Star Trek: 11 Comparisons Between Deep Space 9 And Babylon 5

Hello everyone, Sean Ferrier here for Trek Culture, and it is finally time to take on the big elephant in the room. I know, I know. You've been going, why haven't we done this? Why haven't we finally put this to bed? The reason is, look, it was busy, and then, you know, I had a problem with the plumbing, so I had to get a plumber in for that, and it just, it just, everything got all on top of me. Alright, so I'm sorry it's taken us this long, but let's do it. Let's go through... 11 huge comparisons between Deep Space Nine and Babylon 5. Number 11, Inspiration. Brandon Tartikoff suggested putting Deep Space Nine on a space station to differentiate it from the original series in The Next Generation. Where they would both have been wagon-trained to the stars, this was going to be the rifleman in space. Other inspirations for DS9 include World War II, the Cold War, the American Red Scare and even the Kon-Tiki voyage of Thor Heyerdahl. More inspiration came from film and literary genres. With cyberpunk, with film noir, with mystery thrillers, obviously sci-fi, psychological thrillers, pulp, even Greek and Shakespearean tragedy. J. Michael Straczynski, who was the creator of Babylon 5, he elected to set Babylon 5 on a space station rather than exploring different alien planets every week. Quite frankly, it was going to bring down the bloated budgets that often go into sci-fi series. Straczynski wanted his show to have the scope of epics like Dune, The Lord of the Rings, and even the Foundation series, where week by week you could see the direct effect that each week's actions have on the characters. He would also take inspiration from mainstream dramas like Hill Street Blues for his character development. He was inspired by notes on mythology, sociology, psychology, history and science. More specific references include the legend of King Arthur, Roman mythology, Shakespearean tragedy, Babylonian mythology and Christian history. Number 10, Galactic Factions. Deep Space Nine's writers populated the show with such, you know, species as the Klingons, the Romulans, the Bajorans, the Cardassians, and of course the Federation. They were already established in earlier Star Trek. Deep Space Nine allowed more room to explore their historical, sociological, and religious interconnections. They also introduced new factions like Section 31, the secret police of the Federation, the Dominion, who would of course go on to become the main antagonists of the show, and the Prophets, who were worshipped by the Bajorans and their counterparts, the Pah Wraith. Straczynski, on the other hand, introduced factions that were more reminiscent of high fantasy. The First Ones were the first inhabitants of the Milky Way galaxy to gain sentience. The first of these, the immortal Lorien and the Firstborn, made contact with other species and helped them to grow and develop. Taking inspiration from J.R.R. Tolkien's High Elves, the First Ones would then leave the Milky Way galaxy, passing out beyond the galactic rim. Lorien withdrew to the planet Zahadun. The Vorlons who represented order and the Shadows who represented chaos would then stay behind to guide the so-called younger races. The younger races included the Earth Alliance, the imperialistic Centauri, the once peaceful but now expansionist Narns, the spiritual but aggressive when provoked Minbari, and varied races across the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. Number 9. Space Stations. Built in the 23rd century, Babylon 5 was built after the close of the Earth-Minbari War and it was the last of a series of Babylon stations built as part of a project to foster galactic peace. Financed by the galaxy's five ruling powers, it was governed by an advisory council consisting of their ambassadors and the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. Earthforce, the Earth Alliance's military, handled the station's administration and defense. An O'Neill cylinder five miles long Babylon 5 was built near the planet of Epsilon 2. It rotated to create artificial gravity, but it could adapt to different atmospheric settings when different races and species came aboard. It was located near a jump gate, which is a huge structure that gave access to hyperspace. It was a city of around 250,000 people. It served as both a port in a storm, but a home away from home for all types of creatures and characters throughout the galaxy. If Babylon 5 was like a floating city, then DS9 is more like a town. That is, it had about 7,000 occupants versus the 250,000 of Babylon 5. It was originally built as an ore refinery by the Cardassians via Bajoran slave labor during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. It fell under Bajoran administration once the Cardassians pulled out, who then invited the Federation to come in and support them during their application for Federation membership. With the discovery of the Bajoran wormhole, it would then become a port and one of the last stops or first stops 8. Bajoran Wormhole vs. Hyperspace At the time of the discovery of the Bajoran Wormhole, Scientists were estimating it would take the fastest starship around 67 years to make the 90,000 light-year journey between the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants. The Bajoran Wormhole, which was the first stable wormhole ever discovered, made that decades-long journey almost instantaneous. To the Bajorans, the wormhole was the home to the Prophets, the celestial beings that guided over their people. Most other cultures in the Alpha Quadrant and Gamma Quadrant saw it as merely a passageway. The downside of having a stable wormhole is that it made the Alpha Quadrant vulnerable to attack from forces from the Gamma Quadrant, such as the Dominion. While Deep Space Nine's wormhole was two fixed points at either end, Babylon 5's jump gates could connect any two points throughout the