The Death of Delenn

[Ben-Thayer Dunnthaedt]

Why? If you have a machine with you, it shouldn't matter.

I dunno! I saw the documentary a couple of years ago, so I don't remember a lot of the details. But it was great to see guys like Thorne and Hawking talking realistically about time travel, wormholes, and hyperspace.

I saw a 60 second blurb on wormholes on the Science channel a few days ago where a scientist discussed the possibility of entering a wormhole. He said they have determined that it is possible, but the the size of the entrance must be quite large. He then cited DS9, saying the mouth of the wormhole would have to be a LOT bigger for them to use it as they do.

But I've never considered the ship's velocity as being greater in hyperspace. Personally I've always envisioned hyperspace as such: fold a piece of paper so that the two ends (points A & B) almost touch. A traveller can then "step" across from point A to point B without travelling all the way across the page. When folded, the area between point A and point B is connected via hyperspace, which the traveller passes through when "stepping" across.

In truth, this isn't my theory. When I was in the 6th grade I got a book called Revolt on Alpha C, and they discussed warping space pretty much like I described it above. Sounded good at the time, so I've sort of stuck with it.

[Dr Maturin]

<<Even then, there's one snag. It seems you can't use a time machine to go back in time to before the time machine was built.>>

Why? If you have a machine with you, it shouldn't matter.

The problem with time travel is that if somehow we did have a miraculous time machine, and we went back in time...unless we were SUPPOSED to go back in time, then it would just "spin off" a parallel reality, so it wouldn't literally be time travel.

As for FTL...the problem there is the g-forces. We'd have to have some kind of "inertial damper." But if I am correct, in B5 and Asimov hyperspace, aren't you just going as fast as you'd go in normal space, but it's just "faster" (from the normal space viewer's POV) in the hyperspace dimension? Then the g-force problem wouldn't matter.

[Ben-Thayer Dunnthaedt]

Not really a comment about Delenn, but time travel!

from Joe DeM.-

Time travel into the past is not only considered a practical impossibility in our own time, there are good reasons for doubting that it could make sense even in theory. Not so "time travel" into the future.

Take a look at this link: http://www.biols.susx.ac.uk/home/Joh...n/timetrav.htm

A very good discussion on the possibilities of time travel. I saw the documentary with Kip Thorne, the late Carl Sagan and Steven Hawking about wormholes and time travel, and this site updates some of the latest discoveries.

Four quotes from the site:

1st, on the possibility of real time travel:
"Relativists have been trying to come to terms with time travel for the past seven years, since Kip Thorne and his colleagues at Caltech discovered -- much to their surprise -- that there is nothing in the laws of physics (specifically, the general theory of relativity) to forbid it."

2nd, on travelling backwards:
Even then, there's one snag. It seems you can't use a time machine to go back in time to before the time machine was built. You can go anywhere in the future, and come back to where you started, but no further. Which rather neatly explains why no time travellers from our future have yet visited us -- because the time machine still hasn't been invented!

3rd, on parallel realities:
So where does that leave the paradoxes, and common sense? There is a way out of all the difficulties, but you may not like it. It involves the other great theory of physics in the twentieth century, quantum mechanics, and another favourite idea from science fiction, parallel worlds. These are the "alternative histories", in which, for example, the South won the American Civil War (as in Ward Moore's classic novel Bring the Jubilee), which are envisaged as in some sense lying "alongside" our version of reality.

and last, about FTL travel:
To be sure, the physical requirements seem rather contrived and implausible. But that isn't the point. What matters is that it seems that there is nothing in the laws of physics that forbids travel through wormholes. The science fiction writers were right -- hyperspace connections do, at least in theory, provide a means to travel to far distant regions of the Universe without spending thousands of years pottering along through ordinary space at less than the speed of light.

[NotKosh]

Whoops, I edited that, I meant plenty of examples of cryonic time travel in B5.

[Bonehead]

Originally posted by NotKosh
Plenty of cryonics examples in B5.

Jack the Ripper and that silly couple who ended up on a ship with that "Shadow Soldier".

Not to mention the teeps in medlab.

[NotKosh]

Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino


My point with the cryonics was mostly that you don't need to rift in sector 14 or the Great Machine, or to violate JMS's rule that there is only one major incidence of time travel in the B5 story to get Valen and Sakai into the 24th century.

Regards,

Joe

Plenty of cryonics examples in B5.

Jack the Ripper and that silly couple who ended up on a ship with that "Shadow Soldier".

[Joseph DeMartino]

No, I think Delenn's reference to going "beyond the veil" clearly means going beyond the Rim.

Just to clarify a couple of points:

The lines you quote make it clear, as I said, that the majority of the First Ones left 10,000 years ago, that they played a much reduced role in the last Shadow War, and that they were unlikley to give Valen a lift. I never said that they had all left 10,000 years ago, that they had nothing to do with Valen's War or that their taking Valen with them was "impossible", only that it was extremely unlikely.

