BPP – In The Beginning

The Babylon Project Podcast

Your faithful hosts may not have enjoyed Thirdspace very much, but we did enjoy In the Beginning. It felt like it belonged with the series. The end of the movie ties in with War Without End from Season 3, but this movie also involves a period of time 10 years before the series began, AND approximately 15 years after it ended. Are you ready?

G’Kar and Delenn set things in motion through their opening monologues and the show kicks off with Centauri Prime in flames. Emperor Mollari is old and still on the throne, sad and alone in his thoughts. He’s interrupted by two kids (Luke and Lisa) and their nursemaid, who humbly apologizes for the unintended interruption. Londo assures her it’s okay and asks the kids, “What do you want?” Luke wants to hear a story, and Londo quietly suggests that the boy did better answering that (dangerous) question than Londo did. With that question we’re reminded of the Shadows and Londo’s role significant responsibility for the war with the Shadows. But this isn’t the story Londo will tell. Instead he takes us back to Earth’s first contact with the Minbari, and the Earth-Minbari War.

Londo is a young ambassador to Earth when the military becomes aware of the Minbari. Plans are formed for contact, and Londo warns them that the Minbari should be avoided. Emboldened by what Earth believed was a significant military victory, they dismiss Londo’s warning and tell him, “The decision’s already been made.” Londo’s parting comments to the Earth’s military leadership are that he hopes, “In your stumbling around, you don’t wake the dragon.”

We learn the Rangers are something akin to an aging and hollow force, originally postured to stand against the Shadows. They now languish due to the long-time absence of the threat and a growing dismissal and even disbelief in Valen’s prophecies that pointed them at the coming conflict. With disbelief running strong, the Grey Council decides to settle the matter of the likelihood of the Shadow threat by checking on a verifiable part of Valen’s prophecy and setting out for Z’ha’dum. In a brief moment of happiness for us as fans, we see Delenn become a member of the Grey Council. Then tragedy when the Earth and Minbari expeditions encounter each other.

BOOM!

Through a series of arrogant decisions and misunderstandings, we once again see the beginning of the Earth-Minbari War, and Delenn’s emotional direction given in response to Earth’s forces firing on the Minbari fleet to counter attack and “show no mercy.” In short order we learn that Minbari forces are decimating Earth’s.

As desperation grows, two key things happen: Delenn learns of the relationship between humans and Minbari—they share souls, and realizes that they can’t continue to kill the Earthlings due to the edict that Minbari don’t kill Minbari. In an early exchange with the Vorlons (here’s where they first appear chronologically!), Delenn also learns that the humans are critical to a victory against the Shadows in the upcoming war. She begins to work to find an acceptable way to stop the war with Earth, without betraying the still secret relationship with the Vorlons, all as the Battle of the Line approaches. Meanwhile in desperation, Earth approaches the Narn in an effort to acquire advanced weapons, without which Earth will lose and humans quite likely exterminated as a race.

A series of events unfold that place Sheridan in charge of combat forces, and Delenn is sending Lenonn to negotiate peace by arranging a meeting through the Narn. As the battle continues, nukes are involved (BOOM!) and Sheridan scores a significant and needed victory to boost morale. He also receives a new mission and finds himself in a meeting with G’Kar and Franklin. Lenonn makes the meeting just in time to be killed by the Centauri, and in this we learn of Londo’s culpability: the death of Lenonn was based on the Centauri belief that they needed to prevent an alliance between the Narn and Humans. Lenonn’s death was an attempt to disrupt this, not realizing the meeting wasn’t to form an alliance as much as to negotiate peace and end the war. As a result, the battle continues. Minbari ships begin attacking the Earth directly and the end of humanity as we know it is at hand. The speech that fueled the Battle of the Line occurs as we hear the declaration for “one last battle to hold the line against the night” as refugees attempt to flee and somehow preserve the human race. Meanwhile, Delenn is desperately looking for a way to end it.

In a twist of events, during the Minbari interrogation of Sinclair, it’s revealed to the interrogators that Humans have Minbari souls, and Sinclair may possess the soul of Valen. Delenn now has the information she needs (known to others now), to end the war. As battle stops, the mistakes each side has made become clear and a new project is announced in order to attempt to prevent something like this from ever happening again: the Babylon Project.

The movie ends with Londo wrapping up his story with some tear-jerking comments to the nurse, and leaves us with the impression the story may have been his final act for his people.
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Just remember… No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow!

https://babylonprojectpodcast.files.wordpress.com/2019/10/bpp-in-the-beginning-1.mp3