EpDis: Deathwalker

[Sindatur]

I thought it was the Humans that made Sol go Nova in DoFS, because we were ready to move into the Vorlon home Planet, and wanted to keep Earth out of the wrong hands?

 

[Markas]

If they can open a gateway to another dimension, making a sun go nova is well within a first one's power.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Apparently they did. And decided the best way to acquire new habitable systems... was taking by force.

Which would explain why Deathwalker was developing pathogens to wipeout the populations of entire planets. They did not want slaves just the land.

Since the Dilgar ended up with all the members of the non-alighted worlds against them it sounds like they failed to stop when they were ahead.

 

[GKarsEye]

Not neccessarily, it could have been caused by them, or it could have been caused by, say the Vorlons? Perhaps the Jhadur wasn't the first Dilgar that the Vorlons disposed of, but, rather the last?

This wouldn't jibe with the "historical" importance of Earth saving the non-Allied worlds from the Dilgar, which made humans a major political force. Unless maybe the Vorlons decided to wipe out the Dilgar after they had already been beaten, but that ain't their style. I don't think they would even give a shit.

I thought it was the Humans that made Sol go Nova in DoFS, because we were ready to move into the Vorlon home Planet, and wanted to keep Earth out of the wrong hands?

I don't remember anything in that episode that implied or indicated that humans caused it to go nova. And why would they- if the Vorlons kept their home planet secure, why wouldn't humans?

However, our sun won't go nova for billions of years, so making it go nova that soon is either, as you say, man-made (hardly the action the peaceful, enlightened race depicted in DoFS) or just a scientific gaffe by the show.

 

[Sindatur]

From Lurker's Guide, JMS Speak, Episode DoFS

Complaint/Question: "My personal nit is that JMS has the sun going nova in only a million years. This seems several orders of magnitude too soon for me."
JMS: Actually, the computer voice specifies that it is continuing to note atypical solar emissions...atypical meaning something unusual is going on.


And what if you, say, interfered substantially with the mass of the sun by, say, causing a series of jump points to open up *inside* the sun across several days?

You'd also substantially decrease the mass of Sol, which as I understand it, would result in the sun going nova.

Not, concrete, but I knew I got the impression from somewhere.

 

[hypatia]

Or simply a thought JMS never chose to follow up on. I would think the world of possibilities in science fiction could come up with a plausible explanation. An experiment gone horribly wrong.

I assumed, as has been mentioned, the Dilgar became so aggressive because they knew their days were numbered. Is it possible the worlds they were so terrible to simply did not let them leave? I suppose not

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Not neccessarily, it could have been caused by them, or it could have been caused by, say the Vorlons? Perhaps the Jhadur wasn't the first Dilgar that the Vorlons disposed of, but, rather the last?

This doesn't really fit with the rest of the story. If the Vorlons could make a sun go Nova, why would they even bother making the giant planet killers later in the series, when they could just nova the star of that planet?

 

[GKarsEye]

Because that would annihilate an entire solar system, when maybe they only want to take out the one planet.

 

[vacantlook]

Anyone think that perhaps the Dilgar were being influenced and groomed by agents of the Shadows in hopes that the Dilgar would be the race they could use to start kicking over ant hills, but with the Dilgar getting beatened, they eventually went looking for new ones and decided on the Centauri?

 

[PillowRock]

I think J'hadur accepted that she was evil.

I don't so. I think that she considered herself to be similar to everyone else, relative to the capacity for good and evil. It was just that she had this vision about immortality that rendered her actions acceptable (in an "ends justifies the means" sort of way). A fair portion of her point in supplying the drug to the other races after the fact was to prove that they would all act the same way that she had, when a similar goal was presented. It would prove that she wasn't any worse than anybody else.

Now, she had long since accepted that everybody else though of her as being evil. That is kinda the starting point for trying to prove that everybody else is the same as you are.

 

[vacantlook]

It would prove that she wasn't any worse than anybody else.

I think that Jha'dur was less about trying to prove she wasn't any worse than anyone else and more about her trying to prove that everyone else is as bad as she is but just doesn't want to admit it.

 

[PillowRock]

It would prove that she wasn't any worse than anybody else.

