Fourth season finale. A look back at the impact of Babylon 5 from 100, 500, 1000, and 1000000 years in the future.

##Overview

##Plot Points

Some people on Earth are highly skeptical that the Interstellar Alliance will work, and distrust Sheridan’s motives and ability.

The station will be under the command of a Captain Lochley in 2262.

With Sheridan’s permission, a colony of telepaths will be established on Babylon 5 sometime in 2262. Eventually they will turn against him.

Garibaldi will be held hostage, possibly by the telepaths, in 2262. The hostage situation will end in gunfire.

Babylon 5 will be destroyed (though under what circumstances isn’t clear) in 2282.

Sheridan will die in 2282 under mysterious circumstances that will still be debated 80 years later. Popular opinion will hold that he died on Minbar, but not everyone will agree.

Later legend will hold that he was carried bodily into heaven.

Delenn will live until at least 2362, though she’ll spend many of the intervening years out of public view, leading some to wonder if she’s still alive.

In 2762, Earth will again be divided into two factions, one in favor of breaking away from the Interstellar Alliance and another in favor of remaining. The two sides will launch a

devastating war, rendering the surface of the Earth nearly uninhabitable.

In 3262, the survivors of that war, now known as the “Great Burn,” will largely have lost all records of the time before the war. At least one order of monks, marginally part of

the Roman Catholic Church, will work to gather and preserve historical records. They’ll be aided in secret by agents of the Rangers, who will slowly “discover” pieces of

pre-Burn technology to inch Earth’s people back toward the stars.

The Rangers will still exist in some form a million years hence, and will still consider Sheridan and Delenn to be their founders. They will be involved in the building of something

called “New Earth,” though what that is isn’t clear.

One million years in the future, humans will apparently have evolved into noncorporeal entities (like Lorien, [[Into the Fire]]) and will make use of Vorlon-style encounter suits

and organic ships.

Earth’s sun will go nova in a million years.

##Unanswered Questions

Is Garibaldi back on B5 to stay? What about Lise?

Who were the people holding Garibaldi hostage? The telepaths?

Who, if anyone, did Garibaldi’s captor shoot? Or was the shot fired by someone else?

What was the incident with Sheridan and Delenn’s son?

What happened to Mars and Earth’s other colonies during the Great Burn?

Why did the sun go nova? As the sun isn’t expected to do so naturally for billions of years, if at all (according to 20th-century astrophysics, anyway) did someone or something

cause it to happen?

##Analysis

Among the crowd greeting Sheridan and Delenn as they returned to B5 was a man holding a sign reading, “Sic transit gloria mundis.” That translates approximately to,

“Worldly glory/fame is transitory.” That could be viewed as a negative comment, expressing the opinion that whatever they build will be temporary. On the other hand, that’s

also the Latin phrase spoken to a newly elected Pope after the ballots are burned and the ashes dropped before him, a reminder that a greater purpose is being served and any

individual’s contribution is small in comparison. In any case, it appears at least one human agrees with Londo’s opinion that marriage celebrations should include somber

reflection.

The historical origin of the phrase is of note, given Sheridan’s recent victory against Earth. Whenever a Roman general returned from a successful campaign, a great parade or

Triumph would be held for him. The general would ride in a chariot, face painted red and in purple robes. Behind him, a slave would hold a golden crown of laurels and whisper

the phrase into his ear.

Though the implication was that the gunshot at the end of the video clip in 2362 was directed at Garibaldi, that’s not certain. It could as easily have been someone else firing at

one of his captors to prevent his death.

The 2362 historians’ interpretation of the outcome of Sheridan allowing telepaths to set up a colony of Babylon 5 — the worst mistake of his career, they claimed he as much

as said — may have been shaded by their less than charitable views about Sheridan. The actual events may have been much less disastrous than they implied.

It’s possible Delenn’s appearance in 2362 wasn’t entirely a coincidence. The moderator appeared to be sympathetic to her point of view (though he could have just been

playing devil’s advocate to spark discussion) and may have warned her of the upcoming broadcast and its likely tone.

The holographic simulation of Franklin was trying to create alien/human hybrids, the same accusation that was leveled against B5 by the Clark administration’s propagandists

([[The Illusion of Truth]].)

