*********************************************************************** * Update to the B5 Technical Manual, last updated - 26/10/97 * * Last Episode Viewed: Episode 14 ( ? ), Season 4 * *********************************************************************** This is update number: 12 Update now only info on eps Season 4 after ep 2. (Updating all the time... if the above date is more than about one month old, and B5 is on show in the UK, find a new copy, see end) I retain the copyright on all original parts, 3rd party articles are credited where known, and (C) remains with author unless stated otherwise. NOTE TO U.S. READERS: I haven't seen much season 4 yet, so if sending me stuff relevant to this manual and season 4 please mark it as spoiler and include spoiler space! Story ideas, HTML links etc will not be found here, but... WARNING: SPOILERS FOR SOME COUNTRIES. THESE ARE NOT MARKED. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Check the 'last viewed' above, if you haven't seen at least up to that episode, it is possible you will be spoiled. NEW / UPDATED LIST (last 5 local changes): 1) New Web address. It'll stay here. Promise 2) Major chnages to the workings of hyper space, white star 'lean', EA links, epsilion 3, EA molecular confinement, identicard cloning, sorted out this list. 3) Draak, minbari handguns, transaltors for vorlon, vree, draak 4) White Star jump engines, shadow cloud, centuri rifles, sigma 957 ships, ------------------START OF UPDATE--------------- Index ~~~~~ I Shadow II White Star / Minbari III Humen IV Vree V Minbari Cruisers VI Vorlon VII Metaphysics VIII First Ones VIV Narn X Centuri XI Draak XII Hyper Space **** STUNNING RELISATION **** XIII Misc End Where to get Further Updates Maintained by Thomas Chiverton Thanks to: J M S (how could I forget! ) R.A.S.T.B5.M U.M.S.T.B5 I The Shadows have developed a weapon called 'The Cloud'. It is gray/black and acts as a very large scale energy damper, on the scale of planets and more it can wipe out almost all energy production. It is invisable to (at least the White Star's / Vorlon's) sensors. Shadows use this to immobilize large fleets, or to calm a planet down before bombarding it with 'thousands of megatons times thousands of missiles'. These burrow down, almost into the mantle, before detonating, tearing the planet apart from the inside. Missiles: Long, thin and organing looking. Could be hollow too. II White Star class ships have automatic repair and other systems, and can be piloted by a single person if need be, provided that they 'don't run into any trouble'. Extreme cold shuts down the jump engines. Artifical gravity system offers a form of feed back during combat and other near-limit manouvers to indicate it is near it's design limits. This manifests as an appropriate centrifugal 'force'. There is some evidence that some of the fleet may have replaced their forward neutron cannon with a non-line of sight 'slice-n-dice' type ray. This may have been learnt during encounters with the Shadows, due to the Vorlon and hence evolving nature of the ship. Handguns: Silver, long barreled and elabortly designed. III Old style destroyers: Similar to Hyperion class. No rotating sections however. Has four forward and four backward pointing guns mounted in pairts on the top and bottom of the main body. These guns are very large, assumed heavy energy. PPG rifles: Long, ovel barrel, with a red laser sight mounted on top. Link: The molecular bonding system used to attach it to skin appears to fail under some conditions, pulling the hairs out of the wearers arm. Molecular Container: A substance harder than diamond, designed to be hardened around the object to be transported. The containment can only be broken using the appropiete molecule. Ienticards can be cloned, but this is a samll time operation as it is usualy easy to detect, and brings on a small fine as punishment. IV Vree look like shrimps in armor. Vree ships are shaped like discs, like the classic UFO shape. From their underside they fire many green dart shaped blasts, very rapidly. These are very effective against fighters. Vree ships: c. 400 m in diameter TRANSLATOR: Connected to the envirmoment suit, looks vaguly like a crystal ball held in a metal skelaton. Flashes when in use. V Also highly resilient to even large gun fire power, 3 Battle Crab death beams needed to disable one within a reasonable time frame. VI Vorlon's are able to wrap areas of hyperspace in on itself, effectively hiding their ships from passing ships. However, there is no physical method to stop other ships entering the bubble. They appear to use this to sneak up on targets. On passing through this bubble, a mottle blue web-work appears on the skin of the ship. Instruments appear to be confused by the curvature of hyperspace inside the bubble, making navigation difficult. Encounter Suits: Vorlon encounter suits can energize blue energy at the back of the up-sweeping ridge, and uses this as controlled lightning. Suits can also absorb, to a point, massive amounts of energy, whether electrical or as plasma (as in a PPG shot). Able to surround itself with a transperent dome able to reflect weapons fired at it. Vorlons true form is a large semi-transparent almost-fluid like being, but can project