Proceed Slowly and Cautiously . . .

Chiana

"Chiana, we do this wrong and we might as well just cal it a day," my friend explains softly. "Remember the reason . . . that one event that got Rei REALLY interested in Babylon 5?"

As if I could forget! Besides the fact it's why she keeps using various phrases from that TV series (good series, well written!), it was educational in explaining one of the biggest screwups out there!

(Author's Note: events and people which Chiana will refer to shall be vague for a reason. IF you've seen Babylon 5 you might know exactly what she speaks of, but it is being kept vague in order to not serve as TOO much of a spoiler).

. . .

Man, what a screwup that dren had been and what a bunch of idiots who screwed UP!! A bunch of would be extortionists get a little bit of TV information about a past war in the Babylon 5 universe and try to blackmail some high official within the Minbari Federation about her part in declaring something of a holy war on the humans for the accidental death of one of their most cherished members.

. . .

Frell. Hey, I admit that how that one human captain who landed that one LUCKY shot in a panic when the Minbari sensors were accidentally overloading his ship was sheer stupidity. Then again, what the frell was it with the Minbari? Who in their right mind would consider opening their weapon's ports to a newly encountered species a sign of respect? That has got to be the biggest "bonehead" (FAH!) maneuver out there for First Contact protocols!

Well, whatever the case if they'd been more discrete the truth would have never slipped out. The bribe might have been paid and the secret kept . . . at least until the Military (who'd made contact with the Babylon 5 universe) had come up with some kind of spin control to minimize the fallout of that . . .particular bit of TV knowledge: the truth about the Minbari/Human war of Bablyon 5.

But no, the wrong bit of data got into the wrong hands. The would be blackmailers were too lax and all Hezma broke loose! It took that one Captain Kirk and his Enterprise to almost literally knock some heads together to stop yet another Minbari/Earth Alliance war!

Heh, that Kirk who'd gotten displaced into the Babylon 5 universe . . . guy's much smarter than the some of the idiot versions I'd met in the past and that mediocre TV version I'd seen on the show.

. . .

But that all said I kinda get the thing that Inquirer is getting at here. While this isn't a "blackmail" operation (at least not YET by the way I see it), we've gotta be careful!

Oh, it was a very sad thing with that how it totally ruined that marriage between that Minbari woman and the old commander of Babylon 5 (the one prior to Garabaldi), but still . . . What do you expect? That kind of secret was . . .. too much to ask to bear once it came to light!

In our case with this operation? One wrong move and it'll blow up in our face and THIS time we don't have a starship to pull the "fat out of the fire" as you Earthers put it.

I kind of knew this, at one level, but this brought it more into focus.

1. See, this time around the Enterprise might just BE part of the problem . . . There is so much stuff we need to get on top of here . . . .

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