Contents: Overview - Backplot - Questions - Analysis - Notes - JMS

Overview

The Army of Light mounts its final assault. Londo learns some surprising information about Morden. Ed Wasser as Morden.

P5 Rating: 9.30

Production number: 406
Original air week: February 3, 1997

Written by J. Michael Straczynski
Directed by Kevin Dobson

An episodic soundtrack is available.

Plot Points

• The first of Lorien's people were effectively immortal, but later generations grew old and died.
• The Shadows and Vorlons never attacked one another directly because their goal wasn't to defeat the opposition in a military sense, but to convince their charges, the younger races, to forsake the opposing philosophy. Along the way, both races lost track of who they were and what they wanted.
• All the First Ones, including the Shadows and Vorlons, are gone, ushering in the third age of mankind (which seems to refer to the younger races as a group, not just humanity.) In the first age, man was too primitive to be considered part of the larger picture. In the second age, man was intelligent and aware of the greater world, but his fate was manipulated by outside forces. Now, with all the older races gone, man has entered an age of self-determination.

Unanswered Questions

• What lies beyond the galactic rim? Why do all the elder races want to go there?
• How far did Lorien's broadcast of the conversations with the Vorlons and Shadows extend? Just to the crews of the ships at Coriana 6, or more broadly than that?
• Does Londo sending Vir back to Babylon 5 mean that Vir is now the Centauri Ambassador?

Analysis

• The First Ones were of surprisingly little help, considering the trouble to which Ivanova and Lorien went to secure their assistance. They amounted to little more than strange-looking guns, just there to pop in, destroy the Vorlon planetkiller, and do little else (though one of them can be seen destroying a few Shadow and Vorlon ships.) Why were the Shadows and Vorlons seemingly undisturbed by the intervention of their peers, preferring instead to continue fighting as before? Why didn't the First Ones do anything about the Shadow planetkiller?

  It could be argued that they had to be present because Lorien needed them to see that it was time to depart. But given how reclusive most of the remaining First Ones were, they could likely have remained right where they were without ever significantly affecting mankind's reign of the galaxy. Only the Shadows and Vorlons were actively interfering with the younger races. For all intents and purposes the remaining First Ones were already gone anyway.

• Sheridan's plan -- luring the Shadows to Coriana 6 with false information, then planting bombs in nearby asteroids -- is the same strategy he employed to good effect against the Black Star during the Earth-Minbari War ("There All the Honor Lies.")

• The representation of the Shadows and Vorlons while Sheridan and Delenn were talking to them was symbolic of their nature. The Shadows moved around, shifted form, and spoke with many voices, representative of chaos. The Vorlons were frozen in ice, cold and aloof and unchanging.

• The episode's title can be read as a reference to a crucible, which certainly fits the theme of the storyline. Sheridan brought together the concentrated forces of the Shadows, Vorlons, the First Ones, and the younger races; as they were all forced to interact, they were transformed.

• How did Londo know Morden was accompanied by Shadows? Perhaps he simply put two and two together after noticing the strange sounds near Morden in "Interludes and Examinations," but this is the first evidence that Londo has been doing research on Morden's associates.

• What happened to the Shadow hit by the guard's weapon? Was its body recovered? In "The Long Dark," when the Shadow warrior was killed, it didn't leave a body behind, so perhaps it's some kind of standard protection mechanism used by the Shadows and their servants.

• By killing Morden and destroying the Shadow base, Londo has probably sealed the fate of Centauri Prime as seen in "War Without End, Part Two." As Morden said, the Shadows may be gone, but they have allies, and Londo told Sheridan in that episode that the Shadows' allies were the ones laying waste to Centauri Prime.

  Whether those allies will also be responsible for putting the keeper on Londo isn't clear. If so, they would appear to be after more than simple revenge, since they were trying to extract information from Delenn.

  Ironically, if Londo had left the base and Morden alone, the Vorlons would have turned back anyway, since their planet-killer was summoned to Coriana 6 before it fired a shot at Centauri Prime. Of course, he had no way of knowing that.

• When he first appeared in "Signs and Portents," Morden asked G'Kar, Delenn, and Londo what they wanted. Later, in "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum," he asked the same of Vir. The irony is, only Vir actually ended up getting exactly what he asked for.