different images into each of those present. Vorlon bio-technology is advanced enough to modify humans with gills, and increased telepathic abilities. VORLON PLANET KILLERS (formally Big Ships): Huge, massive, gigantic- *BIG* etc. etc. Saucer shaped with blue edge and four massive reaching tendrils at the front. '3 or 4 miles across'. CAPABILITIES: Unknown. Hyperspace engines for certain, probably able to open a jump point, as it is probably responsible for the hyperspace 'folding'. Its fire power is the key feature of a Vorlon planet destroying raid. They emerge from hyperspace with just enough firepower to cover the planet killer, wipe out the target, and vanish. The firing sequence starts with the blue edge turning yellow in a sweeping band from the left and right. The bands meet in the middle, and project something forward, where it is guided and controlled by the tendrils before being fired. Ships appear to be either red/orange or green in colour. HEAVY CRUISERS: Larger version of cruisers, but with a single necelle shaped tear-drop protrusion on the top at the back. This appears to have many small yellow windows in it. CAPABILITIES: Jump point generator, hyperspace engines. More powerful version of a cruiser. Close in weapons ? OBSERVATION POST: In at least one case the Vorlons built a city on a large asteroid, and used it as an observation post. It had many close in and long range weapon systems to offer protection. The city was comprised of spires and saucers. TRANSLATOR: Worn on encounter suit, although Vorlons are telepathic and have no need of them ! POints of light flash on and off when used. VII The Babylon 5 universe operates on the (outdated ?) theory of 'Particular Time', that is there are particles ( called chronos ) that 'carry' time. This means it is possible to prevent chronos progress, trapping things in the 'gap' between two instances, between the tick and the tock. VIII First One's ships are generally extremely big. They generally use non-standard jump points. The ships are extremely powerful. Three ones of various races were able to destroy a Vorlon Planet Killer in just a few seconds. Weapons fired are as varied as the races. There are Vorlon-like nexus-generated beams, which fire out at varying angles from the nexus, huge long pilers of energy, yellow electric like rays and many more. Sigma 957's: Fires from the base of the hemi-sphere, many bolts of thin lightning. VIV Narn Handguns: Rectangular, with three short barels one above each other. Fires orange/red shots. X Centuri Handguns: Shapped like long-bareled versions of Earth pistols, ornately decorated. Fires blue shots. Centuri Rifles: Long, with a blast shield to protect the firer, fire s white spheres. XI The Draak are dark servants of the Shadows, distintive by their weird smeared out look. MOTHERSHIP: Several tens of times longer than a White Star, the armour is very strong, the combined efforts of several White Stars not even scratching it ! CAPABILITIES: Not yet known FIGHTER: A less organic looking Vorlon fighter, with a blue/green crystel held in the grip of four tendrils. This emmits a continuos green/blue ray, along which pulses travel. This must be powerful, because it managed to damage a White Star, although not seriously. CAPABILITIES: Powerful beam weapon. TRAVEL POD: Shaped like a tulip bulb, it opens two sets of four petals (inner and outer) while traverling, similar to a Vorlon ship. CAPABILITIES: Not yet known TRANSLATOR: A small tennis ball sized sphere that pulses. XII Not all real space co-ords are able to exit to hyper space. When a point is formed it settles itself at an appropiete real space co-ord (see Jump Gates) and links into hyper space. This means hyper space is a limited sub-set of all of the points in real space, so of course distances in hyper space are shorter, and now we don't need to worry about the 1:many, many: 1 real space : hyper space thing and its attached probablistic problems. XIII The planetary slicer beam(s) on Epsilon 3 bear a similar look to the Shadows beam weapon. Epsilion 3 also has a weather control system. 15 km/s seems to be a standard attack speed, for Humans and Minbari anyway. -------------------END OF UPDATE--------------- Where to get a new copy of this document (order of usefulness):- WWW: http://www.home.ch/~spaw1791/b5index.htm (main site) http://www.mk.dmu.ac.uk/guests/b5/ (mirror) E-Mail: mail Falken@Bigfoot.com and ask to be added to the mailing list FTP: ftp.hyperion.com/pub/babylon-5/ (file name b5.tech.1) (Updated infrequently) Please note: Manual is in HTML form. The update is perodicly combined with the manual to update the manual. But this will not be done untill at least ep 412 has aired in the UK. Please also note: This document is not in anyway officially endorsed by JMS, Warner Brothers or anyone else involved in anyway with the B5 TV show. However, as this is a copyrighted document, I'd like to be informed if it is used by anyone in an official capacity, and/or is distributed beyond the realms of E-Mail, the Internet and BBS's (such as magazine disks, PD/Shareware, CD-ROM, etc.). Please keep this file together with the Manual. All trademarks etc. acknowledged, (C) 1997 Thomas Chiverton, except where other author is indicated in brackets.