Sinclair 5-year arc Season 5 *outline spoilers*

[JoeD80]

OK, I was reading the 10-page 5-year arc outline again and had a thought. A lot of the stuff that disappeared when Sinclair left seems related to the sequel and Babylon 4 traveling to the future. My thought was that the threads that just don't seem to be anywhere on screen are in the outline for season 5, and those plot points don't seem so much connected to Sinclair's removal as they seem connected to the Season 4 / Season 5 thread juggling. There's mentioned a large Vorlon transport being destroyed by the Shadows with Londo's inadvertant help; and mention of the Centauri declaring Babylon 5 part of their territory, but the main one that I started thinking about lately is it's the Minbari Warrior Caste who destroy the station at the end of the series.

What if this was still the plan before jms was told to wrap up threads in season 4? I note some interesting messages around season 3 where jms keeps hinting that even though Neroon now respects Marcus and the humans, that the rest of the Warrior Caste just might be thinking that Delenn was planning to take power in the Minbari government. The Minbari civil war gets resolved midway through season 4 though, but jms mentions in the script books that the Minbari Civil War was one of the threads that was supposed to extend to the last season. Reading his memo about "Sleeping in Light", it seems like the idea of setting the last episode 20 years in the future came up because of the renewal issue, so that he could have a finale either way. So it seems like the Minbari Warrior Caste thread still could have been there even with Sinclair gone, with the Minbari Caste breaking away and then coming in and destroying the station at the end, but jms decided to wrap up the Minbari threads once he was told season 4 would be it.

[Jonas]

OK, I was reading the 10-page 5-year arc outline again and had a thought. A lot of the stuff that disappeared when Sinclair left seems related to the sequel and Babylon 4 traveling to the future. My thought was that the threads that just don't seem to be anywhere on screen are in the outline for season 5, and those plot points don't seem so much connected to Sinclair's removal as they seem connected to the Season 4 / Season 5 thread juggling. There's mentioned a large Vorlon transport being destroyed by the Shadows with Londo's inadvertant help; and mention of the Centauri declaring Babylon 5 part of their territory, but the main one that I started thinking about lately is it's the Minbari Warrior Caste who destroy the station at the end of the series.

What if this was still the plan before jms was told to wrap up threads in season 4? I note some interesting messages around season 3 where jms keeps hinting that even though Neroon now respects Marcus and the humans, that the rest of the Warrior Caste just might be thinking that Delenn was planning to take power in the Minbari government. The Minbari civil war gets resolved midway through season 4 though, but jms mentions in the script books that the Minbari Civil War was one of the threads that was supposed to extend to the last season. Reading his memo about "Sleeping in Light", it seems like the idea of setting the last episode 20 years in the future came up because of the renewal issue, so that he could have a finale either way. So it seems like the Minbari Warrior Caste thread still could have been there even with Sinclair gone, with the Minbari Caste breaking away and then coming in and destroying the station at the end, but jms decided to wrap up the Minbari threads once he was told season 4 would be it.

Hmmm.... I don't know. I think setting Sleeping in Light in the future has a lot more to do with Sheridan's death and the whole concept of showing consequences, good and bad.

Having the station be destroyed by the Minbari in this version of the arc seems off - just not quite fitting into how the story was going. You have to ask: what would this lead to? With Sinclair, it led to Babylon Prime and all the stories in there; but those stories had already been transplanted to Babylon 5 (where they belong!), so that would seem like an odd end to the series.

[JoeD80]

What I was thinking it leads to is the theme of Tennyson's Ulysses poem -- striving forward even as things fall apart.

[grumbler]

Interesting speculation, Joe. I am gonna have to think about it, though. It feels right in some ways, but not in others.

The station needed to be destroyed at some point, for sure, because we saw it in prophecy.

[JoeD80]

I suppose this plot might have been removed with the introduction of the worker caste of Minbari. I recall that being about the same time as Sinclair departing to Minbar, and since the worker caste did help end the civil war in season 4, it might have been the same in season 5, just with the war lasting a little longer.

[Morden]

I suppose this plot might have been removed with the introduction of the worker caste of Minbari. I recall that being about the same time as Sinclair departing to Minbar, and since the worker caste did help end the civil war in season 4, it might have been the same in season 5, just with the war lasting a little longer.

Sounds plausible.
I also have to agree to another previous post: An ending with the Minbari warrior caste destoying B5 might feel alright for the "original" plan including the "Babylon Prime"-sequel, but in my opinion it wouldn't fit into the current arcs of "B5" even without the completement of the Minbari civil war arc in season 4.