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What would you like to see a new B5 project cover?

What would you like to see in the next B5 undertaking?


  • Total voters
    11

Alioth

Regular
While we speculate on and await the answer to whether there will be "More B5 on the Way" and what that will be, I thought it might be interesting to poll the board here as to what area of the B5 universe they'd like to see a series, miniseries, or movie cover. I'm not sure if JMS ever looks at boards like this to get a feel for the opinions of fandom, who knows, he may.... :)

Here are the poll options, which I divide into two general areas: Material that already exists in some canonical form or would significantly overlap with existing material (including the original series timeline itself), and material covering spaces and times not at all covered (or barely covered) in any previous canonical material.

Already existing material:

1--The Centauri Trilogy. The story of Londo's "reign" as Emperor and puppet to the Drakh, and Vir's eventual liberation of his world from that order. Could have other previously unmentioned events of the same time period tied in, such as the Drakh's doings elsewhere, the Excalibur (or others) finding the cure to the Drakh plague of Earth, the Telepath War (might Centauri telepaths also have been involved), etc., but the main arc would be based on the Trilogy.

2--The Technomage Trilogy. This story almost completely fits into the same time frame as the B5 series and parallels it nicely, but from a completely different perspective. I've found though that the books themselves probably wouldn't stand alone well without prior knowledge of B5--they seem to be written assuming that the reader will already be familiar with the series, key characters like Sheridan, Londo, etc., because they are not developed independently in the books for the neophyte. This is actually also true of the Centauri Trilogy above, and the PsiCorps Trilogy, but probably most crucially so here. So some additional exposition might be needed for the benefit of those who never watched the original series. But potentially this could make a fascinating and visually stunning miniseries, with some pretty heavy themes.

3--The PsiCorps Trilogy. There is a big hole between books two and three where the Telepath War occurred though, so a series or miniseries following the trilogy would probably want to include the Teep War and what Bester did in that, as Book 3 starts with him suddenly being a hunted war criminal for activities done therein. I assume no canon material of any kind has covered the Telepath War because JMS wanted to keep that open for some future release. Just the Telepath War itself is another poll option below.

4--The Shadow Within. This would likely be a single movie, covering the doomed voyage of the Icarus.


Material not yet covered:

5--The Shadow War from the perspective of Earth. The rise of Clark, Earth's descent into an Orwellian dictatorship, Shadow (and possibly post-expulsion, Drakh) maneuverings and manipulations of the power players of the Earth Alliance, PsiCorps activities and maneuverings, sung and unsung heroes of the Resistance on Earth, Mars, and other colonies, secret Ranger operations therein, etc. In the original show, some of the more blatantly Orwellian acts of the government and the rather quick descent into them struck me as almost unbelievable (that they could happen, no, but that they happened so quickly, like within a year or year-and-a-half, yes)--usually it takes a bit longer to boil a frog, but maybe there were things going on well before that facilitated this sudden change--maybe they were already halfway there at the beginning of the series, but we didn't see much of that. This could provide more depth to that, and maybe serve as a good cautionary tale. Would parallel B5 seasons 1-4 and maybe previous, but like the Technomage Trilogy from a completely different perspective, with a different set of main characters (General Hague and probably William Edgars among them).

6--The last Shadow War, circa 1000 years before B5. The story of Valen's leadership of the Minbari, G'Quan on Narn during the Shadow residency there, possibly the Centauri-Xon conflict and the first Centauri Emperor (IIRC that was also supposed to be 1000 years prior to B5, probably not by coincidence either), Weirden and the Technomages, etc. If we incorporate humans into this, we'd have to figure out plausible covert doings with them by the First Ones or their proxies (maybe Drak'hul?)--I almost wonder if such a series or miniseries could succeed without the incorporation of any humans in it (excepting, after a fashion, Valen, but...).

7--The Telepath War. We really, really don't know much of anything about what supposedly happened here, just a few reflections of the event from way after the fact (and that Lennier died in it). I for one am really curious.

8--Continuation of the Crusade series. Were they the ones who found the cure (we know it was found), and what might the Excalibur have done after that, assuming it was found well before the 5 years was up? I think I've heard that JMS had something else in mind, that the race for the cure wasn't the entirety of his intended arc with that series and wouldn't have covered the whole time line.

9--The Legend of the Rangers. Whatever that series would have been.

And then there is the obligatory Option 10, which would be "Other" (and which one should explain in the thread).

