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A glance backward

If we go all the way back to "Midnight At The Firing Line" we will find some very important moments.Kosh said to Sinclair:

"They are alone. They are a dying people. We should let them pass."
"Who? The Narn or the Centauri?"
"Yes."

Right before that conversation Kosh was outside his encounter suit and Sinclair saw a ball of light behind something like a curtain.Sinclair turned around and prepared to leave when Kosh "flew" back to the encounter suit for less than a second.
Londo mentioned his dream about his death.
Ivanova explained why she hates Psi Corps.

And all of this was just in the first episode.
 
Oh, yeah. I was showing that one to my friend, and she said, "Kosh is a ball of glowing light!" Got it in one, and it only took the rest of us three and a half seasons to figure it out.
 
Just finished watching "A Voice in the Wilderness." Two points about Londo:

One, he said he wanted to die on his feet doing something noble, and brave, and futile. He gets half of his wish: his death isn't futile, and he dies sitting down.

Two, Delenn owes him a great favor. Does he ever collect? Is that the favor he calls in to get Vir stationed on Minbar?
 
Vir being stationed on Minbar would indeed be the favor. Londo even prefaces his asking of the favor by reminding Delenn of the favor that she owes him.
 
Wow, I'm surprised JMS had that long a memory for something so small. (Speaking of favors, though; Sheridan does Londo a favor early in Season 4 -- is that ever repaid?)
 
Just watched Babylon Squared as well; I could feel the old mystery and excitement, remembering what it was like the first time I watched the series through, trying to puzzle it all out...

But now I'm confused about the Grey Council. The leader of the council (or at least the one with the staff in those scenes) is clearly a friend to Delenn. Do we see him again? That's not Rathenn, because we see Rathenn later in War Without End and it's a different Minbari... and there's the Satai in "The Sky Full of Stars" as well, not to mention Hedronn. I feel the need for a breakdown of the council...
 
Wow, I'm surprised JMS had that long a memory for something so small. (Speaking of favors, though; Sheridan does Londo a favor early in Season 4 -- is that ever repaid?)

Maybe it's repaid in "Rumours, Bargains And Lies" when Londo helped Sheridan persuade the other ambassadors that they need protection from the "invisible enemy".A very good episode by the way.
 
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But now I'm confused about the Grey Council. The leader of the council (or at least the one with the staff in those scenes) is clearly a friend to Delenn. Do we see him again? That's not Rathenn, because we see Rathenn later in War Without End and it's a different Minbari... and there's the Satai in "The Sky Full of Stars" as well, not to mention Hedronn. I feel the need for a breakdown of the council...

There has clealy been a lot of rotation among members during the duration of the series. Perhaps that is a cycle that begins with Dukhat's death and doesn't end until Delenn reformats the Council. This would be understandable given the great upheaval.
 
Well, I don't think we went through all nine.

Mark Hendrickson plays Grey Council #1 in "Sky Full of Stars" and Grey Council #2 in "Babylon Squared." But the staff-bearing council leader who gives Delenn the Triluminary in Babylon Squared preferred to remain uncredited.

Robin Sachs plays Hedronn in "Points of Departure" and "All Alone in the Night," and Coplann in "In the Beginning." Safe to assume that it's the same Minbari, just going by two names. (Does any Minbari ever call him "Hedronn"? If not then we could pass that off as an alias he goes by among Humans.)

Rathenn we meet after the Grey Council is broken, but I think "To Dream..." implies he was on the council as well.

So we have:
Grey Council #1 (staff dude in BSquared)
Grey Council #2 (alias Mark Hendrickson)
Hedronn/Coplann
Rathenn
Neroon (later on)
Delenn herself.

Then there's Robin "Byron" Downes' character Morann in ItB; it's been so long I've forgotten all about him. Was Morann Grey Council as well?

Still short of nine, and definitely short of ten since Neroon took Delenn's spot; only eight even if we count Coplann and Hedronn as two people.

Coplann was clearly Warrior caste in "In the Beginning," and of course Neroon was as well. Since Rathenn was also on good terms with Draal, it seems likely he was also Religious caste like her.

Religious Caste:
Delenn
Rathenn (?)

Warrior Caste:
Coplann/probably Hedronn
Neroon

That leaves us with the two unnamed members of the council. Since Staff Dude seems to be on good terms with Delenn I'd peg him as Religious too, but the Mark Hendrickson character seems pretty enthusiastic about her as well in BSquared, but that would give us four probably-religious at that point, and so we're missing some info. Maybe Rathenn isn't actually satai -- or maybe he wasn't religious.

The big gap is our lack of information about the Workers. They seem fairly subsurvient at that point, so it strikes me as unlikely that any of them would be talking...


Gaaah. Insufficient data...
 
Rathenn was most definitely Council, he appears as such in the first issue of the B5 comic, and it was penned by JMS.

While no definitive answer is given, I think Coplann and Hedronn are two different characters played by the same actor, something I really hate in TV shows.

Morann is dressed in the robes of the Council and he brings the vote before Delenn, he is most definitely Council as well.
 
In "Moments Of Transition" Shakiri was the leader of the Warrior Caste.Probably he was also a member of the Grey Council before it was broken in "Severed Dreams".

I don't think we see any Satais from the Worker Caste in the show.It's strange considering that they rule Minbar from this episode on.
 
I don't think we see any Satais from the Worker Caste in the show.It's strange considering that they rule Minbar from this episode on.

