lurkers-guide/guide/061

<!-- TITLE War Without End, Part Two -->

<h2><a name="OV">Overview</a></h2>

<blockquote><cite>
Ambassador Sinclair returns to pull Babylon 4 through time
(<a href="020.html">"Babylon Squared."</a>)  Part 2 of 2.
</cite>

<a href="/lurk/universe/actors.html#ohare">Michael O'Hare</a> as Ambassador Sinclair.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Choate,+Tim">Tim Choate</a> as Zathras.
<a href="http://us.imdb.com/M/person-exact?+Broadhurst,+Kent">Kent Broadhurst</a> as Major Krantz.
</blockquote>

<pre><a href="/lurk/p5/intro.html">P5 Rating</a>: <a href="/lurk/p5/061">9.40</a>

Production number: 317
Original air week: May 20, 1996
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00009OOFK/thelurkersguidet">DVD release date</a>: August 12, 2003

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Mike Vejar
</pre>

<p>
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00000ADJU/thelurkersguidet">An 
episodic soundtrack is available.</a>

<p>
<strong>Note: this episode resolves several mysteries from past episodes.
Think twice before proceeding to the spoilers if you haven't seen it.</strong>

<p>
<hr size=3>

<h2><a name="BP">Plot Points</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li>@@@832578586 Sinclair and Zathras travelled back in time with Babylon 4.
	Since the Minbari would never accept a station commanded
	by a human (a race they hadn't encountered yet,) Sinclair entered a
	chrysalis using the same kind of device Delenn used to become half
	human.  His transformation was complete, though, not halfway; to all
	appearances he became a Minbari.  When he arrived in the past, he was
	accompanied by two Vorlons.  He introduced himself to the Minbari as
	Valen, and went on to lead the war and form the first Grey Council.

   <li>@@@832578586 Later, he wrote himself a note describing what was to come,
	and what he would have to do.  He also wrote a note to Delenn.

   <li>@@@832609266 Sinclair's transformation caused the start of the migration
	of Minbari souls to human bodies by linking the two species.  Delenn's
	transformation in the other direction was, in part, an attempt to
	restore the balance that had been upset.  (See
	<a href="#NO.souls">Notes</a>)

   <li>@@@832610961 "The One," explains Zathras, is really three: Sinclair is
	The One who was, Delenn is The One who is, and Sheridan is The One who
	will be.  The three are a whole, consistent with the Minbari tendency
	to divide things into threes.  (Or, perhaps, The One is responsible
	for that tendency somehow, maybe due to Sinclair's teachings.)

   <li>@@@832578586 Sheridan and Delenn, in at least one possible future, will
	have a son named David.

   <li>@@@832578586 Londo, as emperor of a wrecked Centauri Republic seventeen
	years after the start of the Shadow War, will be made
	to wear a "keeper," a creature of some sort attached to the side
	of his neck.  It's visible only when asleep.  When it's awake, it
	forces him to do its bidding, apparently on behalf of the Shadows.
	In the end, he will ask G'Kar to kill him
	before the keeper forces him to betray Sheridan and Delenn.  But
	the keeper will awaken as G'Kar strangles Londo, and the two will
	die at each other's hands, leaving an astonished Vir to pick up the
	imperial emblem.

</ul>

<h2><a name="UQ">Unanswered Questions</a></h2>
<ul>

   <li>@@@832578586 Who was at the door in Delenn's flashforward?  (See
	<a href="#AN.door">Analysis</a>)

   <li>@@@832578586 Was one of the Vorlons accompanying Sinclair Kosh?  Was
	the other the Vorlon who later spoke to Rathenn on Minbar in part 1?
	The two encounter suits were the same as that Vorlon's.

   <li>@@@832963592 Why was there an explosive discharge when Sinclair
	touched Delenn's suited hand?

   <li>@@@832964609 What became of Zathras?  Did he have a hand in the planning
	of the Great Machine?

   <li>@@@846701420 Is Sheridan's vision of the future inevitable?

   <li>@@@846993314 What is the price of victory over the Shadows, and why
	was Delenn so dismayed about it?

</ul>

<h2><a name="AN">Analysis</a></h2>
<ul>

<p>
   <li>@@@832888831 How did Sinclair get the chrysalis machine?  Did the
	Vorlons supply it?  It seemed to do a much more thorough job on
	Sinclair than it did on Delenn; in appearance, at least, Valen
	was a pure Minbari, not half-human.

	<p>
	An odder explanation is that Sinclair got it from Delenn, who got
	it (indirectly) from Valen; in that case, the machine was never
	actually invented.

<p>
   <li>@@@832578586 When and how did the Vorlons board Babylon 4?  There
	were two Vorlon ships next to the station when the Minbari cruisers
	approached it; did they come back in time with Sinclair, or did
	the Vorlons of a thousand years ago know where and when B4 would
	appear?  Perhaps Sinclair called them.

<p>
   <li>@@@832964609 Delenn's transformation took several weeks.  Presumably
	Sinclair's was comparable.  Did it take that much subjective time
	to travel back 1000 years, or did the station sit unnoticed in the
	past until Sinclair was ready?  If the former, then the Vorlons
	must have boarded the station while it was in transit through time
	(assuming they gave Sinclair the machine.)

<p>
   <li>@@@832578586 Why did Sinclair choose to call himself Valen?  Was it
	simply because of the contents of his letter?  In that case, nobody
	ever actually invented the name; it was chosen because it was the
	name he ended up using.

<p>
   <li>@@@832578586 Did the Grey Council realize that they'd captured Valen
	at the Battle of the Line?  Most likely not, or Delenn's counterpart
	wouldn't have ordered her to kill him if he remembered what happened
	(<a href="008.html">"And the Sky Full of Stars."</a>)

<p>
   <li>@@@832609266 On the other hand, if Delenn's transformation was really
	in part an attempt to restore the balance upset by Sinclair's change a
	thousand years earlier, then Delenn must have known about Valen's
	true nature for quite some time.  Perhaps she alone recognized
	Sinclair's true identity at the Line, but couldn't tell the rest of
	the Council, who almost certainly would refuse to believe what she'd
	discovered.

