The Deconstruction of Falling Stars

[Ranger1]

3262 (1000 years into the future)
The prophecies of Delenn III (huh??)..thats a bit puzzles me,she said that the Rangers will come to earth in the greatest hour of need and rebuild what was once the cradle of Sheridan and the Alliance.
the cradle i take it is the Babylon station...but the Alliance was only a short time based on Babylon 5 then it moved (the HQ) to Minbar.
Ok so its the Babylon station,but why rebuild it? i mean 1000 years after the original B5 the Alliance has better technology, i mean if the Babylon station was built about 200 years from now just imagine what the Alliance can build 1000 years after that.
"...will come to earth in the greatest hour of need..." B4 and B5 were both battle stations/base of operations when it came to the shadow war(s).
So if the Rangers will rebuild it in the "greatest hour of need" that means that another BIG war is at the door (i dont think they will rebuild it for commerce).
T+1,000,000
The sun goes Nova,its well known that our sun will not go Nova for a few billion years so something or someone made it go Nova.
Maybe a hostile race? a big war?
Another thing...we see that we (Humans) become an energy like creatures (Lorien like),Kosh said that we are not ready to go to their home world,does "New Earth" is the original vorlon's home world?
cause he's saying "...We created the world we think you would've wished for us..."

What do you think?

[Joseph DeMartino]

What do you think?

I think you need to stop looking for esoteric explanations of things and pay attention to what is right in front of you.

The "cradle" isn't Babylon 5, the cradle is Earth. Her "hour of greatest need" is after it has been nuked and needs to be rebuilt. And "Delenn II" was able to "predict" this because she knew darned well that a couple of hundred years after the Great Burn, once the radiation had died down and the mutant plant and animal strains had died off or been wiped out, the Rangers would indeed return and try to repair the damage and bring Sheridan's birthplace back into the Alliance.

Regards,

Joe

[Ranger1]

Originally posted by Joseph DeMartino
I think you need to stop looking for esoteric explanations of things and pay attention to what is right in front of you.

The "cradle" isn't Babylon 5, the cradle is Earth. Her "hour of greatest need" is after it has been nuked and needs to be rebuilt. And "Delenn II" was able to "predict" this because she knew darned well that a couple of hundred years after the Great Burn, once the radiation had died down and the mutant plant and animal strains had died off or been wiped out, the Rangers would indeed return and try to repair the damage and bring Sheridan's birthplace back into the Alliance.

Regards,

Joe

She was'nt reffering to Earth "will come to earth in the greatest hour of need "..not to "the greatest hour of her need",means something big is going on which includes the entire Alliance.
People survived the nuke attacks from the big burn so why not helping earth right after the attacks?

[Joseph DeMartino]

Look, it seems as though English may not be your first language, or that you're not comfortable with formal grammar. So please accept some information from a native English speaker who is familiar with formal literary prose, such as that quoted in this segment.

The monk is reading from a book deliberately written in an archaic style of English meant to resemble the King James version of the Bible - a translation made over 500 years ago in England. So the style is not that of contemporary conversational American English.

"The cradle of Sheridan and the Alliance" is definitely Earth. It is the homeworld of the Humans, who were always the key to the Alliance, it is the homeworld of Sheridan personally, and it is the place where the Alliance was originally created. (The Alliance Treaty was signed by the League worlds while they were in the Sol system, and the Alliance is first publicly announced to the universe at large during a press conference held in Geneva.)

Once you accept that fact, the meaning of the rest of the text becomes clear. And I already mentioned the reasons the Rangers would not have moved in immediately after the Great Burn.

And in case you didn't notice - the older monk is a Ranger. So they've already been operating on Earth for some time, only in secret. They're building up the religious legends of Delenn, Sheridan and the Rangers so that a people who still associate science with the forces that almost destroyed their planet will eventually accept help from the Rangers who will someday openly return from the stars.

The "her" and "she" refer to "Earth" as the cradle, not to Delenn II and not to the Alliance. There is nothing in this segment about building a new Babylon station. (Which you yourself point out wouldn't make any sense. So which do you think is more likely -- that JMS wrote something really stupid and contradictory into the episode, or that you misunderstood what he did write?)

Regards,

Joe

[Ranger1]

First,yes,English is not my native language so sorry about that.
Second,i just want to understand more thats all dont bash me,i still have a hard time to understand why Earth would be a cradle for the Alliance since it was never based on earth.

The press conference you mentioned was made there only because the earth war was over and Delenn presented the idea of the Alliance to earth (the other league worlds already signed when Delenn first showed her idea to Londo and G'Kar).

Its like you're saying that the Alliance belong to Sheridan and Sheridan was born on earth thus making earth the cradle for the Alliance.

For example lets take the U.N...its located in N.Y...that means that the U.N belongs to N.Y or the US?

I know that Joe like to reffer to earth as our cradle but still that doesnt make sence to make earth the cradle for the Alliance.

