Triluminary

[KoshFan]

2. The Vorlons were not wating for Valen when he arrived in the 1260s. He sent out a signal on a frequency he knew the Alliance used. The Vorlons reached him before the Minbari did, and were therefore with him when the Minbari boarded. The Vorlons of that time (the two who joined Valen on B4 were Kosh and Ulkesh) knew nothing about Valen.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall when Valen first spoke to Kosh!

Considering that Kosh and Ulkesh were, at that time, both wearing the same type of encounter suit, I wonder if Valen was still able to identify him. Or perhaps Valen simply said, going on a WAG, "Is one of you named Kosh?" Which would probably have made even the Vorlons sit up and take notice.

Once the Vorlons were convinced of Valen's authenticity, of course, then they no doubt thought it an excellent idea to unveil themselves to the first Minbari to come on board and lend Valen that much more authority.

 

[GKarsEye]

I wonder if Valen was still able to identify him.

I would think so, just from the tone of his speech. Ulkesh was probably always more of a dick than Kosh.

JMS has said that Dukhat was not a Child of Valen

On some post somewhere? Hmm... well maybe some minority of Minbari had facial hair before Valen but Valen's introduction into the gene pool increased. As for the proportions of bearded Minbari, remember that we're only seeing the big players, the "great" men. It would be fitting to think of Valen's descendants as being more likely to be "great."

One's mind can play with what Valen's presence really introduced into Minbari society, on a deeper level than even they realise.

 

[Alluveal]

I dunno, I don't buy that Delenn was 100% human. Virtually human, enough to have a child with Sheridan? Yes, I buy that. She still had some Minbari features on her face (broader brow and no eyebrows.)

 

[Sindatur]

Considering that Kosh and Ulkesh were, at that time, both wearing the same type of encounter suit, I wonder if Valen was still able to identify him. Or perhaps Valen simply said, going on a WAG, "Is one of you named Kosh?" Which would probably have made even the Vorlons sit up and take notice.

That wouldn't have worked. Aren't they all Kosh?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

I dunno, I don't buy that Delenn was 100% human. Virtually human, enough to have a child with Sheridan? Yes, I buy that. She still had some Minbari features on her face (broader brow and no eyebrows.)

There are 100% humans living on this planet right now who have odd bone structure and no eyebrows. Delenn's appearance was not nearly as far from the median Human as any number of people I encountered on my daliy walk between Grand Central Station and my office in Manhattan, trust me. But she had to have been genetically 100% Human to have born a child with Sheridan and have that child be fertile - otherwise at the very least David would have been a Mule. That's not my theory, those are the laws of genetics as they apply (as per JMS) to the B5 universe.

Regards,

Joe

 

[GKarsEye]

people I encountered on my daliy walk between Grand Central Station and my office in Manhattan

Eh, you still see a bunch of 'em now. Where do you think they go to retire?

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Eh, you still see a bunch of 'em now. Where do you think they go to retire?

Yes, but now I speed past them in an air-conditioned car. Really a very different experience from sharing a sidewalk with them.

(Actually I work in a weird border zone between the crumbling remnant of the old inner city, a block from the bus station and Amtrak stop, and the new downtown renovation project with its millon dollar high-rise condos, wannabe Kennedy Center Theater and steel and glass convention center. Meanwhile my building was built on the cheap in the late 50s from one-size-fits all blueprints provided free by the Feds and is ridden with asbestos and mold. Two other buildings in our five building complex have had to be abandoned because they were structurally unsound and one contains all our computer and network equipment - too expensive to move - but no one is allowed to actually work in it. Homeless guys sleep in the doorways and squeegee guys haunt the parking lots. I'd take Fifth Avenue in 20s anytime, thank you very much.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[GKarsEye]

Nice.

I now live in Brooklyn, work in New Jersey and have to pass through Manhattan via public transportation to commute. I don't think you can ask for a higher daily freak quotient.