galaxy. Hyperspace travel was depicted as being more dangerous than wormhole travel, and this was depicted throughout several episodes where ships would travel between the two jump buoys via tachyon beams. This added some dramatic stakes in some of the episodes. Ships that got lost in the beacons were technically lost forever. This could be sorted by a series of ships connected to each other than with one connected to the lost ship. However, the longer a ship remained lost, the more likely it was that it would never be found. Number seven, commanding officers with emotional baggage. Babylon 5's first commanding officer, Michael O'Hare's Commander Jeffrey Sinclair, was deeply troubled by missing memories from his service on the Battle of the Line. This was the Earth Alliance's last ditch attempt to stop the Minbari invasion of Earth. He would later learn that the Minbari had been capturing humans, but he would also learn that Minbari souls were being reborn in human bodies, which would then force the Minbari to surrender. When O'Hare departed, Bruce Bokleitner's... Captain John Sheridan took over. Nicknamed Starkiller, Sheridan destroyed the Minbari flagship. With the loss of the Black Star, the Minbari grudgingly accepted his command of Babylon 5. He was burdened by the loss of his wife, an archaeologist who was killed during a mysterious expedition to the planet Zahadun. Tracey Scoggins' Captain Elizabeth Lockley took over command after Sheridan was promoted to President of the Alliance. A recovering alcoholic and drug addict, she was haunted by the loss of her friend Zoe to an overdose and her tumultuous relationship with her alcoholic father. Deep Space Nine's only commanding officer for the majority of the show, Benjamin Sisko, arrived on the station full of the trauma and loss that he had experienced during the Battle of Wolf 359 with the destruction of his ship the USS Saratoga and the loss of his wife Jennifer. Though in Emissary he is depicted as a man who is already on his way out of the service, an experience with the Prophets allows him to accept the trauma he was living with and then move on. In a way to help the Bajorans. Now a single father raising Jake alone, he is able to deal with much of his trauma, even going so far as to shake the hand of Jean-Luc Picard. Number six, conflict. Conflict is the heart of good drama. However, when The Next Generation was going into production, Gene Roddenberry issued a directive that said there would be no interpersonal conflict between Starfleet officers. Sounds like a great version of the future, and an absolute pain in the hoop for the writers. To get around this, when Deep Space Nine was being developed, there was a huge influx of non-Starfleet officers. You had Odo, you'd Quark, Rom, Nog, even Keiko O'Brien, Kai Wynn. Not least of all, Kei. From the off, Emissary depicted Kira Nerys very anti-Starfleet, as she initially took them to be a simple replacement for the Cardassians who had just left. Sisko's ascension to becoming the Emissary of the Prophets did nothing to endear him to Win Adami, who would consistently attempt to work against him. Episodes like The Search would highlight Starfleet's mistrust of Odo, while The Assignment would see Quark and Rom struggling with what they believed were Starfleet ideals. Straczynski and Babylon 5 had no such Roddenberry-esque edict to deal with and could expand on this much further. Survivors, Death Walker, and Interludes and Examinations depicted Earth Force personnel clashing over new policy, matters of principle, and addiction. Mind War, Spider in the Web, and Dust to Dust established the animosity between the Babylon 5 crew and the Psi Corps operative Alfred Bester. Gregos Believers and The Quality of Mercy depicted Chief Medical Officer Dr. Stephen Franklin's struggles with his father, religious beliefs, and other medical practitioners. By any means necessary, Voices of Authority and And For Now A Word depicted conflicts between Sinclair and the Labour leaders, his own government, Sheridan and the increasingly fascist government, and Babylon 5 and the media. Number 5. So... What's the story? Straczynski planned Babylon 5 like a novel for television, with each season being a chapter. As a way of dealing with actors being unavailable for certain episodes, he wrote back doors into each character that would allow them to disappear with minimal impact on the story. He also foreshadowed future seasons' long-running arcs with several standalone episodes in the first season. For example, the antagonistic relationship between Centauri ambassador Londo Mollari and Narn ambassador G'Kar foreshadowed the upcoming war between their two peoples. The arrival of the mysterious Mr. Morden laid the groundwork for the show's major arc, the Shadow War. The antagonism between Babylon 5's first officer Susan Ivanova and the telepath Talia Winters set up the relationship that would go on between Babylon 5's crew and Alfred Bester. He was of course an agent of the Psi Corps, an Earth agency that trained and recruited telepaths. Much of Deep Space Nine's first season focused on standalone episodes, though both Ira Stephen Bear and Ronald D. Moore pushed for more serialization. Some of the major plot lines of Deep Space Nine include obviously the Dominion War, the Bajoran recovery after the Cardassian occupation, Quark's relationship with other Ferengi. Such episodes as Emissary, Past Prologue and Duet, not to mention In the Hands of the Prophets, all serve to set up these long-running storylines. Number four. A leads to B, which leads to C, which leads to A. A causality loop is a type of temporal paradox where event A leads to event B leads to event C, which leads back to event A. Both Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine used this in their stories. In Deep Space Nine, it's revealed that the United Federation of Planets wouldn't exist if it hadn't been for the presence