Babylon 5 Spoilers Section

[AsIs]

Ok, not being able to do spoilers rewatching these eps is driving me crazy! So here is the spoiler sanity zone. Spoil away!

[AsIs]

Way to go Londo!

Relistening to the exact wording of Lady Morella's profacies reminded me of something...

Londo does find redemption. Surrender yourself to your greatest fear Londo finds redemption.

A happy ending for your bad boy.

[Wizz]

Rather than start a new topic, I'll tell it here.
There's a train that runs into Silicon Valley from as far out as Stockton. It runs over the Altamont hills (between Tracy and Livermore), and stops at Great America before it's final stop in San Jose. There's a fleet of busses that pick up the commuters and go on various routes. ACE (for Altamont Commuter Express) don't have line numbers, they're colors. Ok, that's the setup.
Overheard at the Great America station: "We have to take the shuttle over to Lucent. According to what I was told, we take the Green Shuttle". Companion: "No we take the Purple one". You know where <u>this</u> is heading..."Green". "No, Purple". "Green!". "PURPLE!".

Well, maybe you just had to be there...

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Do not tempt the patience of Wizzards, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.

[Nommy]

What I want to know is : What Psi rating is Ivonva. She "knew" that Sheridan was "dead". How? I mean, I know she is a latent telepath, but what was her rating? Has JMS ever mentioned what rating she would have been? I believe he would have persude that part of her life, if she had stayed on the show.

[AsIs]

Hadn't ever looked at it that way Iz. It is interesting to see it in a different light.

Technically Ivanova has said that she was *less* than a P1, but realisitically she is a P1 or P2, anything more than that and she would have been able to do more with it.

[iznardy]

hey, before disemboweling each other, did these two happen to say what will happen with lucent's stock. like is it gonna be stuck at $8 forever, or is the company going to make a recovery, and maybe get back into the $20 range?

[iznardy]

i already posted my "sheridan goes to zhadum" spiel at speculativision, but here's the short version.

i think sheridan's unspoken reasons for going to zhadum are more interesting and more important than his spoken ones. to delenn, he explains that he is going in hopes of stopping the fall of centauri prime, and to anna he says he is going to find out the truth about the shadow war.

but he knows in advance he is walking into a trap and he goes prepared not only to defend himself (two guns) but to deliver two fusion bombs to the home planet of the shadows. ultimately, he goes, i think, because his side is losing the war (two vessels killed for every shadow ship taken out) and he intends to hit the shadow homeworld, even if its means his own death.

to me, this is sheridan at his best. in fact, it gives him an affinity with sinclair, who, at the battle of the line, says "not like this, not like this, if i'm going out i'm taking you with me." in both cases, these two face terrible odds. in both cases they know their actions might be futile. but they are willing to try.

in the end, sheridan makes the "right" decision. it was at great personal cost, but he does find out the truth behind the war and he does turn the tide of the war.

[ProfCrash]

I doubt that Ivanova telepathicly felt Sheridan's death. 1) she is not strong enough 2) he was too far away. She says that he is dead only after Corwin tells her that the White Star is not responding and that it was most likely destroyed.

Sheridan going to Zhadum. Iz I might buy what you have to say except for one small thing. Sheridan has said from day one that he was going to go to Zhadum to find out what happened to Anna. The very first time Sheridan learns of the Shadows and Zhadum, he tells Kosh to teach him how to fight the Shadows because he is going to go there.

So any other reason that he gives, like the ones in his message to Delenn are bogus. He goes to Zhadum for revenge and revenge only. He comes up with some conviently reasonable sounding reasons for going but I doubt anyone really buys them.

The idea that he hopes that by going to Zhadum he can stop the fall of Centauri Prime is beyond ridiculous. Why would Delenn tell him not to go to Zhadum if he hadn't gone? The fact that Delenn makes that comment 20 years in the future tells him that he went. It should also tell him that going was a bad idea even if he doesn't know the reason why.

This leads me to believe that Sheridan knew he was doing something phenominally stupid and was trying to find some reason to justify his action. The best that he can come up with is that Delenn told him not to in the future.

He went to Zhadum for revenge.

