If you could ask JMS one question about the Babylon 5 universe...?

[Candlelight]

Why did he lie about his 5 year plan?

What comment does this refer to? He wanted a five-year story and he ended up with a five-year story. When asked about his plan he said:

I plan out the basic *spine* of the novel. I know I'm starting at point A, I want to end at point Z, and I want to hit a certain number of spots along the way. Then I start writing. Once I've committed to that STRUCTURE, everything else becomes expendable or fluid ... the details are absolutely fluid.

In his early notes he laid out the structure of planned seasons (1 - intro, 2 - rising action, 3 - complication, 4 - climax, 5 - denouement) and he stuck to it. Now that we've seen the 10-page summary of his five-year outline we can see that yes, he started with a certain structure and changed details along the way, but the ending still had the end of the war and a great Alliance being formed. Garibaldi, Londo, and G'Kar pretty much followed the same story from outline to the screen. Sinclair's story moved aside and Sheridan took over, as well as taking in some of the planned story for Sinclair & Delenn's son. Fluid details; story still goes to same place. So I really don't understand what you are referring to at all.

Unless Hound is referring to JMS's original 10-year arc, I have no idea.

 

[Fist McStrongpunch]

10-year arc?

 

[Candlelight]

10-year arc?

http://trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=53739

Babylon 5 and Babylon Prime:

SEASONS 1 & 2

Much of the stuff on the first two seasons matches what we actually saw on screen, including:

-Sinclair trying to figure out the hole in his mind from the Battle of the Line
-The “Babylon Squared” story
-Santiago assassination and Clark taking over
-Delenn undergoing transformation
-The Shadows slowly making their presence felt, and Londo allying with them, and Londo using them to gain influence with the Centauri
-Kosh revealing himself to all when he saves Sinclair's life at the end of Season 2

Main divergences from what we saw on screen:

-Sinclair stays on, and remains commander of the station throughout the series
-Unclear exactly when this is revealed, but the secret behind Sinclair & the Battle of the Line is not that he becomes Valen (Valen is never mentioned in this outline), but that he is the person who has been prophesied to save the Minbari from dying off. In order to fulfill the prophesy, Delenn must transform to become human and mate with Sinclair. Their son will be some kind of chosen one who will save the Minbari race from extinction(???). Some of the Minbari (warrior caste?) interpret prophesy differently, and think that Sinclair will actually lead the Minbari to doom.
-Not 100% certain on this, but it looks like the Centauri conquest of the Narn doesn't happen until early/mid-Season 3. It's also not completely clear whether there is even a Narn/Centauri war as such. The Shadows aid Londo's ascension by secretly staging a number of incidents, but does this involve a full blown Narn/Centauri war that lasts a season? Not clear. Rather, some time by mid-Season 3, the Shadows help the Centauri conquer the Narn homeworld and decapitate their empire, but I'm not sure if that's actually the culmination of a lengthy war.

SEASONS 3 & 4

-The Centauri conquer the Narn Empire with the help of the Shadows.
-After the Narn surrender, G'Kar briefly stays on B5 and tries to rally allies against the Centauri, but it doesn't work. So he returns to the Narn homeworld to join the resistance.
-Catherine Sakai is “mind-raped”, and all memory of her relationship with Sinclair is erased, and this crushes Sinclair. [This seems like some early iteration of the Anna Sheridan / Z'ha'dum story, but there's no explicit indication of how this happens to Sakai, or who's responsible.]
-Sinclair & Delenn become romantically involved, and Delenn is pregnant by the end of Season 4.
-Garibaldi returns to drinking, and resigns as chief of security. During Season 4, he's a mercenary operating out of B5, but there's no mention of the Psi Corps sleeper / William Edgars / Lise Hampton story.
-There is no mention of an overt war between the Shadows & Vorlons. But they are fighting each other by manipulating the younger races. There is no mention of an order vs. chaos ideological conflict between the two. Just that the Vorlons manipulated the younger races throughout history, and the Shadows rebel against that, and try to set themselves up as rulers of the galaxy.

SEASON 5

-The Minbari warrior caste overthrows the Grey Council, and orders the resumption of hostilities with Earth. They also want Sinclair and Delenn dead.
-The Centauri try to move in on B5's sector of space.
-Londo & the Centauri's longtime involvement with the Shadows is publicly revealed.
-The Shadows destroy a huge Vorlon ship (hundreds of miles long) which contains a large segment of their population.
-The series ends with the Minbari attacking B5 and destroying it. Sinclair & Delenn escape with their newborn baby. Everyone in the galaxy is after them for one reason or another....including Earth, which has been given info which makes them believe Sinclair is a traitor.

BABYLON PRIME (new five-year show)

-Sinclair, Delenn, and their allies go back in time to steal Babylon 4, pulling it into the future in order to use it as a base to build a new alliance (army of light?). B4 is renamed Babylon Prime. B Prime can move through space like a starship, and they go off on a mission to clear their names and build the alliance to bring peace to the galaxy.
-The time traveling causes Sinclair, Delenn, and their baby to age rapidly. (I'll call the baby David, even though his name is never mentioned here.) David grows all the way to adulthood within a few years.
-Londo is Emperor, but controlled by a Keeper, as in the actual show.
-Londo & the Centauri capture Sinclair & Delenn, and are supposed to turn them over to the Shadows, but Londo rebels against the Keeper & the Shadows “at terrible personal cost” (doesn't say exactly what that cost is).
-David becomes a revered religious symbol.
-Conclusion of the story: B Prime and the Army of Light defeat the Shadows (but there's nothing about the Shadows leaving the galaxy). No mention of what happens to the Vorlons. Earth defeats the Minbari, and Sinclair's name is cleared. Delenn leaves Sinclair, in order to return to the Grey Council. David becomes the leader of a new interstellar alliance. Final scene is Sinclair, retired, alone on an otherwise uninhabited world....fishing.
----------------------------------------------------------

 

[Hound of UIster]

Why did he lie about his 5 year plan?