I think that Jha'dur was less about trying to prove she wasn't any worse than anyone else and more about her trying to prove that everyone else is as bad as she is but just doesn't want to admit it.

Could explain the difference?

Either phrasing says that she is trying to prove moral equality between herself (and maybe her people) and the rest of the known sentients. They appear to me to be logically equivalent.

 

[vacantlook]

Both statements reach the same terminator, but they state different things.

trying to prove she wasn't any worse than anyone else

This would be her trying to prove to that everyone has flaws. It comes from the perspective that all people try to do good and just occationally do things that can be construed as bad from a certain viewpoint due to mistakes in judgement that one makes along the way.

trying to prove that everyone else is as bad as she is but just doesn't want to admit it

This is her fully acknowledging that she's got a significant portion of her being that's evil and that everyone else has that exact same evil in them but they just don't actually admit it. That she's being honest in that she does bad things and is going to prove to everyone else that they're as evil as she is despite their wanting to think otherwise.

 

[FreeBaGeL]

Because that would annihilate an entire solar system, when maybe they only want to take out the one planet.

So they were willing to kill entire planets with billions of people on them just to get to one person (Centauri Prime for Londo among others), so I don't think that would be something they were concerned with.

 

[sleepy_shadow]

I would think... that First Ones were quite capable of removing an inconvenient star.

However, even for them... directly destroying a tiny planet (tiny in relative sense) could prove notably quicker/easier than destroying a *massive* star.

Although, admittedly... it would probably depend on how easily a particular civilization could manufacture particular objects... namely black holes below their natural threshold mass. Portable ones.

Because such an object... a pre-manufactured singularity delivered into a star... probably could destroy a star quickly.

Resulting collapse would probably draw most of the star's mass inward. How fast... I cannot predict. My calculation (admittedly intuitive, not numerical) seems to suggest a quick collapse... but without adequate knowledge of the physical principles involved, I could be wrong.

If the star's element composition has reached a suitable phase... such a process might *slightly* resemble a nova.

But this does *not* seem what happened to the Dilgar sun (and probably neither to the Earth sun as depicted in "Deconstruction").

Because the resulting black hole would sure draw attention, and leave no question about the artificial nature of what has happened.

 

[rangerPHIL]

J'Hadur was a really wonderful nasty character and I have to admit that Deathwalker is my second fave season 1 episode.

 

[phoenixrising]

I agree that it is silly that all of the Dilgar would have perished in a nova of their sun. It's not that big of a surprise, unless someone made it go nova. There is not enough data to know. I suppose if they were as ethno or species-centric as they appeared to be, it's possible that they did not mingle in places with others.

A bit of a plot hole, I think.

It would make a lot of sense if, as a condition of losing the war, they were confined to their home planet and a blockade set up. That would be very logical.

 

[RMcD]

Maybe it was a case of mass suicide. After losing the war and perhaps being confined to their own planet, a 'moral majority' of Dilgar could have become aware of the crimes committed in their name. Then they or perhaps only a small faction among them might have found a way to detonate the star, out of guilt. The trouble is, the Dilgar invasion is only mentioned twice in the whole series, so anything like this is pure speculation.

 

[GKarsEye]

Because that would annihilate an entire solar system, when maybe they only want to take out the one planet.

So they were willing to kill entire planets with billions of people on them just to get to one person (Centauri Prime for Londo among others), so I don't think that would be something they were concerned with.

Morden implied that eliminating the Narn was on the Shadows' agenda. "All in good time" or something like that when Londo half-jokingly asked if they might as well not kill all the Narn. My guess is that they hold a grudge against the Narn for kicking them off their planet a thousand years ago.

But First Ones think very big-scale and are patient, so they combined the two goals of destroying Narn with corrupting the Centauri. If they couldn't get Londo, they would just use Refa (which they started to do) or any other ambitious Centauri, of which I'm sure there was no short supply.

 

[aajay]

One of my Season 1 favorites as well.
Sarah Douglas gave a good performance (as she always does) as Jha'Dur. Na'toth was also in rare form.
The B plot was enjoyable as well...would have loved to see Kosh scampering.
Was good to see the non-aligned world aliens too. Did we ever see a Vree?? Are they the ones with the "gas mask" look?