B5 Station: Layout of Color Sectors (different interpretations)

[Ninja_Squirrel]

Forgive me if this has been brought up before (I was even wondering if I've already asked about this before and have forgotten), but I was wondering how other people thought the station was laid out. I'm a huge B5 fan, so I have the general idea about where Blue, Red, Green, Brown, Grey, and Yellow sectors are. However, various sources seem to contradict on the particulars.

My interpretation has always been closest to the following pic, from the Mongoose Publishing RPG:
http://homepage.mac.com/david_of_mac/.Pictures/Babylon 4/B5_Crosssection_Mongoose.jpg

...with the following exceptions:

1. I believe Blue Sector goes back further than it does in that picture.
2. The episode "Grey 17 is Missing" proves that Grey Sector is in the rotating section, and therefore, not that far back.
3. I believe that the entire top/stationary section is part of Yellow Sector, along with the aft reactor module, rather than part of Grey Sector.

That pick is closest to my interpretation, in other ways, because:

1. I've always thought that Red & Green Sectors were that big, each taking up half the Garden.
2. I've always thought that Red & Green Sectors had several decks underneath the Garden.
3. I've always thought that all the sectors butted up against each other, making *everything* a part of one sector or another.

However, the following pic at the Lurker's Guide...

...would seem to suggest that:

1. Each sector is really just a single ring or torus, with considerable distance between each one.
2. The two sides of the Garden are close to the hull, leaving little or no room for many decks.
3. Only the Green Sector is in the center of the station.
4. Red Sector stops before the Garden area.
5. The Garden is not really a part of any sector, and the habital sectors only fill the sections of the station with the wider radius.
6. Brown & Grey Sectors are flip-flopped compared to the Mongoose Publishing RPG cross-section.

This would also seem to correspond to a map of the station seen in the episode "Points of Departure."

I guess it's hard to argue with a pic from the actual TV show, but I also know that sometimes, graphics people get stuff wrong. If this pic is accurate, it blows away part of my interpretation of how the station was laid out.

I always thought that the Garden was part of one sector, or another, or half-in-one/half-in-another, and I always thought that there were a significant number of decks that ran along the entire length of the center tube, including underneath the Garden. However, the Garden and the base of the Core Shuttle support struts being closer to the hull better explains one of the images seen near the end of "Sleeping in Light" (won't say what that is for those that *still* haven't seen it yet).

At least I didn't interpret the station like this:

...which, unfortunately, is at the FirstOnes wiki, misleading people to something that is way off. There's no way Brown Sector is right next to Blue Sector. And, regardless of how big Red & Green Sectors are, Red is more consistently interpreted as being further to the front than Green.

I do have a question about Downbelow. Is Downbelow considered to be all of Brown Sector, or just the parts closest to the hull? I can't find a pic of it, but I think I have seen one interpretation of B5's layout in which Downbelow, if not all of Brown Sector, was considered to be the lower/outermost decks of all sections of the station.

Also, I've read that parts of B5 can rotate at higher or lower speeds to affect gravity. If that's true, it would have to be a special ring or torus on the interior of the station, since we can't see a different section from the outside. The Mongoose Publishing RPG pic implies that Grey Sector has a "Variable Gravity Research Torus" (but they also imply that most of Grey Sector is not part of the rotating section, which is almost certainly wrong as mentioned above). I would think that separate rotating sections are not necessary as gravity automatically gets stronger the closer to the hull you are, but maybe the differences between the higher and lower decks are not significant enough for certain species and/or gravity-related scientific experiments.

Lastly, what is the purpose of the Zero-G Docking Bay in Yellow Sector? Wouldn't it be hard to get people or cargo from the zero-G section to the rotating section, or vice versa? Even if there's some complicated mechanism for transferring objects between the stationary and rotating sections, internally through the area just above/below C-and-C, why go to the trouble if you have regular docking bays in the rotating section (I'm assuming traffic is the obvious answer)?

 

[Elipsis]

One of the special features options for Season 2 (I think it's 2) shows the station and explains what each sector is for, I always figured that that was canonical

 

[Ninja_Squirrel]

Good idea. I looked, and it's actually disc 6 of season 1.

The special feature there shows a map of the station. Most if it consists of thin lines instead of solid areas, making it a little hard to tell for sure, but it does look like Red Sector extends to the halfway point of the rotating section. To back that up, the voiceover for the Red Sector video says that the Gardens are in Red Sector. From the diagram, it looks like half the Gardens are in Red with the other half in Green, as I figured.

However, in the Personnel Files, a quick clip of Sinclair in his office has a station diagram on a montior in the background. In that diagram, Green Sector occupies both sides of the Garden, and Red is only in the front, longer-radius section.

