Word count: 524
Summary: Kosh's view of Midnight on the Firing Line.
Before traveling to Babylon 5 to take up his position as Ambassador, Kosh had traveled to the home-world of each race that would take a major position on Babylon 5. Each race he would be guiding and for the war to come. His direct presence was unnecessary, as he had all the knowledge gathered by those tending each race. But Kosh had been selected because he was sensitive to the earthier, fleshier perspectives of the younger races. It gave him a greater ability to comprehend the metaphors through which they understood their existence, and thus allowed him to deal with them more subtly. Passing among them unseen, unnoticed, unremarkable, was a simple task; easier than traveling in one of the clumsy encounter suits the Vorlons chose to use as their public "face" when discretion was advisable.
The results of his study were as he expected.
The Minbari were the proof that Vorlon methods were superior. Orderly, pure, obedient; perfect children ready for the war to come. Over a thousand years of cultivation had molded them into a society anyone could be proud of. Perhaps, in a few million years of careful pruning and nurturing, they might be ready to take their place as one of the Great Races.
Satisfied, Kosh turned his attention to the humans, a very young race his people had only begun watching recently. Since Valen's time, they had come far; but they were still only bare infants, seedlings, with much shaping to be done before they could take their proper place. The Enemy had many points with which to tempt them; the Humans' foolish and dangerous adulation of freedom and, of all things, self-determination, was a definite concern. Kosh was not conservative enough to call it an abomination, but that was for the one assigned specifically to Earth to deal with and weed out. In any case, the Humans would play their part in the current struggle, however much their ultimate fate might be in question.
The Centauri did not disappoint him because he had expected no better. They had grown strong merely because there was no one to oppose them; a weak strain flourishing in a mild environment. They had never been promising enough to warrant true guidance, nor unpromising enough to warrant true vigilance. Now that other powers of strength were rising, the Centauri were crumbling. If given enough help to survive long enough, they might be desperate enough to grasp any devil's bargain offered by the enemy to postpone the inevitable. Far safer, not to mention far more merciful, to allow them to die quickly.
The Narn disappointed him. G'Quan had been so promising, as had his spiritual descendents and the many other spiritual orders on the planet, but the Centauri had ruined them. Narn's empire might be growing, but its soul was dying. Here and there, faint flowers of wisdom still bloomed. But they would not survive long in the gathering dark. And the thorns of rage engendered by years of swallowed pain would consume the Narn, choking out any hope for new growth, leaving them easy prey to the Enemy. Better to remember what had once been, and clear the blighted ground for new growth.
All of this passed through his mind as he listened to Sinclair try and secure his support for a futile effort to defuse the situation over Ragesh III. Only a human would be arrogant and innocent enough to try to direct a Vorlon's response.
Still.
This one needed more guidance than most. He must be prepared for his role.
They are alone. They are a dying people. We should let them pass.