>We're far enough past _War Without End_ that I won't put any spoiler
>space in here. If you haven't seen it, then you should definitely
>skip this mes^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hgo and CATCH UP!!!
>Anyhow. I was just browsing through old episodes in the Lurjer's Guide
>which I'd missed, and I noticed an odd line from "jms speaks" in the
>page for _Chrysalis_. JMS is responding to someone else:
> "There is good reason to believe the Minbari Triluminary
> device is an artifact not created by the Minbari."
> DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING*DING!
>Okay, fine, that's pretty straightforward. But the next JMS quote is
>really hurting my cause-and-effect glands:
> Actually, the first Triluminary was found by the Minbari, not
> made by them, in a vessel they ran into about a thousand years
> ago.
>So, Delenn is given the T by a fellow Council friend. She uses it to
>alter her form, then holds on to it for almost two years. Then she
>gives it to Sinclair, who goes back a thousand years, changing himself
>into a Minbari. "Valen" then gives the T to the Council. Does anyone
>else have a problem with this?
[Further theorizing about the origins of the triluminary snipped.]
Yes, there is a problem.
The triluminary that Sinclair used was brought aboard the White Star
by Zathras from Epsilon 3. According to JMS, the chrysalis machine
Sinclair used to change into Valen was in the long, yellow boxes
with triangles on their short ends that Zathras brought aboard
Babylon 4 in "War Without End, Part 2." Evidently another scene
that would have made this clearer was cut owing to considerations of
time (so to speak). I think the pertinent quotes from JMS should
be on the Lurker's Guide episode page for "WWE/2" by now; however,
there is a backlog of quotes from Season Three that have yet to be
added to the Guide, which means it is possible that all the remarks
from JMS on the subject are not yet available there.
That triluminary was the one Delenn's people "found" a long time ago.
It was the one Delenn used 1,000 years later when *she* went into a
chrysalis. Thus, the triluminary that opened the door for Minbari
souls to migrate into Humans was the same one that closed that door
1,000 years later. Because it came from Epsilon Three, it was
probably made by the makers of the Great Machine--who may have been
First Ones, though not necessarily Vorlons.
We have yet to be given any explanation of how the Minbari obtained
their other two triluminaries, the existence of which is indicated in
"Babylon Squared."
***************************************************************************
******** s-o...@uiuc.edu ******** Every silver lining has a cloud. ********
***************************************************************************
******* Those who study the past are condemned to see it repeated. ********
***************************************************************************
: Actually, the first Triluminary was found by the Minbari, not
: made by them, in a vessel they ran into about a thousand years
: ago.
: So, Delenn is given the T by a fellow Council friend. She uses it to
: alter her form, then holds on to it for almost two years. Then she
: gives it to Sinclair, who goes back a thousand years, changing himself
: into a Minbari. "Valen" then gives the T to the Council. Does anyone
: else have a problem with this?
Not me. Check out the Lurker's Guide entry for "War Without
End, Part 2" (http://www.hyperion.com/lurk/guide/061.html). JMS is on
record as saying that the triluminary came from Epsilon 3.
Which is of course one of the biggest "====>>>LOOK AT ME<<<===="
issues left right now -- who the hell built the Great Machine, and why?
ANYway....
--
JD
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
| JD Paul | Prentiss Research Group |
| jdp...@atomsun.harvard.edu | Harvard University Physics Dept. |
| http://atomsun.harvard.edu/~jdpaul/ | "Oh no -- my sanity check bounced!" |
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is why dicking around with time travel can cause huge plot
holes and/or unresolved paradoxes in any show/story that uses it. *ouch*
*ouch* *ouch*! The one thing ST has right is that time travel causes
headaches.
Sinboy
This has been something that always bothered me about Terminator 2 --
the technology was based on a sample of the same technology being sent
back into the past.
HOWEVER, the triluminary issue has been hashed over time and again. It's
not a paradox; following the triluminary's timeline: it was created
(by whom, we do not know) on the planet below B5, and sent back in
time with Jeffrey Sinclair to transform him into a Minbari. After that,
it sat in storage on Minbar for about 1000 years, after which time
Delenn used it to transform herself into a half-human.
--
Adam Roach -- adam....@exu.ericsson.se -- Standard Disclaimers, etc. <*>
"Those who do not do politics will be done in by politics."
-- French Proverb
At least one of those would have to be the same triluminary. If the one
Sinclair used came from Epsilon 3, then the one Delenn used was still hanging
around on B5 somewhere. It's the same triluminary, but the Minbari didn't
know that. Now, I'd bet that since this is the case, the third triluminary
might well be the same one as well; that would entail more time travel, but
the notion of two being the same one and one being different is just odd, to
me.
Chris
jms
Well I said _can_, not did. JMS may have done it right, but
we'll all have to wait until he gives an explanation of how time travel
works, if he does so.
Sinboy
>As will be noted in an upcoming episode, the Triluminaries originally came
>from Epsilon 3 with the other equipment brought aboard by Zathras.
It's too much to hope that we'll be seeing Zathras, yes?
--Ken
-------------------------------------<*>------------------------------------
SMUG INTELLECTUAL. Formerly rampant human-coded AI with a sense of humor
seeks bipedal oxygen-breathing cyborg for serious relationship in the
galactic core. I've got cool guns if you like to break stuff. No yuppies.
Bored? Go hit Akbar & Jeff's Web-o-Matic at http://web.syr.edu/~ksalper
"If you pat Usenet, it will burp. If you tease Usenet, it will bite." --K.
> This is why dicking around with time travel can cause huge plot
> holes and/or unresolved paradoxes in any show/story that uses it. *ouch*
> *ouch* *ouch*! The one thing ST has right is that time travel causes
> headaches.
Or, as Geordi LaForge expressed it in Peter David's novel IMZADI, "This is
why time travel gives me nosebleeds."
That isn't a problem once you accept that cause-and-effect has no
meaning in any universe that allows time travel. If time travel is
possible, then people and things can simply appear from nowhere,
sent from futures that will never happen.
Read James Hogan's THE PROTEUS OPERATION or THRICE UPON A TIME, and
you'll see what I mean.
>In article <19961210224...@ladder01.news.aol.com>, jms...@aol.com
>wrote:
>>As will be noted in an upcoming episode, the Triluminaries originally came
>>from Epsilon 3 with the other equipment brought aboard by Zathras.
>It's too much to hope that we'll be seeing Zathras, yes?
Future episode spoilers below:
In his Loscon presentation this year, JMS expressed a desire to do a story
with one or more of Zathras's twin brothers, also named Zathras. This was
put forth as something he'd *like* to do, not as something he has any
actual plans for. But it might happen.
Implicit in this, is that Zathras himself is out of the picture. He's
stuck a thousand years in the past, and won't live long enough to make
it back to the future the hard way.
--
*John Schilling * "You can have Peace, *
*Member:AIAA,NRA,ACLU,SAS,LP * or you can have Freedom. *
*University of Southern California * Don't ever count on having both *
*Aerospace Engineering Department * at the same time." *
*schi...@spock.usc.edu * - Robert A. Heinlein *
*(213)-740-5311 or 747-2527 * Finger for PGP public key *
Its need of Draal fits in neatly with DEC's recent decision to eliminate
voice-mail.
--
Mike henn...@plains.NoDak.edu
There are three kinds of people, those who can count and those who can't.
-- I. Forget