.O. fits like a glove, just nine months after they were introduced in the series. To paraphrase JMS, they have been hiding in the shadows, but operating covertly, the entire time. Not unlike the two Vorlons literally hiding in the shadows in Dukhat’s quarters aboard the Grey Council’s cruiser. The Forces of Light have their hidden hand, too.
The Minbari force posture for apparently the last thousand years is kind of baffling. The Warrior Caste maintains vast forces and guards their territory against vague threats, while downplaying the prophecy, from Valen of all people, that the Shadows will return. They present the primary threat, clearly, the existential threat. Valen even tells them when, a thousand years after the last great war, but they tend to ignore this vital piece of information from a highly-trusted, and even revered, source. Why? Even though they are equipped with large numbers of fast, powerful warships, they don’t really bother to look around the galaxy for signs of trouble. Even at the well-known homeworld of the Shadows, Z’ha’dum, they do not have regular patrols or surveys to scan for signs of activity. Again, why? Were the Vorlons protecting the Shadows during their ‘sleep,’ by instructing the Minbari to stay away? Minbari reconnaissance and intelligence operations seem to be sorely lacking. Let’s be honest, they aren’t that busy. Surely they could spare a handful of cruisers to go check things out. That they simply don’t want to is very suspicious, and I don’t think it can be explained away by them simply being difficult. They’re standing guard against the ancient enemy, but not really. And they’re prepared to fight the Shadows once they return, but not really. Even before the distraction with Earth, they were not really focused on the threat from the Shadows. I think there are reasons for this, which involve someone trying to discredit Valen, his prophecy, and the Grey Council itself. But that’s another huge, convoluted subject, which would take us back to Babylon 4, and back a thousand years to the last Shadow War.
Raw Shark
“You do have a suspicious mind.”
Captain Sheridan
