First Ones

[Lord Scotty]

First:

Okay in Season 4 Episode 6 :Into the Fire

Lorien is with Ivanova getting the rest of the first ones, and she says that they need to go. That they already have 5 and there is no more time. Lorien states that they must wait, and the sixth one arrives....

Problem is that later when they call the first ones out to help, only 5 ships appear? So where is the sixth.... Was Ivanova counting Lorien as well?!?

Second:

Is there any way at all we can get some names for them. Even if it is just what others called them, like the shadows?

Third:

Why not a movie about the first ones?

Regards,

Lord Scotty

[riku]

i think i saw 6 ships shooting when the first ones entered the area to destroy the vorlon planet killer, the 6th ship was on behind and i couldn't recognize it...
but it may but just may be the ship design the same as lorien's ship when sheridan and lorien returned from z'ha'dum...

[Jan]

Third: Why not a movie about the first ones?

I really don't think the public is ready for a movie with no humans at all. Same thing for those who want a movie about the last Shadow war with Valen. No humans.

Hope JMS can make the announcement soon.

Jan

[OmahaStar]

Originally posted by Jan
I really don't think the public is ready for a movie with no humans at all. Same thing for those who want a movie about the last Shadow war with Valen. No humans.

Hope JMS can make the announcement soon.

Jan

Well, two of them .. but they're only half-Human

[Vir]

Originally posted by Lord Scotty


Is there any way at all we can get some names for them. Even if it is just what others called them, like the shadows?

The only five to be identified so far :

1. Kirishiac Lordship
2. Thought Force
3. Torvalus Darkknife
4. Walker of Sigma 957
5. Triad Triumviron


See attatchment below for picture.

[Kevin]

Originally posted by OmahaStar
Well, two of them .. but they're only half-Human

Actually, JMS has stated quite clearly that Sakai remained completely human(which supposedly was cause for much controversy). So... there's one full human ;P

[Capt.Montoya]

But... wasn't Sakai supposed to have disappeared completely?
At the end of the comic series about B4 (which I only know from the summary at the Lurker's Guide) and in the "City of Sorrows" novel there are hints that Sinclair only found her quite late in his life as Valen.
I don't think she would have put up with Sinclair having Minbari lovers on the side... so if he had found Sakai from the beginning there wouldn't have been any children of Valen.
And I also think the Minbar may not have accepted him as leader if he had been mating with a boneheadless alien.

[Joseph DeMartino]

Actually, JMS has stated quite clearly that Sakai remained completely human

No he didn't. Ever. Anywhere. He's never even said explicitly that Valen ever found Sakai in the past or anything at all about what became of her afterwards.

Nothing in "Atonement" suggests that the controversy surrounding the Childern of Valen had anything at all to do with their mother.

If Sakai remained completely Human she wouldn't have been able to have Children with Valen, who was essentially 100% Minbari. (The fraction of "Human" DNA that he retained could only have been "junk DNA" that has not effect, otherwise he would have been either incapable of having children with a Minbari or they would have been sterile and possibly deformed.)

Unlike the Trek universe, the laws of genetics have not been repealed on B5 an aliens cannot interbreed with one another. (They can have sex, but that's not the same thing. I believe that when G'Kar offered Lyta a "direct mating" he was hoping that she didn't know that this couldn't possible work and that he could therefore get her into bed.)

At the end of the comic series about B4 ... there are hints that Sinclair only found her quite late in his life as Valen.

I haven't read the comics myself, but this is the first time I have ever heard of any "hint" as to when in Valen's life he may have reunited with Sakai. (In fact his message only says, "I've found her", so it isn't certain that he's talking about Sakai or that he found her alive if that is who he's talking about.)

I don't think she would have put up with Sinclair having Minbari lovers on the side... so if he had found Sakai from the beginning there wouldn't have been any children of Valen.

????

Again, the unfounded assumption that Sakai remains Human. See above for why this isn't possible.

Valen still has the Chrysalis device with him, so there is no reason that he can't use it to transform Sakai.

