Skip to main content

babylon 5 - What happened to Catherine Sakai after Sinclair left B5?


The final shot of the Season 1 finale, Chrysalis, had Sinclair with his fiancée, Catherine Sakai. The next episode, Sinclair was reassigned to be ambassador to Minbar (out of universe, Michael O'Hare tragically had to leave due to mental illness) and Catherine disappeared as well. When Sinclair returned to the show in the two-part War Without End, Catherine was completely absent and didn't even get a mention.


So whatever happened to Catherine Sakai?



Answer



While Catherine Sakai never appeared on the show again, she was a main character in the 100% canon novel To Dream in the City of Sorrows by Kathryn Drennan (who at the time of its publishing was JMS' wife). It's well-written and sheds a lot of light into the stories of Sinclair, Catherine, and even Marcus Cole and I heartily recommend it. But if you're okay with spoilers, here's the short version of it:



Catherine left Babylon 5 after the start of 2259 on an extended survey on the rim and narrowly escaped an attack by a Shadow vessel. After returning to Babylon 5 and discovering that Sinclair was transferred (being pretty much the last person to know), she met him on Minbar and decided that despite his Ranger duties, she still wanted to marry him, and even joined the Rangers. Months later, the Shadows tried to artificially open up a time rift in Sector 14 (the Babylon 4 sector) to send a ship back in time and change the outcome of the first Shadow War. Sinclair, Marcus, and Catherine prevented this, but Catherine got dragged into the time rift before it closed, going to who knows where (or when). Sinclair was distraught over her loss, but when he asked Kosh if he would meet Catherine again, he replied, "Perhaps".



Then in the epilogue, set after War Without End:




Marcus received a cryptic letter written on old paper saying, "From both of us, our thanks and friendship. Continue to dream that better future . . . where perhaps we'll meet again."



There was also a three issue comic miniseries called In Valen's Name, written by JMS himself.



In 2261, the Babylon 5 crew discover the remains of Babylon 4. On board, Delenn listens to the audio journal of Valen (Sinclair), with this final entry: "And as for me... I've received my own reward, because I've found her. At long last... I've found... her."



Between these two, especially considering the epilogue of the novel, it would appear that ultimately...



Catherine was sent to a time and place close to where Babylon 4 appeared, and Sinclair did end up finding her. A happy ending, but they sure had to go through hell to get it!




As Allen Gould points out in the comments, this sheds new light on Valen's children needing to flee Minbar after his death. See the linked answer in Why were the early children/descendants of Valen persecuted?


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

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

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more