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Why did Sheridan really replace Sinclair?

Too much time travel helped to turn me off Star Trek big time. Way too convenient as a plot device, and it allows scriptwriters the luxury of having everyone forget what happened immediately afterwards.

However, the interesting thing about WWE for me was the heavy implication that this was a one-off event that would not have been possible without the intervention of the Great Machine on Epsilon 3, and which took the entirety of Draal's concentration, not to mention a huge amount of power, to accomplish.

This is not something that any old race can do at will, in the same way that a quick warp burn around the sun in the correct trajectory can create a "Timewarp".

"It's just a jump to the left ..."

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DaveC
"Let me be the first to say that this is the nuttiest idea you've ever had."
 
ahhh, theres another reason why this time travel wasn't *easy*, and im sure it'll give you headaches.

see, a time rift thingy was formed back when b4 first disspeared, right? now, when everyone went back to steal b4, the used the same time rift as the first time, draal just stabalized and opened it larger. but the time rift had been created by draal when b4 had been first stolen but for b4 to be stolen the time rift already had to be there....

if that isnt circular, i dont know what is
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### Hi, I'm a sig virus. Please add me to the end of your signature so I can take over the world.### - caught from Saps @ B5MG
 
It's 9 am, I've just taken a test, I"m getting a headache from reading all this time travel stuff. I guess it ultimately depends on what theory you go for.

Anyway... I agree with what bakana said. I'm happy with what we got. Though I'm kinda interested in what JMS originally had in his mind, but none of us can determine that.

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We're all born as molecules in the hearts of a billion stars, molecules that do not understand politics, policies and differences. In a billion years we, foolish molecules forget who we are and where we came from. Desperate acts of ego. We give ourselves names, fight over lines on maps. And pretend our light is better than everyone else's. The flame reminds us of the piece of those stars that live inside us. A spark that tells us: you should know better. The flame also reminds us that life is precious, as each flame is unique. When it goes out, it's gone forever. And there will never be another quite like it
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wolf Blitzer:
I just don't like time-travel in Sci-Fi.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I kinda hate to be a smarta$$, but ....

If not in science fiction then where else do you like time travel?
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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>I kinda hate to be a smarta$$, but ....

If not in science fiction then where else do you like time travel?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Lol, I guess I really just don't like time travel. It just raises too many questions. Take Star Trek: First Contact for example. Now, the Borg went to Earth and tried to blow it up/assimilate it the usual way and got beat up on. So their "escape pod" if you will, with the Enterprise on it's heels, opens up a "temporal vortex", goes back in time and destroys Cochrane's research facility, but Enterprise gets into the vortex too and manages to go back and stop them. Now, why did the Borg have to go to Earth then go back in time and be pursued, when they could've just gone back in time first, then gone to Earth and done their stuff, with nobody to stop them.

There's a reason no one can come up with a solution to the Grandfather Paradox: there isn't one. If the topic comes up in a discussion, I tell my friends that time-travel is most definitely impossible, not from a scientific standpoint because no research has been done on it, but because if it was possible we'd be overrun by tourists from the future and people trying to change history to suit their own needs/desires. And what's going to stop them? Temporal Police? You've got to be kidding.

No technology can be controlled indefinitely, it eventually disseminates until someone acquires it who is willing to use it for nefarious purposes; you can't put the genie back in the bottle. Look at nuclear weapons. U.S. developed them first and we were gods when we were the only ones who had them, but it didn't take long for the Soviets to get their hands on it, and for almost 50 years we stood on the brink. And things haven't gotten better because the U.S.S.R. is gone, if anything the nuclear situation has gotten worse. The technology is now disseminating to the point where many other nations have nukes; U.K., France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, South Africa and who knows how many other states. And then eventually someone who is willing to use it will get their hands on it, like islamist terrorists. Lets face it boys and girls, sooner or later Al Qaeda or someone else WILL get their hands on a nuke, and probably detonate it, either in the U.S. or Israel. You can't put the genie back in the bottle once it's out, and time travel is potentially a MUCH more dangerous weapon than the most powerful nuclear bomb. I think we should all be very thankful that time travel as we think of it isn't possible, and hope that it never will be, because the consequences will be disastrous.