In both diagrams, the solar panel array obstructs the view of the back part of the rotating section, but it looks like Brown is behind Grey. The voiceover says that the rotational drivers are in Grey. That seems odd, since you'd think that they'd be closer to the area where the rotating section meets the stationary section. I guess the rotational engines would be in Grey and a long axle would run through Brown.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Also, I've read that parts of B5 can rotate at higher or lower speeds to affect gravity. If that's true, it would have to be a special ring or torus on the interior of the station, since we can't see a different section from the outside. The Mongoose Publishing RPG pic implies that Grey Sector has a "Variable Gravity Research Torus" (but they also imply that most of Grey Sector is not part of the rotating section, which is almost certainly wrong as mentioned above). I would think that separate rotating sections are not necessary as gravity automatically gets stronger the closer to the hull you are, but maybe the differences between the higher and lower decks are not significant enough for certain species and/or gravity-related scientific experiments.

For a rotating object acceleration
For this centripetal acceleration we have

a = - \omega^2 r

For constant omega squared the acceleration (false gravity) goes up with the radius.
Different parts of Babylon 5 are a different widths so they have different artificial gravities. Different layers increase the effect.

 

[Elipsis]

Good idea. I looked, and it's actually disc 6 of season 1.

Oh whoops, sorry. I knew it was 1 or 2. At least you found it.

 

[maneth]

Well, speaking of gravity, that rotating gate is so stupid I nearly didn't watch the show at all because of it. The part where they dock should be stationary.

 

[Ninja_Squirrel]

Well, speaking of gravity, that rotating gate is so stupid I nearly didn't watch the show at all because of it. The part where they dock should be stationary.

If they were to dock in a stationary section, wouldn't that make it difficult for people and cargo to transition over to the rotation section?

If a ship goes in straight and lands on a stationary pad, the pad would have to eventually start rotating in sync with the rest of the station for there to be gravity. That kind of machinery could get complicated.

The alternative would be to have an entirely weightless docking bay. But, then, either the people and cargo would have to enter the rotating station at the centerpoint, or they would have to make a complicated system of transitional "elevators" that would go from stationary to spinning.

I think it's a lot easier to just have ships hand over their navigation to C-and-C, and C-and-C uses a computer program that spins the ship at the same rate as the station. Then, as the ship enters the station at the same rotational rate, the ship's "down" is the same thing as the station's "down," making docking pretty straight-forward.

 

[maneth]

Well, maybe. Another option would be to make the gate symmetrically round. Having the ships twist as they enter looks cool, but it doesn't serve any other purpose. Or wouldn't, if they could fit the gate in any direction. It seems highly unrealistic that all the races would have nav computers compatible with the B5 station's.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

It seems highly unrealistic that all the races would have nav computers compatible with the B5 station's.

Docking procedures could be standardised and Babylon 5 simply obeys the standard. Providing it has the appropriate navigation thrusters rotating a spaceship is not hard.

 

[darth_librarian]

Did the ships in 2001 not rotate to dock ? Heh, I remember I also had to do that with Elite on my BBC micro... until I saved for a docking computer.

 

[raw_bean]

Well, maybe. Another option would be to make the gate symmetrically round. Having the ships twist as they enter looks cool, but it doesn't serve any other purpose. Or wouldn't, if they could fit the gate in any direction. It seems highly unrealistic that all the races would have nav computers compatible with the B5 station's.

Yes it does. The ship can fly in through a circular hole without spinning, but it would still need to start spinning to dock with a spinning space station. And you have to remember that movements and rotations in space are all relative. It wouldn't be hard at all to start the ship spinning at a rate that matches the station, and then from either the ship or the station the other wouldn't appear to be spinning at all - it'd look like the stars were spinning around them (think of the 'match rotation' moment as Sheridan and Delenn leave B5 in Objects at Rest). This bit makes perfect sense, and would indeed be far, far easier using the mechanics as presented in the show than docking in the zero-G section and somehow transferring over into the gravity section would be.

I would imagine the zero-G section must be purely for large shipping containers with either raw materials for station construction/repair or for temporary warehousing of containers of items for commerce, and that they never actually get transferred into the spinning section at all, or rarely.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

Did the ships in 2001 not rotate to dock ? Heh, I remember I also had to do that with Elite on my BBC micro... until I saved for a docking computer.

I think it did both. The centre of the wheel stopped turning. The spaceship rotated until it was aligned and then entered the hole. The centre restarted turning.

 

[raw_bean]

That could have been rather wasteful and inefficient, are you sure it isn't that the ship begins to rotate at the same speed so that when you look from the ship to the station it appears to have stopped, and when you drop back to an 'objective' perspective you can see the spin again? I'll have to stick it on some time, can't remember myself.