From julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu Sun Dec 22 22:51:07 1996
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 1996 07:48:07 -0500 (CDT)
From: watkins julia k <julifolo@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
To: b5-creative@lists.best.com
Subject: A Vorlon Fragment

Hello all,

It's been a while. I'm back from vacation, I've been catching up on
reading stories people have/are posting, and I finally got a draft
of chapter four of "War Bride" out to beta.
     So I'm taking a short break, and I thought I'd put this fragment
out on the table. It's something from an unfinished story I put aside
when I got the idea for WB.

This isn't a whole story, but it is a full idea. The topic of
"Vorlon manipulation" and "what do the Vorlon's want?" has been
much discussed for a long time. Back in October 1995 I was worried
that John might die at Z'Ha'Dum, and this worry became a story, 
which was not a happy place to be. In the middle of that story
Ivanova (unhappy about her battlefield promotion) has the following
anti-Vorlon rant:

(I hope I'm right about this being able to stand alone)

Julie
who has "too many" stories to write

======

	"A Vorlon Fragment" from "The Hand" (unfinished)

   Corwin looked awkward, as if he had surprised himself. He started
to leave but Ivanova called him back with a question. "How do you
like being an ant?"
   "Sir?"
   Definately the right reaction. It was time to deal with this, and
it would be good to unload. "Have you ever grown carrots in dirt?"
   He returned to stand in front of her desk, fully confused.
"No, sir."
   "You start with a handful of seeds, let's say a hundred. Now in
hydropondics they may be more efficient, but then again the seeds
are so small that maybe no one gives a damn. So this is what you
do:" her hands mimed the procedure, "you plant your hundred seeds
and add water. Maybe fifty of the seeds sprout, and the other fifty
rot in the ground, but they grow up too close together so you thin
out that fifty to twenty. How would you like to be one of the
seedlings thrown away?"
   "I don't think I'd like to be a carrot either."
   "Good answer. Do you know how genengineers breed drugs? They have
their workhorse strains of bacteria and they expose a colony to
whatever disease or toxin they want a defense against at such a dose
that most of the bacteria die. Then they pamper the survivors, then
let the colony grow again, and then add the toxin again, at a higher
dose. Most of the bacteria die. Again. And, again, the researcher
feeds the survivors and lets them grown. Until it's time for the
cycle start again. Time after time after time, and the toxin gets
stronger and stronger. It's called 'forced evolution'."
   Corwin saw the relevance immediately, but it took him a while to
say the words, "The Shadows."
   "And the god-damned Vorlons," Ivanova fumed. "How many times and
how many coalitions have fought the Shadows? How many races have
died? A grand Vorlon story, is it not? And every time the the story
is told the pain is more sweet and the beauty more cruel."
   "But why?"
   "This ant don't know, and this ant don't care, because I wish Mr.
High-and-Mighty Vorlon would just leave us alone! Kosh deserted us
after John died, and good riddance. But the story's not finished
yet."
   Corwin felt a sudden dread. "How do you mean that?"
   "Get a chair, David. I have news."

===end fragment===