<p>
   <li>@@@846743959 Why did the machine transform Delenn into a hybrid human
	and Minbari, while Sinclair (from all outward appearances) was
	transformed into a full Minbari?  Did Delenn choose to only transform
	herself halfway?  If so, has she truly restored the balance between
	humans and Minbari, or is there still something left to do?

<p>
   <li>@@@835077089 Besides Delenn and the people on the White Star bridge,
	how many others know Valen's true identity?  If it became widespread,
	the information might seriously alter the face of Minbari religion;
	learning that their greatest spiritual leader was actually a member
	of a race many of them hold in contempt would probably test the faith
	of many Minbari.

<p>
   <li>@@@833151417 Sinclair flashed back to the Soul Hunter telling him that
	he was being used, presumably by the Minbari
	(<a href="002.html">"Soul Hunter."</a>)
	Exactly what did he mean by that?  Perhaps there was a Soul Hunter
	present at Valen's death, and Sinclair was familiar to them already.
	Or maybe the Soul Hunter found out about Sinclair's eventual identity
	when he peered into Delenn's mind.

<p>
   <li>@@@833151595 Probably of less significance, Sinclair's other memory
	was of Neroon
	(<a href="017.html">"Legacies,"</a>)
	who eventually ended up on the Grey Council.  What impact, if any,
	that had on Sinclair's tenure on Minbar is unknown.  Given Neroon's
	dismissal of the reason for the Minbari surrender at the Line
	(<a href="033.html">"All Alone in the Night"</a>)
	it seems any respect he had for Sinclair was short-lived, and that
	if the Council did know of Sinclair's true identity, Neroon didn't
	believe it.  Neroon was also Sinclair's prosecutor in comic issue 3,
	<a href="/lurk/comic/003.html">"In Harm's Way."</a>

<p>
   <li>@@@832609266 Now that Sinclair has travelled back in time, the accuracy
	of Valen's prophecies is probably at an end.  Valen could predict
	the start of the Shadow War, and the breaking of the Grey Council,
	because he'd lived through it, but anything after his departure to
	the past is a complete unknown to him (unless, of course, the
	Vorlons have some way of telling him.)

<p>
   <li>@@@832578586 The appearance of two Vorlons next to an unfamiliar
	Minbari might not have been such a shock to the Minbari warriors
	who found Sinclair.  In
	<a href="038.html">"In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum,"</a>
	Delenn claimed that the previous Shadow war marked the last time the
	ancients walked openly among the younger races.  So it's entirely
	possible that the appearance of a Vorlon was, if not commonplace,
	then nothing resembling miraculous.

	<p>
	On the other hand, the two Vorlons were flying above encounter suits;
	maybe they've been secretive all along, and even when they walked
	openly among the other races, always hid behind masks.  That would
	make sense if they wanted to maintain the illusion of angelic
	appearance, since as Kosh said in
	<a href="045.html">"Matters of Honor,"</a>
	maintaining that appearance in front of a lot of people is a great
	strain on a Vorlon.

<p>
   <li>@@@832964609 Did Babylon 4 travel through space as well as time, or
	did it appear in what would later become Sector 14?  If the latter,
	does its appearance there have anything to do with the location of
	the Great Machine?

<p>
   <li>@@@832578586 What is Londo's "keeper?"  Who gave it to him?  What
	exactly is it forcing him to do, and why?  The fact that it's invisible
	when awake suggests that it's associated with the Shadows, who have
	mastered the art of invisibility.

<p>
   <li>@@@832609644 Does Morden have a keeper too?  Is that why the Shadows
	treat him as an equal -- because they know he'll never betray their
	cause?

	<p>
	Or maybe the <em>Shadows</em> are being controlled by some other
	party, though that seems unlikely.

<p>
   <li>@@@832578586 "We all have our keepers," Londo says.  Does that include
	Sheridan and Delenn?  Perhaps there's a connection between Londo's
	guest and the dream sequence in
	<a href="033.html">"All Alone in the Night,"</a>
	in which Ivanova and Garibaldi both have birds on their shoulders.

<p>
   <li>@@@832889377 By granting a reprieve to Sheridan and Delenn, Londo may be
	fulfilling one of his chances for redemption
	(<a href="053.html">"Point of No Return."</a>)
	Morella told him he must not kill the one who is already dead;
	perhaps that refers to Sheridan -- who certainly qualifies as "the
	one" now in another context.  Londo's greeting in part 1, "Welcome
	back from the abyss, Sheridan," tends to support this possibility,
	though of course it's not clear what Londo meant by that.

	<p>
	Kosh's warning to Sheridan in
	<a href="038.html">"In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum"</a>
	and
	<a href="059.html">"Interludes and Examinations,"</a>
	"If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die," probably also ties into this,
	especially since, judging by Delenn's plea, it seems that Sheridan has
	gone to Z'ha'dum at some point in the intervening seventeen years.
	The "death" Kosh referred to may simply be the death of innocence
	as noted by Delenn, and not literal physical death.

	<p>
	@@@832964609 Londo's death at G'Kar's hand may also be the last part
	of Morella's prophecy; death may be Londo's greatest fear, or perhaps
	death with the knowledge that he hasn't righted his wrongs.

<p>
   <li>@@@838503118 Londo's dream in
	<a href="031.html">"The Coming of Shadows,"</a>
	in which he sees a fleet of Shadow ships flying overhead while he
	stands alone in a desolate wasteland, may be a vision of the Shadows'
	minions coming to Centauri Prime as he says they did.

<p>
   <li>@@@838542344 Kosh's prediction to the Centauri Emperor in
	<a href="031.html">"The Coming of Shadows"</a>
	appears to be literally true: For Centauri Prime, the war has
	ended in fire.

<p>
   <li>@@@832749664 What were the Centauri, or perhaps someone else, trying
	to get out of Delenn?  She refused to answer their questions, she says;
	what were they trying to learn? It appears the Centauri captured her,
	which implies there's still a conflict of some kind going on, even
	after the Shadows have been driven off.  The presence of Londo's
	keeper makes it unclear that the Centauri were the ones trying
	to question her.