Why did he have reason to believe that they were losing the war? The last two encounters with the Shadows were victories for the Alliance. Granted they were costly but the Alliance won. The last battle was won with the Alliance members holding back resources, meaning Sheridan knows that they can beat the Shadows and that the Alliance has more resources at its disposal.

At worst the war is at a stalemate at best they are winning. Sheridan and Delenn know that winning is going tobe costly, they have some records from the last war. But they know they have won the last two engagments. I doubt Sheridan thinks that they are losing, he may worry about the numbers it will take to win but he is not admitting defeat.

Sheridan does what he is best know for, he reacts to an impulse. First Morden being alive caused him to nearly toss aside everything he had ever worked for by holding Morden indeffinently (sp). Now Anna arrives, he finds out delenn and Kosh were not fully honest with him, and he is pissed. So off to Zhadum he goes with a couple of nukes.

Nothing noble here, just Sheridan being Sheridan. Willingly sacrificing the entire cause to even the score with the Shadows.

[Wizz]

John-boy sure loves nukes. He's got a whole pile of 'em waiting for the next Shadow attack. As was discussed with G'kar, they were going to be seeded in the next suspected attack location prior to the Shadows actually showing up. This tracks with the amount of losses they suffered...losing 2-to-1 means they're going to be out of the conflict in the near distant future. I can see where some might think that Sheridan is looking to hit them again; take a bit of offense to even things a bit more. The station is almost certain to come under attack as well, so blasting a chunk of the Shadow planet into dust might cause some pause in the attack on Babylon 5.

But, I agree with Prof here. I think it was revenge. Anna shows up, but it's not Anna (even though she is Anna). It's not until after Sheridan reads Franklin's last report that he gives Garibaldi instructions for preparing a White Star for it's suicide run. He knows two missing nukes won't affect their intended use against the next Shadow attack. And he took two PPG's with him, knowing that his side one would be confisgated. You don't walk into enemy headquarters and expect to remain armed.
So, what happens? Just as he expected. His sidearm is removed, they sit down and chat about conflict and growth in a very civil way. He's not fired up about any of this. Conversation turns to Anna, and the "modifications"...bingo! He comes alive! Paraphrasing "Once you're merged with one of those vessels, you are never the same anymore." Justin also admitted that indirectly, Anna was forced to merge with the shadow ship after John exclaimed that Anna would never agree to the philosophy the Shadows were preaching. All the proof Sheridan needed to convince him Anna was really gone.
From there, the "discussion" went to hell in a handbasket. Sheridan wasn't interested in Shadow Philosophy 101, he wanted an admission that Anna's mind had been screwed with, and that Anna wasn't really "his" Anna anymore. He reaches for the second PPG just as Justin tells Sheridan that Sheridan will fall into line and support their cause. At this point, then, Sheridan can justify another cause, that being putting a dent into the Shadow base. That'll support the Army of Light cause, give him a noble meaning for doing what he did. Then, too, you might consider his bringing down the White Star a means of suicide so he wouldn't be turned against his own people. But his real intent at the beginning was to confirm what had happened to Anna, and to punish the bad guys for doing it.</p>

What I find a bit odd is that after the success they had against the Shadow forces (Shadow Dancing?), the discussion centered around how the Shadows would be looking at Babylon 5 as their next target; no one called Drall and asked him to kind of keep a third eye on the place just in case. As it turns out, the Shadow vessels showed up on their doorstep, and Lo! communications are jammed. I would think that communications jamming would be expected, and getting ahold of the great machine would be out of the question during an attack. Ah, well. Missed opportunity. I think a confict between the GM and the Shadow vessels would have been kind of neat, even if the vessels had to bail out because of Sheridan's action. Maybe it hit the cutting room floor because of time?
Finally, the other missed opportunity would have been Morden and Sheridan meeting each other once again. The look on both of their faces would've been priceless.
Ok, all done...

[ProfCrash]

I am not sure that Drall could keep track of all Shadow activity or notify B5 if the Shadows were arriving. Trhe Shadows don't use the same technology as the other races so I am not sure how you would track them. The only reason why the Alliance was able to pull this off in Shadow Dancing was because they finally figured out what the Shadows were up to. They knew where the Shadows were going to attack so they could be ready for it.