#ambassador delenn

[mgthejerkbender]

First traditional work of 2025, and it's my first love, Delenn

[yumyumpod]

RIP to John's last remaining brain cell.

[iambic-stan]

last book read + last stethoscope used, part 14

The stethoscope: MDF Instruments' Procardial Titantium in Starry Night/Capridium. Lovely look and sound. Love everything about this one.

The book: Late Babylon 5 actress Mira Furlan's memoir, Love Me More Than Anything in the World. I started this book just before I lost someone close to me, and considering how much it concerns grief, I wasn't sure that finishing it was wise in the state that I'm currently in. I don't regret it, though, and no state of mind is ideal to read about how Furlan lost her childhood friend to suicide, as well as her parents, friends, and many others, before her untimely death and this posthumous publication. It seems inevitable, in a tragic Shakespearean kind of way, that a woman hailing from the former Yugoslavia, whose family history involves multiple horrific stories of imprisonment in concentration camps, would continue to see unjust ends for the rest of her life. But her ability to find joy in what a lot of people take for granted is one thing that staved off some of my own despair. In one chapter, she writes with great detail and affection about how she accidentally came to be owned by a cat. Anyone who loves them will understand her devotion, and knows how they capture us so quickly and without warning. I became interested in Furlan after watching her character, the Minbari Ambassador Delenn, fiercely commanding fleets, doling out wisdom for the ages, and still being an advocate for nonviolence until all of its options have been exhausted, but this memoir is about much more than how the actress immigrated to the U.S. to eventually star in a science fiction series. I think it was just what I needed, too.

[walks-the-ages]

[ID: a photo edit of the original version of Ambassador Delenn from Babylon 5 pilot/movie 'The Gathering' so that she has the trans pride flag overlaid over her. She is an alien with pale, spotted, wrinkled skin, a large yellow-white bone crest over the back of her head that resembles a seashell, and is wearing multi-layered robes. end ID]

Delenn was going to be canonically, literally transgender (instead of being a very pointed metaphor/analogy), but unfortunately the heavy prosthetics and voice work were too much for Mira Furlan, so the initial explicit transgender concept was scrapped.... but we still got her absolutely fantastic transition :)

Honestly, trans Delenn still works perfectly in canon, if you realize she's simply socially transitioned before medically transitioning ;)

Maybe even Commander Sinclair used his position to help stop any transphobes on the station from causing a problem, and this was one of the things that cemented their Old Friendship :)

[phayudesign]

[narnia-and-the-north]

"And my thoughts will ever be with him.

I hope that he can hear them."

Babylon 5: Season 1, Episode 19 - "A Voice in the Wilderness: Part II"

Screencaps from cap-that.com

[therighthandofvengeance]

Delenn: I girlbossed too close to the sun.

Lennier: so now you’re going to gaslight yourself too close to the sea?

Delenn: yes, and I’m going to gatekeep all of this from John the entire time.

[aforgottenthing]

Alien Girlbosses and their human Malewives

[iamthespineofmybook]

The universe puts us into places where we can learn. They are never easy places, but they are right. Wherever we are is the right place and the right time. The pain that sometimes comes is part of the process of constantly being born.

Ambassador Delenn, Babylon 5, Season 2 Episode 4 “A Distant Star”

[honourablejester]

I was watching a video on top battlefield moments from science fiction, and I was delighted to see included the moment from the Babylon 5 episode ‘Severed Dreams’ where Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari shows up to the Battle of Babylon 5 to invite the enemy Earth Alliance ships to run the fuck away. Because yes. That moment is always a correct choice.

“This is Ambassador Delenn, of the Minbari. Babylon 5 is under our protection. Withdraw, or be destroyed.”

“Negative! We have authority here. Do not force us to engage your ships!”

“Why not? Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet. He is behind me. You are in front of me. If you value your lives, be somewhere else.”

Followed by the EA ships proving that they did, indeed, value their lives. Heh.

With no context whatsoever, this moment is still boss as hell. One lady shows up with three cruisers and a dinky little White Star warship, and she makes the opposing side, which two seconds ago had the station and all its exhausted defenders dead to rights, literally run away. She says go and they do. Immediately, no questions asked. And she implies why, she implies that Minbari are people humans just don’t want to fight, but if you don’t have context, it might not be clear to you the scale of what she’s talking about.

Which is that, fifteen years ago, Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari, in her fury and grief over what she saw as the murder of her mentor, cast the deciding vote that lead to the Earth-Minbari war, which is a nice thing to call what was essentially a genocidal religious crusade on behalf of the Minbari to completely annihilate the human race. And they damn near succeeded. She regretted her decision almost immediately, but by the time she managed to halt what she’d started, it was during the Battle of the Line. The final annihilation of Earth itself. Earth, humanity, fought them for every inch of space in between, but they lost every single fight. All the way to Earth. No one, except Sheridan, the man behind her, survived battle with the Minbari. And Sheridan, it has to be said, basically cheated, to almost war crime levels, by using a distress call to lure a Minbari ship into a nuclear minefield. That was the only victory humanity eked out. The Minbari just steamrolled them, an implacable tide of annihilation that literally nothing they had could stop. The Earth-Minbari War was not stopped by anything humanity did, it was stopped by Delenn herself showing the Council of Nine that humans had Minbari souls (aka that humans and Minbari could reincarnate as each other, making them in religious terms the same species), granting the Council a religious ground to halt the war. Humanity was, essentially, annihilated by Delenn’s fury, and saved by her compassion, and there was nothing they could do to influence either of them.

