DaRkEnEdStAr
Regular
in the last days of the shadow war , The Vorlons started attacking any world with Shadow influence on it ... If it had gone on any longer , Would they have attacked Earth ?
-
The new B5TV.COM is here. We've replaced our 16 year old software with flashy new XenForo install. Registration is open again. Password resets will work again. More info here.
vorlons attacking earth
- Thread starter DaRkEnEdStAr
- Start date
And the Narn.
This is something that always puzzled me about the Shadow War arc. The humans (ie Clarke and the Psi Corps) had definite ties with the Shadows. Morden was in cahoots with them, as was that black guy who went to B5 to ask everyone about Keffer's video. Shadow vessels were found on Mars and Io, so one wonders why the EA was hardly mentioned in the Shadow conflict. On Mars, they didn't even know that the war happened.
And I've always wondered why when the Vorlons were sending their planetkiller to Centauri Prime, there was only one other target mentioned - and it wasn't Earth.
This is something that always puzzled me about the Shadow War arc. The humans (ie Clarke and the Psi Corps) had definite ties with the Shadows. Morden was in cahoots with them, as was that black guy who went to B5 to ask everyone about Keffer's video. Shadow vessels were found on Mars and Io, so one wonders why the EA was hardly mentioned in the Shadow conflict. On Mars, they didn't even know that the war happened.
And I've always wondered why when the Vorlons were sending their planetkiller to Centauri Prime, there was only one other target mentioned - and it wasn't Earth.
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
I didn't get the impression that David Endawi was anything more than an innocent bureaucrat sent on an apparently innocuous fact-finding mission. He didn't need to be "in cahoots" with Clark and/or the Shadows to do what he did.
As for the Vorlons and Earth, I have no doubt that eventually they would have gotten around to polishing the place off. The only thing that save Earth was the "geography" of the galaxy. Earth simply wasn't anywhere near the main action of the Shadow War, and wasn't located between the Vorlon homeworld and anyplace else they wanted to blow up. They'd've done it sooner or later. If they were willing to wipe out Centauri Prime simply because Londo was still alive, think what they do to an Earth where the government was riddled with agents of the Shadows and those under their influence, and where the Shadows has put the current President in office and neutralized the Vorlon's best teeps by having Clark co-opt Psi Corps.
I doubt it would have been pretty.
Regards,
Joe
As for the Vorlons and Earth, I have no doubt that eventually they would have gotten around to polishing the place off. The only thing that save Earth was the "geography" of the galaxy. Earth simply wasn't anywhere near the main action of the Shadow War, and wasn't located between the Vorlon homeworld and anyplace else they wanted to blow up. They'd've done it sooner or later. If they were willing to wipe out Centauri Prime simply because Londo was still alive, think what they do to an Earth where the government was riddled with agents of the Shadows and those under their influence, and where the Shadows has put the current President in office and neutralized the Vorlon's best teeps by having Clark co-opt Psi Corps.
I doubt it would have been pretty.
Regards,
Joe
Demonn
Regular
Originally posted by Recoil:
I'm thinking that they worked out a deal like the Centauri... you know, "we'll leave you alone if you leave us alone." Then somewhere down the line they started doing the occasional favor for each other.
They got the guy his job but they weren't sleeping together. Think about it... Clark tried to keep an entire Battle Crab from the Shadows. If there was a permanent Shadow influence on Earth they would of found out about that Battle Crab and taken it back.
I'm thinking that they worked out a deal like the Centauri... you know, "we'll leave you alone if you leave us alone." Then somewhere down the line they started doing the occasional favor for each other.
D
**DONOTDELETE**
Guest
And that deal was made by Londo--who was the Shadow influence that nearly doomed his world. Londo wasn't sleeping with the Shadows either, because that's not how the Shadows worked.
Remember, they shared one view with the Vorlons--that the younger races are children that need to be shown the way. It was *how* to do that that separated them. The Shadows are not going to reveal themselves completely to their allies, nor are they going to place somebody like Anna or Morden in a position of power. They allied themselves with the humans and Centauri because they saw the qualities needed to create the widespread chaos they wanted. They were *using* Earth and the Centauri.
Londo figured that out long before he destroyed the Shadow base, yet Refa balked him, because Refa saw how he could use "Londo's allies" to his own use and, in his eyes, his homeworld's benefit. Clark saw the technology of the Shadows, and wanted to use it for Earth's benefit (hence, the secret fleet that Ivanova's White Stars destroyed in "Between Darkness and Light"). Everybody has their motives, and you can't expect a leader like Clark to play honorably with an older, mysterious race like the Shadows.
As Joe mentioned, Earth was sparred the Vorlons' onslaught simply by location--which is also why Earth was a latecomer in contacting the Centauri, Minbari, and other League worlds (I think it was the Delgar war that elevated Earth to its current status in the series). Also, the Vorlons hadn't attacked any major homeworlds until the events in "Into the Fire." Perhaps some Earth colonies were attacked, but because of Clark's martial law on homeworld and Mars (in the same star system), news of those attacks probably never reached the ears of the general public.