[Joseph DeMartino]

I'm not bashing you, I'm trying to explain something to you and end your confusion. You choose to reject my explanation. I'm not sure how to resolve this.

It is not a matter of "ownership" Do your parents own you? Does house where you were raised "own" you? And yet, you no doubt slept in a cradle in a house where your parents lived. That is still the cradle you came from and it always will be.

Similarly Earth is the place where the Alliance officially came into being with the actual selection of its first President and Adivsory Council. (Which events did not take place in orbit, they took place on Earth after Sheridan agreed to accept the post. And the Alliance was only created because of the lessons learned from both the Shadow and the Earth Civil Wars. The Alliance did not come into being after the Shadows and the Vorlons departed. It was only when the greatest ally that all the alien worlds had - the glue that held them together - was threatened, and that they intervened to save it, that Delenn was able to briing forth her proposal for a new Alliance.

The U.N. is actually a good example. The U.N. is currently headquartered in New York. But if it moved to Geneva or Brussels tomorrow, anyone looking for "the cradle of the U.N." would have to look to America. The organization was created at a conference in San Francisco, then headquartered on Long Island and finally in Manhattan.

As the Alliance only came into existance because of the Humans and as a result of the Shadow and Earth Civil wars, the U.N. only came into existance because of the Americans and the two world wars. After WWI the U.S. refused to join the League of Nations, which proved totally ineffectual as a result. Similarly the Humans were allied with, but not part of the League of Non-Aligned worlds. (JMS has explicitly said that the Dilgar War was to the Humans what WWI was to the Americans, their debut among the Great Powers, the war where they changed the balance of power and assured one side of the victory.)

After WWII the U.S. was persuaded that a supranational body was necessary to help keep the peace and used its power and prestige to create the U.N.

Regardless of who "owns" it now, the U.N. was born in America, and America will always be its "cradle" in the sense the episode intends the word to be used.

If Greece can be called "the cradle of democracy" by every democratic people, even those with no historical ties to Greece, or the English Parliament be recognized as the "Mother of Parliaments" even by nations that were never British colonies and adopted Parliamentary democracy by some other route, why can't America be the cradle of the U.N. and Earth the cradle of the Alliance?

I'm not sure why you are so hung up on that word, but I can assure you that anybody who speaks English as a native and saw that episode would not have the slightest doubt that the "cradle" of the Alliance is Earth. Why else would the older monk read that passage to the younger monk to console him about their present plight and assure him that the Rangers would return? The whole thing only makes sense in reference to the dramatic situation that we are watching on the screen. There is no other dramatic reason to even have the monk quote that book. Writers telling a story on stage, film or television do not have the luxury of including vagure "coded" references to future events that nobody ever sees. Everything said, seen or done in a dramatic scene has to have a meaning in the dramatic context of that story. Hence the rule that if you show a gun in act one somebody had better fire it by the end of act two.

You are still taking a line or two completely out of context and extrapolating to something that never existed based on your misunderstanding of a single word. Go back and watch the entire scene and tell me which explanation actual makes more sense in context and in light of all the rest of the dialogue, yours or mine.

Regards,

Joe

[Ranger1]

First let me say that i love your posts...really hard to argue with you cause ...well you are just right,i have followed your posts on the babylon5.com forum for some years (although never posted there myself).

Second...im totally not trying to take a line out of context and extrapolating,just the opposite,i try to understand better and after reading your last reply i guess it make sense.

Btw do you have an answer for my last question? (which i was still editing it when you post your first reply).
Do we go to the Vorlons homeworld after a million years or before that? (or never).
Cause the guy there said "We created the world we think you would've wished for us",taking into account the word "created" not moved or relocated.

[Joseph DeMartino]

Cause the guy there said "We created the world we think you would've wished for us",taking into account the word "created" not moved or relocated.

Here again, I think you're being too literal. He said "world" not "planet". He means "the world" in the broadest possible sense - the universe, or at least our little corner of it. He's talking about the fact that the Alliance still exists, the Rangers still exist and that we are now ready to take our place as the guardians and guides of the races who will come after us - but still remembering the lesson of Sheridan, Delenn and the Shadow/Vorlon War, and therefore less likely to repeat the mistakes that led to that eons-long conflict.

Here's what JMS had to say about part of this:

Did the future humans leave the galaxy as the Vorlons did?

No point in leaving the galaxy; stars go nova, it only affects the immediate vicinity (big as that is). By this point, they were in the position of the Vorlons, and now have to take their (our) place guiding the younger races, the next wave, while not getting in the way and remembering the lesson of the shadow/vorlon conflict.

And yes, I think it is likely that the Humans (and the Minibari) probably are just relocating to the Vorlon homeworld in "Deconstruction" and that they've named it "New Earth". It fits with Lyta's prediction and with what Ironheart said about the evolutionary level he represented. JMS liked to wrap some things up like that, just as the premature detonation of Earth's son refers back to Sinclair's comment (in "Infection", the very first episode filmed) about how one way or another the Sun would go nova someday, and that if we hadn't spread to the stars by then that everything we ever were or ever created would be lost, as if we had never been.

