In Valen’s Name?

Down yonder, a reader writes:

Jimmy–I'm only a casual fan of B5, and haven't shelled out for the script books, so I won't ask you to go into detail about how the Sinclair version differs, but one speculation that's been bugging me for years:

Would the original series have ended with the end of "World Without End" (the Sinclair/Valen reveal)?

So here's the deal:

According to Joe Straczynski's story arc memo (written between the pilot movie and the first season and published in vol. 15 of the B5 script books), the saga of B5 would have been significantly the same and significantly different than it was eventually filmed. Partly this is because (as everyone expected), Sinclair was supposed to be the main character all the way through; partly it's for other reasons.

A few things I found eye-opening:

1) The shadow war isn't over by the end of season 5. Not by a longshot. There is no Interstellar Alliance, and Sinclair is not the head of it. Instead . . .

2) Y'know that shot we saw via prophecy of a long shuttle escaping B5 just as it explodes? Well, originally that wasn't the final shut-down crew of B5 leaving just as the station was being blown up to keep it from being an interstellar hazard (picked clean or otherwise used by pirates, e.g.). Instead, the station was destroyed by an assault of the Minbari and escaping on the shuttle were Sinclair, Delenn, and . . . (wait for it) . . . 

3) Their newborn baby, who would have been conceived around the end of season 4 and born at the end of season 5 (unlike Sheridan and Delenn's baby, who wasn't born till much later), just in time for B5 to do the big firework.

4) Sinclair, Delenn, and baby are now on the run from everyone in the universe (except the decimated Narns), having been framed for all sorts of bad stuff, including killing a chunk of the vorlon population.

So . . . station blown up. Main characters on the run.

HERE ENDS THE STORY OF BABYLON 5

But wait! That's a cliffhanger! What would have happened next???

HERE BEGINS THE STORY OF BABYLON PRIME

(should the show be successful enough to get a spinoff)

1) Y'know how Babylon 4 was stolen to go back in time to the previous shadow war? Well, it wasn't. It was, as everybody thought the first time around, stolen by Sinclair and pulled forwards in time to serve as a base in a future war. That was was raging when Babylon 5 was destroyed.

2) Unlike Babylon 5, Babylon 4 could move like a spaceship, and so Sinclair, Delenn, and crew (including Garibaldi) rename it Babylon Prime and go on the road to clear their names, defeat the shadows and other bad guys, and so forth. In the process . . . 

3) The trip through time messes up Sinclair and Delenn's aging processes, and they both lose chunks of their lives before they can get it stabilized. It also . . . (and I really cringe at this one, because I hate this science fiction cliche) . . . 

4) Causes their son to grow abnormally rapidly, resulting in him becoming physically an adult before they can stop it. They are then able to give him the intellectual knowledge an adult would have, but not the life experience, so he's naive and innocent and all that stuff, which makes him . . . 

5) A religious figure, and the victim of frequent assassination attempts. He also becomes . . .

6) The leader of the Interstellar Alliance when they finally end the war and get around to starting the alliance.

7) Delenn goes back to the Grey Council, leading to the final scene of the whole series, which JMS said caused his co-producers to look at him as if he'd sprouted two heads when they told him what it was, which would have been (assuming he wasn't speaking of the shuttle escape scene) a shot of Sinclair, on the beach, on an uninhabited planet, fishing.

THE END.

For more details, see vol. 15 of the script books.

But wait! You haven't told us about the Valen business! What were the Minbari trying to do with Sinclair if it wasn't that? 

When Sinclair was captured–along with other pilots–at the Battle of the Line, one of the Grey Council (doesn't say who) had a revelation that he was a prophesied figure that was suppose to either rejuvenate or destroy the Minbari race, depending on how you interpret the prophecy. Rather than rush into seeing him as the new Messiah figure, not knowing whether he'd turn out to be a Christ or an anti-Christ or just a big nobody, they Minbari decided to wipe his memory, cut him loose, and watch him. To keep him close, they arranged for him to be the commander of B5, and Delenn was assigned to keep tabs on him, with instructions to kill him if he started going in the wrong direction (there was a scene in the first season where she was told that, and she agreed, which would hardly make sense if they were trying to turn him into Valen).

He thus ends up rejuvenating the Minbari race by hybridizing it with humans (via Delenn and their son) and by the Interstellar Alliance thingie and stuff like that. Or something.

So no. Sinclair would not have been Valen, or even president of the Interstellar Alliance. But he would have cleared his name and gotten to go fishing.

And now, all of a sudden, lots of little clues and snippets from the first season of B5 and War Without End that JMS had to re-work after WB demanded the exist of Sinclair suddenly make a whole lot more sense.

Ahhhhh . . . .