It actually makes sense because of the reasons that Delenn stated they became the rulers. They spent their entire time ignored while the Warriors and Religious caste fought each other and garnered all the attention. The Worker caste stayed in the background and continued their work so it is only natural that they would lead and still not be seen.
 
Okay, even if we count Coplann and Hedronn as twins or something (which I'm still not entirely willing to do), we've got an interesting conundrum: eight Satai.

Delenn
Coplann
Hedronn
Morann
Rathenn
Neroon
Grey Council #1 (Staff Boy)
Grey Council #2 (Mark Hendrickson)

We know Delenn is religious and Neroon and Coplann are warrior, but beyond that... nothing. I suppose that's fitting, in a way.

I truly doubt Shakiri was Grey Council for some reason. He struck me as the chief potentate of the Warriors Caste, but no higher. There's no evidence for him being Satai other than him pulling rank on Neroon later on. With the breaking of the council Neroon was probably dumped back to his old rank of Shai Alyt, but still would have had considerable respect among the warriors as ex-Satai. That would make him a trusted advisor, but not in command... exactly as we see him being during the Civil War. Neroon probably expected to take over from Shakiri once the warleader was disgraced by Delenn's plan, but had to intervene.
 
Starkiller!

Nobody, Minbari or otherwise, calls Hedronn by name in "Points of Departure." I'm going to assume that that name is part of his Ministry of Culture alias, since it's certainly clear (strongly implied to the point of being outright stated) that he's the same Satai in "In the Beginning" -- either Hedronn and Coplann are twin brothers who speak identical lines of dialogue or they're the same person. And it truly is identical, since they simply reused the "Points of Departure" footage for "In the Beginning." Hedronn and Coplann are one and the same, and JMS just goofed a little.

Coplann is also pretty clearly warrior caste, since his headbone has a very warrior look to it (compare it to Lennier's smoothed bone spurs) and because he knew Kalain by sight. He was no doubt on Babylon 5 to check up on Delenn -- council members have travelled to B5 before to check on her, after all -- and probably stayed to see if he could defuse the Trigati situation. He may not have liked Humans, but he was there to see a Minbari soul in a Human body when they captured Sinclair and couldn't allow a war. Interestingly, though, Kalain says they have supporters "among the council." Such supporters would hardly be from any caste except warrior, I think, so Coplann's fellow caste representatives are intriguingly not telling him everything. Coplann may be too moderate for them.

On a related note, Sheridan knows a lot about the Minbari -- compared to, say, Sinclair, who had to discover bits and pieces about them slowly over the years. Sheridan can spot Coplann/Hedronn as Satai right off, and when Lennier begins his speech about souls, Sheridan nods -- he already knows the Minbari reincarnation beliefs.

Much has been made of Sheridan and Franklin "not recognizing" each other early in Season 2 after they met during the war, but in "Points of Departure" Franklin refers back to a conversation he had with Sheridan recently. I bet Sheridan stopped by, reintroduced himself, and they got caught up and got their story straight. Then Sheridan excused himself by having to give his good-luck speech. So that tracks. And of course Sheridan and Hague have another significant off-camera conversation in this episode.
 
I wouldn't call the CCG an unimpeachable source, but it lists Mark Hendrickson's character (who I've listed as Grey Council #2) as "Dhaliri" of the religious caste. They also list a Minbari I don't recognize (possibly from ItB, possibly the one I've called Staff Dude) as Durlan of the workers, Rathenn (pictured hooded and holding the staff) as religious, Shakat as warrior, and Hedronn as warrior (not that they had a choice). The CCG also makes no reference to Shakiri being satai.

Later on, the CCG lists "Katz" as a telepathic worker who's satai, but she's one of the five Delenn appoints after the civil war. They also list Coplann -- but he replaces Hedronn and Hedronn is removed from the game, implying the two can't coexist. I stand by my assertion that they are one and the same.

Going by this new information, we have:

Religious:
Delenn
Rathenn
Dhaliri/Grey Council #2/Mark Hendrickson

Warrior:
Coplann/Hedronn
Shakat
Neroon -- later, of course

Worker:
Durlan -- who is possibly the one I've called Staff Dude, the one most on screen in "Babylon Squared"
Katz -- but she's post-Civil War, and may or may not have been on the council previously.

If Durlan is Staff Dude (not to be confused with the fighting pike trainer for the Rangers), then that actually tracks well, and I'd say we are nearing completion. We're missing a Warrior and two Workers for the early days, and of course we've got almost no information on who Delenn puts on the council afterwards, but that's what we've got, and I expect with that I shall have to be satisfied.
 
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Just noticed some other things:

Sheridan says that he still sometimes feels like Anna's alive. Considering the way he connects with Delenn later on, perhaps he can still feel on some level that she is alive.

Franklin says, "I can't ask anyone else to do it" (when speaking of giving up life force to save Garibaldi), and walks away before Sheridan can say anything. Later, Franklin says, "I thought we had an agreement!" That's Franklin's personality in a nutshell, isn't it?
 
I rewatched some episodes of the first season and noticed an alien that we don't see in the following season.It looks like a giant fly and lives in the alien sector.We see that it is something like a mafia boss in downbellow(G'Kar asked it to provide a bodyguard for him in "Parliament Of Dreams").First I thought that it was a Gaim but then we see how the Gaim look like in "No Compromises".Any clues about it?
 
That's N'Grath, and we have no idea of what species he is. We do know he dies sometime between seasons 1 and 5, leaving a power vacuum in downbelow.
 

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