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
Or the colonies were spared because, being close to the homeworld as one suspects they would be (other races would have already occupied desireable but uninhabited worlds closer to the more settled and travelled parts of space), they also weren't in the Vorlon's line of fire. And perhaps some were spared because they were already in rebellion against the Shadow-tainted Clark government and there was no actual Shadow presence on those worlds.
Regards,
Joe
I almost wonder if JMS considered resolving the Earth situation before the Shadow War simply because that would have given him the dramatically superior route of Sheridan doing for Earth what Londo did for the Centauri - riding in to rescue Earth not from Clarke alone, but from destruction at the hands of the Vorlons as well. It would also have placed a time constraint on the "March to Earth" that would have been dramatically pleasing.
I considered that idea at the time, so I am sure it had to cross JMS's mind. I guess he preferred the situation as he laid it out because that left Sheridan's status more ambiguous, which makes for less drama but more depth.
I considered that idea at the time, so I am sure it had to cross JMS's mind. I guess he preferred the situation as he laid it out because that left Sheridan's status more ambiguous, which makes for less drama but more depth.
I don't think so. I sense a real "Lord of the Rings" motif in the way that JMS structured the two biggest wars that we see in the B5 arc. The 4 Hobbit heroes of LOTR go off on great campaigns to unheard-of places. They fight great and powerful enemies that no other Hobbit could ever dream of, and they generally become some of the most important heroes in all of the known world. They then return home to find that the Shire has been overrun by Saruman and his evil men (if you've only seen the movies and not read the books, then you may be lost at this point). The Hobbits take what they've learned on their grand adventure to save the world and use that knowledge to save their home - something much more tangible and close to the heart.
In the same way, Sheridan, Ivanova, Marcus, and the rest are embroiled in a war that will determine the fate of the galaxy. They are "fighting legends" and doing great and magnanimus things. They then take what they've learned during the Shadow War and they bring it back home to earth. They are fighting a smaller scale war (relatively), with smaller scale enemies (relatively), for a smaller goal (again, relatively), but they aren't fighting over ideology or power to rule the universe - they're fighting for their home.
I think that JMS arranged his story in just the way he had imagined it from the beginning. We save the entire galaxy, then we come home and save our own people.
Recoil
Regular
See I disagree with the less drama angle. If Sheridan would have rode home with the Vorlons about to destroy Earth and saved Earth from the Vorlons be removing Clark then THAT would have been less dramatic than what occured.
1) Both the Earth conflict and the Shadow war would have been over in one episode, leaving the rest of Season 4 for the Season 5 stuff.
2) Sheridan had been portrayed as a renegade, but if he came in, stopping some huge fleet, then he would OBVIOUSLY be a hero in everyones eyes, and everyone lives happily ever after.
It was FAR more dramatic to have Sheridan have to "overthrow" his own government than to prevent his planets destruction because as you said, it makes things a little fuzzy where the truth is concerned.
sleepy_shadow
Regular
Last but not least, it might have been pointless.
Sheridan didn't know which criteria Vorlons used to draw their list of targets -- only that their actions were beyond any possibility of accepting.
Who was to tell that an undetectable ship buried somewhere under the planet's surface... might not have sufficed for Vorlons?
Likewise, who could ensure that having telepath genes circulating in the population... might not have sufficed for Shadows to consider a planet hostile?
Likewise, who could ensure that, should the war continue... neither side would modify their criteria?
Sheridan didn't know which criteria Vorlons used to draw their list of targets -- only that their actions were beyond any possibility of accepting.
Who was to tell that an undetectable ship buried somewhere under the planet's surface... might not have sufficed for Vorlons?
Likewise, who could ensure that having telepath genes circulating in the population... might not have sufficed for Shadows to consider a planet hostile?
Likewise, who could ensure that, should the war continue... neither side would modify their criteria?
I understand your reasoning, but would argue that if JMS was REALLY following the LOTR sequence (not that I think he was in this case) he would have had our heroes resolve the "Saruman question" a la the Battle of Helms Deep by going after the Saruman-surrogate - Clark - first.
But it is a moot point. There is no evidence whatsoever that JMS ever considered this route, and my speculation was more or less "mental doodling" not worthy of a heavy debate!
KoshN
Super Moderator
Endawi? No, he wasn't in cahoots with the Shadows. Remember, the woman waited until Endawi left before she saw Morden, and even then, she was PO'd that Morden had cut it so close to Endawi being there. I got the feeling that Endawi was just sent on a mission to find something out, and was kept in the dark as to the big picture.
The Vorlons would have gotten around to sending their PK to Earth. Corianna 6 was just earlier on their hit list, that's all.
