Babylon 5 is a science fiction television series that ran 1993 to 1998. So it was a competitor of the 90s Star Trek series - it has been argued that DS9 was ripped off from B5’s pitch, although who knows if that’s true.

It was created by J. Michael Straczynski, who you may know from his Marvel comics work. JMS also wrote about 90% of the show’s scripts, so, it’s definitely his baby.

What’s unusual about Babylon 5 compared with it contemporaries is that JMS walked into the pitch meeting with a five-year plan. It was always meant to be one story, told serially, over five seasons.

Which is a wild thing to plan for since, you know,you may not actually GET five seasons

But they did, in the end! JMS’s plan actually went off...well, more or less, the last season got a bit fucked up by uncertainty about its existence. But it definitely worked out way better than it had any right to.

Each season takes place over the course of one year, and is set primarily aboard the space station Babylon 5, a center of commerce and diplomacy located in neutral territory (although administered by Earth’s military).

Ten years previously, Earth had been making their first expansion into the stars. After making first contact with a neighbouring alien species, the Centauri Republic, they mastered the jump gate technology that allows for interstellar travel, and started spreading out.

Everything was going well - they even won a war against the Dilgar, an empire that was basically a giant war crime factory - until 2245, when they made first contact with the reclusive and technologically advanced Minbari.

There was a cultural misunderstanding with enormous consequences. The captain of the Earth Force destroyer that made first contact with a Minbari vessel mistakenly believed that the Minbari were about to attack them.

He panicked and fired first, destroying the lead Minbari vessel and killing the Minbari’s religious leader.

This was the beginning of the Earth-Minbari war, a three-year conflict in which Earth got absolutely washed.

The Minbari possessed technology hundreds of years more advanced. The human weapons could damage their ships, but they could almost never hit them with them.

In the entire three years of the war, Earth enjoyed only one victory, when Captain John Sheridan of the EAS Lexington baited the Minbari flagship into pursuing his damaged vessel into an asteroid field that had been mined with nuclear weapons.

Earth broadcasted pleas for peace. The Minbari ignored them. They tried to reach out through intermediaries like the Centauri to try and start peace talks. They were ignored. Earth broadcasted an unconditional surrender, and it was ignored.

The Minbari pushed EarthForce back to earth, inch by inch, systematically dismantling Earth’s forces. They bypassed civilian centers after destroying their defenses, leaving them stranded behind enemy lines.

Finally, they arrived in our solar system. Earth rallied every ship capable of fighting - 20000 vessels, from tiny one-man fighters to enormous ships of the line - for a final defense of Earth, which would come to be called the Battle of the Line.

There was no expectation that this defence would be successful. It was an effort to buy as much time as they could so that as many evacuation transports could escape to neutral territory.

The Minbari cut right through them. Only 1% of the human forces arrayed for the Battle of the Line returned home.

And then, right at the very moment of their victory, with a defenseless Earth laying before them, the Minbari just...stopped.

In fact, they offered Earth a surrender.

No explanation, no clear reason. They got to the end and then just...changed their mind.

The Minbari normalized relations with Earth. EarthForce began rapidly rebuilding - a process aided by still having all those civilian colonies the Minbari bypassed in their rush for Earth.

And in the aftermath of the war, there was a lot of thought put into how to keep something like this from happening again.

And one idea was what came to be known as the Babylon Project: a facility built in neutral territory, sponsored by the dominant powers of the known galaxy, where conflicts can be worked out peacefully.

(“Isn’t that--“ Yes, it’s the UN in space)

It took five attempts to successfully construct and operate such a station, but today, Babylon 5 is at the locus of both diplomacy and commerce in the galaxy.

Because of its neutral status, it’s become a port of call for interspecies commerce...both legitimate and illicit.

It’s also the first show to use CG for special effects

Which means...it’s the first show to use CG for special effects

for some reason I always thought Babylon 5 was a mobile ship and the show had more of a Space Battleship Yamato kind of shape

Nope, it is a stationary station, although they do leave the station at various times for various purposes

You may be thinking of Battlestar Galactica

...

yes I am