A Voice In The Wilderness

[andraste]

So obviously more tracks for the great Babylon 5 soundtrack project means even more notes and quotes, which means some selective rewatching. So I saw A Voice in the Wilderness today for the first time in I can't remember how long. I had somehow managed to forget that this was the episode where Londo Mollari spends seven days trying to work out the deeper meaning of the Hokey Pokey. I had also forgotten that it's the episode where he says this:

"As a young and foolish Centauri I swore I would die on my feet doing something noble and brave and futile. Perhaps it was not so wild a dream as I thought. Or as foolish."

Oh, Londo. More proof that you should be careful what you wish for on this show, since he achieves three out of four in the end. (And is probably quite pleased that his death is not futile after all.)

It occurs to me that somewhere in the multiverse, there is a reality where Londo ended up in the machine. Had Draal not been conveniently on the station at the time, it would apparently have come down to him or Sinclair. (We don't know for sure that the dying guardian didn't talk to other people, but if he did then it seems none of them were in a position to go down there and do anything about it.) While I'm sure Delenn is right when she says that Sinclair would have tried to throw himself in, he might not have got the chance in between all the shooting going on. While I doubt Londo would have gone to his destiny as eagerly as Draal does, that would have been a much happier fate him personally that what eventually happens to him, if not necessarily for the universe at large.

How to tell I am back in Babylon 5 space: last night I dreamed that Londo and G'Kar travelled in time from Season Five back to Season One, pre-Signs and Portents. Naturally they set off to stop either of their past selves having anything to do with a certain Mr. Morden. I suspect the major question there would be 'how long will it tale Post-Enlightenment G'Kar to punch Pre-Enlightenment G'Kar in the face?'

(Not that Season One Londo wouldn't also drive both of them up the wall, but I suspect that they'd have a much easier time getting him to listen to their crazy story. Londo has three magic words that would force him to pay attention: 'Adira is dead.')

Comments

[selenak]

I've always found it fascinating that Londo is one of the three candidates. The foreshadowing works for Sinclair - he will end up doing something similar to Draal, in a way, by becoming Valen, giving up his human present and all his connections there, returning to the past to save the Minbari. At first glance Londo with his ambitions and the choices he's about to make (again) seems a less likely candidate... until you remember how it all ends (and that beyond personal ambition, Londo's primary motivation was love for his people). Because Londo accepting the Keeper and the remainder of his life in hell, with a parasite instead of a voluntary symbiosis a la Draal & the great machine, is again a living sacrifice, so save Centauri Prime and everyone on it from being destroyed by the Drakh.

Yes, Londo becoming one with the Great Machine would have been a happier fate for him - but would season 1 Londo have had the wisdom to avoid the temptation to misuse the Great Machine for his people, at the latest during Chrysalis? I doubt it...

Time travelling Londo and G'Kar: omg you must write it! My guess as to the punching: if we're talking about continuous interaction, I say half an hour max because pre-Enlightenment G'Kar would make all sorts of comments on post-Enlightnment G'Kar being the product of brainwashing and having betrayed Narn, and if they let it slip Morden has access to superior weaponry, Great Maker. S1 G'Kar - if he doesn't simultanously learn about the Shadows, who have a bad rep in the book of G'Quan - would so go for that. Good point about Londo's magic three words.

[andraste]

Yes, Londo becoming one with the Great Machine would have been a happier fate for him - but would season 1 Londo have had the wisdom to avoid the temptation to misuse the Great Machine for his people, at the latest during Chrysalis? I doubt it...

Quite. Apart from anything else, can you imagine the kind of thing Season One!Londo would be tempted to do with access to time travel?

Time travelling Londo and G'Kar: omg you must write it!

It certainly is nibbling at my brain. I may need some kind of chart to work out exactly what each of them knows about what's really going on during Seasons One through Four, though. There's no reason to think that either of them has a clue time travel is even possible, is there? I don't think anyone ever sat them down and explained exactly what happened to Sinclair to them. They might end up pushing all kinds of pebbles around without even meaning to, even apart from interference from their past selves ...

My guess as to the punching: if we're talking about continuous interaction, I say half an hour max because pre-Enlightenment G'Kar would make all sorts of comments on post-Enlightnment G'Kar being the product of brainwashing and having betrayed Narn, and if they let it slip Morden has access to superior weaponry, Great Maker. S1 G'Kar - if he doesn't simultanously learn about the Shadows, who have a bad rep in the book of G'Quan - would so go for that.

And even if S5 G'Kar was pointing at the Book of G'Quan and explaining why the Shadows were bad, S1 G'Kar might not trust anything he had to say after the initial 'hello, Londo Mollari and I are here from the future to stop a war between the Narn and the Centauri.'

[selenak]

You're right, there is no indication G'Kar or Londo ever got told about time travel. Though if you want to, you can have either Delenn tell G'Kar post Ship of Tears (since she feels guilty and has promised complete truth and information sharing), or Garibaldi when he's in a maudlin mood about Sinclair and needs to vent.