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As for the Vorlons, yes, they saw that Sheridan had weakened them badly, and seized the initiative, to try to wipe their existence from memory. In doing so, they revealed they were not the goody-two-shoes that the Minbari had always believed them to be. Again, a beneficial result, when you consider that the younger races could have wound up being the Vorlon's pets for a few millennia.
I agree with Merle on that one. Sheridan only took out ONE of their largest cities and that disrupted their cause.
Now that I think about it...He Toasted his wife who was at ground zero when the nukes hit. Im sure he thought of her as mainly a husk now.
well, as a lover of new england clam chowder and manhattan clam chowder and minorcan clam chowder i feel compelled to rise to the defense of chowderheads everwhere.
crash's well-known and uncompromising hatred for the character of sheridan creates a definite bias in her interpretation of his mission to z'hadum. he was certainly angry about what the shadows had done to anna, but he didn't go to z'hadum exclusively, or even primarily, for revenge. he went because he wanted to see his enemy face to face and he wanted to find out as much as he could about WHY the shadows were driving the war forward. he wants to know what motivates the shadows, he wanted to know why the vorlons have been withholding direct assistance, and he knew he can get those answers on z'hadum.
as far as the nukes go, they were a sensible precaution and pretty much in keeping with his "i've got a little surprise for you" tactics as used in the Minbari War. sheridan was pretty sure the shadows intended to trap him on z'hadum, so he went prepared in advance to pay them back. that's typcial of his character.
i don't think he scattered the shadows, or forced them off z'hadum, with his nuke attack. the way i see the sequence of events is like this:
(1) the shadows were clearly prepared to attack and destroy the station. they were not eager to destroy it, because they would take heavy losses from Draal's weapons system on Epsilon 3 and the vorlons would also probably retaliate. the ships materializing around the station were waiting for orders from homeworld about whether or not the attack would be necessary. if sherdian compromised, or declared a truce, the station would become neutral territory, or might even be swayed to the shadow's side. if there was no moving sheridan, than the station had to be eliminated. otherwise delenn or ivanova or someone else would simply take over and use it as their base of operations.
(2) in the end, the shadow vessels don't attack the station. g'kar thought this was because sheridan was dead and the station was no longer a threat. actually, as vir tells us later, it was because the nuke attack on z'hadum hurt the shadows' military strength, and they had to recall and regroup their fleet for planetary defense.
(3) sheridan didn't scatter the shadows. they were still in close control of z'hadum and on the alert when delenn, ivanova, and lyta visited the area several days later.
(4) however, sheridan did make contact with lorien, and ultimately persuaded him to leave the planet. this posed a real problem for the shadows. in the past, the vorlons had never been willing to make an all-out-strike against z'hadum because it would mean killing lorien. lorien was an unintentional shield protecting the shadows. with him gone, however, z'hadum was open to vorlon attack or even to destruction by a planet killer. the shadows therefore had to scatter their fleet because their home base was vulnerable. in addition, they apparently lost sufficient forces from the nuke attack to make their fleet and the vorlon fleet more or less equal. prior to this, based on what kosh was saying, the shadows had a numerical superiority.
the immediate consequences of sheridan's actions were to reduce the shadow's fleet strength, force them to abandon any attack on Babylon 5, make their homeworld vulnerable to attack, and level the playing field between shadow and vorlon fleets.
not bad for a fish head.
I've hesitated to add my two cents before out of respect for Profcrash.However,I must agree with Iznardy in his support of Sheridan. I'm sure his character was drawn in that way to assure us that he had feet of clay. A too perfect God-like figure would have bored us all to death.
Besides, I am a lover of chowder, also. http://www.hostboard.com/ubb/cool.gif
The one problem I have with Iz's take is that I disagree that it was out of concern for Lorien's well being that the Vorlons didn't attack Zhahadum. It was against the rules of engagement wasn't it?
Even when the Vorlon's went Planet-Killing happy, they didn't go after Zhahdum (It wasn't destroyed yet was it?) they just went after other peoples planets.
yeah, but rule of engagement didn't stop the vorlons from pulverizing z'hadum in the previous war 1000 years ago. i think the only reason they left the planet intact was because it was lorien's home. and he was buried so deep in the core that surface bombing would not have affected him
according to the shadow's the vorlons had already broke the rules of engagment by creating telepaths. i think it was only a respect or fear of lorien that kept the vorlons from taking z'hadum out completely. sheridan might have been right when he said they wanted to kill the message, not the messenger; but that wouldn' stop them from reducing the messenger's base to a pile of ash.