That, in this moment, is what just appeared on this battlefield. Embodied in this woman. A fifteen year shadow of the end of their race. The Battle of the Line is etched in every human memory in this setting, the moment when they evacuated their homeworld, evacuated Earth, while every fighting ship they possessed died in orbit trying to delay, not stop, just delay, the implacable tide of the Minbari onslaught.

When Delenn shows up and, in cold, quiet fury, says ‘withdraw or be destroyed’, she fucking means it, and there is not a single human being in this galaxy (or, to be fair, anyone else either) who doesn’t believe her. The Minbari have proved it. You can piss off anyone else in the galaxy you like, you can fight gods, but you do not, ever, piss off the Minbari. Especially not this Minbari.

Because she’s learned since then. She has seen the horrors of war, she has felt the almost incomprehensible stain of blood on her hands, she has fought to stop what she started and realised how infinitely more difficult it is, and she has learned. So if she goes to war now, it is with full knowledge of the cost and the consequence. If you tip her over that line, woe betide you. Because it means she’s decided that your death is worth whatever she can’t stop in the aftermath, and if your death is worth that much, then there’s nothing in this galaxy that will prevent it.

God, but Delenn was such an absolute tour de force of a character. This quiet, gentle, soft-spoken woman whose fury had destroyed races and whose compassion had saved the galaxy. She’s not even warrior caste, she’s religious caste. She’s not, technically speaking, a fighter. But hers is the voice that starts and ends wars, and she has never once flinched from personally standing in the face of annihilation to do so.

If she told you to stop being silly and go home before something bad happened, I promise you, you would listen too. Heh.

(Also yes, I’m aware I’ve posted pretty much exactly this several times before, but literally every time I rewatch that scene it brings this wave of giddy awe and wild ferociousness back. Literally. It’s a scene that makes you want to fist-fight god, and a scene that makes you think you could maybe win too. If Delenn is behind you, then even if you don’t win, you will mess them the fuck up in the process. She’s inspiring that way. Heh).

[ddagent]

Okay but an AU where Earth sends 'Jeff Sinclair' to B5...but its really John Sheridan in disguise.

[mari-beau]

Never Forget that Delenn (Satai, Ambassador, Entil'Zha, The One) said WORKERS RIGHTS!

[amusementofaprincess]

I finished rewatching Babylon 5, for I think, the 8th time? I love it even more with every rewatch.

I love watching Delenn and Sheridan fall in love with each other. I love that the female characters on this show are all capable and smart. None of the relevant male characters underestimate them. I love watching G’Kar and Londo go from vague enemies, to G’Kar loathing Londo and then eventually to friends.

I love Vir and Lennier meeting up to vent about their respective ambassadors and the going their separate ways

And I LOVE that Vir got his wish.

My hyperfixation with this show is back in full force and I will be spamming you all with annoyingly detailed thoughts on all the characters

[tenderspaces]

and you don't seem the lying kind

minvember 2023 palette prompt 2: lie

tempted as i was to draw londo for this prompt, this really is the minbari color palette! a certain flashback about delenn's role in the earth-minbari war was on my mind while drawing this, and how much that added to her moral complexity (not that the ambassadors as a trio and as a rule aren't morally complex enough, but still - what a reveal).

pose referenced from (completely unrelated media property) hsr imbibitor lunae's ultimate attack, as well as an actual profile shot of delenn.

[gretchensinister]

Babylon 5 rewatch, S1 E2: Soul Hunter

Franklin! Oh gosh he's so lively and enthusiastic at this point

Interesting that jumpgates will work/open for completely unidentified ships, most scifi I've read would have that kind of technology not work without some kind of standard code or something

This...does seem like a clear and present danger my dude

Claw machine hell

Let's not worry about momentum

...don't know if he's a he, either (90's!)

Sinclair why is your shirt unbuttoned (probably just off duty but lol)

Okay serious information I'm listening.

I wonder how a station ends up with an underclass, like, how did those people get there and why? What did they expect to happen? Like B5 is as big as a city but it's not like you can get there by accident. It seems like this social situation speaks to less...knowledge? Awareness? Of what's going on than I would personally find ideal on a space station

I'm pretty sure souls actually do canonically exist in the B5 universe unless I'm misremembering something. Either way I wouldn't want to be "preserved" by a complete stranger

I just want to note that now, as opposed to when I was a kid, I realize that all the MedLab stuff is VERY much a plot device--what I mean is that I live in a city with about the same population as B5 and we have sooooooo many doctors offices and at least 3 large hospitals. It doesn't make sense for Dr. Franklin to be directly involved with a random stabbing victim.

Gray Council mentioned!

That bug looks INCREDIBLE compared to some shit I've seen in really expensive movies recently. Fuck me, you could PUNCH that bug.

This guy may be messed up for a soul hunter but even the guy chasing him seems...well...mega-creepy

Also a plot thing that only one person is dying at this time in this size of population, even if it doesn't have the same number of elderly people as a city that's not a diplomatic/military outpost

Hint of weirdness between Gray Council and Sinclair initiated!

Oh yeah souls don't like being trapped in a little glass ball forever HUH WHO KNEW

I wonder how that prosthetic affected her hearing

Why WOULD a Gray Council member be serving as ambassador?👀

Man, Delenn was eating popcorn and watching cartoons last time, this time she was almost murdered

At least she got her peoples' souls back