Babylon 5 (in other media, lore stuff & extended universe)

Vavel

Catchy word "pandemonium", at one time had nothing to do with the considerable masses of people gathered in one place. Originally it meant a process of building a huge tower, a pillar, in the Biblical Babylon. The story has become a legend, and the legend has turned into fiction, beginning one of the most famous star sagas of our time. Now, in our case, if the name "Babylon" is suggesting the pandemonium, it suggests a gathering of countless sentient races gathered at a huge space station, all alone, in the night.

Babylon 5 is the saga of friendship and betrayal, it's about the formation of race relations and sacred alien wars. In this documentary of "imaginary worlds", we begin acquaintance with Babylon 5. Today we are going to dig the meaning of this remarkable fantastic phenomenon.

Spinning Metal

The cornerstone of the Babylon 5 universe is, of course, the eponymous television series. The idea behind it's creation, as well as the concept of the world is owned by American director Joe Michael Straczynski. Solid and fascinating story, deeply thoughtful and developing throughout the series characters, detailed lore, revolutionary for its time effects favorably distinguished a new project from a plurality of depressing already existing stellar soap operas. The touchstone was the pilot length TV movie, released in February 1993, and was praised with fairly high ratings. Studio bosses have given a green light to it's creators and one after the other followed the five seasons of the series, each divided into 22 episodes.

The year 2257 earth time, was a turning point in the history of intelligent civilizations, exactly at that time was launched a diplomatic station Babylon 5. Over a hundred years before, steadily progressing humanity first encountered an alien civilization, Centauri. They owned the technology of interstellar travel, thanks to them people have learned to use jumpgates, which were gateways into hyperspace, where the speed of light has no limit. Restless humanity rather quickly spread throughout the galaxy, adding to the Earth Alliance new planets and interfering in the lives of other races. In the end, people faced the Minbari, an ancient, mysterious, and most importantly, a technologically advanced race. Diplomatic misunderstanding at the first contact led to the death of the religious and political leader of Minbar. In result Minbari announced a holy war. Mankind has suffered one defeat after another, but on the eve of a decisive battle Minbar suddenly capitulated.

To avoid such tragedies in the future, the main forces of the Galactic Earth Alliance, the Centauri Republic, the Minbari Federation, the Narn Regime and the League of Non-Aligned Worlds launched the project Babylon, the construction of a neutral space station for negotiations and diplomatic meetings. The project was a success only at the fifth attempt, the construction of the first three stations were sabotaged, and the fourth had disappeared shortly after it became operational, hence the sequence number in the title. It is easy to guess that the Babylon 5 became the political life of the universe of the series, and although the plot twists throws the heroes in the most remote corners of the galaxy, the space station always remains in their hearts.

What can i say about the series as a whole? It captures. A newly born station full of diplomatic intrigues, alliances and betrayals, friendship, love and hatred, riots and large scale wars, puzzles, past and present, telepathy and technomagic, interstellar travels, orwellian dystopic societies, sterling like cyberpunk, dyzzying kaleidoscope of intelligent races and habitable planets, there is no sense in retteling all 110 episodes right now, but, it certainly, captures. It doesn't stop to cease and surprise you, the delight world of the future is well crafted and has taken a worthy place in the annals of science fiction and gained a lot of loyal fans. And, as always happens with fantastic masterpieces, it stepped beyond it's series cradle, finding expression in films, books and games.

Alongside the fifth season of the series, began to emerge the full lenght movies in the universe of Babylon 5. Their plots told us about the events that took place outside or alongside the time frame of the main series. From the first film "In the beginning" we learn the background of the space station. It gives details of the war between the Earth Alliance and Minbar. Events of the second movie "The Third Space" takes place simultaneously with the fourth season of the show. A space station team finds an ancient artifact, which was abandoned by its creators, Vorlons, they are one of the most mysterious races in Babylon lore. The find opens the door to a new, mysterious and unknown place that leads to some unimaginable planes full of unspeakable horrors. Like in any classic Lovecraftian literature protagonists must send the old ancient creatures back to their plane of existence, sealing the door by blowing it up with some nukes. The events of "Rivers of Souls", the third film of Babylon 5 extended lore, takes place in a 20 year gap between the penultimate and final episode of the main thing. The plot is tied around the mysterious artifact that gets on Babylon 5 from a race called the Soul Hunters. The artifact is filled with souls of an entire planet, and they thirst for revenge. The fourth film, "A call to Arms", tells the story about the attack of Drakh. They sprayed into the Earth's atmosphere a virus, which in five years will destroy all life on the planet. Another movie "Legends of the Rangers", devoted to the history of the ship "Liandra", which comes face to face with a new threat. Finally there is "The Lost Tales", a movie in which the creator took the path of experimenting and implementing a "Twilight Zone" anthology-like structure. The time frame is set exactly on a celebration of the 10th anniversary of the formation of the Interstellar Alliance. The story is told from 2 different perspectives. First half of the movie we observe Lockley on a station, dealing with some rather mysterious events and at the same time awaiting the arrival of president Sheridan for celebration. The second half shows us the perspective of Sheridan that prepares to go to Babylon 5 from Minbar, dealing with adventures of his own along the way, one annoying properly cooked reporter included.

The continuation of "Call to Arms" turned out to be a new Straczynski series, "The Crusade". It tells about a spaceship "Excalibur", that surfes the cosmos in search of a cure for the Drakh plague. Unfortunately, after the thirteenth episode, the production of the series was discontinued, and the "Crusade" has not found it's logical conclusion. Behind the scenes were left many secrets and unexpected plot twists. However, the disappointment of fans was not so grave after Straczynski posted on the Internet some scripts.

