War Without End

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Episode Title: War Without End (2 Parts)
Episode Number: S3E16/17
Original Air Date: May 13/20, 1996
DVD Release Date: August 12, 2003
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Director: Mike Vejar
Guest Stars: Tim Choate, Time Winters, Michael O'Hare, Kent Broadhurst, Bruce Morrow

1 Preview
2 Synopsis
3 Characters
- 3.1 Season 3 Cast

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A two-part episode that reveals many of the secrets of the Babylon 5 universe.

[edit] Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot, character development, or ending details follow.

[edit] Part 1

A distress call reaches the station from sector 14, the location of the mysteriously vanished Babylon 4, only this call comes from Babylon 5, with a time-stamp that places it just over a week in the future.

Garibaldi leaves on a solo mission to investigate, finding that the rip in time has reopened in sector 14, enlarged by the Great Machine on Epsilon 3. Delenn then suddenly insists that Sheridan, Ivanova and Marcus join her on the White Star to undertake a mission of the utmost importance - and they will be joined by Jeffrey Sinclair, whose arrival on B5 has been prompted by a mysterious letter written almost a milennium ago and delivered to him in accordance to prophecy on Minbar.

En route to the temporal rift, Delenn reveals that the White Star crew is responsible for hijacking Babylon 4 from its present to the distant past, where it turned the tide in the last war with the Shadows. Without B4's arrival in the past, the Shadows will never have lost the first war, and the war of the present will end in destruction for Babylon 5.

A curious alien called Zathras arrives on the White Star from Epsilon 3, sent by Draal to help the crew on their mission. But Sheridan will not arrive in the past with the others, when the device he wears to allow him to travel in time is damaged and deposits him on Centauri Prime in the future. (Attrib: B5 LogBook [1])

[edit] Part 2

In the court of Centauri Emperor Londo Mollari, Sheridan is condemned to die. In his cell, he briefly shifts forward in time, but returns to the future where he encounters an aged Delenn, who is also due to be executed.

Londo, drunk, reveals that he is under the constant watch of a creature which will alert the surviving minions of the Shadows if he does not act according to their wishes. His watchdog can be subdued by drink, and while free of its influence, Londo allows Delenn and Sheridan to escape. But before they can leave, Sheridan is yanked back through time as Delenn warns him never to go to Z'ha'dum. He arrives at B4 and helps Sinclair secure the station for its upcoming time journey, but with his time stabilizer still inactive, he disappears again.

To make matters worse, Sinclair has aged abruptly, a side effect of his exposure to the tachyon fields surrounding B4 when he visited there before. Attempts to prepare B4 to leap a thousand years into the past run into further problems when Zathras is captured and interrogated by both the original Babylon 4 crew, and Sinclair and Garibaldi in 2258.

When preparations are finally made, Sheridan is safely retrieved so he can return to his present, but Sinclair must stay aboard Babylon 4 as it vanishes into the past - and both it and its occupant will become the stuff of legends. (Attrib: B5 LogBook [2])