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Archive-name: tv/babylon-5/setting/season3
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Last-modified: 3 May 1996
+-----------------------------------+
| BABYLON 5 FAQ, part (E): |
| Setting for season #3 |
| |
| A guide for viewers who wish to |
| catch up to the events leading |
| up to season 3, "Point of No |
| Return." This is the year 2260 |
| in the opening credits. |
| |
| This holds SPOILERS for season |
| 1 & 2 episodes. |
+-----------------------------------+
The latest version of this file can be retrieved via ftp:
ftp://ftp.hyperion.com/pub/Babylon-5/babylon-5-setting-s3
or via e-mail: write mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu, with the message content of
"send usenet/news.answers/tv/babylon-5/setting/season3"
WORLD WIDE WEB (WWW) users should see http://www.hyperion.com/lurk/lurker.html
for the much more detailed "Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5"; the information
in this document is similar to the "Universe" section.
-------------------------
Contents of this document
-------------------------
1. Introduction
2. The Setting of Babylon 5
3. The Major Players
4. The Characters
5. The Story So Far
6. Past and Current reference
7. Credits and Legalese
------------------------------
Subject: 1. Introduction
The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace. It failed.
But, in the Year of the Shadow War, it became something greater:
our last, best hope... for victory. The year is 2260. The place:
Babylon 5.
-- Commander Ivanova
------------------------------
Subject: 2. The Setting of Babylon 5
A hundred years ago, humanity made contact with its first alien civilization
-- or more to the point, they made contact with us. Before the arrival of the
Centauri, we were confined to our own solar system, forced to use slow sleeper
ships to explore the universe. The Centauri gave us the stars, offered us the
use of their "jumpgates" -- portals into hyperspace -- and later, taught us to
make our own. In exchange for this and other technologies, they asked only
for trinkets, novelties to sell back home.
In the eighty years that followed, humanity flexed its muscles, expanding
outward at a rapid pace. When a group of less powerful races was attacked by
an invading army, Earth came to their aid, cementing its role as a major
galactic power, if a young, brash one.
The wave of euphoria came crashing down when humanity made contact with a
mysterious race called the Minbari. The Earth-Minbari War began with a
misunderstanding, a human captain and a Minbari commander too quick on the
trigger. Thanks to bad luck or something darker, our first meeting with the
Minbari resulted in the death of their supreme religious and political leader.
To the Minbari, what followed was a holy war, vengeance for the murder of
their spiritual leader. Earth was no match for the technologically superior