Absom, never stay silent because you disagree with me. I have been to be known to be wrong on a number of occassions. I post here because I like to discuss the show with people.
Can someone point to an episode where Sheridan said he was going to the Zhadum for strategic reasons? I ask because I cannot think of a time that he did. I could have missed it, but we all just watched the episodes and I did not see that.
I did hear, for the first time actually, Sheridan tell Franklin that he wanted revenge on who ever messed with Anna.
If there was a real strategic reason for it, why only let Garibaldi know? Why take the nukes without telling Ivanova?
He did not behave like someone who knew that this was strategically a wise thing to do. If he believed that, then he would have told the others and it still would have happened.
Sheridan is a good soldier, but he has this nasty habit of allowing his personal feelings interfer with his better judgement. First with Anna and then with his Father.
As for the scattering of Shadow ships. Why wait to send ships to Centauri Prime until after the bombing unless the damage done by the nukes was so great? Its not like Cartagia could not have been persuaded before that. The Shadows moved forces off Zhadum after the bombing. Right after that, the Vorlons bring out the planet killer.
Sheridan may not have meant for that to happen, but the chain of events points to it.
Remember, Sheridan did not know what caused the damage to Centauri Prime. The damage he saw was due to Drahk bombing of the city in order to force Londo to order the Centauri fleet to attack the Allaince. (Legions of Fire book III) So he could not have known that going to Zhadum would stop what happened to Centauri Prime.
I don't know that the Vorlons did go after Zahadum 1000 years ago. All we know about that was was that the Minbari were able to destroy enough Shadow ships that it took them 1000 years to rebuild and that the Minbari drove them from Zahadum.
The rules of engagement that Sheridan discussed made it clear that Shadows and Vorlons were not to come into direct combat.
By the way, I never said I hated Sheridan. I do think he is a Chodwerhead and that his character is boring. I do prefer Sinclair but there have been times that I have praised Sheridan's actions. It may have not happened all that often but it did happen.
Persoanlly, I do not think that Sheridan is all that great a soldier. He got the job done, but mainly because he got lucky and not because he was a great soldier. His inability to handle personal relationships was costly. There is nothing he could have done to help Garibaldi in season 4. He knew something was up, he tried talking to him about it and got no where. No qualms there. At least, not until he decides to go to Mars, trustign Garibaldi. Hint, anyone who bad mouths you on TV and then decks you is not someone to be trusted.
The Way Sheridan missed Garibaldi's drinking problem in Season 5 is really problematic. Franklin figures out that something is up. He does talk to Garibaldi briefly but goes no further. Zack walks in on a drunk Garibaldi so he figures it out and flat out confronts Garibaldi. Sheridan says nothing to he catches Garibaldi drunk. Then he admits that he thought there was a problem but did nothing about it.
Garibaldi is a loner, no doubt about that, but if Sheridan or Franklin thought something was wrong, they should have pursued it. Just like Garibaldi did when he figured out Franklin had a problem with stims. Fearing that the person is going to be pissed with you for mentioning that you are worried and you think there is a problem is not a good reason for avoiding confrontation, especially if you consider that person a friend.
Heck, if my friends hadn't smacked me upside the head a few times when I was acting like a butt head I would have been in deep trouble. I expect my friends to let me know that they are worried, its part of the package. Sheridan and Franklin blew it. Not as sure about Delenn on this one, she does not know that many alcoholics so she could easily have missed the warning signs.
<font face="Verdana">As a minor point, the Shadows came out with their planet killer about the same time. We just saw the Vorlon version first in hyperspace. Sorry, though, I don't remember which one made an actual attack first.</p>
The Vorlons didn't want to engage the Shadows, but I don't think it was numerical superiority. More of the Vorlons not going into a battle they couldn't win, which could mean they were evenly matched. And the price for them engaging the Shadows was Kosh's assination. I'll admit that it stumps me how Kosh was selected for removal, and there was no assistance available to either prevent it or deflect it somehow. (The other side of that coin is how nuking Z'Ha'Dum could tip the tide allowing the Vorlons to think it was safe to go into action). I chalk it up to having missed "Understanding First One's 101".</p></font>