 

[Alluveal]

Well, but why use prosthetics at all on Delenn if she's 100% human? The bone head-piece we can say is for honoring her Minbari heritage, but why put extra stuff on her face to give her more of a minbari appearance at all?

I think there's still a little Minbari in her, yes. But that's just me.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Well, but why use prosthetics at all on Delenn if she's 100% human? The bone head-piece we can say is for honoring her Minbari heritage, but why put extra stuff on her face to give her more of a minbari appearance at all?

I think there's still a little Minbari in her, yes. But that's just me.

Because JMS wanted to keep that look for aesthetic and story reasons. But, again, JMS basically declared that while all his species use DNA for their genetic material, the same rules of genetics apply in the B5 universe as in ours. You might be able to transplant equivalent segments of DNA between species with the incredibly advanced technology available to the Humans and aliens of the mid-23rd century, but you can't have interspecies breeding by sexual intercourse. (Or you can't without massive technlogical intervention. For the record, I believe that when G'Kar offered Lyta a "direct mating" he was counting on the fact that she wouldn't know this. After he'd slept with her a few times he would have "discovered" a problem and gone with the artificial option.)

Regards,

Joe

 

[Jade Jaguar]

But she had to have been genetically 100% Human to have born a child with Sheridan and have that child be fertile - otherwise at the very least David would have been a Mule. That's not my theory, those are the laws of genetics as they apply (as per JMS) to the B5 universe.

Regards,

Joe

While I certainly agree that she had to be substantially human, I think you are going too far by insisting that she must be 100%. Mules may be sterile, but not all 'natural' crosses are sterile. Some crosses in the cat family are sometimes fertile, like ligers, and tigrons. Of course wolves and dogs produce fertile offspring. The Russians are said to have produced chimp/human hybrids.

When it comes to engineered crosses, who knows what might be possible? We are splicing genes from one animal, into another, very different animal, all the time, and producing fertile offspring. We know a lot about DNA, but we have much more to learn. Right now, we think that a lot of DNA is "unexpressed,"or "garbage DNA," that we no longer use. Could that somehow be swapped for non-human DNA, and still produce a breeding human? Who knows? With highly advanced genetics, we might well be able to produce some very strange hybrids, and make them fertile, by selecting just the necessary genes. So, while I believe that we should easily be able to produce fertile hybrid with 95-98% human DNA, we might well go below that.

The real question though, is would a living thing from another planet have anything resembling Earth DNA? Thus Sagan's comment about crossing with a vegetable.

 

[Sindatur]

Another thing to remember as far as story goes, is that Delenn had a difficult enough time being accepted by her Minbari brethren. Having just that little bit of Minbari aesthetic helped get beyond that discrminiation withing the Religious and Worker Caste, IMHO. If she looked completely human, she would've had an even tougher time being accepted, even amongst her own and the Worker Caste, I believe.

 

[KoshFan]

Considering that Kosh and Ulkesh were, at that time, both wearing the same type of encounter suit, I wonder if Valen was still able to identify him. Or perhaps Valen simply said, going on a WAG, "Is one of you named Kosh?" Which would probably have made even the Vorlons sit up and take notice.

That wouldn't have worked. Aren't they all Kosh?

Lorien didn't think so. At least he knew of a Kosh -- an individual -- by name. And he was around for a lot longer, and knew far more of the Vorlons, than any Human ever did.

GKE: I wonder about the tone of voice. I've often gotten the impression from what JMS has posted that in many ways Kosh was a nicer type of Vorlon at least in part because of his close association with Valen.

I really, really wish JMS would somehow do the Valen/Zathras stoy.

 

[RW7427]

Lorien didn't think so. At least he knew of a Kosh -- an individual -- by name. And he was around for a lot longer, and knew far more of the Vorlons, than any Human ever did.

Yeah, Lorien and Sheridan were talking about Kosh on Z'Ha'dum. Sheridan called him "Kosh", and Lorien says, "Is that its name? I think I met it once."