• As the Vorlon ship passed overhead, Londo and everything around him fell under its shadow, underscoring the point about Londo's Shadow involvement.

• After Selini was destroyed, Morden clutched almost desperately at his pendant. Just a reflex, or was it perhaps some form of link to the Shadows?

• Given his fate when Sheridan destroyed the White Star on Z'ha'dum, and the fact that only extreme intervention restored any semblance of his physical body ("The Hour of the Wolf") Morden may qualify as "the one who is already dead" from Lady Morella's prophecy ("Point of No Return.") By killing Morden and thus condemning Centauri Prime to the dismal future seen 17 years hence, Londo has plausibly given up a chance to redeem himself.

• The Shadows themselves may have departed, but what have they left behind? Many of their ships were manned by other races. Did the pilots leave for the Rim as well, or are there still Shadow ships flying around the galaxy? What about their cities on Z'ha'dum, and the ships they buried on worlds all over the galaxy? Did all their representatives on Earth and elsewhere leave too?

  Similarly, is the Vorlon homeworld now accessible to anyone who cares to visit? What did the Vorlons leave behind?

  Lorien also may have left something behind, namely the ship he and Sheridan took to Babylon 5 in "The Summoning."

• Who will force mankind to step down when our time has passed? The Vorlons and Shadows likely wouldn't have left were it not for Lorien's intervention. With both of them, and their peers, gone, there'll be no father figure to coax mankind out of the way millions of years hence, when we're the mysterious elder race meddling in the affairs of the newcomers.

  Perhaps that role will be filled by Jason Ironheart ("Mind War.") He indicated he'd be back in a million years.

Notes

• In the initial US broadcast, the end credits were accompanied by the theme music from season three, not season four.
• Reflecting his increased status, Vir's hair appears to be somewhat longer in this episode than previously.
• The space background in the opening sequence, when the White Star awaits the arrival of more First Ones, is from a Hubble Space Telescope photo, part of the Eagle Nebula.
• The island of Selini, shown being destroyed by Londo, bears strong similarity to the island of Sicily, Italy, as seen from space.
• The scene in which Lorien tells Ivanova about his people and about his immortality was originally written for the previous episode, "The Long Night." That's why it takes place aboard Babylon 5 rather than the White Star, forcing a rather strange detour to the station when Ivanova would have wanted to head directly to the scene of the battle. When Lorien says, "I was told you were ready to leave," he's referring to Ivanova's departure on Sheridan's mission to find more First Ones. To cover for this inconsistency, an extra line of voiceover dialogue was added to the first scene in the episode, Ivanova telling Lorien that they need to get back to Babylon 5 and rejoin the fleet.
• Lorien said there were six First Ones, but only five can be seen leaving the scene of the battle. Of course, the sixth might have left separately, or Lorien could have been referring to himself.
• When Londo arrives in the throne room, he gathers his WITS about him: he orders the unnamed Minister to gather the ministers of War, Information, Transportation, and Security.

jms speaks

• One of the things about the way events come to a head and finish in ITF is that it's very unnerving...okay, *now* what? The ongoing conflict has become something you could count on, you knew the rough shape of what might be coming along. Now all that's kicked over, and you have to get on with the next aspect: making a new life.

  What interests me, what I wanted to do with making this show, was in large measure to examine the issues and emotions and events that precede a war, precipitate a war, the effects of the war itself, the end of the war and the aftermath of the war. The war is hardware; the people are at the center of the story.

• So far the general reaction has been, "But...but...what NOW?" which is *exactly* the reaction I was hoping for.

  Everybody keeps commenting, "This is the sort of episode you have at the end, not 6 eps into your season." Yep.

  We're funny that way....

• Now comes more fun...again, it's all about process...going from post-war (Minbari) to an uneasy peace, to showing how a war starts to come about, the actual beginning of a war, its progress, then the aftermath. That arc really is at the core of the show...the changes that take place through this process.

• I've always preferred the arc, both inside an episode, and between episodes, and even in the course of a season, where there's the resolution and then there's time to consider, reflect, and show the impact of these things. It's not just about solving the technical problem that way...it's about the people who solve the problem and how they are affected by the problems and solutions.

• It's often the aftermath that holds the greatest interest. The Civil War tells one kind of interesting story; the Reconstruction that followed, which endured for many years longer than the war, tells another, just as interesting story.

