Timestheus said:
The EA captain fired AFTER his ship was almost completely paralyzed and the alien ship was turning towards his now paralyzed ship with weapons open. I am not sure how you call that trigger happy. Or are you going by the stupid statements of minbari-ophile Sheridan?
By Sheridan's statements while he was refusing the XO position on the ship, and by the captain's statements during the battle. And frankly, during first contact, you never shoot, no matter what. You are placed in that position because you are expendable. They made that clear when Sheridan was sent to meet with a representative of the Minbari to try to end the war, he was chosen primarily because he was expendable. You don't fire on an unknown alien species no matter what. Better to die and lose your whole command than to possibly put your whole species in the position that that captain did, in fact, put humanity into.
Timestheus said:
BTW, the sensors most certainly would be considered an attack. In deep space your life depends on the proper functioning of your computers that do things like run your life support, control your ships reactor, ETC ETC. How does anyone on the EA ship know the reactor wasnt about to run wild or the life support system shut down. For that matter how does anyone know if the big nasty well armed ship turning towards them isnt about to open fire while you can barely move if at all?
They don't, but see above. You're not on first contact to start a war, so you don't start shooting no matter the provocation.
Timestheus said:
The EA ships could barely detect the Minbari ships and you expect them to be able to read open but powered down on the Minbari weapons?
Yes, and it's canon that they could. Delenn, in the episode with Branmer's body, tells them (and I'm paraphrasing here, if anyone has an exact quote please feel free to update me) "Their weapons are not armed. If you'll scan the vessel you'll see they are not targeting you" or something to that effect. C&C confirms this. We also learn that B5 uses the same targeting and scanning systems as the EA used during the war, so...yes, they could have assessed the lack of threat correctly, but chose to open fire first.
Timestheus said:
The Grey Council ship was OUTSIDE Minbari space so it doesnt mean squat the you were effectively attacking their capital. That is a pointless strawman when the council goes wandering.
Pointless that they killed the head of the government while he was on an inspection tour? You're telling me that if, say, the Prime Minister of Australia was murdered while in, say, South Carolina, Australia would just shrug and say "Well, he shouldn't have been there in the first place, that's not our territory"? The death of any beloved leader is going to cause a strong reaction, and the assassination of a beloved leader is, historically, a reason one group goes to war. Genocide isn't a solution, of course, but you can't possibly try to argue that going to war was an overreaction.
Timestheus said:
Yes one vote. She is the only one though that we hear say commit genocide and she does it because her sugar-daddy was just killed. If nothing else that proves she is a complete raving lunatic with major mental issues. You kill my love I am probably going to put you in a grave, I am not though then going to turn around and hunt down every member of your extended family and murder them.
I'm trying to stick to canon and to ignore the pointless hyperbole, but it's tough...they weren't romantically linked, she was his star student...and yes, losing your cool is a defense, unfortunately. Look into something like "extreme emotional distress" or "temporary insanity". In one moment she voted "no mercy" and later regretted it, and did everything she could to derail the war without sacrificing her own society in the bargain.
Timestheus said:
Everyone including Sheridan was a complete moron for just forgiving and finding every excuse to say what Delenn did was ok. She butchers millions of your species but hey she is great in bed so all is forgiven?!?
First off, NO ONE KNOWS. Lennier knows, that's it, and he doesn't even like humans that much. In fact, she even tried to keep Lennier from finding out by asking him to stay behind when she went into the Dreaming, in the episode where we discover all this. So no one forgave her anything because they didn't know she was the deciding vote.
Second, she was good in bed, sacrificed her place on the ruling body to babysit humanity until the shadow war, was willing to give up her life for her people repeatedly (and other peoples, for that matter), was a major reason the Shadows and Vorlons didn't wipe out all life in that particular galaxy, was a child of prophecy, related to Valen, showed more compassion than any other character on the show (with the possible exception of Vir), knitted the disparate League races into a coalition with Sheridan's help, and eventually built a stable, multi-species intergalactic government that lasted as a force of good for hundreds of years...so yeah, she made a mistake in her youth and in the heat of passion. The show tries to make it clear that she atoned for it.
Timestheus said:
I saw nothing in the show that demonstrated that the Vorlons had more manipulated the Minbari than anyone else. Humans saw Gabriel the Arch-Angel when they looked up Kosh. Earth has telepaths like Minbari. Sounds like equal messing to me.
Then you're not paying close enough attention. There was a Vorlon In Dukhat's chambers. A Vorlon was ACTIVELY giving advice to the head of the Minbari government. That's even more manipulation than the Shadows, who at least engage in second hand manipulation of governments through their agents. It's probably a violation of the rules of engagement, which is why it was done in such absolute secrecy.
The Vorlons knew full well who Valen was (it's not mentioned directly, but you can't convince me they didn't scan Sinclair when he told them about the Valen thing.) so they knew about the war, and knew what it'd take to make sure B4 ended up there to help them. The Great Machine, time travel, Valen, the Triluminary, all that was set up with the Vorlon's help (we see Valen flanked by two vorlons when he introduces himself to the Minbari, after all). (Which, by the way, means the Vorlons also knew all about the war but didn't bother to interfere since it worked out fine with only a few million dead humans)
Kosh set Delenn on her path of prophecy. That alone should tell you how programmed the Minbari are and how the Vorlons have been manipulating them.
Kosh and Delenn are shown in conference and conversation more than once early on, implying a greater connection than any other race has.
The Vorlons are willing to help the Minbari build the White Star fleet. Considering they are lords of order, there's no way they'd let that technology out of their control unless they thought the Minbari were firmly in hand. It's only the humans that tipped the scales in the wrong direction, not the Minbari.
I could go on, but the point is no other race shared so many subservient ties to the Vorlons as the Minbari.
Timestheus said:
BTW, it is pretty obvious that Delenn considered herself guilty of war crimes and spent the entire show doing penance. She threw herself into every possible danger in an attempt to atone for what she did. The most obvious example was the race that was dying of the species wide plague. Only Delenn and Lennier went in to help. I doubt they were the only Minbari on the entire station so it wasnt just Minbari good nature that made her decide to help. It was guilt that pushed her to do everything possible to make up for it.
Yes, of course. That's one of the core principles of her character. As I said, the whole show is about mistakes, consequences, atonement and redemption. She also, however, learned from it and learned to make the principled stand, no matter what the cost to herself, as we learn from her bout with the Inquisitor. She changed over time. And since no one knew about her involvement in the war, well she was free to change and grow, which, and I hate to harp on it but it is the most important point here, was the point of the entire series.
