War Without End (Babylon 5)

"War Without End" is a two-part story consisting of the 16th and 17th episodes in the third season of the science-fiction television series Babylon 5. They were broadcast first on May 13 and May 20, 1996 on the PTEN network in America. It marks the return of Michael O'Hare, who left the show as a regular after season 1, reprising his role as Jeffrey Sinclair for the character's final appearance on the show. The story is a follow up to "Babylon Squared", which detailed part of what happened to the Babylon 4 space station.

Plot synopsis

Part One

In "Babylon Squared", it was revealed that Babylon 4 was being pulled through time. "War Without End" reveals why and how this was done, and where Babylon 4 is going.

At the start of the episode, Entil'Zha Jeffrey Sinclair receives an enveloped message on Minbar from Valen. He immediately sets off for the Babylon 5 space station. Delenn receives a similar looking envelope on Babylon 5. On Babylon 5, a message is received from the sector in space where the Babylon 4 space station previously reappeared in Babylon squared, with Ivanova seemingly hearing herself recount the fall of Babylon 5. Garibaldi sets off to check out the sector. There he finds a temporal rift, created by a tachyon beam from Epsilon 3, home of the Great Machine.

After Sinclair arrives at Babylon 5, Delenn escorts him, Marcus, Ivanova, and Sheridan to the White Star, and set off for the sector of the rift. On the ship, she explains to the others how, in the last Shadow War a 1000 years ago, the Minbari fought the Shadows, and used Babylon 4 as a base for operations, which was taken back in time. She also shows them a record just before B4 vanished for the first time, six years ago, with the White Star saving B4 from a Shadow attack, indicating it was them who took the station back. Zathras, who works on the Great Machine, joins them to help out with the time travelling, and gives them time stabilizers, to prevent them from becoming unstuck in time. Sinclair has them send back Garibaldi to B5.

After the White Star has made the journey back six years in time to Babylon 4, they detect Shadow ships attacking the station with a fusion bomb. The ships and bombs are destroyed, but the bomb still causes a shockwave that reaches the White Star, and destroys Sheridan's time stabilizer. He becomes unstuck in time, ending up seventeen years in the future, where his future self is being tortured as a prisoner of emperor Mollari. Sheridan is accused of, after having driven away the Shadows, allowing their servants, through negligence, to take over Centauri Prime, and he is shown a burning Centauri Prime capitol city.

The White Star connects with Babylon 4, and its crew exits to connect a homing beacon to the station's central power core that will allow the Great Machine to take it through time.

Part Two

On Babylon 4, Marcus and Ivanova tamper with its sensor system to fake a hull breach, cueing an evacuation of B4 personnel near them, and a sealing of their station sector by pressure doors.

On future Centauri Prime, Emperor Mollari sends away Sheridan to his cell, where he is met by Delenn. She tells Sheridan that she didn't tell them anything, and that their son is safe. He explains her how he is experiencing this as a past self because his time stabilizer got hit. They are taken back to Mollari, who has been drinking alcohol to keep his Keeper asleep. In exchange for helping to free Centauri, he sends them away to a ship to escape. Then, G'Kar enters, who Mollari calls 'old friend' now. He tells him that his Keeper will awaken any second, preventing his released prisoners from getting out alive. After telling G'Kar he is ready to die, G'Kar starts to strangle him. Mollari starts strangling back after his Keeper awakens, and they strangle each other to death. Vir enters and picks up the imperial seal.

Just before Sheridan is pulled back to Babylon 4's time, Delenn tells him not to go to Z'ha'dum. Back on B4, Sheridan, together with Sinclair, starts putting the homing beacon on the B4 power core. Just before they are finished, a power surge in the power core causes Sheridan to become unstuck in time again, and causes the Babylon 4 station to be send 4 years forward, to the time where it appeared in Babylon Squared. Delenn experiences a brief future 'time flash', of a woman in a doorway greeting her. Sinclair now appears greatly aged, because of him being previously exposed unprotected to a time field in Babylon Squared, this also being the reason he didn't want the similarly exposed Garibaldi along.

Zathras goes off to fix Sheridan's time stabilizer, but is captured by Babylon 4 guards in the process, and introduced to the Garibaldi and Sinclair from the time of Babylon Squared. Ivanova goes to B4 C&C to adjust the power levels that caused the surge there, while the station is being evacuated. Delenn sees Sheridan appear and gives him her own stabilizer, causing her to become unstuck in time, and appear in a corridor. The previous Sinclair and Garibaldi, together with Zathras, go out to the appearing figure in the corridor, and Zathras gives her his fixed time stabilizer. The previous Sinclair and Garibaldi flee the station then, and are forced to leave Zathras behind because of him being trapped by a beam. He is later freed by Delenn.

Everyone leaves the station, except Sinclair and Zathras. They take the Babylon 4 space station back to the time of the previous shadow war. Sinclair uses a triluminary device to transform himself into "a Minbari not born of Minbari". When the station arrives at its destination, Minbari come on board, who are greeted by Zathras who leads them to two Vorlon in their angelic form, and Sinclair who now looks like a Minbari. He introduces himself as Valen, one of the holiest figures of Minbari history by the time of B5, who led them during the previous shadow war, and founded large parts of their societal structures.

Arc significance

• The fate of Babylon 4 is finally revealed. Babylon 4 was taken into the distant past, and became the base of operations for the Minbari and the Vorlons during the last war with the Shadows.
• The ultimate fate of Ambassador Sinclair is revealed - he traveled with the station into the past. Sinclair used the triluminary to transform himself into the Minbari Valen, and completed the circle.

Trivia

During the first season, the episode "Babylon Squared" showed the station's reappearance, and the rescue of the station's crew. In "War Without End", viewers see the Babylon 4 story from a behind the scenes angle, and learn what truly happened to the station.

In the scene where Delenn sees a vision of the future, she is in the quarters of Captain Sheridan watching him sleep. The doors open and a lady's voice says "Hello, you must be Delenn". Delenn drops the water globe she is holding. This vision of Delenn's will be seen at the end of "Shadow Dancing" and the beginning of "Z'ha'dum". The woman who speaks to Delenn is Captain Sheridan's wife, Anna.

While discussing the transmissions, Garibaldi claims that when he boarded Babylon 4, he "flashed forward" to a vision of Babylon 5 being destroyed by invaders. In fact, Garibaldi's vision in "Babylon Squared" was of his past on Mars. It was Sinclair who saw the fall of Babylon 5.

Nitpick: In the scene from Babylon Squared, after Sinclair removes the blue helmet, Delenn, who is out of camera, touches his shoulder. This does not occur in War Without End. In addition, Delenn’s sleeves are of a different fashion in these two episodes.

External links

• Lurker's Guide Episode Page (Part 1)
• Lurker's Guide Episode Page (Part 2)