If Sakai is the mother of Valen's children she would have to undergo the complete transformation (just as Delenn had to be essentially 100% Human despite her headbone) because otherwise it would be genetically impossible for them to have fertile children if they could have children at all.

Regards,

Joe

[Anders]

Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino
If Sakai remained completely Human she wouldn't have been able to have Children with Valen, who was essentially 100% Minbari. (The fraction of "Human" DNA that he retained could only have been "junk DNA" that has not effect, otherwise he would have been either incapable of having children with a Minbari or they would have been sterile and possibly deformed.)

Unlike the Trek universe, the laws of genetics have not been repealed on B5 an aliens cannot interbreed with one another. (They can have sex, but that's not the same thing. I believe that when G'Kar offered Lyta a "direct mating" he was hoping that she didn't know that this couldn't possible work and that he could therefore get her into bed.)

I believe Valen (after Sinclair changed) was a mix of Human and Minbari, just like Delenn became. Delenn could then also have children with Sheridan. Delenn was still Minbari at this time, not 100% human.

Where have you heard that no aliens can interbreed with humans? In the Gathering, Sinclair tells a guy to stick to the "list". Partly, because the alien woman could kill the guy, but why couldn't the aliens (& humans) that matched on the list have children? I admit that on Babylon 5 we haven't seen many (any?)interbreeds, but this does not mean that they don't exist in the B5 universe.

[Kevin]

Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino
No he didn't. Ever. Anywhere. He's never even said explicitly that Valen ever found Sakai in the past or anything at all about what became of her afterwards.

And now I quote, from JMS's post on the Usenet, from 06/14/1998 04:29 AM...

[In response to a topic entitled "Re: ATTN JMS: Did Sakai become Minbari too?"]

No, she didn't. Which was part of the scandal that later came.

jms

From: ([email protected])
B5 Official Fan Club at:
http://www.thestation.com

Search under Sakai on this archive, it's the very first thing that pops up. I suggest you do a tad bit of research before you make such a strong statement in the negative. I don't know what type of people you're used to dealing with, but personally I don't say something unless I have reason to.

As for the inbreeding argument, I think we haven't really been given any sign one way or the other from JMS, although Delenn and Sheridan have shown it is possible. How far you want to go with that is certainly debatable, but I wouldn't really fuss to much about it, as it's certainly not possible to prove it one way or another.

[Jan]

Search under Sakai on this archive, it's the very first thing that pops up. I suggest you do a tad bit of research before you make such a strong statement in the negative. I don't know what type of people you're used to dealing with, but personally I don't say something unless I have reason to.

Or perhaps you can search under children of Valen and find this post which pre-dates the one you found:

Subject:
Valen questions
From:
J. Michael Straczynski <[email protected]>
Date:
08/06/1996 01:30 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
{original post unavailable}

Valen did not have any children. And there's some difference of
opinion over exactly what Valen's final fate was.

jms

So who's research is right? Both. Things changed substantially over time as recently noted in another thread. JMS said different things as time passed and he discovered things he wanted to explore.

And Joe's an excellent source for information about B5. Yes, he can be rather acerbic at times but his fund of knowledge is extensive and mostly seems to reside in his memory.

Jan

[Capt.Montoya]

Jan, that quote about Valen in 1996 was meant to mislead people...
Here's another quote, lifted from the Lurker's Guide page for Atonement:

* In your comments on "War Without End, Part Two," you said Valen had no children. Is your message right, or is the episode?
What airs is considered canon; in 15 years, nobody's gonna be hauling these messages around. But the show will still be on the air. If it airs, it's canon.

And in another one of those posts, I did mention that on just a couple of small occasions, I have fibbed when asked major story arc questions to protect future storylines from being deflated....

* If you check the archives, when people said, "But what about the relationship between Sinclair and Delenn we see?" (and this is back a long time ago), I said that there is a relationship there, yes, but it isn't what you think it is. Now we see what it was.

Somewhere else I think he commented that he said that specifically to prevent people from speculating about Delenn being a descendent of Valen.
And I suspect he was very wrong about people not hauling those messages 15 years after the fact.