<p>
   <li>@@@833160676 "We created something that will endure for a thousand
	years," Delenn tells Sheridan.  What will they create?  And what
	happens in a thousand years -- will the Shadows return again and
	break up their creation, much as Valen's creation, the Grey Council,
	has recently been destroyed?

<p>
   <li>@@@832578586 In the Centauri cell, Delenn tells Sheridan, "Our son is
	safe.  Nothing else matters."  Why is David in danger, and what has
	Delenn done to ensure his safety?

<p>
   <li>@@@832964609 What could possibly happen to G'Kar in the intervening
	seventeen years to cause Londo to refer to him as an "old friend?"
	Londo, of course, may simply have been speaking facetiously -- but
	in that case, what was G'Kar doing in the Centauri palace?

<p>
   <li>@@@832578793 Is death at G'Kar's hands Londo's greatest fear, and
	thus his final chance for redemption
	(<a href="053.html">"Point of No Return?"</a>)
	Or is his fear more abstract than that, the fear that his death dream
	will come to pass as he's envisioned it?

<p>
   <li>@@@832578793 When Londo sees himself strangled by G'Kar in his dream,
	does he know that it's at his own request?  How much of the context
	of his death does he know already?

<p>
   <li>@@@832750357 In
	<a href="020.html">Babylon Squared,"</a>
	the crewman who sees the blue-suited figure
	appear in the hallway tells Krantz, "It's back."  Presumably the
	B4 crew had seen Sheridan appearing and disappearing, since Delenn had
	only recently switched places with him.

<p>
   <li>@@@832750004 Delenn appears in the hallway in the present time (or
	rather, the same
	timeframe she'd reached via the White Star,) so in that specific
	instance there was no time-shifting, just movement through space.
	How did she do that?  Perhaps, as she implied in Part One, the Minbari
	have the technology for rudimentary time manipulation, so she used
	something from the White Star.

<p>
   <li>@@@832608867 <a name="AN.door">The woman at the door</a> in Delenn's
	flashforward causes her to drop the snowglobe in shock.  Very few
	people would cause someone as poised as Delenn to do that.  One of
	them, though, and one whose arrival has been foreshadowed, would be
	Anna Sheridan.

<p>
   <li>@@@832578586 Why does Delenn urge Sheridan to avoid going to Z'ha'dum?
	If he has already gone there by the time she is thrown into the cell
	with him, then Kosh's prediction about Sheridan dying if he goes there
	is wrong, or at least not as immediate as it originally sounded.
	On the other hand, the fact that they have a son is good evidence
	the two of them will become much closer; perhaps the arrival of
	Anna Sheridan (if that's who's at the door in Delenn's flashforward)
	will complicate their relationship, and it's to avoid finding out
	about Anna that Delenn tells Sheridan to stay away from Z'ha'dum.

<p>
   <li>@@@833302690 Are the flashforwards completely random, or might there
	be something guiding people to visions of certain events?  The Vorlons
	appear to have some perception that extends beyond time; perhaps they
	are manipulating that perception when it appears, even briefly, in
	others.

<p>
   <li>@@@832608867 The assumption at the end of the episode seems to be that
	by successfully pulling Babylon 4 back in time, the crew has averted
	the Shadow attack on Babylon 5 in eight days, in which Ivanova sends
	out the distress call heard in part one.  Does that mean that
	Sinclair's flashforward to the firefight aboard B5 has also been
	averted?  What about Lady Ladira's vision of the destruction of
	Babylon 5?
	(<a href="013.html">"Signs and Portents"</a>)
	If all those glimpses of the future are no longer true, how much
	validity do the remaining ones have?  Each of them could be from a
	completely different possible future, none of which will end up ever
	taking place.

<p>
   <li>@@@832610961 Was Zathras supposed to tell Sheridan, Delenn, and Sinclair
	about The One?  Were Draal's instructions simply to not reveal anything
	until prompted by Sinclair?

	<p>
	Where did he come up with the term, and with its definition?  If he
	knows Sheridan is The One who will be, he must have been using the
	Great Machine to peer forward in time (not unreasonable, given its
	obvious time-bending abilities.)  Will Draal be able to do the same
	and offer insights into the events to come?  Zathras implies that
	perhaps he can do things even Draal can't, and that may be one of
	them.

<p>
   <li>@@@833149654 The distinction between the three members of The One echoes
	the migration of Minbari souls.  Sinclair, after his transformation,
	appears to be fully Minbari, and is The One who was.  Delenn is
	halfway between human and Minbari, and is The One who is.  Sheridan
	is completely human and is The One who will be.  Perhaps it's symbolic
	of a shift of power from the Minbari to humanity.

</ul>

<h2><a name="NO">Notes</a></h2>
<ul>
   <li> <a name="NO.glitches">Inconsistencies with</a>
	<A href="020.html">"Babylon Squared"</a> (B2).  See also
	<a href="#JS.glitches">jms speaks.</a>
	<ul>
	   <li>@@@832964609 Not an inconsistency per se, but in B2, there was
		no mention by Krantz of the explosion of the Shadow bomb
		or the presence of possibly hostile personnel on the station,
		which he definitely knew about in WWE2.  If it's not an
		inconsistency, why didn't he mention it to Sinclair?

	   <li>@@@832578586 <a name="NO.zathras">In B2, Krantz told</a>
		Sinclair that Zathras was
		first seen in a conference room.  "There was a flash, and
		there he was," Krantz said.  In this episode, Zathras was
		discovered in a supply room by security guards.

	   <li>@@@832750005 Zathras tells Sinclair and Krantz that The One has
		stopped B4's motion through time to let the crew get off.  But
		in WWE2, the station appears in 2258 by accident after Major
		Krantz unexpectedly powers up the time equipment.  And the
		idea of faking a power drop in the fusion reactor to cause
		the crew to evacuate was Ivanova's, not any of The One's.

