Featured Novel ~ Babylon 6
By Quani Lindstraal and Salazar
Babylon 6 A New Age is a novel set in the universe originally created by Michael Straczynski in the television series Babylon 5 which ran in the United States from 1994- 1998. The original series spawned a couple of TV movies and myriad novels. Babylon 6: A New Age here at Pan is another aspect of that universe set some seventy five years beyond the series.
We wanted our novel to take a fresh look at the Babylon 5 universe. Setting the novel approximately a human life span into the future, even with the medical advances of the 24th century, served to reinforce our desire for new characters and new approaches. While some of the races are longer-lived, we made it the policy of our novel not to accept applications for canon characters, although they can be referenced by our written characters.
Obviously, the events of the TV shows and movies are recent history to our characters. The aftermath of the Shadow War, the betrayal of the Centauri Empire – these are things that our characters have to deal with. One such character, the Centauri refugee Lyndissi, has dealt very effectively with this history. She and her family have come to the station where they encounter new opportunities as well as hostility due to her people’s complicity in the War.
The Babylon 6 station is a new construction, set up to pursue the same purpose of its predecessors: a neutral port in a galaxy beset with strife. The station boasts merchants Sarah Dober and Sojourner Mars to populate the Zocalo, diplomats, the assassin Morgana Starr, a couple of Rangers and the station personnel. The station is staffed by last-minute fill-in Captain Tatiana Ilyinskaya of the Earth Alliance while Security Chief Thorne and most of the rest of the still skeletal staff are drawn from the forces of the Interstellar Alliance - a situation fraught with interesting possibilities. Fans of the TV series may recall that John Sheridan withdrew from the Earth Alliance and established the Interstellar Alliance, declaring Babylon 5’s independence. Needless to say, 75 years later, little love is lost between the two Alliances.
Captain Ilyinskaya has assumed command of a five-mile-long cylindrical space station orbiting a dead planet in neutral space. At a crossroads of interstellar commerce and diplomacy, its position is that of a base from which to establish peace and prosperity between various interstellar empires. It is a precarious command given the colorful cultures, enemies and allies that dock at her door. Already, the station, in operation less than six months, has seen a mysterious stranger now semi comatose in medlab, an unidentified body found in waste reclamation, an attempted assassination of an alien diplomat, and the first signs that a criminal organization has come home to roost on B6. Never a dull moment.
The world created by Michael Straczynski is a rich and varied one; one that simply begs for more stories and characters to fill its vast reaches. Toward this end, Babylon 6: A New Age has created new people and new situations to further illuminate this fascinating corner of space.
