Babylon 5 the Passing of the Techno-Mages Invoking Darkness

They said that Kosh spent too much time among the younger races. They said that he allowed sentimentality to weaken discipline. They said that, in failing to keep himself above the conflict, he revealed how far he had fallen. Now he would pay the price. In his simple residence on Babylon 5, Kosh waited. He knew what would happen, as did all the Vorlons. Yet they would do nothing to stop it, and he must do nothing to stop it. He must pay this price, so that others would not. It was as the Vorlons had always professed: Some must be sacrificed, so that all could be saved. The fabulists had understood, better than any Vorlon, this harrowing truth at the core of all Vorlon teachings. They had refused alliance with the forces of chaos, had upheld their principles, though it would mean their extinction. They sacrificed themselves for the good of the galaxy. And in so doing, they showed Kosh the way. For it was not only the younger races who must sacrifice, he now understood, but the Vorlons as well. All that the others said of him was true. He had spent too much time among the younger races: too much time watching them struggle, under his distant guidance, toward order; too much time watching the enemy undermine any hard-earned progress they made; too much time watching them suffer and die. The rules of engagement, formulated eons ago through the mediation of the First One, dictated that the Vorlons and the maelstrom would launch no direct attacks upon each other. Kosh had broken those rules. He had come down from on high and stood beside the younger ones, had fought with them. Now he would die with them. Already the stench of chaos grew stronger, as the enemy advanced through the station toward him. In the face of approaching death, those of the younger races attempted to evaluate their lives, find significance in their deaths. Kosh had never contemplated his own mortality. Yet he knew that at the end of a being, one could judge that being's importance, his accomplishments. Looking back on his existence in this manner, he found surprisingly little of worth. Of all his acts, he felt truly proud only of his last, the one that had precipitated his end. He must make certain that Sheridan felt no guilt for it. Sheridan had pushed him to actionmore evidence that he spent too much time among the younger races, allowing one so inferior to affect his course. But he no longer thought of Sheridan as his inferior. In Kosh's mind, Sheridan had become something else, had risen to a new level of growth, one Kosh did not fully understand. Kosh had even come to believe that if ever the cycle of war and death was to end, if ever the forces of order were to be definitively proven superior, it would be through Sheridan. Sheridan had not the wisdom or the knowledge or the discipline of a Vorlon, yet he had other qualities, Human qualities, that seemed to carry their own value and worth. Among those was guilt, an emotion long studied by the Vorlons. Kosh did not want Sheridan to be crippled by it. Sheridan had done no more than speak aloud the argument Kosh had many times made to himself. From the mouth of Sheridan, though, the argument took on a simplicity and a power Kosh obscured behind subtleties and rationalizations. How many people have already died fighting this war of yours? Sheridan said. How many more will die before you come down off that mountain and get involved? For the first time in millennia, fear governed Kosh's action. He struck out at Sheridan three times, the discharges of his essence nearly killing the Human. Impudent, Kosh said. Incorrect, Kosh said. We are not prepared yet, Kosh said. Yet it was only Kosh who was not prepared, not prepared to die. The ancient enemy ascended through the station to his level, bent their steps toward him. Sheridan had simply spokeCavelos, Jeanne is the author of 'Babylon 5 the Passing of the Techno-Mages Invoking Darkness', published 2001 under ISBN 9780345438331 and ISBN 0345438337.