  There's a line one of the characters will say soon, "The duration's going to be a lot longer than the war." It's a very true comment.

  One of my favorite books is "Alas, Babylon," by Pat Frank, which is about a nuclear war (written in the early 60s). But the war happens entirely off-stage, way in the distance...and the book focuses on one small township dealing with the after effects, and the day-to-day realities of surviving in a changed world. I've always been partial to that kind of storytelling.

• As for the story being over...not by a long sight. Frankly, some of what's coming in the latter part of this season is more intense than anything we've done previously. We really focus in on the characters and the after-shocks of the war, in ways usually ignored.

  After all, we all know how nice and calm and civilized Europe was after the War To End All Wars came to an end...we hardly heard a peep from that part of the world thereafter....

• As usual every season, we start out with lighter CGI episodes, and build to big stuff as we go. That will be the same this season as last. Our first really big CGI episode last season was "Messages," which was around episode #8, then "Severed," episode #10. This season we'll hit with big stuff around episode #6, which will likely be as big as "Severed." Rather than push stuff back, we've been able to move CGI stuff forward and expand on scenes.

• Just a quick note with two purposes:

  1) to alert folks interested in Lightwave to check out the B5 episode airing in about 2 weeks, "Into the Fire," the second new episode back, to see some nifty stuff one can do when one applies oneself. That episode has roughly 114 CGI shots in 43 minutes, and are easily some of the most elaborate ever done for TV. (There's some nice stuff toward the latter half of this coming week's episode, but the following one is the big blow-out.)

  and

  2) to plink the noses of those on here who came on proclaiming that "good sources" told them that the CGI EFX on B5 would either go to hell, or look crappy, or be less than before. We're now doing far more EFX than in any previous season, and more elaborate shots. I said these individuals were full of it then, and the facts have spoken for themselves in the time since. These individuals have since dropped away and gotten real silent. I hope they'll be as forthright now that they've been shown to be wrong as they were in their original proclamations.

  Otherwise we'd have to assume that these individuals were spewing out things they knew weren't true, just to poison the well and cause us grief, and I just can't *imagine* that *anyone* would do something like that....

• Why wasn't the Vorlon shown in its true form?
  Because we'd still be rendering it. There are 114 EFX shots in that episode, and as it was we just barely made the satellite uplink. If it wasn't absolutely necessary, better to do it more simply. As it was, we were rendering the shadow form too.

• Are you happy with having to hurry season four along in case the show isn't renewed?
  Truth: I go back and forth. The "Into the Fire" thing, for instance... it would've likely been a two-part episode, but it still would've ended up exactly where it ended up. A few more big explosions, but I wonder also if that really adds anything past a certain point.

  From a production standpoing, since "Fire" darn near killed us in the CGI department, it's probably a darned good thing it DIDN'T go for 2 eps. That puppy had something around 120 or 140 EFX shots.

  Overall, I'm actually quite happy with how this season is going, in terms of the intensity of the arc and the emotions and incidents. Parts would've been a bit more laid-back if I had decided not to cover my bets on renewal, and maybe the situation has worked out to the best (again the ABA principle, Art By Accident).

  So I dunno...all I know is what's in the episodes this season, and it's pretty cool overall....

• 1.) The CGI was excellent and seemed very different than in previous episodes, much larger, better defined, darker. Was this an effort on your part, or the post-production department?"

  We're trying some new rendering techniques...I think they're working very well. (Some of the stuff in the next episode has a very realistic feel to it.)

  2.) Have you found some way to slow down time or compress the episode into a shorter span? When I finished this one, I swore I had watched a two hour movie.

  You did. We arranged for a time dilation bubble to appear over your house.

  3.) Any reaction from the actor or staff on this one? Especially, Ed Wasser? (Might be a bit of spoilers in the answer to this one)

  Ed wants to come back as an alien. I see no problem with this.

• Any significance to Morden's pendant?
  It may have its uses.

• The shadow voice was definitely Ed Wasser.

• Yeah, that was Ed's voice. Seemed appropos.

  Definitely didn't want it to end in a big explosion. We've seen many of those; how many more can you see? One is the same as the other after a while. And if we destroyed everything, how would that show we'd grown enough to create the new age? It's a matter of evolution, not destruction.

