From: techy@iastate.edu (Technobabblonian)
Subject: Babylon 5 summary
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 14:47:59 GMT

I was asked to repost this information regarding Babylon 5...  I originally
posted this article a year ago from am523@cleveland.freenet.edu.

Well, now that the official announcement has been made, here's the straight 
skinny on Babylon 5.

For some years now, this project has been in secret development with some of
the key players at Warner Brothers.  Because everyone realized the 
potential of what we had, we all played things pretty close to the vest.  Part
of the reason for secrecy was that it was slated to be one of the several
projects that would spearhead what is, essentially, similar to Fox
Broadcasting.  And that deal as well had to be kept secret (It was announced
in November.)

I wanted to challenge myself to develop a show that met several important
criteria:

1.  It would have to be GOOD science fiction.
2.  It would have to be good TELEVISION, and rarely are SF shows both good
    SF AND good TV; generally they are one or the other.
3.  It would have to take an adult approach to SF, and attempt to do for
    SF shows what HILL STREET BLUES did for cop shows.
4.  It would have to be affordable, done on a reasonable budget.
5.  It would have to look unlike anything ever seen before on TV, and present
    not just individual stories, but present those stories against a much
    broader canvas.

The result was Babylon 5.

For years at conventions I have heard fans lament, "Why can't they get it
right?"  This, I firmly believe, is a chance to do exactly that... to get
it right, to take SF seriously, to build characters for grown-ups, to 
incorporate real science but keep the characters at the center of the story.

We're going to be taking a completely different approach to EFX than has ever
been done before, using cutting-age technology in creating the images.
We've received massive support from one of the largest computer EFX
companies that's on the very edge of this stuff, one of the largest around,
NewTek.

The date: 2257 A.D.

We have gone to stars and found we are not alone.  We have moved quickly out,
establishing relations with other civilizations that jas let us leapfrog
technologies via an information and cultural exchange with at least one other
culture.  Many contacts have been friendly, some have not been so benign.
From 2250 through 2252, war raged between the Earth Alliance and the Minbari,
an alien federation.  The EA was losing badly.  As a last resort, a suicide
perimeter was set up around Earth known as The Line.  Every last ship we
had was on The Line in a desperate defense of the homeworld.  And on the brink
of winning the war, just as they were breaking through The Line, the Minbari
surrendered.  To this date mo one knows why.  They could have won but chose 
not to.  The seceret behind their surrendering will play a part in the story.

But that was five years ago.  there is now an uneasy peace between the EA
and the four other alien federations.  To help cement that peace, the EA
constructed Babylon 5.

Babylon 5 is a kilometer long space station in neutral space more or less
central to all five of the different alliances, human or alien.  To get to
one or the other, you have to pass through this sector of space.  Thus, B5
has been created as a sort of port-of-call for travelers, statesmen, 
emissaries, traders, refugees, and other less savory characters.  Babylon
5 is divided into separate, discreet sections that rotate at different
speeds to provide different gravities to accomodate those who have come to
the station.  There are also sections with different atmospheres.  The
station boasts living quarters, custom areas, docking bays, meeting areas, a 
casino, several bars & nightclubs, command and control speheres fore and
aft, and a decent defensive grid.  In addition, each of the various 
federations has one official representative aboard the station, with the
station's commander representing the Erath Alliance.  It functions as a sort 
of mini United Nations.

It is home to humans and aliens of various roles, some arriving or departing
every day, others working there full time.  They live on the very edge of
the frontier, in the sense that if they get into trouble, there's no one
that can arrive in time to help them.  Because of the nature of the travelers,
they bring their stories with them to B5 rather than having to seek them out.  
The stories are of people in flight, seeking sanctuary; stories of
smugglers, assasins, traders, mappers, dignitaries and others, all on urgent
missions of one sort or another.

If STAR TREK was "Wagon Train to the Stars" then B5 is "Casablanca in
Space".

It is humanity's last hope for peace, a single hope in the middle of an
uneasy, fragile peace.

And it IS fragile, and dangerous.  It is called Babylon 5 because the
first three efforts to build the station were sabotaged and destroyed.
The fourth one disappeared without a trace 24 hours after becoming operational.
No one knows what happened to it.