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Some crosses in the cat family are sometimes fertile, like ligers, and tigrons.

That's because ligers, tigrons, lions and tigers are all members of the same species - just different breeds. They are, for all practical purposes, identical - and that's my point. A tigron doesn't have just a little dog DNA. So Delenn doesn't have just a little "Minbari" DNA in any meanigful sense. Delenn has skeletal DNA which is extremely similiar in both species. When the Chrysalis machine translated her DNA into Human DNA, it allowed it to express the headbone - because humans have heads and bones. But it would not have allowed her to grow gills or fins. Delenn lacks eyebrows - so do some humans. But she has two eyes, and much more human ears.

So Delenn has external characteristics that are different from (most) other humans, but she's still HUMAN - not part Minbari, part Human - just a liger is a member and a tiger are members of the same species but of different breeds, or Halle Berry and I are both Human despite certain cosmetic and anatomical differences.

There are no hybrids across species lines unless produced by serious genetic engineering techniques (like what the Vorlons did to Lyta and in creating intelligent telepaths from non-sentient species or what the Narn planned for the Teep DNA.) That was my only point.

Regards,

Joe

 

[GKarsEye]

Yeah but Kosh and Ulkesh both had the same association with Valen, but only one became "nice."


Ulkesh saying "We are all Kosh" really just meant "fuck off and stop asking me stupid questions."

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Another thing to remember as far as story goes, is that Delenn had a difficult enough time being accepted by her Minbari brethren. Having just that little bit of Minbari aesthetic helped get beyond that discrminiation withing the Religious and Worker Caste,

While deeply offending many Humans, who still remembered the Minbari War. At the same time her freakish appearance also alienated many Minbari. These are the story-points I had in mind when mentioning the practical reasons for JMS going the way he did.

Regards,

Joe

 

[KoshFan]

Yeah but Kosh and Ulkesh both had the same association with Valen, but only one became "nice."

I'm not persuaded of that. Back during the first and second seasons, when little was known, JMS often alluded to how old Kosh was by saying "He's old enough to know Valen." Of course we then found out later from Lorien that Kosh is, in fact, far older than that. JMS, I feel, was clearly trying to point out that Kosh and Valen had a close relationship, perhaps as close as the one Kosh had with Sheridan. There are no such hints about Ulkesh. In fact as I recall, in both books and series, Ulkesh never speaks directly to Sinclair.

Of course, both Vorlons are present with Valen on B4 (or at least it seems a reasonable assumption that's Kosh and Ulkesh, as the two do seem to go together later on). But I suspect that Kosh was predisposed to interest in Valen, whereas Ulkesh was just using him. That predisposition developed into whatever relationship they had -- and may I again state how desperate I am for JMS to tell the story of that round of the Shadow War?

 

[Sindatur]

Yeah but Kosh and Ulkesh both had the same association with Valen, but only one became "nice."

I'm not persuaded of that. Back during the first and second seasons, when little was known, JMS often alluded to how old Kosh was by saying "He's old enough to know Valen." Of course we then found out later from Lorien that Kosh is, in fact, far older than that. JMS, I feel, was clearly trying to point out that Kosh and Valen had a close relationship, perhaps as close as the one Kosh had with Sheridan. There are no such hints about Ulkesh. In fact as I recall, in both books and series, Ulkesh never speaks directly to Sinclair.

Of course, both Vorlons are present with Valen on B4 (or at least it seems a reasonable assumption that's Kosh and Ulkesh, as the two do seem to go together later on). But I suspect that Kosh was predisposed to interest in Valen, whereas Ulkesh was just using him. That predisposition developed into whatever relationship they had -- and may I again state how desperate I am for JMS to tell the story of that round of the Shadow War?

HEHE, I remember being so upset that the next episode didn't continue on from there at first

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

According to JMS Kosh was always more sympathetic to the younger races generally, and was suspected by Ulkesh of having, to some degree, "gone native".