	   <li>@@@846722520 In B2, when The One appears in the corridor,
		there are audible grunts of pain; they're clearly in a male
		voice, not a female one.

	   <li>@@@832578586 When Sinclair returns to the station and removes
		his helmet, the B2 version of events includes a computer voice
		intoning, "Present time atmosphere now breathable."  No such
		voice is heard in WWE2, though arguably Delenn was meeting him
		just inside an airlock, and the suit computer was referring
		to the fact that there was no longer a vacuum outside.

	   <li>@@@832578586 Delenn puts her hand on Sinclair's shoulder in B2,
		and her arm is draped in a red robe.  But in WWE2, she's wearing
		much darker colors.
	</ul>

<p>
   <li>@@@840127706 <a name="NO.souls">Another possible inconsistency:</a>
	Delenn claims that Sinclair's transformation began the migration of
	Minbari souls to human bodies that ultimately led to the end of the
	Earth-Minbari War.  However, in
	<a href="023.html">"Points of Departure,"</a>
	Lennier claims that the soul migration has been going on for roughly
	two millenia, twice as far back as Sinclair took Babylon 4.

<p>
   <li>@@@832608867 The voice at the door seems to be that of Bruce
	Boxleitner's real-life wife, Melissa Gilbert, though of course that
	doesn't imply anything about which character she'll be playing on the
	show.  However, she's been announced as a guest star in the
	<a href="066.html">season finale,</a>
	so the flashforward may well have been only a month or two ahead.

</ul>

<h2><a name="JS">jms speaks</a></h2>

<ul>

   <li> YAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH.....

	<p>
	Well, I *finally* finished writing the two-parter, "War Without End,"
	which is probably the toughest thing I've written for the series to
	date.  Given everything that has to fit in here, and the fact that
	it's the other half of the B4 storyline (this ain't a spoiler,
	that'll be common knowledge in ads and the like), it became a pretty
	difficult job, moreso than when I'd originally thunk it up.  It's
	kinda like cramming 20 pounds of potatoes in a 10 pound bag...but I
	*think* I got it all in, even though the initial drafts came out at
	about 7 pages too long.  As I commented to one person, "I'm
	definitely dancing on the edge of my ability here."  But I'm pretty
	sure I pulled it all off...and I think folks are going to be quite
	pleased.

	<p>
	But *man* that was tough....

	<p>
	Now, having written 16 and 17, only 5 scripts remain to be written
	for this season.  And there's still an awful lot to fit in before the
	big season ender, which I suspect will raise quite a few eyebrows.

<p>
   <li> In my last general posting to rastb5, I mentioned that from time to
	time, I'd try to post the occasional "letter to home" just to keep folks
	up to date on matters Babylonian.  Now that I can catch a breather, I
	figured I'd take this opportunity to do so (though since it's 3:15 a.m.,
	this'll likely be short).

	<p>
	"catching a breather" refers to the script situation.  I've just
	finished writing 316 and 317, the two parter, "War Without End,"
	which was a very difficult task, given the amount of story and
	logistics that had to be put into it.  While writing "Babylon
	Squared," to which this is the flip-side, I figured, "Oh, sure, yeah,
	I can get this all in on the other side, no problem," but when it
	came time to do it, it got awful tight, but finally I fit it *all*
	in.  (Well, all except one teeny, tiny sentence, about where Zathras
	was first seen, and how, 'cause to do what I'd first had in mind
	would've taken another 3 pages, and I didn't have that, so that one
	element I'll have to just deal with later somehow.  But that's it.)
	Hopefully, one need never have seen B2 in order to watch and follow
	WWE.  (Which was one of the hard parts, since B2 may or may not be
	aired prior to this, all the background information *had* to be in
	the episodes, so that's a lot of background to include.)

	<p>
	This now leaves 5 episodes to be written for this season.  At this
	point, Lyta should factor strongly in one or two of these, there will be
	some direct confrontations between our side and the shadows, then a
	really nasty final episode for year three.

<p>
   <li>@@@865189224 "One would find it hard to believe that episodes like
	"Severed Dreams", "I&amp;E","A Late Delvery From Avalon" and of course,
	WWE could be written by the same guy.  The pace, dialog, everything
	are adapted so well for each episode."

	<p>
	Suddenly I'm having an identity crisis....

	<p>
	I like to try different styles for different moods.  I also like to vary
	the tone of the show; one will be more comedic, as with Sic Transit Vir,
	others much darker, like Ship of Tears.  I enjoy trying new things,
	risking a bit, failing on occasion, but learning in the process.

<p>
   <li>@@@832965926 As I wrote the episodes prior to WWE2, I kept leading up
	to that first kiss, over and over, but deliberately never quite getting
	there.  I knew that when it came time to do it, I wanted to do it in
	just the way you describe...it would and wouldn't be a first kiss,
	both at exactly the same time.  So there's the moment everyone's been
	waiting for, but not in quite the way anyone had expected. 

<p>
   <li>@@@840126127 I knew everyone would be waiting for that
	first kiss, so I made sure it was different, that it was a first kiss
	for one of them, but not the other, that it was natural and totally
	unforced and surprising. So for Sheridan, his first kiss of Delenn was
	actually his second (by a long ways), and his second, when it comes,
	will be her first.

	<p>
	Just can't do anything the conventional way on this show....

<p>
   <li>@@@839749327 <em>Did you write WWE at the same time as B2?</em><br>
	No, I didn't write them at the same time, but I
	did a basic outline of what the follow-up (WWE) would be, so it'd all
	match up when the time came to show that half of the story.

<p>
   <li>@@@839784231 It all has to hang together, or it's kinda useless.
	It just required working out the details of what was, is, and will be. 
	Then I walked on water....

<p>
   <li>@@@833178275 <em>Did Sinclair's departure from the show cause changes
	in the B4 storyline?  Was it originally meant to go into the
	future?</em><br>
	No, B4 was never intended to go forward in time.  The aging was
	done pretty much as intended.  And the Soul Hunter meant they're using
	him to create their old Leader.  Still tracks.  I'll have more to say
	about all this after everyone's seen the episode.