Regards,

Joe

[Lorien4k]

Originally posted by Ranger1

Do we go to the Vorlons homeworld after a million years or before that? (or never).
Cause the guy there said "We created the world we think you would've wished for us",taking into account the word "created" not moved or relocated.

Metaphorical my friend.
By that he meant something along the lines of: "The society we have built is what we believe you wanted for us"

Something interesting must have happened though as the "a-typical" emmisiions from sol signalled it's premature destruction. So I suppose humans might have found the Vorlon homeworld suitable or at least tolerable.

[Ranger1]

Thanks again Joe..as always you are right....i just love that episode so much it is one of my favorite.
Just one little question

At the end when that "Guy" transform into energy,the energy doesn't looks like a Vorlon but more like the energy when Lorien leaves them and goes beyond the rim.

Do you have a take on that?

[Davco92]

Not to butt in, but many of the First Ones (B5 tv era) were non-corporeal. Different races probably evolved into different energy-based forms, so their appearance could vary. Or, being energy-based they might be able to take more or less whatever appearance they prefer. A possible example of this could be the Vorlons appearing different to each race they had adjusted somewhere in the past. Could be perception based rather than form. I'd guess they can vary their appearance, but probably stick to one "confortable" form/appearance, kind of like having a favorite shirt or pair of shoes.

Oh - I rarely post here, but lurk around in the wings frequently.

[Lord Scotty]

Definitive Answers on New Earth

If you watch the episode with the commentaries on, JMS saids that the humans have relocated to the Vorlon Homeworld. He doesn't say anything about the Minbari, as they still have there homeworld.

Regards,

Lord Scotty

[sixpence]

In Deconstruction, do you all find it plausible that so much, or virtually all of Human culture would have been lost after the Great Burn? I mean is the theory acceptable for instance that the three great religions of Humanity; Christianity, Judaism, and Islam would have been supplanted by the religion of Sheridan and Delenn?
I realize that the Sheridan religion was seemingly propagated by the Rangers, and we do not know the state of any other religions after the GB, but take into consideration that Christianity is over 2000 years old, Judaism over 5000, and Islam over 1500 as of today, and this does not take into account the myriad other religions out there. Whether you believe in religion or not, I don't see them fading away in a mere 300 - 500 years considering how long they have already existed.


Cheers!

[Kevin]

I didn't get the impression that they had faded away as such, but that they had been incorperated into mainstream religion, or as shown in this case, Catholic monks.

Which would be highly plausible considering the effect myth has on a great deal of things, plus the destruction of most pre-Burn knowledge leaving new learnings only to tale...

Course I could be completely wrong, since the events in Deconstruction never intrested me too too much which is why I've refrained from making a single post on this thread so far

[Joseph DeMartino]

1) A nuclear war, especially one fought with weapons 700 years advanced over what we have now, would be pretty devastating, so society would be very badly damaged.

2) That segment does not depict "Human Civilization". The "Great Burn" only affected Earth. The independent former colonies like Mars, Io and Proxima Centauri go on without disruption, carrying human culture forward.

3) The monks' segment doesn't even depict much of *Earth*. The monastery exists in a society where nothing moves faster than a horse-drawn cart, so the effective radius of travel and knowledge for most individuals must be very small. The Sheridan/Rangers "revelation" that they're grafting onto traditional Catholicism is just a way of getting past the fear of technology and beings from beyond the Earth that the Great Burn and the events leading up to it instilled in the survivors and their descendents. In effect they are using myth and superstition to overcome myth and superstition. And they are hardly a major religion. Don't forget, the younger monk is concerned that they haven't yet received the recognition of Rome. Chances are they never will, because chances are the monk in charge has never petitioned Rome for recognition or notified the Holy See of their existance.

4) JMS was, to a degree, using the monks as a metaphor. When the western Roman empire finally collapsed and the so-called "Dark Ages" engulfed Western Europe, it was the Church, and especially the monasteries, the preserved the knowledge of the Empire, its hierarchy, its laws, its literature, its history, so that when a settled society re-emerged, trade and travel were re-established and genuine civil society became possible again, these resources could be used as models for the new city and nation states, and Europe could re-connect with its classical past. It is largely thanks to the monks (and those who worked with them, including the Islamic scholars who similarly rescued the heritage of the Greek East after the fall of Byzantium and carried it to Spain) that there is a continuity of culture, law and art between the classical Greeks and Romans and modern Europeans. Absent the Church we would be as far removed from our cultural roots as modern Egyptians are from the Pharoahs or modern Iranians from the culture of Mesopotamia. Those were empires that really fell and disappeared. Rome, which carried within it the heritage of Greece, never entirely vanished, and so could re-emerge in another form later. JMS's monks are performing a similar task for the culture of Earth, in part by preserving the knowledge that Man not only went to the stars, but that He founded an interstellar society there and lived in peace with his fellows.

Regards,

Joe