Hopefully the poll goes through correctly and not like the glitch with the Ep thread polls. Feel free to choose more than one, but confine your answers to what you'd particularly favor--we'd all probably like to see any of these as we're hungry for anything B5, but don't go voting for all of them else the poll would be kind of meaningless....

Also, any potential problems you see with any of these scenarios, feel free to comment as well.
 
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I'm not sure if JMS ever looks at boards like this to get a feel for the opinions of fandom, who knows, he may....

jms tries to stay away from sources of story ideas from fans as doing so can prevent him from writing any particular story if it's proven he's seen them particularly suggest it. "Passing Through Gethsemane" is the big example of this, as that episode almost didn't get to be since someone posted the exact idea for it (a mindwiped criminal gradually remembering his criminal past) on an internet interface that jms used. Thankfully, the individual that posted it was cooperative with the legal wrangling that then had to take place in order for the episode to be written.

That aside, as jms doesn't come here (as far as we know), I want to see the Telepath War. It's been aluded to enough in the series that for me it's the one sort of big thing that's left dangling from the Babylon 5 series proper.

What with the bits of info that have leaked out over the potential of more B5 to come being that jms was wanting to do some kind of reboot of B5 itself, I'm not sure our old ideas as to where B5 goes next necessarily apply to the current situation, though.
 
With Other being:

CRUSADE CONTINUATION!!! NOT a reboot.


The Centauri Trilogy cannot be done because G'Kar figures heavily in it.
 
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"The last Shadow War, circa 1000 years before B5. The story of Valen's leadership of the Minbari, G'Quan on Narn during the Shadow residency there, possibly the Centauri-Xon conflict and the first Centauri Emperor (IIRC that was also supposed to be 1000 years prior to B5, probably not by coincidence either), Weirden and the Technomages, etc. If we incorporate humans into this, we'd have to figure out plausible covert doings with them by the First Ones or their proxies (maybe Drak'hul?)--I almost wonder if such a series or miniseries could succeed without the incorporation of any humans in it (excepting, after a fashion, Valen, but...)"

SPOILER ALERT!

There is Catherine Sakai. In "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" - which I understand is pretty much canon - she fell through a time rift or something. It's been a while since I read the book, so I don't entirely remember. The book hinted part of the reason Sinclair took B4 back in time was because he hoped to find Sakai. In "In Valen's Name" Valen appears right at the end and says "I've found her". And then there was that little revelation in "Atonement" when it turns out that Delenn is a descendent of Valen - he married and had kids. Who was Valen's wife I wonder? There were three Triluminaries - did Sakai become a Minbari?
 
There is Catherine Sakai. In "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" - which I understand is pretty much canon - she fell through a time rift or something. It's been a while since I read the book, so I don't entirely remember. The book hinted part of the reason Sinclair took B4 back in time was because he hoped to find Sakai. In "In Valen's Name" Valen appears right at the end and says "I've found her". And then there was that little revelation in "Atonement" when it turns out that Delenn is a descendent of Valen - he married and had kids. Who was Valen's wife I wonder? There were three Triluminaries - did Sakai become a Minbari?

I'm not familiar with "In Valen's Name" (is this one of the comics?), but my recollection of "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" was that he "found his reward" (Sakai) after he mysteriously disappeared from the Minbari following the war, and I think that was after another jump in time or something--I'd have to look at the book again though. I do tend to misremember things sometimes, even after a short time--getting old I guess. But the language might be ambiguous enough to allow for her to have been found during his tenure as Minbari leader as you describe. Still though, she probably would only occupy part of the story, that toward the end.

My concern was that a show depicting this period would not only be non-human-centric, but that humans would have a very peripheral role at best (besides Valen himself) and appear in few of the episodes--this was during Earth's 13th Century, very little is alluded to have happened with humans during this larger conflict (other than mention of "Drak'hul" (a seldom-seen Drakh who set up some little kingdom supposedly behind our "Dracula" legends) in the Centauri Trilogy, and the Shadow ships buried on nearby Mars possibly hinting at other covert operations on pre-spacefaring Earth, and that Vorlons have periodically done things with the humans too in their history--did any famous angel sightings or major religious revelations occur then?). I'm not sure if there's ever been any televised sci-fi that didn't have humans in at least somewhat a prominent role, and whether that would be necessary to keep human viewers' interest on a mass scale. Of course, centering on Valen and maybe having him recall his human "past" and pursuit of his human bride might be enough to get us to relate to him more as a human, in Minbari form. He definitely introduced some human ideals, like "community" (uniting the castes in common cause and restructuring Minbari society), without any Minbari ever being aware of what he was / had been.