<p>
   <li>@@@865189224 The curious thing...the interesting thing...is that in
	just about everything I've ever written, yes, I generally follow where I
	want to go, end up where I want to end up, but once I get *into* it,
	once the characters come alive on the page, I inevitably find better
	ways of doing things, stronger and more muscular paths to the story,
	more interesting side roads.

	<p>
	Also, this original story was worked out in 1986/87; that's nearly ten
	years ago.  In those ten years, I've become -- or like to think I've
	become -- a better writer, learned more, written more, picked up some
	new tools I didn't have then.  So you have a situation where the writer
	in 1996 looks at the writer in 1986 and says, "No, listen...there's a
	better way.  Yes, we'll still get to Disneyland on time, you'll still
	have plenty of time to ride the haunted mansion...but if we go *this*
	way, we can stop off and also see Knotts Berry Farm, and the Winchester
	Mystery Mansion, and maybe even Hearst Castle on the way."

	<p>
	The destination is still the same..but I've found a *lot* more
	interesting ways of getting there.  Which, after all, is what an outline
	is for: a safe home base that allows you to wander off, knowing that you
	can always return to it if you get lost.

<p>
   <li>@@@833177794 Foreshadowing is tough, because it implies the audience
	is going to BE there x-years down the road to Get It, and you have to
	risk the audience going "huh?" one time too many and wandering
	away...but nothing good comes without risk.

<p>
   <li>@@@833477724 <em>Why "War Without End?"</em><br>
	As Delenn says, the war is never entirely over...there are always new
	battle to be fought.  If it ain't the shadows, it's the shadows over
	Earthdome of a more human nature.

<p>
   <li>@@@837965529 "When dealing with an ep with a lot of flashbacks or
	reused footage (WWE, especially part 2), how much freedom does the
	director have?  Does he/she have to match the style of the previously
	show footage (in terms of angles, close ups, pacing, etc), or is
	there more room for the director's own style?"

	<p> In the case of WWE, you had to match lighting and composition
	pretty closely.  That's about the only time it's really become an
	issue.

	<p> "(one more question: if someone other than you had written
	"Babylon Squared", would they have to be paid royalties for the reuse
	of parts of that episodes script and footage in "War Without End"?)"

	<p> Anyone who writes a scene which is reused gets residuals.
	Doesn't matter if it's me or anybody else, as a Writers Guild member,
	it's guaranteed and required.  Also the actors, the director, and
	others get re-use fees of varying amounts depending on how long the
	sequence is.

<p>
   <li>@@@833559802 The Garibaldi scenes in part 2 were all from the first
	season.

<p>
   <li>@@@839784231 <em>Zathras looked familiar.  Was the character created
	by the actor?</em><br>
	Well, Zathras appeared in Babylon Squared, so you might have
	seen him there.  Beyond that...no, the actor came to what was written
	on the page and made it come to life, but didn't invent the character.
	I just sorta thunk him up.  It's what I do.

<p>
   <li>@@@832581591 <em>Londo looks older, but Sheridan and Delenn
	don't.</em><br>
	No, both Sheridan and Delenn *are* made up older.  If you particularly
	look at Delenn out in the light of later scenes in WWE2, you can
	DEFINITELY see the difference.  With Sheridan, it's a greying of the
	hair, and some lining on the face.  Londo, though, if you recall, is
	much older than Sheridan to begin with.

<p>
   <li>@@@833179532 It was a good sendoff.  (At one point, Bruce said to me
	over lunch, with Michael sitting with us, "Hey, so how come HE gets to
	go off and become the next best thing to God and I get the crap kicked
	out of me?"  I shrugged.  "Seniority.")

<p>
   <li>@@@833442235 The scenes with Zathras pinned under the
	strut were the same scenes from B2, we didn't reshoot that material.

	<p>
	The hardest shot was matching the lighting and composition in
	the central corridor *exactly* for the Ivanova-on-the-link scene, and
	the walk by seconds later by Garibaldi and Sinclair.  That came out
	pretty seamless.

<p>
   <li>@@@833442235 <em>Why does Krantz have a leather strap on his uniform,
	when there weren't leather straps in "The Gathering?"</em><br>
	The leather strip was also present when we shot the original,
	Babylon Squared, in year one.  I was kinda thinking at the time that
	the change was gradually being introduced in various divisions of
	Earthforce.  Krantz is from the Marines division, I believe (note the
	brown uniform), from that part which functions sort of like the Army
	Corps of Engineers, overseeing the building of space stations and the
	like.  Since it takes time to introduce a uniform change across
	divisions and light years, I figured some might have them earlier than
	others, or to try them out.  So I gave Krantz the leather strip.

<p>
   <li>@@@833560255 <em>The B4 insignia looks like a 3.</em><br>
	Those aren't 3s, those are Bs in which there's a stylized 4.

<p>
   <li>@@@832888831 <em><a href="#NO.glitches" name="JS.glitches">About the
	"Babylon Squared" inconsistencies</a></em><br>
	Yes, the conference room thing is a glitch, in that I had the way
	to do it, but it would've meant adding about 3 minutes to the episode,
	and I just couldn't fit it in.

	<p>
	(It basically would've involved him being hidden in the room when
	there's a timeflash.)

	<p>
	Ivanova et al *were* working actively to get the crew to evacuate,
	using the fake reactor reading.  If they hadn't really cared about it,
	they would've let the station continue running through time to its
	destination, or the present; they fought to stop it so they could let
	the crew get off.

	<p>
	No, Delenn hadn't been appearing/disappearing before this, but
	Sheridan *had*, so it's reasonable to assume he was seen.  Also, we
	don't know how much time passed between the sighting we notice, and
	the alert to Krantz.

	<p>
	We couldn't match the clothing properly, so we dispensed with it.

<p>
   <li>@@@833559802 I know about the sleeve...and actually she didn't touch
	him in WWE2.  It was one of those days when it was a hideous production
	schedule, and I wasn't on set, and it slipped by everybody else.

<p>
   <li>@@@833475135 The element I couldn't quite fit into War....
	
