Skip to main content

In the Babylon-5 saga, are the only Minbari with facial hair descendants of Valen?


In the Babylon-5 stories, most Minbari are bald, but some Minbari men have beards.


enter image description here


The Wikipedia article on Minbari says "due to the intermingling of human DNA into the Minbari gene-pool courtesy of Valen, some males are capable of growing facial hair."


Spoiler from episodes "War Without End":




Valen was a human named Jeffery Sinclair who went one thousand years back in time to lead the Minbari. He was transformed into a Minbari through a device called triluminary. He later fathered children on Minbar.



Is there a canon source that says "only male descendants of Valen may grow beards"? Or is that an unjustified claim posted on Wikipedia?


In accordance with my "Quotes Get Votes" policy, I prefer answers that have quotes from original sources. (e.g. - Interviews with J. Michael Straczynski, quotes from scripts, or video clips from episodes, etc...)



Answer



From the "JMS Speaks" section of the Lurker's Guide page for Atonement:



Dukhat was not descended from Valen; yes, the Grey Council now knows who Sinclair was; and general knowledge of what happened would certainly have an upsetting effect on Minbari society, so they will continue to keep it indefinitely back-roomed....




Assuming that JMS was being entirely honest here, and since Dukhat has a beard, it is not true that only male Minbari descendants of Valen can grow beards. Combined with JMS saying



Other Minbari have had facial hair; including Draal v1.0 and Kalain in "Points of Departure." It's certainly not common, though.



it seems that facial hair is either a recessive trait, or that the vast majority of Minbari shave.


However, I am also finding references to JMS having said on a panel that Minbari didn't start growing beards until Valen appeared. Therefore, it's also possible that what the Triluminary considers to be a descendant of Valen doesn't entirely coincide with actual descendants of Valen. Given that 1000 years have passed between Valen's appearance and the time of the show, that's plenty of time for Valen's various and sundry genes to have diffused throughout the entire Minbari population. Not everyone gets the same genes, so only some can grow beards, and not all who grow beards have the genetic markers that the Triluminary is looking for.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

harry potter - Did Dolores Umbridge Have Any Association with Voldemort (or Death Eaters) before His Return?

I noticed that Dolores Umbridge was born during the first Wizarding War, so it's very likely she wasn't a Death Eater then (but she is pretty evil -- who knows?). After that Voldemort was not around in a way that could affect many people, and most wouldn't know he was planning to rise again. During that time, and up through Voldemort's return (in Goblet of Fire ), did Umbridge have any connection with the Death Eaters or with Voldemort? Was she doing what she did on her own, or was it because of an association with Voldemort or his allies? Answer Dolores Umbridge was definitely not a good person. However, as Sirius points out, "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters". Remember that he also says that he doesn't believe Umbridge to be a Death Eater, but that she's evil enough (or something like that). I think there are two strong reasons to believe that: Umbridge was proud to do everything according to the law, except when she trie...
Post a Comment
Read more

aliens - Interstellar Zoo story

I vaguely remember this story from my childhood: it was about an interstellar zoo that came to Earth with lots of bizarre and unusual species, and humans would file through and gape at all the crazy looking creatures from other planets. The twist came at the end when the perspective shifted to the other side of the bars and we discovered that the "creatures" were traveling through space on a kind of safari. They thought they were the visitors and we were the animals. Neither side knew that the other side thought they were the zoo creatures. Answer Got it. Zoo, by Edward D. Hoch. Published in 1958. Link to Publication History Link to PDF
Post a Comment
Read more

Which Doctor Who works are canon?

I have been watching a Doctor Who documentary and they mentioned that Paul McGann did audio stories so he wasn't just a one-hit Doctor (and that there are novels featuring his Doctor as well). My question is: is Doctor Who canon just the show, or is it like Star Wars where some books and audios are canon and some are not? The documentary also shows that before 2005 they did audio stories where the Doctor is female and obviously that cannot be — not the female part, but the show doesn't count any female Doctors in episodes like The Day of the Doctor . Answer Nothing, and also everything The definitive piece of writing on Doctor Who canon is this blog post by writer Paul Cornell . I'm essentially going to be summarizing his post here, much less eloquently, but one section I want to quote directly is this: Nobody at the BBC has ever uttered a pronouncement about what is and isn't canonical. (As I'm sure they'd put it, being such enthusiasts for good grammar.) Be...
Post a Comment
Read more