Topic: If there were Lorien...

[erik]

Sheridan: Who are you?
Lorien: Who are you?
Sheridan: How did I get here?
Lorien: You were born.
Sheridan: Why am I alive?
Lorien: Well, that is the question, isn't it?

Lorien: Do you have anything worth living for?

Lorien: When we are born, we are allocated a finite number of seconds. Each tick of the clock slices off a piece of us. Tick. A possibility for joy is gone. Tock. A careless word ends one path, opens another. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Always running out of time. Yours is almost used up. You're between seconds - lost in the infinite possibilities between tick and tock. Tick. You're alive. Tock ... Well, it was a good life, but a short one. Tick, tock. Tick, tock. Tick...

Lorien: It's easy to find something worth dying for. Do you have anything worth living for?
Sheridan: I can't see you anymore.
Lorien: As it should be.
Sheridan: What if I fall? How will I know you'll catch me?
Lorien: I caught you before.
Sheridan: What if I die?
Lorien: I can not create life, but I can breathe on the remaining embers.. It may not work.
Sheridan: But I can hope.
Lorien: Hope is all we have.

Lorien: You must let go. Surrender yourself to death. The death of flesh, the death of fear. Step into the abyss, and let go.

Lorien: You can't turn away from death simply because you're afraid of what might happen without you. That's not enough! You're not embracing life. You're fleeing death. And so you're caught in between, unable to go forward or backward. Your friends need what you can be when you are no longer afraid, when you know who you are and why you are and what you want, when you are no longer looking for reasons to live, but can simply be.

[erik]

Ivanova, after arriving back on the station, is preparing to leave for the battle when Lorien comes in. He says that he was told she was ready to leave, but she isn't quite--she says he seems quite impatient for an immortal. He explains that he isn't immortal, and could die if he fell ill or was injured. He was the first of the First Ones and the last of his race. Ivanova doesn't believe he can be as old as he claims, since no one could discover the technology necessary to develop an immortality serum in one lifetime. Lorien explains, however, that all of his kind were born naturally immortal. Ivanova can't accept this; she is positive that everything dies. Lorien explains that things are that way--now--but they weren't always. The generations of beings that followed his own were mortal, and could eventually die, but those of his time were immortal. He explains that his race discovered the Vorlons and Shadows as infant races and guided them, and the other First Ones, along the evolutionary path. Most of the others eventually died or passed beyond the Rim to what lay beyond.

He explains that to live forever means to give up everything else--love, companionship, friendship--since those will come and go. Only races with a much shorter life span can truly appreciate these things and experience them for all they are worth.

"You should embrace that remarkable illusion," he tells her. "It may be the greatest gift your race has ever received."

http://www.ntua.gr/lurk/countries/pr/synops/072.html