1 member
Babylon 5 / BABCOM
-
Trading -
Transport
Babylon 5 was designed as the “last, best hope for peace”. It was the last of five stations to be built, with its predecessors either being destroyed by terrorists, or, in the case of Babylon 4, vanishing without a trace.
History
The last of the Babylon stations, Babylon 5 was constructed ten years after the Earth-Minbari War. Its purpose was to “prevent another war by creating a place where humans and aliens could work out their differences peacefully”.1 For this reason, it was situated in politically neutral space: in orbit around Epsilon III. It was a free port for a quarter of a million beings, and was co-funded by the Earth Alliance and Minbari Federation after the crippling financial loss of Babylon 4.
Manifesto
The clash between order and chaos, and the people caught in between, plays an important role in Babylon 5. The conflict between two unimaginably powerful older races, the Vorlons and the Shadows, is represented as a battle between two competing ideologies, each seeking to turn the humans and the other younger races to their beliefs. The Vorlons represent an authoritarian philosophy: you will do what we tell you to, because we tell you to do it. The Vorlon question, “Who are you?” focuses on identity as a catalyst for shaping personal goals; the intention is not to solicit a correct answer, but to “tear down the artifices we construct around ourselves until we’re left facing ourselves, not our roles.” The Shadows represent another authoritarian philosophy cloaked in a disguise of evolution through fire (as shown in the episode in which Sheridan goes to Z’ha’dum and when he refuses to cooperate, Justin tells him: “But we do what we’re told… and so will you!”), of sowing the seeds of conflict in order to engender progress.The question the Shadows ask is “What do you want?” In contrast to the Vorlons, they place personal desire and ambition first, using it to shape identity, encouraging conflict between groups who choose to serve their own glory or profit. The representation of order and chaos was informed by the Babylonian myth that the universe was born in the conflict between both. The climax of this conflict comes with the younger races’ exposing of the Vorlons’ and the Shadows’ “true faces” and the rejection of both philosophies, heralding the dawn of a new age without their interference.
Charter
We walk in the dark places no others will enter.
We stand on the bridge, and no one may pass.
We engage in battle, we do not retreat.
We live for the One, we die for the One.
