When did two become three

[H]

I was watching season one episodes 13-22 the other day as they are available on demand on Virgin.
I noted Delenn explain that their were 2 castes in Minbari society, warrior and religious. t'was the episode where we first see Neroon (unlike some people I really don't remember every episode number or name). So when did that two become three?? where did the worker caste pop up from? just a plot issue? JMS deciding to make minbari very threebased?

I also noted in the same episode that the Minbari heavy cruiser was only 300 metres long on B5's screen. . . so 1, blimey thats small, and 2, how did B5 see it? when it was later shocked to see the trigati?!
Personally, It's just mistakes and changes in the B5 universe for me, but I know how some people love to debate all this stuff

 

[Burger]

Well we all know that the Minbari don't like to hand out information, especially about themselves. So they only tell people about the 2 castes that they are likely to know about already. Why should they tell everyone the secret to their success, that is they have an entire third of their population devoted to being telephone sanitizers and hairdressers? Wait, is that an enormous mutant star goat I see?

 

[Da Boss]

Ah but there is just time for a Bath ...................

 

[Shadow Queen]

I thought they said they could track them due to there stealth system down.

 

[H]

yeah, that was for the trigati, but they took a while to figure out that and it was mentioned as something odd.

 

[Shadow Queen]

yeah, that was for the trigati, but they took a while to figure out that and it was mentioned as something odd.

It was the tracking system wasn't it on the station

 

[Burger]

yeah, that was for the trigati, but they took a while to figure out that and it was mentioned as something odd.

Exactly... they didn't figure out that something was odd with Neroon's Sharlin..

 

[David Anla Shok']

I was watching season one episodes 13-22 the other day as they are available on demand on Virgin.
I noted Delenn explain that their were 2 castes in Minbari society, warrior and religious. t'was the episode where we first see Neroon (unlike some people I really don't remember every episode number or name). So when did that two become three?? where did the worker caste pop up from? just a plot issue? JMS deciding to make minbari very threebased?

I am trying to recollect that conversation. I don't believe that she was saying there were only two castes. I believe that she was saying "there are two castes in competition with each other" so as to compare them, much as we would say "there are two race car drivers that compete against each other" when we know that there are more than two.

 

[dag'karlove]

I have to agree with david on this one.

 

[Iain McGhee]

I noticed that readout too (when I was hunting down Sharlin screenshots for painting markings). They must have had a rethink later as most sources tend to have them about twice that length and about 1600m tall.

I think both cruisers could be detected (as well as the Valen'tha earlier) as perhaps when the warrior caste "approach open-handed with gunports open" they don't have stealth active. No use performing a gesture of respect if they can't see you.

 

[Taran]

There's a difference between being able to "see" the Minbari and being able to "target" the Minbari, as they show several times during the series and in the movies.

The EA can See them just fine and their sensors can even produce a silhouette in approximately the location the vessel is currently occupying, but getting a radar return or locking on is another issue altogether.
And just like pilots of the 60s and 70s, when the radar-lock and heat-seeker missiles first became widely available, the EA pilots are a little short of dogfighting skills (aka: line 'em up and pull the trigger till you hit 'em). It seems to me that the Earth-Minbari War went a long way toward correcting that failure in training...

 

[emperorpenguin]

I second Taran. Quite a few of you seem to be under the impression that Minbari stealth is almost like cloaking. It doesn't make the ship impossible to see, just impossible to get a weapons lock.

As for 2 castes, I believe Hiff is correct. Something else on which JMS changed his mind, changing to 3 castes.

 

[Burger]

I don't believe that she was saying there were only two castes. I believe that she was saying "there are two castes in competition with each other" so as to compare them, much as we would say "there are two race car drivers that compete against each other" when we know that there are more than two.

Nah. She definitely said there were two castes. True she might not have said there were only 2 castes, but that was certainly the implication, and what the listener was supposed to think.

I don't see how JMS could have planned out a whole 5 year story arc and then just decided "oh whoops we need anothe Minbari caste". More likely Delenn was doing the typical Minbari thing and telling a half-truth, only giving out just enough information as needed without actually lying as such.

 

[Iain McGhee]

I second Taran. Quite a few of you seem to be under the impression that Minbari stealth is almost like cloaking. It doesn't make the ship impossible to see, just impossible to get a weapons lock.

As for 2 castes, I believe Hiff is correct. Something else on which JMS changed his mind, changing to 3 castes.

I meant being able to get a good enough sensor return to tell what state it was in, not that it was invisible !

 

[emperorpenguin]

I second Taran. Quite a few of you seem to be under the impression that Minbari stealth is almost like cloaking. It doesn't make the ship impossible to see, just impossible to get a weapons lock.

As for 2 castes, I believe Hiff is correct. Something else on which JMS changed his mind, changing to 3 castes.

I meant being able to get a good enough sensor return to tell what state it was in, not that it was invisible !

what was more odd about that scene was that B5 almost was ready to defend itself against the VERY SAME thing which caused the war in the first place!
And remember that stealth wasn't mentioned until season 2. JMS didn't have every little detail planned in advance, things were changed/added as necessary to the plot.
I believe JMS did only add the worker caste later on

 

[H]

yip, i noticed the whole open gun ports, we think it's going to shoot blah blah business. Was odd, but I couldn't remember if by this point it had been drummed into the EA psyche that it was a respect thing. obviously in this episode it was explained anyway.

 

[emperorpenguin]

yip, i noticed the whole open gun ports, we think it's going to shoot blah blah business. Was odd, but I couldn't remember if by this point it had been drummed into the EA psyche that it was a respect thing. obviously in this episode it was explained anyway.

Delenn comes rushing into C&C (with impeccable timing!) to stop B5 from going to war. She tells them it is a gesture of respect for a fallen leader.
In this episode Dukhat's death is only said to have been a "tragic accident". JMS hadn't decided at this stage how he had died.
Otherwise the EA guys completely forgot the cause of the war! :lol:

 

[Ben2]

On the three caste thing, bear in mind the two big important castes may not think the worker caste is worth discussing. As every society is an edifice of civilisation constructed on the mudsill of brute labour, they may well simply not acknowledge the presence of the worker caste to anyone.

In the series it is implied the warrior and religious caste make the decisions and the workers get ignored and then pick up the pieces. Delenns reform of the Grey Council after the civil war is to correct this.

Also in Book 7 "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" it details how the worker caste is effectively ignored. All castes have their own dialect, but the warrior and religious castes, while they understand the worker dialect, refuse to speak it to them. The warrior caste seem to have a lot of contempt for the workers.

And props if someone gets the reference.