Regards,

Joe

[grumbler]

Joe, this is what Delenn says about Valen's war, in ItSoZ :

A thousand years ago, the Shadows returned to their places of power, rebuilt them, and began to stretch forth their hand. Before they could strike, they were defeated by an alliance of worlds, including the Minbari... and the few remaining First Ones who had not yet passed beyond the Veil. When they had finished, the First Ones went away... all but one."

Now, I would agree that this doesn't clearly say that the First Ones who "went away" went beyond the rim, but that isn't my point. I was simply arguing that the word "impossible" isn't appropriate, as there was clearly a POSSIBLE mechanism for Sinclair to go BtR after Valen's war.

I agree that yours is the likelier explanation but disagree with your assessment that mine is impossible.

[Dr Maturin]

<<Yes, I think JMS's "no one believed her" comment refers to skepticism among those few she told about her journey not believing that there was anything connected to Valen that she could still find.>>

Ah.

[Dr Maturin]

<<I took that to mean that no one believed, as she did, that there was anything about Valen to find. I wouldn't take the "no one" too literally.>>

Not my point. The point was how could no one believe her if she didn't return to claim it?

[Joseph DeMartino]

Yes, I think JMS's "no one believed her" comment refers to skepticism among those few she told about her journey not believing that there was anything connected to Valen that she could still find.

I don't see it as an impossibility for Valen to have gone beyond the Rim after spending time with the Minbari, because a lot of races were going beyond around that time.

Actually most of the First Ones departed after the last great Shadow War, which Delenn places at 10,000 years before the events of B5. That was the war in which "The First Ones still walked openly among the Younger Races". By the time of Valen's War (evidently a lesser event, in the grand scheme of things) only the Vorlons were still actively involved. Since they manifestly didn't go Beyond the Rim in the 13th century, and since the other First Ones took little part in the war (they had mostly left 9,000 years before and those who remained were in isolation) it is hard to see who would have given Valen a "lift" out of the galaxy at that point.

Also I suspect that some kind of intimate contact with a seriously powerful First One (or several of them) is required to enable one to pass Beyond the Rim with them. Like Frodo and Bilbo having to grow into the kind of beings who could cross the sea and dwell in the lands of the West, Sheridan earns his way into the company of Lorien and the rest, and he must undergo a gradual transformation to do it.

My point with the cryonics was mostly that you don't need to rift in sector 14 or the Great Machine, or to violate JMS's rule that there is only one major incidence of time travel in the B5 story to get Valen and Sakai into the 24th century.

Regards,

Joe

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino
I wasn't suggesting anything of the kind, especially where Delenn is concerned. I was suggesting (albeit trying to be subtle about it ) that Valen and perhaps Sakai, having lived for 100 years or so among the Minbari of a thousand years past, may have had themselves frozen and hidden away somewhere so that Delenn could find and revive them - which would thus fulfill the prophecy of Valen's return and also put them all in a position to go Beyond the Rim.

Well, suspended animation is a kind of "timeless bubble" as I suggested, but it is also true that, if anyone could suffer the loss of a thousand years of history, it would be people who have gone back a thousand years in time!

That was correctly ruled an impossibilty for Valen and/or Sakai at the apparent end of Valen's life, because Lorien was still living within the depths of Z'ha'dum, and the First Ones were far from ready to wrap up their businesses. But in 2263, provided they could reach that year, that problem would be gone and Valen and Delenn could share the fate of the other "One".

I don't see it as an impossibility for Valen to have gone beyond the Rim after spending time with the Minbari, because a lot of races were going beyond around that time.

However, upon reflection, your scenario sounds more JMS-like than mine, because it allows the fulfillment of... well, not "prophecy," but legend. JMS probably wouldn't have included the bit about Valen returning as a red herring.

[grumbler]

Originally posted by Z'ha'dumDweller
I was going on the ** ** here:

"Delenn's final journey - a quest involving Valen, **though no one believes her.**"

I took that to mean that no one believed, as she did, that there was anything about Valen to find. I wouldn't take the "no one" too literally.

[Dr Maturin]

<<I don't believe she ever returned from her "final journey", so I don't believe she could have appeared on the TV show after it.>>

I was going on the ** ** here:

"Delenn's final journey - a quest involving Valen, **though no one believes her.**"

[Joseph DeMartino]

I guess I just prefer the idea that Delenn (and Sinclair and Catherine) don't spend the time in some sort of timeless bubble

I wasn't suggesting anything of the kind, especially where Delenn is concerned. I was suggesting (albeit trying to be subtle about it ) that Valen and perhaps Sakai, having lived for 100 years or so among the Minbari of a thousand years past, may have had themselves frozen and hidden away somewhere so that Delenn could find and revive them - which would thus fulfill the prophecy of Valen's return and also put them all in a position to go Beyond the Rim. That was correctly ruled an impossibilty for Valen and/or Sakai at the apparent end of Valen's life, because Lorien was still living within the depths of Z'ha'dum, and the First Ones were far from ready to wrap up their businesses. But in 2263, provided they could reach that year, that problem would be gone and Valen and Delenn could share the fate of the other "One".

Regards,

Joe