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Who Destroyed Babylon 1, 2, & 3?

One more Babylon-4 question.

I'll admit to being somewhat obsessed with that station.

But I've read in at least two sources that Babylon-4 was capable of moving under its own power. That it had a huge ion engine and could move and manuever at least somewhat.

Is this true?
 
[Kosh]Yes[/Kosh]

From: J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com>
Subject: WWE: Vorlons in the Past
To: CIS
Date: 9/7/1996 3:36:00 PM

Al Lipscomb <75204.2225@compuserve.com> asks:
> Did B4 have more firepower than even the current B5?

Yeah, B4 had more firepower, and it had one thing B5
doesn't...engines that can move it forward if necessary.

jms

*********

I remember several other JMS posts mentioning this in the archives, but they really don't go into any further detail, and this one popped on my initial search and seems to answer the question, so I figured it would do. :)

Regards,

Joe
 
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I bet those came in handy for getting the station for a better location. (I'm assuming that Sector 14 wasn't the best place for a base of operations, of course, which might be completely unreasonable.)
 
I'm assuming that Sector 14 wasn't the best place for a base of operations
Click to expand...

That sounds right. I also think they would have wanted the station away from Sector 14 to conceal its point of origin. The last thing they would have wanted to do was call attention to the temporal rift there.

Four things have never been clear about Sinclair's journey: How much subjective time the trip back took, how long Sinclair's transformation took, how long Valen was in the past before he sent the signal announcing his presence to the Army of Light and how long until the Vorlons (and later the Minbari) arrived at the station.

Based on Delenn's experience, the Chrysalis transformation probably took several weeks at least. If the time trip itself only occupied hours or days of this time, Sinclair would have been weeks away from emerging as Valen. That would have given Zathras plenty of time to move the station well away from Sector 14. (And translate some of the control markings into Minbari. :))

Regards,

Joe
 
Suddenly that makes me wonder: was Zathras as... uniquely articulate in Minbari as he was in English? (Or was he using Interlac?)

Oh, to be a fly on the wall at that first conversation with the Vorlons! If anyone could rock them back on their heels, it would have been Valen. For example, to Kosh: "You will die a thousand years from now, at the hands of the Shadows, because a Human named Sheridan won't back down."

And considering that JMS made much of Kosh's connection to Valen, I would love to see the story of that relationship unfold. I'd love confirmation of my theory that said relationship was really what made Kosh more at home among the younger races than his fellow Vorlons.
 
Oh, to be a fly on the wall at that first conversation with the Vorlons! If anyone could rock them back on their heels, it would have been Valen.
Click to expand...

You sure you don't mean Zathras? :) Can you imagine his conversations with Kosh? :D

Regards,

Joe
 
For example, to Kosh: "You will die a thousand years from now, at the hands of the Shadows, because a Human named Sheridan won't back down."
Click to expand...

I don't think he would have said anything remotely that specific about the future to Kosh. Or to anyone else.

Regards,

Joe
 
Oh, probably not. But even something somewhat cryptic -- "If you find the Hand, you will die" -- would have thrown Kosh for a loop.

And I agree with JJ: I bet Kosh and Zathras would understand each other just fine. Like with Abbut in "Deathwalker."
 
Like with Abbut in "Deathwalker."
Click to expand...

But Abbut and Kosh were clearly speaking in a pre-established code. Talia was the only one confused. Kosh and Zathras would just be talking past one another until one of their heads exploded. :)

(In fact, I have to make a note. If I ever get my new home office and video editing system put together I should cut together shots of Zathras talking and Ulkesh "listening", culminating with Ulkesh's head literally exploding. :))

Regards,

Joe
 
Ah, but that's Ulkesh. Kosh would be a totally different story.

And I never interpreted Kosh's banter with Abbut as code. I always got the impression that they were just having fun slinging stuff around. Kosh would roll out some semi-portentous but highly obscure comment, and Abbut would just do something fun with it. It was all surface stuff, to confuse Talia and distract her from the real purpose of the meeting.
 
Joseph DeMartino said:
But Abbut and Kosh were clearly speaking in a pre-established code. Talia was the only one confused. Kosh and Zathras would just be talking past one another until one of their heads exploded. :)

(In fact, I have to make a note. If I ever get my new home office and video editing system put together I should cut together shots of Zathras talking and Ulkesh "listening", culminating with Ulkesh's head literally exploding. :))

Regards,

Joe
Click to expand...

That would be a trip! :LOL:
 
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