<WoF>Sheridan's memory

 Posted on 11/6/1998 by J. Michael Straczynski <71016.1644@compuserve.com> to CIS


{original post unavailable}

Y'know, this discussion kinda baffles me to some extent.

For starters, Sheridan was only in the future briefly; he was
being beaten and was confused and not sure how much of it was real; he
doesn't know if his going to Z'ha'dum *changed* any of that
future...the events he did see were 20 years down the road, and there's
no way for him to know (as we know, the audience) what connects to
what...he sees only destruction, and that could have happened two weeks
before (there's no rule that says a capital city can be bombed only
once)...no way to know if the keeper may have been implanted days or
months before. To try and impose a quick understanding of events 20
years down the road on things happening right now, without knowing the
context, would be madness...you don't need a keeper to start a war, or
half our own leaders here would have had keepers on them.

As for Delenn...yes, he heard her talk about their son, but at
the same time, again, that's 20 years down the road. Their son could
be any age, so the news that she's pregnant will still be a shock
whenever it comes; you may know that you're planning to have kids, that
the doctor says its possible, but when you actually hear the news, it's
a stunner every time.

His question is a natural one...he doesn't know if the kid in
the future had to be taken out of utero to be sustained until it came
full term, doesn't know if extreme measures had to be taken...his
question is a sensible and justifiable one.

People are assuming that what *they* know as the audience,
Sheridan knows, which he does not...and assuming that he knows
everything that is to come, or what it means, or how it happens, or in
what context, which he does not.

His memory is not faulty.

jms