What comment does this refer to?

Over the years he has conveyed the impression that his 5 year plan has stayed on track. Knowing we know now thats a lie, he has reworked significant parts of the story, dumped large parts of the original arc and added in new parts.

 

[Sykonee]

What would Londo's hair have looked like if Jurasik hadn't pulled that prank early on?

 

[Mr Light]

I would either ask where would Crusade have gone... or asked about the backstory of Lorien and/or the Vorlons.

 

[diankra]

Now that I've thought about this question, one I do have is this: did he have any plans to do anything with Bureau 13? If I remember correctly, we only saw them once in the show.

ISTR that, after the first Bureau 13 episode went out, there was a copyright complaint from a company which was already using the name (for a computer game, I think). So they agreed not to reuse the name, and transferred the planned storylines to other clandestine organisations (jms arguing that secret organistions might have many names when dealing with different operatives - ie, Bureau 13 was a disposable cover used for that single operation).

 

[Jan]

Why did he lie about his 5 year plan?

What comment does this refer to?

Over the years he has conveyed the impression that his 5 year plan has stayed on track. Knowing we know now thats a lie, he has reworked significant parts of the story, dumped large parts of the original arc and added in new parts.

What he's actually said is that about 85% of what he'd planned/wanted was what actually ended up in the show. By my calculations, that's pretty much on track, allowing for real life complications. Your mileage may vary.

Jan

 

[JoeD80]

Over the years he has conveyed the impression that his 5 year plan has stayed on track. Knowing we know now thats a lie, he has reworked significant parts of the story, dumped large parts of the original arc and added in new parts.

Allow me to requote what I quoted above:

Details are absolutely fluid

As it is, the details still matched in a majority of the show anyway (Garibaldi resigning, Londo getting a keeper, Babylon 4 being used against the Shadows, a new Golden Age involving the formation of an Alliance, the Narn homeworld being decimated, seeing what a Vorlon is, the rise of the Centauri, Delenn becoming more human).

 

[Titus Andronicus]

Alright, thanks to the folks who answered my question about Bureau 13! Now I really have to re-watch the series, just to put them into those storylines.

Who am I kidding...I just want to re-watch it period!

 

[Gary Mitchell]

One thing, eh? Well obviously, the most important question ever. Does he feel bad for giving us so few episodes focusing on Jane?

Who is Jane?

 

[Candlelight]

One thing, eh? Well obviously, the most important question ever. Does he feel bad for giving us so few episodes focusing on Jane?

Who is Jane?

DUCK AND COVER PEOPLE!!

 

[Neroon]

One thing, eh? Well obviously, the most important question ever. Does he feel bad for giving us so few episodes focusing on Jane?

Who is Jane?

In an effort to get this out before the oncoming storm , "Jane" is the name of the primary ISN anchor - played by Maggie Egan - whom we see most often. She is featured in GROPOS, Severed Dreams, Endgame and a few others. In "Severed Dreams" the credits don't list her as "Jane", her co-anchor calls her that when he interrupts her to report that government troops are marching on the ISN news center.

 

[Reverend]

It is a bit odd that they used her so frequently but never even gave her a surname.

 

[Jan]

It is a bit odd that they used her so frequently but never even gave her a surname.

Yeah, but they did the same with Corwin. Claudia Christian had to browbeat JMS into naming him.

Jan

 

[Reverend]

True enough. I suppose we could just take a wild guess at what he'd choose given the opportunity and just dub her "Jane Elizabeth-David".

 

[RandyS]

I'd ask him for more info on Clark. I've already expressed myself about this in the other thread, so I won't take up more time here.

Other than that, I like the show the way it is. Well, except for Byron. I'd ask him what the hell he was smoking when he came up with that.

 

[Jan]

True enough. I suppose we could just take a wild guess at what he'd choose given the opportunity and just dub her "Jane Elizabeth-David".

LOL! Well, some call her Jane Nolastname, but I've always thought of her as Jane Mankowski-Jankowski myself.

Jan

 

[OmahaStar]

It is a bit odd that they used her so frequently but never even gave her a surname.

Oh, you have to understand that in the late 2250s and early 2260s, Jane's popularity was such that she did not need a last name. Think Cher, or Madonna, on an intergalactic scale. As the senior anchor for the ISN, she is seen daily by trillions of beings across the galaxy (and beyond).

She's not like Allison Higgins or Dan Randall or Cynthia Torqueman, who are so minor they require last names to separate them from their rivals on other networks (because we know, thanks for "Endgame" that there ARE other news networks).

Jane has no rival. She is what every journalist strives to be.

"Who is Jane?" indeed.

 

[ManOnTheWave]

What really happened to Sinclair?

We know a fair amount of that.

Spoiler: Valen

He won the war, found and married the temporally displaced Catherine Sakai and about 100 years after he arrived he "went beyond the veil." What that actually means is ambiguous, but given Delenn's story in 'Confession's and Lamentations', I imagine he had a similar fate to Sheridan, though he stuck around longer. If I recall right, JMS said somewhere that Delenn eventually "dies" or rather disapprears while on some secret mission involving Valen. The pieces are all there so you can get a rough sense of it.

Then let me rephrase that. I'd like to see it all on film.