The Great Machine

[Lord Reefer]

The Great machine on epsilon 3.

To my knowledge this story has never been told. We no nothing about where it came from or who built it. All we know from Zathrass is that its been there for 500 years.

When the original host dies and Drahl takes over, an alien battleship (of the same race as the original host) tries to take it back. A fire fight ensues between B5, the alien ship and the EAS Hyperion. The alien ship gets destroyed and they're never mentioned again.

Who are they ?
Where is their home world ?
Did they build the great machine ?

To my knowledge Jms has always avoided descussing this story, even in the novels. I think that maybe it ties in with Valen somehow. Maybe he was responsable for creating it, in the knowledge that Babylon 5 would be built near bye in the future.

[lorien1]

Another of those JMS things!! Colin.<*>.

[Lord Reefer]

I cant help thinking of an old Jms post where he talks about not liking loose ends. I think he has deliberately left this story. Maybe for the new project. (unless it was going to be in Crusade, in which case we'll never know)

[lorien1]

The Great Machine,i thought would have helped B5 out against the E.A. fleet
when it came for them,or in Thirdspace.Colin.<*>.

[Winkchen]

hmmm...I think the great machine would make everything just to easy...
With the great machine, it would have been easy to win against the shadow with the great machine, maybe JMS saw, that it was not such a good idee, to bring the great machine in the story and stopped mention it.

The keeper pof the great machine before draal said something about the aliens. He said, they were traitors and they were proscribed from there homeworld..
Maybe the first ones build this machine, who else could do something like that?

[TerraFrost]

Tolkien intentionally added Tom Bombadil into his stories to add a sense of mystery. It's possible the Great Machine was JMS's attempt to do the same thing.

[Winkchen]

Could be, but I think there is very much mistery there, even without the great machine.

A reason could be the actor of draal, too, I think...
He got ill, maybe he couldn`t act veryx much after that, I don`t know..

[TerraFrost]

Revisiting this thread...

Can the machine see everywhere, or can it be blocked?
No, Varn's people aren't first ones...and the machine can be blocked.

In part it's John's take on the character, but what I indicated to him was that Draal's gone through some considerable changes by entering the heart of the machine; it's given him greater understanding, and the freeing aspects of greater humor. It's almost like -- and I hate to even use the reference because somebody'll say "Oh, that's what he's doing," and I ain't, it's just a point of comparison -- Tom Bombadil in LoTR...quite funny, but also someone not to be trifled with.

• Was the Great Machine inside Epsilon 3 built by a member race of the First Ones?
  Could be.
• No, Varn was not one of the First Ones.