	<p>
	In B2, Krantz says they found Zathras when there was a flash,
	and he appeared in a conference room.

	<p>
	Now, I sketched out that scene when it came time to actually
	write the whole WWE two-parter.  What happened, basically, was that
	Zathras was passing by a room where he saw the one piece he still
	needed to finish his repairs on the time stabalizer.  He slips in, as
	best he can, unnoticed...the meeting goes on as he goes under a table
	to get the piece of equipment...he finishes just as there's another
	time-flash...as it ends, momentarily disoriented, he's discovered, and
	captured.

	<p>
	This would've matched what was in B2, as I'd intended. 
	Unfortunately, it added several minutes of screen time that I couldn't
	afford.  I would've had to cut something somewhere else, and that
	script was so tight it screamed as it was.  So I had to fudge how I did
	that and let the small inconsistency go.  The only other thing I
	could've cut, the one moveable piece, was Sinclair trying to radio
	Garibaldi at the end...and I didn't want to lose that.

<p>
   <li>@@@839784231 No, WWE couldn't have been 3 episodes.  Yes, it had enough
	story for it, and then some, but you can't take one storyline and
	stretch it out that far.  I wouldn't have done it even if I could.
	I'd've had to introduce a B story just to break it up a little, because
	3 hours of just a straight line one-story plot is murder.  And that
	defeats the purpose of expanding it.

<p>
   <li>@@@839232537 <em>Will we see Garibaldi's reaction to finding out
	about Sinclair being Valen?</em><br>
	I think it'd be hard to just drop in Garibaldi's attitudes
	about Valen without it having something to do with an episode; if it
	doesn't move that particular episode along, it shouldn't be there.  So
	that sort of thing is tough to pull off, making the show more
	unfriendly to new viewers.

<p>
   <li>@@@839784648 <em>Wasn't sending a message to Garibaldi a big
	risk?  And why didn't he tell Garibaldi before the shuttle
	left?</em><br>
	I think his message to Garibaldi was a momentary lapse, it
	wasn't something he'd planned, his emotions momentarily got in the way
	of his reason. To do so would be dangerous, so it wasn't done by him.

<p>
   <li>@@@833559802 Throughout the episode, whenever there's a tachyon burst,
	pretty much everyone has a timeflash of one sort or another (as also
	mentioned in Babylon Squared).

<p>
   <li>@@@833491921 <em>Why did Delenn leave the White Star?</em><br>
	Mainly just a feeling she had, best to check everything out for
	herself, make sure things were going properly, since they were getting
	right down to the wire.  Also, in case Ivanova got into trouble trying
	to get into C&amp;C, she wanted to be closer to the situation to help,
	if necessary.

<p>
   <li>@@@839232874 When Delenn takes off her stabilizer and puts it on Sheridan,
	taking on his suit for whatever small protection it might offer, at
	that point he stabalized and she became lost/unstuck in time.  So it
	was she who appeared in the last sequence there.  She took the risk to
	ensure saving Sheridan.

<p>
   <li>@@@832965264 1.  Since you've stated that the Babylon squared time
	travel incident
	would be the only one for the entire series, is there any way we might
	get answers to some of the questions that seemed to be raised from the
	far future?

	<p>
	In a sense.

	<p>
	2.  How much will sinclair's knowledge of the future affect what is to
	come?

	<p>
	Sinclair has no further knowledge of the future; he knows only what he
	saw up through and including the White Star.

	<p>
	3.  The question I'm really dying for an answer to though, is this: 
	Hasn't this episode in a sense made a large part of the arc
	anti-climactic?  I mean, we now know that the forces of light are
	victorious again, at least to some degree, we know of David (named for
	sinclair?), we know what becomes of Londo etc.  Whenever most of the
	major characters are in a life threatening situation, we now know that
	they survive it (it would seem).  

	<p>
	We also "knew" that G'Kar would strangle Londo...what you didn't have
	was context.  As we saw in part two, context is everything, and getting
	there is half the fun.

<p>
   <li>@@@833442235 It's a literary...I hate to say the word trick, but it's the
	most descriptive.  You show somebody the end right off the bat, as we
	did with the Londo/G'Kar scene.  But how do we get there?  What
	happens?  Yes, the war is eventually won...but what *was* the price? 
	And what does it mean to everyone involved?

	<p>
	The best magic is when it's right there in your face, and you
	can't see how it's being done.

<p>
   <li>@@@833442235 What happens with the future of Londo and G'Kar...is what
	you see. Course, how they got there is the meat of the story.

<p>
   <li>@@@833559802 Showing the end of a story at or near the middle is a
	literary device that's sometimes used by novelists that can be very
	effective, if used properly.  It shows you what happens, but leaves
	open *how* you got there, and what it means.

<p>
   <li>@@@839784648 The storyline began millions of years ago.

	<p>
	We're coming in in the middle of the story.

	<p>
	But then, that can be said of all of us.

<p>
   <li>@@@833177934 <em>Does this blow the mystery of whether Sheridan goes to
	Z'ha'dum?</em><br>
	Who said there was a mystery about Sheridan going to Z'ha'dum? 
	Kosh seems to treat it as a fait accompli; so does Sheridan.  It seems
	fated that he will go...the question is when, why, and under what
	circumstances, with what results?

	<p>
	See, sometimes the story works in the shadows (so to
	speak)...and other times we're right out in the open, we hand you the
	playbook and tell you we're coming right up the middle.  And *that's*
	when you've got to really worry.

<p>
   <li>@@@833442235 Sheridan wouldn't know anything of what happened after
	he blipped out of that future situation.

	<p>
	As for David, remember that Sheridan's father is also David.

<p>
   <li>@@@833442235 Sheridan's stabilizer basically broke into two major pieces,
	the front section which fell off in the White Star, and the back half
	which was still clipped to his belt, and later came off as Zathras
	watched.

<p>
   <li>@@@833475135 <em>Is David the Third Age of Mankind?</em><br>
	Not as such.