I had to check about Valen finding Sakai (and it' very likely he refers to her), here's a link to the Lurker's Guide page for "In Valen's Name" (part 3/3):
http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/comic/014.html

Check the end of the synopsis, it's supposed to be a final recording by Valen, possibly the very last.
Whether it is cannon, whether it does refer to Sakai are still debatable. I have not read the comics per se, only those synopses.

I get your point JoeDeM, I actually agree with you. My mistake, I left the argument you quote in second place incomplete: I assume that any children of Valen and Sakai would be more human than Minbari, thus Sakai couldn't have been at his side during the previous Shadow War.

As for the alien-human hybrids: Consider that the genetic differences between animal species on Earth make any interbreeding almost impossible, only closely related species such as horses and donkeys can mate but their descendants tend to be sterile. (In more recent news from that, there's been a crossing between South-American Llamas and Eastern Camels, whether they will be fertile is not known yet).

The genetic differences between humans and any alien species have to be even greater... That makes the tri-luminary one of the few necessary "deus-ex-machina" of the B5 Universe. It is necessary for the plot, but it doesn't need to be explained beyond the Arthur C. Clarke definition of advanced science (if advanced enough it is indistinguishable from magic, an excellent concept for SF, but one on which I don't believe for the real world).
If I remember correctly the tri-luminary was a unique device that was specifically tuned for Sinclair's DNA, if Delenn had not been a descendant of Valen it wouldn't have worked for her at all. Since she isn't a "pure" genetic descendant of Sinclair her transformation was incomplete (thus the bone left).

BTW, you can write down the Farscape universe for another example where alien races marry and interbreed (but that series never intended to be hard SF, as JMS seems to have intended with B5).

Anyway, about the comment in The Gathering: since it was the pilot I take that as a throwaway joke more than anything else.
That there is "rishatra" (to use Larry Niven's term) in the B5 universe is shown quite clearly in Crusade (Max Eilerson likes to watch movies like "Snow White and the Seven Narns"). Since we're speaking of Crusade, Dureena was to be the very last of her species, if interbreeding was possible in the B5 Universe someone could have told her
(and since the episodes were supposed to be just a beginning I think that it would have been mentioned as a potential plot point to develop later..,. considering its potential for "sexing up" the series the TNT execs would have loved it).
Going back to the point of B5 being the closest to Hard SF in TV, as part of trying to get the science right I think that JMS would have known that it is considered genetically impossible for aliens to interbreed. Valen-Delenn are the sole exception, and only because a magical (plot-)device allowed it.

Small details like that one make me think that JMS never intendeed interbreeding between aliens in the B5 Universe, but I can't point to a specific denial.

I should also point out that it is extremely unlikely that other aliens would even look as human as the Minbari, even less the Centauri. Aliens evolving in different planets do not have to have to be bilaterally symetric tetrapods with brains in a head as we are.
Aliens with really different symettry and body plans are uncommon in SF but I would expect them to be the norm (I'm agnostic as to whether they exist or not).

[Radhil]

(In fact his message only says, "I've found her", so it isn't certain that he's talking about Sakai or that he found her alive if that is who he's talking about.)

It is certain it was Sakai. Because we know Sinclair. It wouldn't have been anyone else he was talking about.

Honestly, the rest is just so much semantics... I get the impression that Joe hasn't gone into depth on these items simply because they're not that important. The important bit has already been said.

"I've found her."

[Anders]

How can we know that it was Sakai?

Here is from the link:

"Still... it's been a good life... lives... over all. Delenn, Catherine, Susan, Michael... if any of you see this somehow.. don't cry for me. For in the final analysis, I've always been too hard on myself. I'll be content to let history judge me, and all that has been done in Valen's name. And as for me... I've received my own reward, because I've found her. At long last... I've found... her." "

Why would he mention Catherine first if he was with her as Valen? He says; Catherine, if you see this...

[Radhil]

Err.... I dunno. Arg.

Crazy JMS contradictions at it again.

It has to be Catherine. Nothing else would make sense.