Talk:John Sheridan

From The Great Machine

Contents 1 Method of Display 1.1 How? 2 Logic of determining the timelime 2.1 The Black Star 2.2 Placing the Story, In the Beginning in context 2.3 Placing the Story, In the Beginning in real time 2.4 Placing the beginning of the saga from In the Beginning 2.5 Placing the first shots of the Earth-Minbari War 2.6 Placing the founding of B5, and the end of the Earth-Minbari War 2.7 Conclusions 3 Middle Name Contradiction?

Method of Display

How?

Get yo' self onto IRC! In fact, everyone get onto IRC. I've set up a java client to make things easy and always available, but if you don't want to use that, you can use the below information:

Babcom

Servers: boshaus.dyndns.org, irc.flyingtemple.com

Room: #Firstones

I see... looks like I did it again, huh? Sorry about that. However, I do not use any of the aforementioned messengers, and my ISP gets rather mad whenever I use IRC, so I'm afraid direct communication with me will be rather difficult. -- MikhailM

NP Mik. We're all trying to get it right. Whatever you can do. -- IS

NO! I will not get on IRC Sanfam :p

P.S. - I just slapped you in #firstones, but as usual you didn't respond :) --RC

Logic of determining the timelime

The Black Star

In S2E1 (Points of Departure), Captain Sheridan made a comment to Lt. Commander Ivanova, stating that his battle with the Black Star "...was 12 years ago..." -- 12 years before 2259, when he assumed command of B5, and which then places his command of the EAS Lexington in 2247-48. In In the Beginning, Lt. General Lefcourt's comments fuel this thesis as he tries to assign Sheridan to the EAS Prometheus as it heads for the first time towards Minbari space...

Placing the Story, In the Beginning in context

Londo's telling of the story in In the Beginning, from the final scene, occurs in/around S3E16/17 War Without End, titularly 2260, but in one of Sheridan's jumps from there to the future.

Placing the Story, In the Beginning in real time

In S3E17 War Without End, Part 2, Emperor Mollari's dietribe against the time-travelling Sheridan was that "17 years have past since you won your little war (2261 the Shadow War, S4E6 Into the Fire)," or, placing Londo's story and Sheridan's time-hop in 2278.

Placing the beginning of the saga from In the Beginning

In In the Beginning, Londo tells the children that his story starts "35 of their years ago," or 2278-35=2243 -- This is the only sequence that doesn't match with the rest of the timeline. (...unless we could, very weakly, infer that Sheridan was first assigned to the EAS Lexington in 2243. But, that doesn't hold much water as Sheridan is shown as a "fast-burner;" and four years as a Lt. Commander would give the lie to that thought...)

Placing the first shots of the Earth-Minbari War

In S3E13, A Late Delivery from Avalon, there's a reference to when the EAS Prometheus fired the first shots of the Earth-Minbari War: Dr. Franklin mentions that the opening volley was "15 years ago, today..." If S3 is in 2260, that places the beginning of the war in late 2245.

Placing the founding of B5, and the end of the Earth-Minbari War

From the S1 Opening Credits monologue, Commander Sinclair says: "10 years after the Earth-Minbari War..." IF S1 begins in 2258, that places the end of the Earth-Minbari War and the Battle of the Line in 2248.

Conclusions

That'd be about right, given that most references to the war show its duration as roughly 3 years, and would then place Sheridan's service aboard the EAS Lexington from 2245-2248, and his battle with the Black Star likely in late 2247, well ahead of the Battle of the Line, and in keeping with his comments to Ivanova in Points of Departure.

Middle Name Contradiction?

In reference to "John Sheridan's full name is given incorrectly as 'John J. Sheridan' in And Now For a Word. This is a slip-up by ISN. His real middle name, according to J. Michael Straczynski, is 'David'": Sheridan gives his own full name as "John J. Sheridan" in S3E11, "Ceremonies of Light and Dark," when resetting the computer passwords... -- MikhailM

What is the source of the "John David Sheridan" statement by JMS? I can find no reference to it on JMSNews or Lurkers Guide. Was it a spoken comment, if so, where? If we can't source the middle name of David to canon, we need to change it to "J." which can be sourced in at least two episodes. Given that David was John's father's and son's name, could it be that the statement about the middle name being David was itself a slip up? --Random Chaos 00:38, 30 December 2008 (CST)

Keno added this in his revision "17:42, 12 May 2006". He also added a few other pieces of Trivia around this time. Perhaps we should ask him if he remembers the source of his info? Wikpedia reckons the original broadcast of And Now For a Word named him "John David Sheridan", but the DVD releases have been changed to say "John J. Sheridan". [1]

After a quick seach of JMSNews, I think we can resolve this once and for all:

• "[I] Have several options for [Sheridan's] middle name, haven't decided which to use yet." -- AOL, 8/8/1994 5:37:00 AM
• "Sinclair's middle name is David, Sheridan's middle initial is J." -- CompuServe, 3/15/1996 11:11:00 AM
• "No, Sinclair's middle name was David, not Sheridan." -- AOL 10/26/1997 3:14:00 AM

Unless there are any objections, or someone can find the original transcript, I vote we just remove David as a middle name, and leave the phantom David in a brief Trivia note. Your silence will be considered assent ;) ---- Waylander 02:23, 6 January 2009 (CST)

No objections here... actually, I think that even if JMS did at some point say that Sheridan's middle name was David, he has stated otherwise at least twice, and the episodes themselves confirm his middle initial is J., so we ought to be safe changing it. -- MikhailM