There may not be all that much to talk about in the spoiler thread for this prequel–the project began when there was even doubt there would be a fifth season–but if you see some things that resonate with future stories, this is the place.
There may not be all that much to talk about in the spoiler thread for this prequel–the project began when there was even doubt there would be a fifth season–but if you see some things that resonate with future stories, this is the place.
I’ll put this in the spoiler space just to be safe, but there are some tidbits from the novelization/Centauri Prime trilogy that may be interesting to people.
The young woman watching the children was called Senna. She was Lord Refa’s daughter, and her mother was killed in the bombing of Centauri Prime in season 5. Londo met her while touring the devastation shortly after becoming Emperor, and what with one thing and another, took her as his ward and surrogate daughter. It’s a bit of a retcon, but PAD explained that Londo doesn’t entirely recognize her during the events of the film because he’s a teeny bit senile, and also incredibly drunk.
Speaking of the bombing, while Vir suggests blacking out the windows after the attacks next season, in WWE/ITB, the buildings are freshly smashed, not fifteen-year-old ruins (it’s never mentioned in the books either way, so you can decide if the palace’s windows were blocked off for Londo’s entire reign, or if he reinstituted Vir’s idea). In fact, this destruction was caused only a short time earlier, when the Drakh detonated a third of the bombs they planted around the planet to ensure Londo’s cooperation as punishment for Vir’s anti-Drakh conspiracy beginning their revolution.
The two children are relatives of Urza Jaddo, from way back in “Knives,” whose House Londo absorbed upon his death.
As Londo’s preamble seemed to indicate, he was winding up to tell the children the whole story of Babylon 5 before realizing he didn’t have over a hundred hours of prime-time television in front of him, and redirected to the Minbari War. After the children left, Londo called Vir in, told him where to find his secret memoirs and asked him to publish them, went over some pertinent details that were “fresh in his mind.” He begins his story with the opening narration of the original version of the pilot, which to my mind retcons the “one man on a mission of destruction” who endangered peace as never before to be Morden, and not Del Varner by applying it to the whole show. I mean, seriously. Del Varner was dead before the first commercial break. It doesn’t even make sense in the context of “The Gathering” on its own.
The novelization also explains how Londo knew so much about what happened. He had agents who bribed officials in the Narn and Minbari governments to pass him information, Sheridan and Ivanova had shared stories with him while they were all on Babylon 5, and just a few hours earlier, he had “interrogated” Delenn in the dungeon, who agreed to fill him in on the details of the Minbari and Shadow Wars he’d been unaware of because she didn’t see how it could possibly be relevant to anything, and humoring him seemed the wiser course.
In regards to the war itself, Captain Jankowski was hailed as a hero when he returned to Earth for bravely defending himself from an imminent attack by hostile aliens. After the Minbari response, they reevaluated his performance, stripped him of his rank, and tried to extradite him to the Minbari, who didn’t really care. He ultimately took his own life early in the war.
Londo and G’Kar first met in Earthdome during this period. Londo found it disturbing because, of course, he’d been having nightmares all his life of being murdered by G’Kar.
Sheridan was introduced to Anna by his sister when he visited home as encouraged by his captain early in the movie. He was quite convinced he felt no spark, but despite this kept a photo Liz had given to him just before he shipped out. The saw each other whenever he had leave during the war, and once it ended, he proposed to her immediately. John was first officer on a cruiser by the Battle of the Line. They’d been sent to defend a colony world, only to get word the Minbari were massing for an attack on Earth when they arrived. By the time they returned, the war was over.
In general, the ITB novel is fleshed out really well. If it’s possible to get your hands on it, I recommend it. There are some parts that don’t fit perfectly with the Centauri Prime trilogy, which includes a rewritten version of part of the framing sequence (for instance, PAD hadn’t decided who Senna was yet, beyond giving her a name, and Timov is given a totally different fate), but you can deal with it.
So if you’re going to insert ITB and 3S into the main running order, does that mean that River of Souls, A Call to Arms, Crusade, Legend Of The Rangers (or, to give it is full title – The Legend Of The Rangers: To Live And Die In Starlight: The Curse Of The Black Pearl: This Space For Rent: Electric Boogaloo: Down With This Sort Of Thing: Careful Now!), and B5 The Lost Tales will all be inserted in between “Objects At Rest” and “Sleeping In Light?”
In a word: no.
I believe there are some reasons, why
a. Sheridan and Franklin and G’Kar never spoke about the happening on Epsilon 3 in the movie: High confidencial status of the happening. As the General said in the briefing, if something went wrong, the Earth gov will never say anything about it. And we have here professional political and militaric figureheads, who would not talk about such stuff in the open with each other.
b. Sheridan didn’t recognized Delenn: he never heard her name in the movie. And he never saw her without hear on Babylon 5. When he saw her the first time, she had already transformed into her humanic form.