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Proud B5 fanatic and member of the [ReM]Counter-Strike clan.
 
well theres no solution because time travel like that is impossible... but then again so is hyperspace...

the thing that distinguishes the b4 thing from most other scifi is that they're not going back and changing something... they're just doing what was already done and what will be done again... its a fully closed loop, and its *supposed* to happen... it happened before sheridan and delenn and everyone else were even born

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### Hi, I'm a sig virus. Please add me to the end of your signature so I can take over the world.### - caught from Saps @ B5MG
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Wolf Blitzer:
I tell my friends that time-travel is most definitely impossible, not from a scientific standpoint because no research has been done on it, but because if it was possible we'd be overrun by tourists from the future and people trying to change history to suit their own needs/desires. And what's going to stop them? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

If you are talking about time travel in the terms in which it is most often presented, that is to say that you can send essentially an arbitrary mass back essentially an arbitrary amount of time, then you are quite correct. If you really try then scenarios can be constructed where a limited form of time travel can be postulated that would not have this effect on us.

I remember reading a book back when I was a freshman in college (that would be the '79-'80 school year, I have no idea if it is even still in print) called Thrice Upon A Time. In this version they can't actually send matter (maybe it was theoretically possible but a practical impossibility due to power requirements or something ??? It has been many years) but they can send back some form of energy fluctuations which can be interpreted similar to the way radio waves are. Even this requires so much power that they can only send back a couple minutes at a time. So they send back what is basically computer virus that checks the system clock and re-runs itself if it hasn't gotten back to the target time yet. This virus would also contain a message, so that basically the inventer can e-mail himself yesterday with a reminder about something. The size of the bootstrapping program was such that the message had to be short (hmm, maybe it was a couple seconds at a time). Of course, this still requires that there be a machine on the other end of the time shift that can receive them. This places a hard limit on how far back you can influance the past. Even at that, at that extreme end of when things can be influanced it must only be through messages to one of the couple people working in that lab.

Still, if this technology proliforates (which is to say that its use doesn't cause something catestrophic in the lab where it is developed, before info about it can get out) it would cause havoc to "history" after that point. However, it is one scenario under which "history" before the invention / construction of that first receiver is not threatened.

What other scenarios might there be?

I just thought that I would throw that out there for people to chew on, even if it is getting a bit off topic.
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[This message has been edited by PillowRock (edited February 05, 2002).]
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>I tell my friends that time-travel is most definitely impossible, not from a scientific standpoint because no research has been done on it, but because if it was possible we'd be overrun by tourists from the future and people trying to change history to suit their own needs/desires. And what's going to stop them? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

as stephen hawking said, they all went back to the '60s and no one noticed
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### Hi, I'm a sig virus. Please add me to the end of your signature so I can take over the world.### - caught from Saps @ B5MG
 
My own theory
The Pam Ewing Solution

Everything that happened after the Gathering was a dream of Larel Takishima....


I wish I had the mential endurance to keep reading this thread, but I just don't....

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-Devin Barber
 
There is a solution to the Grandfather paradox.

The most likely explanation (assuming time travel is possible at all) is that once you kill your grandfather, time then branches into two alternates. You would have come from the one where your grandfather created your father and in turn you. The you that went back would be trapped ina n alternate where you had no father due to you killing your grandfather.

That is a genuine concept (one which I can't find the name of at the moment).

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but then you violate conservation of energy... which is actually a problem with the concept of time travel itself. energy cannot be created or destroyed, and the energy at any given instant in the universe is the same as any other instant. but with time travel, that no longer holds...

of course im not a theoretcial physicist, so dont take my word for it
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### Hi, I'm a sig virus. Please add me to the end of your signature so I can take over the world.### - caught from Saps @ B5MG
 
I like three ways of approaching the question of time travel:

1. Energetically impossible.

If going back can affect the present then, due to the cumulative nature of changes caused by time travel, and the fact that inducing any change requires energy... it would require infinite energy.

A minor change (say one nanosecond into the past) might require great energy. A significant change would require near-infinite energy. Hence nobody would be able to do it.

2. I am called Jeffrey Valen.

Every attempt to go back will end up changing nothing, only ensuring that you have always gone back. As you changed nothing, no energy was spent and hence it was possible. To quote someone called Delenn, who seemed to believe that time was circular... and used the concept excellently for confusing people:

"It is history, it's already been done. All we have to do now is make sure that we do it then."

