Draal
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| Babylon 5 character | |
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| Draal | |
|---|---|
| Affiliated with | Great Machine |
| Race | Minbari |
| Home planet | Minbar |
| First appearance | A Voice in the Wilderness |
| Last appearance | Voices of Authority |
| Portrayed by | Louis Turenne (A Voice in the Wilderness) John Schuck (All subsequent appearances) |
Draal is the name of an older Minbari male in the Babylon 5 science fiction universe. A teacher by trade, he was introduced in the episode A Voice in the Wilderness. Draal has been played by both Louis Turenne and John Schuck.
In his first appearance in A Voice in the Wilderness, Draal was played by Louis Turenne. Feeling that he had no place in modern Minbari society, he set out to visit his former student Delenn on Babylon 5 one final time before leaving to go "out to sea." At about the same time the planet Epsilon III was experiencing geological instability, and it was discovered that the planet contained a huge machine known as the Great Machine. The machine was controlled by a living being named Varn, but Varn was dying and without him the machine would destroy the planet and the orbiting Babylon 5 station. Others of Varn's race arrived to claim the Great Machine as their own, but Varn did not want them to have the machine. Draal was convinced to take Varn's place in the Great Machine. After driving the aliens off, Varn warned Commander Sinclair to stay off the planet, but he would allow Babylon 5 to continue in orbit around Epsilon III. Draal indicated that the machine had a role to fill in some future event, and that he would come to them when ready.
The next year, Draal appeared to Captain John Sheridan and put the Great Machine at the disposal of Sheridan and his allies in the fight against the Shadows. Louis Turenne was unable to reprise the role of Draal, so John Schuck was selected to play the role of Draal. The difference in appearance between the two men was explained by having the Great Machine restore Draal's health and appearance, making him appear 30 years younger. In the meantime Draal had discovered that he was not alone on the planet, that there were others there who helped take care of the Great Machine, all of whom were brothers named Zathras.
Draal would appear again in the episode Voices of Authority, again played by Schuck. This time he helped the crew of Babylon 5 make contact with an ancient race considered to be one of the First Ones. While interfaced with Draal's computer, Susan Ivanova found the evidence in the Great Machine that President Morgan Clark had indeed orchestrated the assassination of President Luis Santiago.
After this appearance, Draal was mentioned from time to time in other episodes, but made no further appearances in the series. Schuck became unavailable due to commitments to a play, and producers did not want to cast a third actor for the role. J. Michael Straczynski has stated that he had other plans for the character, including an appearance in the first part of War Without End.
When Babylon 5 declared independence from the Earth Alliance in the episode Severed Dreams, the crew used Draal's holographic systems to allow Sheridan to broadcast the declaration to residents and crew on board the station. Ivanova asked Sheridan if they should seek Draal's help in defending the station. Sheridan said it was their fight, not his, and that he wanted to keep Draal's alliance with the station a secret as long as possible.
Later that year Draal used the Great Machine to expand the temporal rift in sector 14, where the Babylon 4 station had been. Doing so allowed John Sheridan and Jeffrey Sinclair to take the White Star back in time, and ensure that Babylon 4 entered the temporal rift and wound up 1,000 years in the past as was its destiny. Sinclair rode the station into the past, and became the Minbari leader Valen. Once Sheridan and the White Star arrived back in the present, Draal closed the rift so that no one else would become trapped in there.
After the Vorlons and the Shadows left the galaxy, President Morgan Clark began a propaganda war against Babylon 5 and its crew. In order to counter this propaganda, Sheridan and Ivanova decided to set up their own broadcasts. Ivanova went to seek Draal's assistance in order to find a power source powerful enough to get past the jammers Clark had set up. Draal was very busy at the time, as a landquake had damaged a weather control station, so one of the Zathras brothers helped Ivanova set up the power source.
