Commander Jeffrey David Sinclair / Valen
SPECIES: Human
HOMEWORLD: Mars
DATE OF BIRTH: 03-05-2218 9:15am
ORGANISATION: Army of light
STATUS: Valen
ALLEGIANCE: Light
ACTOR: Michael O'Hare

Sinclair joined Earth Force in 2237 as a pilot, upholding a family tradition that could be traced back to the Battle of Britain, in the process learning extensively from his father who had flown in the Dilgar War, never forgetting what he saw as Balus was retaken. While at the academy he began a long standing, albeit on-off relationship with Catherine Sakai, also finding another love of his life; the works of the poet Tennyson especially that of "Ulysses", which he was later to tell a Minbari that reading it would help him understand him better. His position as an Earth Force pilot was made official in 2240, and he made squad leader just a year later, seemingly on a fast track to becoming an Admiral. His career prospects came to a sudden end during the Earth-Minbari War when Sinclair flew with the 361st Tactical Fighter Squadron, leading them into the Battle of the Line where he was only survivor of his squadron of Starfurys, the others being destroyed in less than a minute. During the battle, having managed to destroy a Minbari fighter, and with his ship crippled he tried to ram a Minbari War Cruiser but blacked out, and when he awoke in his fighter twenty four hours later, with only four hours worth of oxygen consumed, the war was over. With a day of his life unaccountable Sinclair suffered a loss of trust amongst his superiors and was shifted from place to place haunted by his missing day.

In 2254 he was assigned to Mars Colony to help with the food riots, during which time he worked with both John Sheridan and Laurel Takashima, who he managed to put back onto the straight and narrow after she had fallen foul of the corruption that was rife on the colony. The following year, when assigned to investigate possible covert human-alien activity on Mars Colony, he deduced that the failure of previous missions was due to a leak and hired a private shuttle pilot, Michael Garibaldi, to fly him and his two aides, Foster and Sanchez, on aerial reconnaissance. When the shuttle crashed on the fifth day following a systems malfunction, killing Foster and breaking Sanchez' leg the pair set of on a fifty mile hike out of the desert to get help, during which they observed the excavation of one Shadow Warship by another that was also witnessed by Dr. Mary Kirkish and observed a secret Psi Corps operation. When they were discovered they used grenades to destroy the installation and escape, only to have a subsequent Earth Force investigation discover no evidence that the base had ever existed, the only things they had to show for the event were a Psi Corps badge and a firm friendship.

Following his two years on Mars Colony Jeffrey Sinclair was appointed as the first commander of Babylon 5 at the behest of the Minbari, much to his surprise knowing that it was a prestigious command, and requested that his two trusted colleagues from Mars Colony, Laurel Takashima and Michael Garibaldi, join him as executive and security officers respectively. He was to become very proud of Babylon 5, believing strongly in its role as a peace keeper, and was similarly proud of his command staff, describing Susan Ivanova as the finest officer he had ever served with. Despite this they had to continually bend an rewrite the rule book, although that was perhaps due more to the unique nature of the Babylon Project than anything else. Shortly after his appointment to Babylon 5, in 2257, he became the prime suspect in an attempted assassination of the Vorlon Ambassador to the station, Kosh Naranek, but managed to successfully apprehend the genuine culprit in a shoot out with the help of Michael Garibaldi. This kind of "hands on" action was typical, Sinclair was continually placing himself in the line of fire far too often, personally infiltrating a Homeguard cell for example, until he was warned of his obsessive hero syndrome by Michael Garibaldi. When not using direct action another trait of Sinclair's was to find unconventional solutions to problems, using the power granted him by the Rush Act to provide a peaceful settlement by reallocating credits from Babylon 5's military budget instead of using force as was normally required. This was a decision that gained him several enemies within EarthGov, who later sent Colonel Ari Ben Zayn, an Internal Affairs investigator, to evaluate the station's command staff and their loyalty to the Earth Alliance.

Over the next year Jeffrey Sinclair was to discover more and more about the "hole in his mind" that had been revealed to him by the Minbari who had attempted to assassinate Ambassador Kosh Naranek, in particular when some memories of the missing twenty four hours from the Battle of the Line were recalled in his interrogation at the hands of Knight One and Knight Two, revealing that he had been captured by the Minbari, then tortured and scanned by the Grey Council. Besides his past he was also to receive some disturbing visions of the future, being shown a vision of the possible destruction of Babylon 5 by the Centauri seer, Lady Ladira and later a flash forward while on Babylon 4 where he saw himself and Michael Garibaldi involved in a desperate rear guard fight as Babylon 5 was overrun by an unknown and unseen enemy. He was also to rekindle his relationship with Catherine Sakai, finally proposing marriage to her at the end of 2258, although with the assassination of President Luis Santiago he thought that the universe was at a crossroads and nothing was the same any more.

A few days later, on 3rd January 2259, he was to be proved correct, when he was recalled to Earthdome without any warning where Rathenn, a member of the Grey Council, restored his memories of the missing twenty four hours, revealing that they had discovered that he had a Minbari soul, it was as a result of this they had surrendered. Instead of returning to Babylon 5 he was replaced by Captain John Sheridan and reassigned to be the first ever Earth Alliance Ambassador to the Minbari Federation on the planet Minbar in January 2259 where history was to repeat itself as he became the suspect in an possible assassination attempt against the new Minbari leader. Having cleared his name he assumed overall command of the Rangers as Ranger One, and with the assistance of Rathenn over the next year and a half built them into an organization that was to play a critical part in the struggle against the Shadows, establishing a reputation amongst them for giving cryptic answers. His life then took an even more dramatic turn when a letter from Valen over nine hundred years old and addressed to "Jeffrey David Sinclair" was presented to him by Rathenn, although he refused to discuss the letter with Rathenn he departed for Babylon 5 immediately, joining forces with Delenn and John Sheridan aboard the White Star to steal Babylon 4 for use in the previous Shadow war.

Jeffrey Sinclair was to become the "closed circle", journeying back in time with Babylon 4 accompanied by Zathras, en route using the chrysalis device that had been brought from Epsilon 3 by Zathras to change himself into a Minbari form, knowing that the Minbari would never accept the station if he appeared as a human. Upon arriving one thousand years in the past, and flanked by two Vorlons, the Minbari not born of Minbari that had once been Jeffrey Sinclair introduced himself to the curious Minbari that had boarded Babylon 4 as Valen, and told them that they had "much work ahead of us". Over the course of the next few decades he was to lead the Minbari in driving the Shadows from Z'ha'dum, establish the Grey Council and produce the "prophecies" that would lead to his future self taking the same course of action. Jeffrey Sinclair's final fate as Valen is a matter of some conjecture for the Minbari religious caste who are undecided as to what eventually became of him.

"THE ONE WHO WAS"