Another indication of the popularity of "Babylon 5" has led to numerous books, novels, comics, once again plunging the fans of the universe Straczynski created. At the moment, "Library of Babel" has 21 books and six stories, without counting amateur fan fiction. At first, the literary component of the "Babylon" was not taken too seriously, the first nine books were written without the control of the demiurge of the universe, and therefore they have mistakes and discrepancies with the series. However, despite this, Straczynski fully endorsed and recommended reading the two of them. The novel "The Shadow of What's Inside" is devoted to the history of Anne Sheridan, the wife of the 2nd captain of Babylon 5, and about research of Z'ha'dum, the citadel of the ancient race called Shadows. The book "Dreams in the City of Sorrows", written by Straczynski's wife, tells the story of Commander Sinclair after his departure to Minbar, where he became an ambassador.

The following nine books are tied into three trilogies, written on the based on Michael Straczynski raw material. They may be called thematic, each piece reveals a new side of vast Babylon 5 lore. Thus, the first trilogy is devoted to the "Psi-Corps", an organization of people-telepaths. From the books, we learn about the formation of the Corps and the plight of it's controlled extrasensory. The second trilogy, "The Legions of Fire", tells the story of the Centauri Republic, the fate of the former ambassador to the Babylon 5 Londo Molari, who became emperor of the Centauri, and Drakh. This trilogy can be considered a direct sequel of the series. To beings, even more mysterious than the telepaths, i mean technomages, is dedicated the third trilogy. It tells about the structure of the Order of the technomages, their magic simulation technologies, their features and secrets. All three books written by Jean Kavelos, are one of the best novels in Babylon 5 universe, and even in science fiction as a whole.

The literary part of "Babylon" received a helping hand even from Straczynski himself. He wrote three stories published in the magazine Amazing Stories. They are called "Shadow of His Thoughts" which is about the new Centauri Emperor Londo Mollari, "The Genius of the Place" and "Space, time, and an Incurable Romantic" - the plot of this one occurs many years after the end of the series and sets another milestone in the development of the whole world. I would realy hate to spoil this one. The fourth story by Straczynski, "Hidden Agendas" was published in the official magazine "Babylon 5". Also, magazine featured "True Seeker" by Fiona Avery and "Snail Shell" by J. Gregory Keyes, in which the author returns to the theme of telepathy.

In addition to original works were published novelizations of three TV movies, "In the Beginning", "The Third Space" and "Call to Arms". By the way, the last novelization was written by the famous science fiction writer Robert Shackley famous for his novel Watchbird, from which Ken Levine drew some inspirations creating his mechanical flying machine - Songbird, featured in BioShock infinite, and maybe original BioShock.

The first opportunity for fans urging not only to plunge into the universe of "Babylon 5", but also take an active part in it appeared in 1997, when the company Precedence released a trading card game Babylon 5 CCG. The original game mechanics quite accurately transmited the atmosphere of political intrigue, temporary unions and precarious galactic balance inherent in the universe of the series. Players are asked to speak for one of the four major races - Humans, Centauri, Minbari or Narn. The goal was quite logic, lead your civilization to the political, economic, military and every other kind of leadership. The Parties conducted a variety of operations, from telepathy to the military. For their success they received points of influence, which showed who is going to win the game. The most interesting situations involved all four races grappled with each other. That collectible card game acquired a significant popularity among fans of the series, however, in 2002 Precedence closed, and the release of the game was discontinued.

In the field of computer and video games, "Babylon" has long been, to put it mildly, frustrating. In 1998-1999 Sierra has been working on a space simulator "Babylon 5 Into the Fire". According to the developers, the game was supposed to be a synthesis of the original space flight sim and RTS, and to bring to the world of "Babylon" a new deep story line, expanding the lore. The script was created in conjunction with Straczynski. However, in the autumn of 1999, the project was closed. After recovering from the shock, the fans of the saga decided to join forces to create their own game, which will be completely free. The game was called "Babylon 5 I've Found Her", and in the past years, piece by piece it was released on the Internet. There is no doubt that only great ammount of enthusiasm can create miracles like this.

There is one more major step on the subject. A role playing game Babylon 5 RPG from Mongoose Publishing. The game used a universal and the most common today mechanic - d20 System. Players are able to take the role of different characters from the saga, from pilots to politicians, and face countless space station riddles and it's surrounding galaxy. And of course game's guide can also be used as lore encyclopedia, as happened to almost all ad&d addons and games.

After the abovesaid it's not difficult to imagine the current state of the project. On the one hand, the vast army of fans, the active development of computer, board games, and role-playing games, plus, many web pages, events and cast meetings around the world. On the other, the unfinished "Crusade", the discontinuation of books, a huge amount of interesting stories in reserve. We can already imagine the future actions of the creator of "Babylon 5", Joe Michael Straczynski.

Firstly, at the end of the series there is a twenty year gap, partially filled with movies and books. However, there are a lot of "white spots". For example, you can continue the story that begun in "Crusade", or develop the plot from "Legends of the Rangers". Secondly, a win-win step would be, to release a big budget full lenght Babylon 5 blockbuster movie. Many fans of the series would love to see the anamorphic embodiment of "Babylon 5", not to mention the kind of liberty and creativity Straczjinsky can come up with on the big screen. And the third thing, Straczynski has recently said that now, a new "Babylon 5" project is being in development. No details at the time of writing are known, however, it is rumored to be a movie. Thus, the "Babylon 5" has all chances to return to our screens. It is hoped that the new project will be successful enough for the reboot of a new series about "Babylon 5". It is the last hope for lasting peace and prosperity in the galaxy.