08.08.07
Deep Geeking: The Lost Tales
Now that the official review is completed, I wanted to delve more deeply into the continuity questions raised by each of the “Lost Tales”, segment by segment. The logical place to begin, of course, is the Lochley segment “Over Here”.
It seems unusual that Colonel Lochley would remain in command of Babylon 5 for such a long time. If there’s one constant in the Babylon 5 universe, it’s change in command staff. When it comes to the military, long-term assignments are a rarity. Perhaps Lochley came to the conclusion that she was content where she was, or during the Drakh crisis, harbors like Babylon 5 and the colony worlds were more important in terms of providing a stable leadership.
The conversation between Lochley and Father Kelly seems to overlook the arrival of Brother Theo and his order in the third season. In fact, given some of the conversations between Brother Theo and Commander Ivanova in that episode, this might have been a better story for her character. It would have tied into the early episodes related to her faith in the first season as well.
The story comes down to the idea of non-corporeal “demonic” entities trapped on Earth, looking for a way to get off the planet and back among the stars. Lochley ties this idea to the Biblical concept of the fallen angels, more or less equating the “heavens” with Heaven and Earth as “hell”.
What’s unusual is that this idea is never once tied into the themes and continuity of the original B5 series. After all, within the series, there were angelic types (the Vorlons and some of the other First Ones) and demonic types (the Shadows and their minions). In episodes like “The Long Dark”, non-corporeal servants of the Shadows were already established. Why not tie this particular situation into the history of the series more directly?
One could argue that, like the Vorlons and their use of angelic imagery within the religions and folklore of countless younger races, the First Ones built the idea of fallen angels into the cultures of the younger races as a touchstone to the previous imprisonment of Shadow minions (or alternatively, some other ancient species). In fact, by this logic, Earth may not have been the only prison for such entities.
This would have opened the door for speculation that the “demon” Asmodeus in this episode had chosen this time to leave Earth because the Vorlons had left the galaxy and the ban on travel from Earth had been lifted after the resolution of the Drakh virus crisis. It could have been a situation not unlike the return of “The Hand” in “Legends of the Rangers”. Whatever the case, there was a complete disconnect between the obvious Vorlon/Shadow connection to angel/demon symbolism in the original series.
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Now that the official review is completed, I wanted to delve more deeply into the continuity questions raised by each of the “Lost Tales”, segment by segment. This concluding segment delves into the material from Sheridan’s segment, “Over There”.
First, there is the issue of “quantum space”. The idea that the Vorlons had the technology to use something other than hyperspace is hardly new; in fact, it was the basis behind “Thirdspace”. This concept of quantum space completely ignores the fact that Vorlons used hyperspace all the time during the original series, and hyperspace was still in use during “Sleeping in Light”. Unless some future installment of “Lost Tales” covers an incident with the use of quantum space in the meantime, this is an unnecessary continuity error.
Sheridan’s vision of the future New York, and Galen’s warning about its destruction, poses an array of questions. To begin with, why would the Centauri of 2291 see the Earth Alliance as the most pressing threat to restoration of the Republic to former glory? It was the Interstellar Alliance, or rather elements of it, that attacked Centauri Prime. One would expect the Centauri to go after Minbar or some Ranger installation. Whatever the case, if the Centauri returned as a problem state, the IA would have dealt with them before a war with Earth came along.
One might suspect that the Earth Alliance was causing trouble, but even at that point, one would expect Earth to be rebuilding and solidifying its forces for protection, not trouble with a state that had been in hiding. The Earth Alliance would have dealt with the effects of the Minbari War (2245-2248), the Civil War (2259-2261), the Telepath War (~2263-2264), and the Drakh crisis (~2267-2271). Why would they be making trouble anywhere?
Galen also frames the devastation of Earth as a level of destruction far beyond Sheridan’s imagination. This is hard to believe, since Sheridan had been witness to the Vorlon and Shadow planet-killers. Galen would have known this from his association with Sheridan in “A Call to Arms”. Why, then, would Galen overstate the situation? For that matter, why wouldn’t Sheridan have pointed out the disparity?
Given how the story ends, one could conclude that the visions of the future provided to Sheridan were a complete fabrication, and that Galen chose Earth at the target of Vintari’s supposed attack to get the most reaction out of Sheridan. It is more likely that Galen saw Vintari as a potential threat and wanted Sheridan to take him by the hand and prevent another future conflict.
This brings up the question of whether or not Vintari’s time with Sheridan, Delenn, and David makes sense within the context of the events in “War Without End”. Why would Londo agree to such a thing? Perhaps he would see the possibility of continued salvation for his people, knowing that Vir would still be around to help Centauri Prime prosper.
