Skip to main content

Is there a canonical map of Babylon 5?


Throughout the TV series Babylon 5, we hear about different sections of the eponymous space station referred to by colours and numbers, e.g. "Green Two" or "Grey Seventeen". These two parts of the classification system seem to be orthogonal: e.g. in the episode "Ceremonies of Light and Dark" in S3, a call is traced to the Green sector and also found to be from level 14, after which they know it comes from Green Fourteen.


I love a good bit of worldbuilding, especially detailed maps of imaginary places. Is it ever explained, perhaps in supplementary materials to the show, exactly how the different "sectors" and "levels" are organised? Is there a canonical map of Babylon 5 showing all the coloured and numbered regions?



Answer



Babylon 5's Art Director Ted Haigh was kind enough to provide a map in the Feb 1993 edition of Cinefantastique. This shows each of the major sections and their functions.


enter image description here


From the show itself (and the in-universe map seen in B5: Shadow Dancing) we can extrapolate the various sectors, their locations and function;




  • Brown - Life Support and Waste Reclamation facilities

  • Blue - Maintenance and Operational controls

  • Green - Arponics and the ambassadorial quarters.

  • Grey - Atmosphere monitoring and the station's original power station.

  • Red - Public and Commercial facilities including hotels and Medlab

  • Yellow - Power supply, fuel tanks, various labs.


enter image description here


This non-canon (but otherwise excellent) image from the licensed B5 Station Guide RPG, courtesy of TheWertZone seems a solid reference.



enter image description here




As an aside, based on Mr Garibaldi's trips in the elevator in B5: Grey 17 is Missing, we can reasonably assume that levels don't simply go from top to bottom (like decks on a Trek starship) but circulate outward from the core of the station in concentric rings with level 1 at the innermost and level 20+ at the outside.


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...