of Sisko, Bashir and Dax in early 21st century Earth. They, in the episode's past tense, are thrown back To San Francisco, where Sisko and Bashir find themselves inside a sanctuary district. Unfortunately, a historical figure, Gabriel Bell, is killed in a scuffle, but Sisko is able to step into the role and ensure that history runs as it was meant to. In Babylon 5 the Minbari ended the Earth-Minbari War after it examined people like Jeffrey Sinclair and other pilots and discovered that Minbari souls were being reincarnated in humans. They also discovered that Sinclair was an important leader from their past who had in fact unified their culture. Sinclair only became this leader because he traveled back in time during the Shadow War. If he hadn't, Minbari society wouldn't have become the unified culture that launched the Earth-Minbari War. Number three. Let us pray. Although Deep Space Nine's humans tended to lean toward Roddenberry's atheistic look at the future, the alien species had no such restriction. Religion had unified the Bajorans under the Cardassian occupation, with their faith in the Prophets being, as is often described, one of the only things that allowed many of them to survive their brutal treatment. In The Cards, Treachery, Faith and the Great River, displayed the Ferengi belief in the Great Material Continuum. The Sword of Kahless, Soldiers of the Empire, and You Are Cordially invited all discuss the Klingon belief in their gods, who, to be fair, they had risen up and slain millennia before. So, you know, peaks and troughs. Although himself an atheist, Straczynski believed that omitting human religions would not be realistic in the future, so characters in Babylon 5 followed Catholicism, Judaism, and a new religion that was called Foundationism. Alien religions on the show included the pantheistic views of the Minbari and the Narn and the bacchanalian views of the Centauri, humans and aliens related through religion. In Grail, Delenn and her aide Lennier welcomed a Grail seeker as a true seeker. In Convictions, an order of monks settled on the station with a search for alien religions and names for God. Religion, naturally, caused interpersonal and inner conflict. Dr. Franklin's disregard for alien beliefs had tragic results. In By Any Means Necessary, G'Kar and Londo battled over a sacred plant. Both G'Kar and Dr. Franklin confronted their past via spiritual experiences. Number two, do as we say. Societies on both shows imposed rigid restrictions on individuals. These include the Ferengi defining themselves by their business acumen and barring women from wearing clothing, the Centauri putting social status ahead of personal welfare, the Minbari emphasizing self-sacrifice, and the Cardassian devotion to the state. Section 31 claimed that protecting the Federation overruled all other considerations, which in the run of the show showed them acting in some pretty despicable ways for what they would consider the greater good. On Babylon 5, Earth's government required that any telepath must join the Psi Corps or take telepathy-blocking drugs instead. The Corps dominated their members' lives, dictating who they got married to and who they could even spend time with. They carried out questionable covert activity, all in the name of protecting the government. The Dominion were said to have the perfect order, with the Founders on top, the diplomatic corps of the Vorta, and the brutal fist of the Jem'Hadar. The Shadows believed that evolution was driven by conflict. Seeing identity as a product of ambition, they would ask people, what do you want? They would then incite wars between those who sought glory and profit. The Vorlons sought unquestionable obedience. Viewing identity as a tool for shaping personal They would ask, Who are you to force introspection? Number one, war, what is it good for? Straczynski was interested in what led to war, the effects of war, and the aftermath of war. Deathwalker explored the practical and ethical ramifications of punishing a war criminal. A late delivery from Avalon explained how cultural misunderstandings could incite war. The Narn-Centauri War explained how old grudges could lead to fresh conflict. The Shadow War explored how powerful beings like the Vorlons and the Shadows could use less developed puppet races, if you will, to play out their conflict. Although this arc underpinned the first three seasons, Straczynski ended it in the fourth season so that he could focus on the aftermath of the Earth-Alliance Civil War, the creation of an Interstellar Alliance, and the Telepath War. During the Dominion War, Deep Space Nine opted to take a grittier approach than both Babylon 5 and its own earlier iterations. In fact, Ronald D. Moore would often have to fight Rick Berman over how explicit they wanted to depict the violence, the The outcome of battles and of course the cost of war. The Siege of AR-558 remains one of the bleakest episodes of Star Trek that sees Nog lose a leg when he is shot by the Jem'Hadar. In It's Only a Paper Moon, the PTSD that Nog goes through after this is explored in great detail, and of course In the Pale Moonlight focuses on Captain Sisko's efforts to bring the Romulans into the war, and exactly what it cost him personally to do it. As you can see, there are many similarities between Babylon 5 and Deep Space Nine, but also enough differences that they are two shows that completely stand on their own. What did you think? Let us know in the comments below and let us know over on social media. You can find us on Twitter, Blue Sky and TikTok at Trek Culture. We're on Instagram at Trek Culture YT. Thank you so much to Frank Chavez who wrote this original article. Please do check that out on WhatCulture.com. I have been Sean Farrick. You can find me on the various socials at Sean Farrick Until I see you again, look after yourselves, live long and prosper. And I'll talk to you soon. Thanks very much.