#the episode where Jesus other Jesus third Jesus and Doktor Faustus all have a really shitty day

[onsomekindofstartrek]

It's amazing, when Sheridan finally snaps on Kosh it's like he's thinking...

...yeah, I was in a train car, and it exploded on a bridge, and I leapt out and saw the entire inside-out world wheeling before me like the Kingdoms of the Earth, and out of nowhere came what appeared to be an angel of the Lord, as if to keep me from stubbing my toe, rising up to catch me. It was written.

Does that make me Jesus?

And I don't think he believes he is, but I think in that single moment when Kosh turned his back on him, I think he felt like it.

But as much as Babylon 5 flirts with all religions being true, it also kinda clearly says that they're all false. John Sheridan is, in some ways, the most expendable and least known quantity out of everything. He's not the Hero of Prophecy, he's barely a hero of a prophecy, and only because Sinclair's best guess is that he's going to win. Remember, Sinclair is getting ready to head to 1200 AD right now when this episode takes place, and all he really knows about the second shadow war is what the Rangers tell him. The end is really not written, and even if it was, Sinclair isn't god either.

For Christ's sake, Sinclair basically hands the aliens his fucking iphone and says "if someone can unlock this with their thumbprint they're a reincarnation of a powerful Minbari soul" and they based their entire culture around that idea in some ways. He's definitely not god, he's a very silly boy.

But I think in that moment, it wasn't enough for John to be a squishy human next to an ancient demigod who shaped his race since before his race began. I think the prophecy served its purpose in that it made him the One Who Is To Come in that moment; gave him the belief that he, rising ape, could survive standing up to a falling angel and telling it what to do. In the same way, Delenn can act with the entire weight of prophecy informing and strengthening every action even knowing that the guy who wrote the prophecies was... some guy, some random fighter pilot she picked out by chance on the last day of the war, a normal man that she's smiled at, lied to, kept things from, worried about... because she believes that he is the One Who Was, she is the One Who Is, and her boyfriend is the One Who Is To Come. A script guides her actions, never mind where it came from.

I think at the end of the day, that's what Babylon 5 says about belief, the same thing Vonnegut and Pratchett did. Beliefs may be false or true, but more observably they can transform you for better or worse.