The Ranger said he still had time to join “the celebration” before the sun went nova. What was being celebrated? The Earth’s destruction? New Earth’s creation?

Londo said when he came aboard the station that jubilant celebration was how Centauri celebrated a funeral. Perhaps the humans of a million years hence took up that

custom, and were celebrating the death of their homeworld Centauri-style. If so, it would provide a subtle symmetry between the beginning of the episode and the end.

The Ranger’s rush to send the records to New Earth would seem to imply that the sun going nova wasn’t an expected event, which in turn implies that it was artificially

induced. If the nova were a natural event, there would presumably have been years — more likely centuries — of warning, plenty of time to evacuate people and historical

records.

The Ranger’s effort to preserve Earth’s history echoes Sinclair’s comment in [[Infection]] that all of humanity’s accomplishments would be lost when the sun died unless people

took to the stars.

The Ranger’s parting line, “This is how the world ends. Swallowed in fire, but not in darkness,” echoes Kosh’s reply to Emperor Turhan ([[The Coming of Shadows]]) that the

situation would end in fire.

One other event was predicted to occur in a million years: it’s when Jason Ironheart said he’d see Sinclair again ([[Mind War]].) Coincidence, or does Ironheart (or Sinclair)

play some part in whatever is happening in the distant future? The Ranger appeared to be noncorporeal, implying perhaps that the rest of humanity took a million years to catch

up to Ironheart’s level of development.

##Notes

The 2262 newscast referred to Sheridan’s visit to the Dalai Lama in Tibet. But the picture shown was of a group of Buddhist monks with golden robes, typical of the Golden

Triangle area (Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia.) Tibetan Buddhist monks wear maroon robes. Of course, it’s possible that changed between the 20th and 23rd centuries.

The first question in the 2362 sequence was asked by someone named Ray Winston. This may be a reference to the cartoon “The Real Ghostbusters,” on which JMS served

as producer. Ray and Winston were the names of two of the characters.

The insignia on Daniel’s uniform in 2762 was nearly identical to the logo of the Nazi SS organization.

Daniel’s language (e.g. “realfacts” and “goodfacts”) is a reference to George Orwell’s “1984,” which introduced terms such as “doublespeak” and dealt heavily with the

relation between language and propaganda.

Daniel also made a brief mention of “psychohistory,” which is a reference to Isaac Asimov’s “Foundation” novels. In the novels, psychohistory is a science that can predict

large-scale human societal behavior.

It’s possible Garibaldi is responsible for the Great Burn. The war between Earth’s two factions might have proceeded the same way with or without Garibaldi’s subterfuge.

But it’s not inconceivable that if Daniel’s superiors had made the first strike, the other side might have capitulated, or the war might have been over more quickly for other

reasons. Of course, it’s also possible that it would have been even worse, perhaps wiping out Earth altogether.

The 3262 sequence may be a nod to Walter Miller’s novel “A Canticle for Leibowitz,” about an order of monks trying to preserve the knowledge of the past after a devastating

war.

During the 3262 sequence, the Roman numerals in the lower left corner appear to be camera numbers; they corresponded to the different angles from which the scene was

shown. Presumably the cameras were all well-hidden.

The caption under the picture of the Ranger in the book Brother Stephen is illuminating appears to say, “Rangers eis nomen est,” which translates to, “Their name is Rangers.”

Although this episode is part of the fifth-season production run, it’s actually the fourth-season finale. The fifth-season finale, [[Sleeping in Light]], was shot during the

fourth-season production run because it wasn’t clear that the show was being renewed; once the renewal was announced, another episode had to be substituted. For some

reason the onscreen credits at the end of the episode don’t reflect that; they list a production number of 422 rather than the more accurate 501.

The title sequence was changed slightly from the regular season four sequence. A clip of the Agamemnon flying through the explosion of the defense platform in [[Endgame]]

was inserted just before the cast credits, and Claudia Christian’s name was removed from the cast list.

The episode’s dedication: “Dedicated to all the people who predicted that the Babylon Project would fail in its mission. Faith manages.” This is probably a dig at pundits on

Usenet and elsewhere who confidently said every year that B5 wouldn’t be renewed for another season.

Shooting began August 18, 1997.