"Now .. time being circular .. if we know that this will happen, then we may as well assume that it has happened already and that the life pod is not safe for me to enter."
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3. Lost in time.

Similar to the one presented by "newstar" -- by leaving your current reality, you would forever lose the possibility to return, becoming lost in time.

You might, for example create a new instance of reality where you just appeared and killed the person who would have been your grandfather. In the reality you are in, you will not be born. You just appeared. In the reality you came from, you were born but disappeared into time.

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited February 10, 2002).]
 
I doubt anyone will see this considering it's on the second page, but the rumors I've heard (and assumptions I've made from certain quotes from actors), is that Michael O'Hare #1)wanted to go back to theatre, and #2)didn't get along with his counterpart Mira Furlan. It's awfully hard for two characters to get married when they dislike each other in real life. I think JMS basically said to himself, "If I have to replace one of the two characters, who should it be?" Needless to say, I think he made the right decision (and that's not based on the fact that Delenn IS my favorite character). Delenn, as a character, would have been really difficult to replace under the circumstances.

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"Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else."
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> is that Michael O'Hare #1)wanted to go back to theatre, and #2)didn't get along with his counterpart Mira Furlan. It's awfully hard for two characters to get married when they dislike each other in real life. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, one out of three isn't bad.
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O'Hare Did want to go back to live Theater, but that was because he Knew that his character was going to be phased out during the second season.
JMS was up front with him about that.

I've heard Michael O'Hare speak in person. He and All the cast members, including Mira Furlan, were and still are, good friends.
In person, O'Hare is a warm, gracious and caring person.
He has that unique ability to speak to a roomfull of people and make each person feel like he's talking to Them.

And, Sinclair and Delenn were Never supposed to get married.
That was a Total red herring. or Red Fruit, if you prefer.
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Sinclair was supposed to (Did, in fact) marry Catherine Sakai.

The Rebirth Ceremony was a Signal. A hint of the Changes the story was going to undergo.
Of the Change that Delenn was about to undergo.



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Do not ascribe your own motivations to others:
At best, it will break your heart.
At worst, it will get you dead."
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lennier:
From what I know Furlan and O'Hare got along fine. They have even appeared on several conventions together.

From what I know, O'Hare did want to go back to theatre. He also had several attractive contracts.

Form what I know, somewhere along the line, JMS decided that to have one character do everything was a bad move. You can't have the same guy:

- fight on the Line
- have a Minbari soul
- become Entil'zha
- go to Z'ha'dum
- fall in love with Delenn
- split from Earth
- help to end the Shadow war
- defeat Clark in a civil war
- establish the Interstellar Alliance
- travel back in time
- transform into a Minbari
- become Valen
- win the previous Shadow war
- create the Rangers
- create the Grey Council

Too much for one person.

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited February 15, 2002).]
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Lennier,
While I don't disagree that that's an awful lot to do, I do disagree that one person can't do all that. In fact, I think Delenn's speech to Sinclair in the garden in "The Gathering" almost indicates that it *SHOULD BE* one person who does it all, with all that talk about how a single person can change the universe. While the point is made regardless, would it really have been overdone by having Sinclair do it all? I don't think it would have. Either way, it's a great story.

Joe



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<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lennier:

Form what I know, somewhere along the line, JMS decided that to have one character do everything was a bad move. You can't have the same guy:

{snip}
Too much for one person.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Why not? I am sure that Superman or Batman or any other hero would.



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Andrew Swallow
 
Then we must conclude that JMS wanted a more believable hero.

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"We are the universe, trying to figure itself out.
Unfortunately we as software lack any coherent documentation."
-- Delenn
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>
Posted on Usenet 6 December 1994:

Okay, alternate-universe time to answer your question....

"What if Sinclair had not left Babylon 5?"

(Isn't this kinda like the Marvel What If? comics... "What If Dr. Blake's Nurse Had Been The One to Find Thor's Hammer?")

The differences would be more noticeable in the later episodes of this season, rather than the first batch, which are still dealing in large measure with the after-effects of the season finale.

