Which came first, the DS9 or the B5?

There's so much internet grapewhine scuttlebut about this.

This isn't a B5 vs DS9 thread, nor intended as such either.

What is the truth about which came first?

There's so much BS on the WWW about things like this.

I like both shows the same anyway. With me its not DS9 vs B5, but B5 & DS9

I just want to know how their histories, are, or aren't, intertwined.

As a sidenote Jeffrey Combs & Billy Mumy have been on both. Combs the DS9 almost-regular & Mumy the B5 mainstay.

 

If you go by the dates they were aired:

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine - January 13, 1993
Babylon Five - February 22, 1993

 

The first treatment for Babylon 5, that was shopped around, is dated September 1, 1988.

 

I remember reading somewhere too that JMS had contacted Rick Berman about doing a space station based story shortly before DS9 came to be, but I'm not sure how valid that could be.

 

Personally I don't really care about which came first. Maybe DS9 was made as a counter to a space station sci-fi that would be B5, maybe not. In the end I enjoyed DS9 for what it was, its characters, its stories and if it was not a totally original idea it doesn't lower the show in my eyes.

 

Not to Rick -- he presented the treatment for Babylon 5 to Paramount.

As for dates as noted above the Babylon 5 treatment is dated 1988; the Babylon 5 pilot script is dated 1989. DS9's treatment and pilot both date from 1992. If you ever find a copy of the original "Making of DS9" book that was written after season 2 (not the companion) there's the first outline for the DS9 pilot in there when it was titled "The Ninth Orb" and Ro Laren was first officer. Pretty interesting stuff. Definitely a book worth it to have if you are a DS9 fan

edit: The treatment for DS9 was late 1991; the pilot outline in 1992. Been awhile since I read the book.

 

^Some of the other interesting tidbits from that book are:

1) TPTB originally considered the subtitle, "The Final Frontier" for the series. But since it was used for the lackluster motion picture, they quickly changed it.
2) Briefly, they considered setting the series before TOS (something that wouldn't be picked up again until ENT), but that was dropped because of concerns about making the show look "primitive."
3) That one of the original iterations had the show set on a base ON BAJOR near a Bajorian encampment. Lt. Ro Laren was charged with the base and that Dr. Julian Amores (eventually Bashir) would've been the focus of the series not the commanding officer. Sisko (or a Sisko-type) wasn't even present.

 

Just a note to EVERYONE participating in this thread:

So far, you have kept this civil. But this is a promise: I WILL lock this thread down the NANOSECOND we start getting into the 'who stole from who' argument.

Been there, done that....and it never ends well.

Just givin' you a heads up, folks.

And to the OP - just for the record you could just as easily have posted in the B5 thread pinned at the top of the forum. That thread is specifically FOR fans of DS9 AND B5 to share their enjoyment of BOTH shows.

 

Sounds like it would have been like a Star Trek version of M*A*S*H!

 

^It certainly would've been a different show, and I wouldn't have minded that at all especially if they got Siddig El Fadil (Alexander Siddig) to play Amores/Bashir. When the pilot episode of DS9 aired, Bashir instantly became my favorite character.

 

Interesting. I never knew about any of that. I'll have to track this book down some time.

 

JMS had been planning Babylon 5 for longer than starting in 1988, i think in one interview he mentioned fleshing out the centauri as a central race when he first ahd the idea somewhere around 1985.

So the planning for babylon 5 and such was many years before Deep Space 9 started any of its pre-'lets do this' ideas.

At least thats my understanding

 

JMS mentioned Babylon 5 in both the Captain Power series and in his novel "Othersyde" which would take the planning back to at least '86 or '87. I don't doubt that he had notions for various aliens and thoughts for storylines before that, though.

From what he's said in the script books, the notion he had for Babylon 5 in 1986 was about a group of pople living in a small space station for an extended period. He also had a second, unnamed series in mind that was to be a big saga. It was during the writer's strike of 1988 when the two ideas meshed into a concept for a single series and JMS began outlining the series and fleshing out characters.

Jan

 

I was discussing this with someone the other day...

I think the pitch only had to do with a space station right? Borrowing pieces from work is normal in Hollywood, but I actually find it neat that ST had a series based on what went on on a station. I think it ought to have been done. Otherwise, we see a lot of them, but they don't live up to their potential. They have a lot of challenges too.

 

oh the noes, not this again!

 

Does it really matter which came first? Chicken or Egg? B5 or DS9? They are both great shows.

And there is something to be said by the quote that there are no new ideas, just different points of view.

 

According to NASA, the concept of a space station was first mentioned in 1869 in a novel called Brick Moon (which I've never heard of, not surprisingly). The term "space station" was first used by Hermann Oberth in 1923, Dr. Werner von Braun published his concept of a space station in Collier's magazine in 1952, the Soviet Union launched the world's first space station, Salyut 1, in 1971, the United States sent its first space station into orbit in 1973, Mir's first module was launched in 1986, the first two modules of the International Space Station were launched in 1998...and so on.

I mean, I'm not saying one didn't affect the other one, but do we really need to look much farther than plain ol' reality to explain two scifi shows set on a space station?

 

Same here. If it's better, it's better. No matter who was first.

Besides, there isn't a single original idea in Hollywood anymore.

 

In that Captain Power episode (I think it was 1987) Babylon 5 was a prison colony!

 

This is exactly where I stand - IMO, the two best scifi shows ever made.

I prefer DS9 just a tad better - mostly because the first half of season 5 of B5 is so god-awful dreadful (not JMS's fault, entirely, but nonetheless dreadful).

However, my single favorite episode of any scifi show ever is B5's Severed Dreams....and my favorite single season of any scifi show is season 3 of B5. And finally, my single favorite character in any scifi show ever is Londo Mollari.

So you might imagine....that 'tad' that I prefer DS9 by is almost non-existent.

That's why I never understood all the fighting between DS9 and B5 fans. Regardless of what did or didn't happen and who came 'first', WE were the ones who benefited....but getting two GREAT shows!