WHO IS ANNA SHERIDAN?

Do we know?

Anna Sheridan is the deceased wife of John Sheridan, the captain of Babylon 5 as of 2258. Originally born Anna Keller, Anna's college friend Liz introduced her to her brother, John, and they eventually got married.

Anna is an extremely intelligent xenoarchaeologist, who studied at the University of Chicago and did her doctoral thesis on Anfran culture. She works freelance, doing digs and expeditions when recruited for them or searching for them. She is very work-focused, loves her job, and loves learning. She also loves her husband, but their relationship is a bit rocky.

She gets the opportunity of a lifetime in 2256 -- an expedition to the Rim of known space, to a world that may have had a civilization (and useful technology) long, long ago. Intending to study it, she finds that there is still life on the surface of this planet - that will later be known as Z'Ha'Dum - and said life overtakes her and transforms her into a living central processing unit for their ancient vessels.

Later, Anna reappears on Babylon 5, thought long dead. This Anna is nothing like her former self; her personality had been wiped entirely by the transformation and by spending years plugged into the alien ships. She feels an erotic pull to the machine she was merged with, one she directly compares to sex. She calls arms "grasping mechanisms". She doesn't understand why the aliens, known as the Shadows, find any value in the past, even if it's just as a lesson. She is, in essence, a ghost of her former self. A ghost that screams as it passes on.

Even through the novel told from her point of view - The Shadow Within by Jeanne Cavelos - we never really see the full Anna. We see Anna through the lens of John, through the lens of Liz, and through Morden, another member of the expedition who willingly joined the Shadows. We even see Anna through the lens of her own body; a shell. But not once in Babylon 5 do we ever see Anna Sheridan in her entire essence.

Anna is negative space. Anna exists in a black hole of memory. Forgotten. Rose-tinted glasses; John thought their relationship was wonderful, but they hadn't seen each other in over a year when Anna was taken, she willingly gave up their anniversary to go to the opposite side of the universe, and she flirted with a widow during the trip to Z'Ha'Dum. The truth about Anna is coated in other people's relationships with and perceptions of her. It is intentionally obfuscated.

In Babylon 5, there are characters known in a prophecy as "The One Who Was", "The One Who Will Be", and "The One Who Is". I like to call Anna's part of the prophecy "The One Who Was Never Allowed To Be."