So the first few episodes would have been somewhat the same in some ways to what is there with Sheridan. The problem that I had was that he [Sinclair] was becoming (and would have become) mainly a problem-solver character; there's a squabble or a problem between other characters who are rising in profile (G'Kar, Londo, Delenn, etc.), and he solves the problem in some way. These, to me, were the least nteresting episodes of our prior season.

It would've been necessary to bring in another character with a direct connection to the shadowmen, since Sinclair's main connection is to the Minbari, and it would've been straining credulity to plug him too much into THAT story as well... hero of the line, missing 24 hours, Minbari soul, AND a tie to the Shadowmen... c'mon, what else does he do, fly under his own power?

Had he stayed, the Shadowman tie probably would've gone to either Keffer or Garibaldi. Which, again, further removes Sinclair from the main thrust of the story. He would have stayed on as more of an observer of other people *acting*, while he *reacted*.

I can't get too specific otherwise without revealing, by contrast, what's going to happen later on this season. Suffice to say this: watch the show up to and through "The Coming of Shadows," "All Alone in the Night," "Acts of Sacrifice," and "Hunter, Prey." (That's about episode #13.) You can then ask the question again, but I have a real suspicion that once you've seen those episodes, and what Sheridan does, you won't NEED to ask, because you'll see how he fits into the overall story in a very specific fashion with is 180-degrees different than Sinclair.

jms
(all message content (c) 2001 by synthetic worlds, ltd., permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine and don't send me story ideas)

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It should be clear from the above that JMS (and Michael O'Hare, for that matter) did originally envision Sinclair being the commander for the full five years. This, along with JMS's statement that "the story of Babylon 5 [is] very much the story of Jeffery Sinclair" should be enough to settle that tired old argument. (But it never is. *sigh*)

It should also be clear that as he got into the mechanics of how to tell the story in year two, JMS realized that he'd need to move Sinclair into the background and give another character the Shadow arc. Having eliminated Garibalid and Keffer from consideration (although it is possible that Lise Hampton was planted in "Babylon Squared" in order to become the woman who disappears at Z'ha'dum), he settled on adding a new character.

When Michael O'Hare expressed concerns about typecasting (and - according to some sources - the network started asking for a star with a higher "Q" rating), JMS decided to kill several birds with one stone by having the new character replace Sinclair, instead of merely joining him, while keeping Sinclair "alive" in the show, ready to return for his grand exit. (Which could now safely in S3 rather than S5, if that was indeed the original plan, and thus clear the decks for Sheridan to become the focus of the rest of the series.)

JMS's statements about the overall arc of the show having remained the same, if read in context, clearly indicate that the broad outline of the show was unchanged. That is, it was still the story of how the Younger Races, organized by the people at B5, threw out the Shadows and the Vorlons and took control of their own destinies. (With year five showing the beginnings of the galaxy they would reshape in their own image.) That it was Sheridan, rather than Sinclair, at the end, didn't change the grand design of the story. But he certainly didn't mean that he always planned to switch commanders in mid-stream. He never said anything remotely like that, and a number of his posts, like the one quoted above, have touched on what would have happened had Sinclair remained.

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division

joseph-demartino@att.net
 
From what I know Furlan and O'Hare got along fine. They have even appeared on several conventions together.

From what I know, O'Hare did want to go back to theatre. He also had several attractive contracts.

Form what I know, somewhere along the line, JMS decided that to have one character do everything was a bad move. You can't have the same guy:

- fight on the Line
- have a Minbari soul
- become Entil'zha
- go to Z'ha'dum
- fall in love with Delenn
- split from Earth
- help to end the Shadow war
- defeat Clark in a civil war
- establish the Interstellar Alliance
- travel back in time
- transform into a Minbari
- become Valen
- win the previous Shadow war
- create the Rangers
- create the Grey Council

Too much for one person.

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited February 15, 2002).]
 
There's also the consideration that TV shows never replace the "main guy" if they don't have to. I mean, can you imagine if Kirk left after season 1? It's very tough and ballsy to replace the captain, and extremely risky.

In the end, I'm glad it happened. Sheridan was one of the things that hooked my to the show.

Btw, what is a "Q" rating?

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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."

[This message has been edited by GKarsEye (edited February 16, 2002).]
 

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