The Centauri Trilogy is similarly non-human-centric, but humans at least were out and about among the stars then, and some obviously human players such as Sheridan and Galen play important parts.

But maybe I'm overthinking this whole issue and what mass audiences would go for. I know I'd enjoy it, just the same. :)


On a side note, another race we know little about historically are the Dilgar. As powerful as they were (taking a huge community of spacefaring races to finally bring them to heel after they terrorized much of the galaxy for many years), I've wondered if they could have been spacefaring like the Minbari during that last Shadow War, and if they were allied with the Shadows then, as the Minbari were with the Vorlons. They just may have overextended themselves in the Dilgar War prematurely, before the Shadows came back, thinking perhaps in their pride they could do it without them....


My votes are the Valen scenario, the Telepath War, and the Technomage Trilogy. Those would be my top 3, with honorable mention for Crusade and Earth during the Shadow War.
 
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With Other being:

CRUSADE CONTINUATION!!! NOT a reboot.

I'm wondering if it almost would have to be a reboot though, given that we only got a half season of the original, about a decade ago. It would be different if we actually got to a significant point in the intended arc before cancellation, providing a clear jumpoff point for a continuation. I certainly agree that rebooting B5 itself would be a bad idea, but hardly any of Crusade was ever told in the first place.

But the option I guess I intended was for Crusade in general, however it could be made to work, restart (reboot) or continuation from whatever was supposed to be the last episode....


The Centauri Trilogy cannot be done because G'Kar figures heavily in it.

Yeah, true dat... Anyone else doing G'Kar would be found seriously wanting I suppose. Wouldn't be the same G'Kar we know and love :( .
 
"I'm not familiar with "In Valen's Name" (is this one of the comics?), but my recollection of "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" was that he "found his reward" (Sakai) after he mysteriously disappeared from the Minbari following the war, and I think that was after another jump in time or something--I'd have to look at the book again though. I do tend to misremember things sometimes, even after a short time--getting old I guess. But the language might be ambiguous enough to allow for her to have been found during his tenure as Minbari leader as you describe. Still though, she probably would only occupy part of the story, that toward the end."

Yes, "In Valen's Name" is one of the comics.

At least the Centauri look sort of human! Okay, I know that physiologically they are quite different from humans. And anyone who knows anything about the Roman emperors or the Borgias would recognise some similarities between the two cultures.
 
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Too many goodies here to choose from! There's lots I'd like to see happen....more Legend of the Rangers, more Crusade, more about Valen. I'd love to see the Centauri Trilogy put into film too.
 
With Other being:

CRUSADE CONTINUATION!!! NOT a reboot.

I'm wondering if it almost would have to be a reboot though, given that we only got a half season of the original, about a decade ago. It would be different if we actually got to a significant point in the intended arc before cancellation, providing a clear jumpoff point for a continuation. I certainly agree that rebooting B5 itself would be a bad idea, but hardly any of Crusade was ever told in the first place.

But the option I guess I intended was for Crusade in general, however it could be made to work, restart (reboot) or continuation from whatever was supposed to be the last episode....


The Centauri Trilogy cannot be done because G'Kar figures heavily in it.

Yeah, true dat... Anyone else doing G'Kar would be found seriously wanting I suppose. Wouldn't be the same G'Kar we know and love :( .

Crusade got 13 episodes and that's good bit upon which to build. The Legend of the Rangers only got a Sci-Fi Original pilot/TV movie that's on par with most other Sci-Fi Channel Original movies, and that's NOT praise. IMHO, Crusade is infinitely more worthy of continuation than the Rangers pilot.


NEITHER Babylon 5 nor Crusade should be rebooted. They should be continued, BUILDING upon what's already been produced. All Warner Brothers would have to do is get B5 into reruns to get todays audience up to speed on it, and then they could continue B5 with both The Technomage trilogy, the Psi Corps trilogy with the Telepath War inside it. Regarding Crusade, they could patch together a full first season (filming Value Judgements, To the Ends of the Earth and End of the Line), and then start the second season. I they weren't going to do it on TV, they could do it in novels.

Alternately, they could refilm Crusade today using the existing scripts, today's CGI and as many of the original actors that they could get. However, every effort should be made to get Gary Cole, Carrie Dobro and David Allen Brooks.
 
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