Babylon squared - Chrysalis

[DeMonk]

As I am watching Babylon Squared in rerun # x, it occurs to me that Delenn started building the device that enables her to change in Chrysalis without having the triluminary (which she receives in Babylon squared). Since the triluminary starts the device, why did she begin construction without?
It doesn't seem in character for Delenn to do that without having all the necessary elements.
Is her belief in Valen's prophesy that strong?
On the other hand... at first she refuses the triluminary, accepts it only after her friend on the grey councel insists, why? Has she doubts about her chrysalis plan?
Looking for a light in the mists of confusion.

[Jan]

Maybe as a member of the Council she had plans to 'acquire' one on her own and her hesitation was only because she didn't want to implicate anybody else?

Best I can come up with.

Jan

[Joseph DeMartino]

It took Delenn the better part of a year to tinker that thing together in her quarters, and until it was finished she had no more need of a triluminary than Garibaldi had need of gasoline before he finished his motorcycle. Also the triluminaries had other uses, so it was best to leave them with the Council until the Chrysalis device.

Finally Delenn didn't expect a problem getting the triluminary when she needed it. She thought the Council would accept her version of prophecy and hand the thing over to her as the chosen of Dukhat if she just asked nicely. After all, they had already given her the disassembled Chrysalis device itself. She had no way of knowning how badly her position would be undermined in the intervening year, or how much resistance there would be to doing what obviously (as far as she was concerned) needed to be done.

I think Jan is right that Delenn's hesitation to take the "liberated" triluminary was mostly her concern for the consequences to a friend, but that at the same time I think it was an expression of her faith in the prophecy, the idea that somehow the triluminary would come to her if it were meant to be. (Or perhaps that the Vorlons could supply a substitute.) That she changed her mind and took it while the taking was good reflects the more hard-headed, practical Delenn. I suspect that somewhere in the teachings of Valen there is a line that reads something like, "The universe helps those who help themselves."

Regards,

Joe

[Shabaz]

Wasn't Babylon Squared also the episode where she refused leadership of the council? I think that before that, she probably would've gotten it if she had just asked nicely. However, now that she is executing prophecy instead of taking on leadership of her people, her position is changed (in a rather dramatic way, as we see in later seasons). But I believe the triluminary was offered in that spirit of her changing position and that of the council in general being in turmoil about her, and that is why she accepted it. But for someone in a position so respected as to be offered leadership, it would not have been unreasonable that she expected her position in the council and as the protege of Dukat to get her the triluminary upon request before all this happened.

[DeMonk]

But for someone in a position so respected as to be offered leadership, it would not have been unreasonable that she expected her position in the council and as the protege of Dukat to get her the triluminary upon request before all this happened.

I'm not that convinced about this. The Minbari are afraid to let the general population know that Minbari souls have been born into the human population and that is why they stopped the war. It would simply not be accepted.

So, why would she expect to be accepted when she changes into more human form? It would always need to be done in secret and in the face of opposition. She can't take anything for granted, not in this situation.

[SpanishFan]

So, why would she expect to be accepted when she changes into more human form?

As Lennier would say, Delenn walks in a world in which we are better than we are.
I don't think it ever occurred to her that her people could react the way they did.

[Shabaz]

I'm not that convinced about this. The Minbari are afraid to let the general population know that Minbari souls have been born into the human population and that is why they stopped the war. It would simply not be accepted.

So, why would she expect to be accepted when she changes into more human form? It would always need to be done in secret and in the face of opposition. She can't take anything for granted, not in this situation.

I have to admit that I'm a bit fuzzy in mind with regards to the particulars of the Minbari internal unrest plot threads. But I was mostly speaking about what she expected would happen. Maybe she was slightly oblivious to some of the extreme opposition towards her plans, which some considered presumptuous and maybe even selfish, but which she only thought of as carrying out Dukat's will and prophecy at that point?

[Joseph DeMartino]

So, why would she expect to be accepted when she changes into more human form? It would always need to be done in secret and in the face of opposition. She can't take anything for granted, not in this situation.

You're assuming that Delenn and everyone else knew ahead of time what the Chrysalis device was going to do to her. But all the evidence is that they had no real idea how the machine worked or what effect it would have on her. They only had a prophecy - evidently a vaguely worded one since they were arguing about whether or not it applied to this time in general and Delenn in particular. The prophecy said that a Minbari would use the device to enter a chyrsalis and emerged changed in a way that would allow him/her to act as a bridge between the Minbari and the Humans. At this point nobody knows about Sinclair and Valen. (Well, except the Vorlons and they certainly aren't talking.)

When Delenn emerges from her cocoon all scaly and lizard-like, neither she nor Lennier are sure if this is what was supposed to happen. (When Franklin asks her, Delenn says, "I do not know." She also asks him, "What am I?") Certainly Delenn, being Delenn, would have done a far better job of researching Human physiology if she had known going in that she was going to become partly or mostly human. (So that haircare would have been less of a mystery to her, not to mention the "odd cramps" she later asks Ivanova about. )

Delenn didn't expect opposition because she didn't really know what she was about to do. She only knew that she might be making a great and terrible sacrifice for her people, and that it was necessary. For the rest she was willing to let prophecy attend to itself.

Regards,

Joe