And that's only the beginning of our story.

Here's some backstory:

In 2236 or thereabouts, the EA made first contact with a race known as the
Minbari.  They were, ar that time, only the second major civilization
we'd encountered, though we'd come across a number of non-alligned
worlds and smaller governments, one or two worlds each.  The Minbari
represent a major force on every level: resources, technology, sheer number
of worlds involved, and so on.

The Minbari are the oldest of the different alien civilizations, and 
largely kept to themselves.  Their interests are in attaining perfection: 
physical, mental, spiritual and emotional.  They answer to a Council of
Elders, whose pronouncements are considered law in an almost biblical sense.
Though deeply religious in their way, they also have pursued the ways
of technology, and as such they are easily the most advanced of the 
various races.  But they view technology as transitory, a means to an end
rather than an end itself.  Like Tom Bombadil in Lord of the Rings, they can
hold the ring of technology, but it has no hold over them.

The Earth/Minbari war began as a misunderstanding.  The first time a
Terran ship encountered the Minbari starship, they studied each other closely.
The Minbari ship made a move that they thought would be considered
non-threatening, but it wasn't.  Even in the present of our story, no one is
quite sure who fired first.  The Minbari ship was greatest in power, but 
taken by surprise, was destroyed.  The Earth ship limped back to base
with tales of a terrible new enemy.  Minbari ships, arriving to investigate,
were interpreted to be the first wing of an invasion force by the the
base commander, and ships were launched in response before receiving
formal authorization from Earth Central.

The war put a great strain on the Minbari, who have always been strongly
divided between the religious caste and the military caste - they were now
forced to work together.  The religious caste were quietly opposed to the
war, but were generally vague about their reasons when asked.

The climax of the war was the Battle of the Line.  In the course of the
battle, a lone ship - a one man fighter with very little in the way of
armaments - took several heavy hits.  His instruments failing, other ships
blowing up all around him, he aimed his ship at the nearest Minbari
cruiser, deciding to ram it in the hopes of destroying at least that one
ship.  He kept  his ship on course for as long as he could hold out.  Then,
abruptly, he blacked out.

When he awoke, he was still in his ship, drifting.  He fired up the engines,
ready to continue, only to discover two things:  First, that he had been out 
for 24 hours.  Second, the war was over, and, incredibly, the Minbari had
surrendered.  On thevery edge of victory, they had rolled over and sued
for peace.  No one in the EA quite knew why, but they weren't about to debate
the issue, and accepted minimal compensation for the war.

Now, years later, the EA is no closer in figuring out why the Minbari
surrendered.  It is, in fact, one of the great puzzles of the era, debated on
a hundred different worlds.  Only a few strange clues have slipped out.
One is that the military genius who led the Minbari into the war committed
suicide on the day of the surrender, though it is unclear if his death
took place before or after the surrender.  And the rift between the military
and the religious castes apparently came to a sort of climax, with the
religious caste taking complete control.

There are rumours of some sort of religious vision, of a prophecy of great
things, and aprophecy of complete doom.  But since almost nothing is known
of the Minbari religion, what this might be, no one knows.

At the conclusion of the war, those Terrans who fought the battle of the Line
were proclaimed heroes.  One of those men was Captain Jeffrey Sinclair, the 
pilot who still cannot account for the 24 hours he was out of contact with the
EA.

Commander Sinclair has come far since the war.  He's had some rough times,
but overall he's progressed.  And he has at last been given a major assignment,
perhaps the most important job of his life, concomitant with his promotion
to Commander.

Jeffrey Sinclair is the new commander in charge of the babylon 5 station.

Oh, I almost forgot, when Sinclair lost consciousness, he had 16 hours of
oxygen left in his ship.  When he awoke 24 hours later he had 12 hours
of oxygen left in his ship.


-- 
-Troy Rutter        |  Another Budding Programmer of the rare
Iowa State Univ.    |      species of technobabblonians.
Project Vincent     |
    "Beware Romulans bearing GIFs."  -me with apologies to De.