#neroon

[babischlong-six]

B5 text posts part 3

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [part 6] [part 7] [part 8] [part 9] [part 10] [part 11] [part 12] [part 13] [part 14] [part 15] [part 16] [part 17] [part 18] [part 19] [part 20] [part 21] [part 22]

[laylainalaska]

I've been thinking about Neroon off and on ever since that post I reblogged earlier. I get why he had to die, narratively speaking, and I like that ending for him, but one of the reasons why I wish he'd lived - besides just really liking his grudging development of mutual friendship/respect with Delenn - is that we really know next to nothing about the culture of the two other Minbari castes.

They are effectively three different cultures under one umbrella, and although they do have some things in common (most of them imposed by Valen; thank u for your service Jeff) I think it's reasonable to assume that nearly every cultural thing we see Delenn doing on the show, ranging from the marriage ceremony in season one to all of the various courtship rituals and religious stuff, is religious caste Minbari culture. We really have no idea what the warrior caste does. I think it's safe to say that watching their prospective spouse sleep for three days is not really their kind of thing; they probably have to defeat them in staff combat three days running or something like that. IIRC, it's even canon (extracanonical canon, perhaps) that the language we hear spoken in the series is religious Minbari, and the other two castes have their own languages or at least dialects.

The way that Delenn spends the entire series using the religious Minbari culture as a synecdoche for Minbari culture as a whole is very her and very typical of the Minbari in general - the fact that each caste thinks of themselves as the "true" Minbari seems very them. (And tbf, the humans are doing the same thing, since despite B5's various nods to decent-for-its-period diversity, Babylon 5 in general is an extremely narrow slice of the human cultural experience ...)

But since we really don't know much about the warrior caste, and Delenn presumably doesn't either, it would have been such a delight to see her and Neroon actually dealing with that once in a while. In canon, they only get to the point where they even would have dinner together, socialize voluntarily, play a game, whatever, in those two episodes in season four, at the end of which he dies. But it would have been just so ... idk, cute, and very much in keeping with B5's themes, to watch them both running up against their own cultural chauvinism and lack of understanding of the other's caste culture - but in the same gentle way as late-season Londo and G'Kar, where it's more an opportunity for "oh, we do things this way, do you want to try it?" than a reason for an actual fight. And I would have liked to see a little of that onscreen.

[mortalstrife]

minvember 2025, prompt #2 ambition

[legendarylars]

foliage

[alienprohibition]

babylon 5 x internethippo part 2

[blue-tailed-sphinx]

Decided to draw a bunch of my favourite characters from Babylon 5.

[branmer]

it's bby branmer and neroon again

[gaslightgallows]

Another prompt fill for @thatpegasusmedley, following on from the first one, and set in the same AU (though a little time later), since you were kind enough to ask for more. I hope you enjoy! 💖

8. The fine line between wanting to say so much and knowing that it’s better to say nothing. (Babylon 5) (Neroon & Delenn)

"You should have told me," Neroon snapped, some hours later, as he paced up and down Delenn's office like a caged tiger. "The pike she carries is unmistakable." The President watched him, and said nothing. "A Warrior knows the markings of every pike we ever fight--they are ingrained upon our souls. We remember the pitch and ring of the metal, and the scars and dents that tell its history. I know Susan Ivanova's pike, Delenn. I have fought it before. I bloodied my own on the body of its last owner." He growled angrily. "That was what you meant, then, when you said that Ivanova and Lennier had 'griefs in common.' I suppose she was breaking that Human's heart while you were breaking Lennier's."

Delenn caught him by the arm, glaring up at him with pale eyes like ice. "Her griefs are her concern," she retorted. "I told you what you needed to know."

"Which was precisely nothing."

His voice, his face--his entire body was tight with fury. "You've made me second-in-command to someone who wants my blood--and for what? A fight to the death from twenty years ago, that I lost! Were you ignorant of this as well? Or were you simply planning to poison me with the incredible irony of my situation?" He broke from her grip and turned away, uneasy with her nearness.

"I am well aware of what Marcus's feelings for Susan Ivanova were. But it was he who broke her heart. He saved her life, and died because of it." Delenn would not let him get away so easily. Instead, she came and stood before him, with barely an inch between them. "She has a debt to him, Neroon. As I have to you."

For a moment, Neroon was lost for words. "She is not going to repay that debt with my broken body. And neither, Entil'zha, are you."

She gave him a look that he could not fathom. "I have never wanted either. You have been broken enough in my service." He growled and looked away. "Neroon, I do not want you to make her task any easier. She knew when she agreed to the position that she would not be coddled."

"She is unprepared, Delenn."

"Then you can teach her."

"I do not mean physically--although that's bad enough. I mean she is not prepared for the task you have laid on her shoulders."

"She has held positions of command and authority all her life."

"Then why," Neroon demanded, "does she capitulate to my authority? She came to the training room when she had every right to demand I meet her where she wished. She fought me with a weapon she has no knowledge of when she could have walked away. The only challenge she made to me was practically made in your name! That I could not possibly kill her... and it was in her voice that I could not do it because you had appointed her. She has no confidence in her title."

Delenn smiled a little, her eyes half-lidded as a particular thought grasped her attention. "Humans do not attach automatic authority to titles. They believe that one should earn authority and respect. She may feel that she has to earn yours."

He snorted. "When she gives me an order, then she can have it."