• I've suggested the use of a minor chords version of the theme music to Chris on several occasions, where it seemed right, here, Signs and Portents, and in others. The change from minor to major chords does signal an emotional transition, and it works well.

  The director initially didn't want to do the Londo rage scene in one take; it was something I felt very strongly about, and I think it works well.

  BTW, there's another example of a long single take coming up soon, on Epsilon 3, which is all I'll specify. I kinda wanted the scene to play itself out, without cutting, and to show just how amazingly capable some of our actors can be. We're talking here almost 4 minutes of footage, not one cut in the whole thing, very fast dialogue, and not a single muffed line, with the performances working wonderfully. You'll know it when you see it.

• Why were the other First Ones still around?
  They were all still hanging around here, for one reason or another, mostly to do with inertia, familiarity...but finally recognized that it was time.

• The Sigma 957 ship was one of the First One ships, yeah.

• I don't think the shadows speaking through Lyta referred to Delenn by name; they said only, "And you they have left for us."

  The jostling from the asteroid was an accident, though the others would've figured out what was going on soon enough.

• Any relation between the Vorlon representative's outfit and Ivanova's in the "All Alone in the Night" dream?
  No, no relation to Ivanova's outfit. I just wanted a sense of something that was both ancient and ageless, frozen, formal, distant.

• The woman was in ice as a symbol of their ridigity, their inflexibility, "frozen in time," as the shadows say.

• Two ancient adversaries gave up just because Delenn and Sheridan told them to?
  I think that, for me, what mitigates against that is that a) it wasn't just Delenn and Sheridan, it was with virtually every other major civilization around backing their play, and adding their support, their voice, even being willing to die for the sake of this confrontation. If it were just the two of them...they'd be scragged. The two forces needed to be shown that the others had turned against them, and that their true faces had been exposed.

  b) The other key for me is that neither the Vorlons nor the Shadows saw themselves as conquerers or adversaries...both believed they were doing what was right for us. And like any possessive parent, they'll keep on believing that until the kid is strong enough to stand up and say, "No, this is what *I* want."

  Most wars tend to end with one singular event...sometimes it's a big bomb, or a series of big bombs...and sometimes it comes with a negotiation. The two sides meet in a room, sometimes with representatives of other nations, and together they hammer out a truce, or a peace. There's the Nagasaki solution on the one hand, and the "let's meet in a room and talk about this" of Jimmy Carter, Anwar Sadat and Minister Begin.

  Both work.

• There is a definite parent/child/parent dynamic going on there, in that Lorien is, in a way, in that role to the Vorlons and the Shadows, they're in that role to us, and we're in that role to those who will follow. It's the endless cycle.

• About the final scene between Lorien and the Vorlon and Shadow images
  One could almost argue for the whole scene as a classic "intervention" out of psychotherapy or group counseling.

  Very early on, John Copeland asked me, "Okay, bottom line it for me, what's the war about?" I said, "It's about killing your parents." And his eyes went wide, and I explained, "No, not literally...but at some point you have to step outside the control of your parents and create your own life, your own destiny. That process is inevitable...and if there are indeed older races, and they're interfering, that puts them smack in the middle of that same process."

  It's not about who has the biggest gun, because there's *always* somebody else with a bigger gun...it's about *understanding* your way out of a problem.

• Will we ever learn why the first Kosh was more sympathetic to the younger races than his replacement?
  That's a good question, and one of the things I'd like to do (but which I can't see any way to do in the series) is the whole story of who Kosh was, how he got to be who and what he was, why he felt the way he did toward humans (part of it was knowing Valen)...maybe this will have to go into one of the novels.

• Did Kosh go to B5 knowing that the conflict would soon be over?
  I think Kosh came late to the table. I don't think he came to B5 with that intent, but it grew in him over time that this cycle had to end, and he could be instrumental to that.

• The main motive for going beyond the rim...there's a heck of a big Taco Bell out there....

• The notion of the Vorlons and Shadows representing Order and Chaos goes back to the Babylonian creation myths, that the universe was born in the conflict between order and chaos, hence part of the reason I decided to name this show after Babylon. That's called *research*. It informs the show, but it is not the show.

• Certainly Londo would like to avoid his fate, and Lady Morella prophesied certain ways of doing this...and he's had some chances, and blown them. As you say, he's creating the very future he'd hoped to avoid.

Last update: November 12, 1998