<p>
   <li>@@@846743399 <em>Will we see him?</em><br>
	Well, I wouldn't want to preclude anything at this point.

<p>
   <li>@@@833178090 <em>Were the Minbari fighting amongst themselves before
	Valen arrived?</em><br>
	There was certainly some division among Minbari; Valen
	straightened a lot of that out.

<p>
   <li>@@@833179114 That divisiveness has been growing lately, culminating in
	the breakup of the Grey Council which Valen formed.  There's bound to
	be some fallout....

<p>
   <li>@@@833179114 <em>Did the Council know Sinclair was Valen when they
	demanded he be B5's commander?</em><br>
	No, they didn't know at the time; most of them were still trying
	to figure the whole damned thing out; some refused to accept it, and if
	he was indeed bogus, wanted him killed to avoid becoming a false
	prophet and undoing Minbari society; some *did* believe it was him. 
	This disagreement in a sense became the first loose thread in
	unraveling parts of Minbari society.

<p>
   <li>@@@845974843 <em>Did Delenn know?</em><br>
	She had suspicions starting from the Battle of the Line; we'll
	have more on that later.

	<p>
	Yes, the Grey Council knows [now], but the general Minbari population
	does not know.

<p>
   <li>@@@833178275 <em>Where did the chrysalis machine come from?</em><br>
	The machine came up with Zathras from Epsilon 3.  It
	first appeared with Sinclair, then later got into Delenn's hands.  So
	she still has that version of it.

<p>
   <li>@@@833442235 Re: the Chrysalis device...it came from Epsilon 3.  There
	was one shot that should've been made more of, where we see a long box
	with a silver triangle on one side being set up, and left.
	Unfortunately,
	the shot didn't make much of it (you can see Zathras putting it out
	there), and a later shot we dropped showing it again because it wasn't
	properly featured and you couldn't really tell what it was.  There was
	so much in this episode that had to be pulled off, in a short amount of
	time, that sometimes things in the background don't get framed as they
	might be.  But that's where it came from: from Epsilon 3 to Sinclair to
	Delenn, who still has it.

<p>
   <li>@@@833560255 It was on Epsilon 3, then taken into the past
	with B4, held on Minbar until Delenn got it, and still has it.

<p>
   <li>@@@840214151 <em>And the triluminary?</em><br>
	It originated on Epsilon 3.

<p>
   <li>@@@833179114 The Londo stuff is just incredibly powerful...very moving.
	As for the voice...well, we'll just have to wait a bit, won't we?

<p>
   <li>@@@833179114 Re: G'Kar and Londo changing positions as Sinclair and
	Sheridan have done, these two moving from certainty to uncertainty in
	either direction, that ain't bad.  That ain't bad at *all*.  I like
	symmetry, and both journeys are interesting explorations.  What I've
	been doing in complex terms, you explained in an astonishingly few
	words.

<p>
   <li>@@@839784231 I seem to recall, after that Londo/G'Kar
	scene was shown the last time, posting somewhere that folks now knew
	*what* has happened, but they don't yet know the *context*.  Very few
	picked up on that and thought to actually reverse what they *thought*
	they were seeing to what they *might* be seeing.

<p>
   <li>@@@839784648 Will you see Londo and G'Kar together later this season?

	<p>
	Hmmmm......

	<p>
	Yes and no.

<p>
   <li>@@@833179114 <em>Whose eye opened during the strangulation?</em><br>
	The eye was of the keeper on Londo's shoulder, you can see
	G'Kar's fingers gripping a part of it.  It woke up.

<p>
   <li>@@@834865716 <em>About G'Kar's eye</em><br>
	One of his eyes had been plucked out some time before.

<p>
   <li>@@@833475135 Londo does not currently have a Keeper attached to him.

<p>
   <li>@@@833492263 You needn't concern yourself with the keeper...for a while
	yet.

<p>
   <li>@@@833559874 Vir doesn't have a keeper.  They would, of course, try to
	take care of that detail afterward.

<p>
   <li>@@@833697128 It's not a shadow host, no, but one of the many things
	that work for them.

<p>
   <li>@@@832236720 <em>Will we see Kosh in the past?</em><br>
	Not exactly, not as you might think, but in a sense....

<p>
   <li>@@@833179347 Suffice to say that Kosh knew Valen from way, way back....

<p>
   <li>@@@839190199 <em>If Kosh recognized Sinclair as Valen, why were the
	Vorlons so anxious to extradite Sinclair in
	<a href="000.html">"The Gathering?"</a></em><br>
	He could only recognize him once he
	actually saw him, and that didn't happen until he arrived at B5, after
	which he wasn't in any condition to talk to anyone until after things
	were over.

<p>
   <li>@@@839220595 <em>But surely they must have known he was B5's
	first commander?</em><br>
	Bear in mind that there have been lots of folks named Sinclair
	in the last 900 years; that we don't know how much Valen told anyone
	about his prior life; that the Minbari had had little to no direct
	contact with the Vorlons in well over a hundred years and likely would
	not have told them what they found at the Battle of the Line until such
	time as personal contact had been made again, which only happened at
	Kosh's arrival...and there wasn't exactly time to make a report after
	he rolled into B5 for the first time.

<P>
   <li>@@@846721620 <em>How did they know to meet Babylon 4?
	Prescience?</em><br>
	Well, the other obvious solution, since the Vorlons were then
	out and running around and actively involved in the war of that time
	period, he just sent out a signal, and they got there first.

<p>
   <li>@@@846721856 <em>But they accepted the station right away.</em><br>
	Given that there's a massive war on, they just had
	their major starbase destroyed, they were left without a platform from
	which to stage the last part of the war...and here comes someone
	offering a 6 mile long, perfectly empty and eminently useable base for
	the last phase of the war, no charge...hell, I'd take him up on it too.

<p>
   <li>@@@846722408 <em>Did B4 have more firepower than B5?</em><br>
	Yeah, B4 had more firepower, and it had one thing B5
	doesn't...engines that can move it forward if necessary.

<p>
   <li>@@@833492165 <em>Did the Minbari recognize the Vorlons?</em><br>
	They'd recognize them from legends of their own past, yes.  But
	bear in mind that the Minbari and Vorlons had already been working
	together in the war effort.

<p>
   <li>@@@865189224 The Vorlons were called in after B4 arrived.

<p>
   <li>@@@839784231 When you see a LOT of vorlons together, that's when it's
	time to run like hell.

<p>
   <li>@@@833442235 <em>How long did Sinclair live after going back?</em><br>
	He lived close to a hundred years as a Minbari; they're a long
	lived race, and they did all they could to maintain his health as one
	of their truly great figures.

<p>
   <li>@@@839749239 Valen did not have any children.  And there's some
	difference of opinion over exactly what Valen's final fate was.

<p>
   <li>@@@846721989 There are some legends about Valen returning someday,
	but so far they've been only legends, nothing more.

<p>
   <li>@@@839125979 The Valen aspect was set up in the first season, long
	before anything was decided about Michael.

<p>
   <li>@@@833442235 I'd love to someday tell the story of Valen and
	Zathras in the most recent shadow war.  It's quite a tale, actually....

<p>
   <li>@@@834982322 <em>Is this Zathras' exit from the series?</em><br>
	I'd love to see Zathras again somehow....

<p>
   <li>@@@846743399 I'm often tempted to create Zathras' brother, Mathras, or
	somesuch, if only for the look of terror in their eyes when he says, of
	Zathras, "Ah, yes...Zathras...was the quiet one in the family...."

	<p>
	Who knows, it might be something I might do someday....

<p>
   <li>@@@833492165 <em>Is Zathras "the man in between" from Sheridan's dream
	(<a href="033.html">"All Alone in the Night?"</a>)</em><br>
	 No, Zathras isn't the man in the middle.  Someone else is.  And
	 it isn't/wasn't Sinclair, either.

<p>
   <li>@@@844880098 Valen only knew what Sinclair would've known.  Zathras
	wasn't speaking from what Sinclair had told him, but on the basis of
	things he'd figured out on his own.

<p>
   <li>@@@865282994 Sinclair went back because he would always go back and
	always went back; the "alternate" timeline phrase isn't quite correct...
	t's more like the moment when the two possible wave forms of
	*possibilities* must collapse into one probability or certainty, both
	tugging at the same time.  For instance, you've got Shroedinger's cat,
	put into a box, with a 50/50 chance of a poison gas capsule opening and
	killing the cat.  At the instant before you open the box, Shroedinger
	said, the cat is neither dead nor alive, but *both*, until you open the
	box and the two possibilities collapse into one. It isn't that the cat
	had two alternate timelines, only that there were two possibilities 
	fighting it out to become the real one.

	<p>
	That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

<p>
   <li>@@@843504961 <em>What happened to Babylon 4?</em><br>
	B4 survived the prior shadow war, but in very bad shape;
	didn't last much longer after that.

<p>
   <li>@@@833179532 <em>Does the future with the Shadow attack no longer
	exist?</em><br>
	Yes.  Up until that moment, the total forces available to the
	shadows were an unknown to us...sort of like Shroedinger's Cat, is it
	alive in the box or is it dead?  It could be either one.  If they
	didn't go into the past, didn't affect the outcome, it would be one
	reality; if they did, then it'd be another.  As soon as they achieved
	one or the other of those two, the two possible results collapsed into
	the one, singular possibility.

<p>
   <li>@@@833475136 <em>Will Delenn and Sheridan have to pay too high a price
	for their victory and happiness?</em><br>
	Depends on how you define "too high" a price.

<p>
   <li>@@@833697232 What they were after from Delenn was info relevant to that
	time, some of it related to their son.

<p>
   <li>@@@833559802 The reason Delenn dropped the globe will be gone into by
	the end of the season; as for "when will (you) no longer be confused?"
	that's rather outside my purview.  Have you considered meditation?

<p>
   <li>@@@833697232 <em>Was Delenn a passive observer in her flash?</em><br>
	She more just saw it as a passive recipient, whereas he was
	actively There.

<P>
   <li>@@@839784232 There's not much point to asking me "when are we going to
	learn who Delenn saw in her flashforward."  Or similar questions.  I
	will not throw away the impact of something happening in an episode by
	blowing it out in a message.  There have to be surprises along the way.
	You'll see it when it happens.

<p>
   <li>@@@865189225 You'll have to wait and see who entered the room.

<p>
   <li>@@@833560256 Time travel isn't that easy, and at this juncture it will
	never happen again in the B5 universe.

<p>
   <li>@@@836932214 Sheridan, by taking the actions he took to keep history on
	track, has now pretty much assured that the events we see *will*
	happen.

<p>
   <li>@@@836932402 Events will unfold as we saw them.  Sheridan might try to
	use his knowledge to change things...but who knows, that may just bring
	them about.

<p>
   <li>@@@836932553 Of course there's free will.  But if I pull a trigger, and
	the bullet flies out hitting someone in the head, what happens between
	the moment of the trigger, and the impact, has nothing to do with free
	will.  Sheridan made the choice -- free will -- to do what was done in
	WWE.  There were two probable results, depending on whether he did or
	didn't do as asked.  Once he did that, the two probabilities folded
	into one actuality (a la Shroedinger's Cat).

	<p>
	Which doesn't mean to say he won't *try* to change things....

<p>
   <li>@@@839784648 <em>What did Zathras mean when he said he was the oldest
	living caretaker of the Machine?</em><br>
	Just that Zathras has worked on the machine, and survived
	it, the longest of all the others.

<p>
   <li>@@@856979423 <em>From George Johnsen, co-producer</em><br>
	The Zathras tool is not a speed loader, but a wrench of some sort.

	<p>
	There is this wonderful electronic surplus store down the street from
	the stage, and the place is swarming with art directors from all over
	the basin.  Our folks also frequent this place, and came back one day
	with a box marked "interesting shapes $10".  At any other place in the
	world, this would be a box of recyclables at best or a box of garbage at
	worst.  In Hollywood, however........ it is a box of tools for Zathras!

</ul>