BABYLON 5 STATION

Babylon 5 is a 8,064.5 meter (five-mile) long, 840 meter diameter, 9.1 billion ton O'Neil class space station, located at a pivotal main jump gate in the Epsilon system. Located at the L-5 point in a binary star system between a star and a planet named Tigris & Euphrates, in a 33,000 kilometer orbit around a planet called Epsilon Eridani III, coordinates: "Grid Epsilon" at 470/18/22 located 10.67 light-years from Earth. The station's life support system is capable of supporting over 250,000 entities in variable gravities, mostly as transit passengers.

Normal planetary gravity aboard Babylon 5 is simulated in a similar manor to Babylon 4, by rotating the stations center section. Outward acceleration at the outer most edge of the station is 1.41 gravities. Babylon 5 supports variable atmospheres, 92% earth standard, 5.2% methane, and 2.8% other. Unlike Babylon 4, Babylon 5 does not have the counter rotating sections, effectively trapping the station in orbit around Epsilon Eridani III. Babylon 5 does have a series of thruster engines however, used in maintaining its location at the L5 point.

When the station first went on-line, only a low level defense grid defended Babylon 5, leaving the station extremely vulnerable to attack. It was not until the station's upgrade in 2259, when the Station's systems were given a complete overhaul that Babylon 5 had sufficient firepower to defend itself from an invasion force. The new and significantly more powerful defense grid gave Babylon 5 enough firepower to take on a battlecruiser without the need of an escort fleet and reaffirmed Earth Alliances commitment to the Babylon project.

Babylon 5 is also equipped with a full complement of 48 Starfury fighters. Half of Babylon 5's fighter squadrons consist of 24 SA-23E Aurora class Starfuries and 24 new SA-32 Thunderbolt class Starfuries. Most of these Thunderbolts came from the EAS Churchill, which was destroyed during the Battle of Euphrates by forces loyal to former President William, Morgan Clark, after Babylon 5 seceded from the Earth Alliance in 2260.

The "front" of the Babylon 5 station contains the stations control and command deck, observation dome, and docking bays. The stations docking system consists of two docking bays, the first allowing small craft to enter along the stations 0g center line of the rotating section, to be transferred to the appropriate internal landing bay. The second and larger docking bay is located in the stations upper non-rotating section, which is dedicated to craft remaining in free fall. The forward section of the station, designated BLUE sector, also contains the Cobra launch bays for Babylon 5's fighter wings.

To control and maintain the vast network of power, air recycling, water reclamation, communication and data storage, Earth Alliance turned to the Centauri in the construction of Babylon 5's computer system. Based on a crystalline Earth/Centauri hybrid technology, it was decided that Babylon 5 would have a completely revolutionary AI, providing the station with an artificial personality. Unfortunately this plan did not work very well, as a technical error lead to the rather unstable personality of a New-York taxi cab driver taking over the Babylon 5 system. Quickly realizing the monumental problem this would create, the artificial personality was locked out and a more conventional computer/user interface was integrated into the system.

The computer system presently in use on Babylon 5, is based primarily on human design using Centauri crystalline technology and is capable of both keyboard and voice input, the latter in over one hundred different alien languages. Integrated within this computer system is the Babcom communications network, which is used to handles all the stations communication needs. This includes intra-station, ship-to-station, and long-range tachyon communications.

Given the size of the Babylon 5 station, engineers deemed it necessary to create an extensive mass-transit public transportation system, which allows personnel and visitors to easily travel across the whole of the five-mile long station. This system includes several train systems that run across the outer walls of the station, as well as a monorail shuttle service that runs along the stations 0g-center line. The Core Shuttle as it is referred to in-station, runs every five minutes accessing 13 substations along the length of the Babylon 5s habitat section.

To make it easy to negotiate the vast size of the station, Babylon 5 has been broken into six subsections. These include the following:

• YELLOW SECTOR-Engineering, docking and cargo bays.
• BLUE SECTOR-Customs, operations and Earthforce personnel quarters.
• GREEN SECTOR-Diplomatic habitation and facilities.
• RED SECTOR-Commerce and transient/commercial habitation.
• GRAY SECTOR-Construction, manufacturing and engineering.
• BROWN SECTOR-Reclimation and outer hull area.

Using a coordinate based system, finding ones way around Babylon 5 is relatively easy. One must simply know the sectors color designation, which is a spiral ring of the station, followed by the sector letter, and then whatever number that denotes a level.

Another interesting problem presented in the construction of Babylon 5, was the stations need for a very powerful reactor, in order to run all station systems as well as operate the large motors used to rotate the stations habitat wing. Thus a new type of fusion reactor system was designed.

Main power for Babylon 5 is handled by a series of high-mass particle-fusion reactors in the rear non-rotating section of the station. The fuel tank located at the rear of the station is a total of 265 meters in length and 455 meters in height. Total volume of the main fuel tank is 25,095,336 cubic meters and holds a total of 4,115,635,209 kilograms of gelled deuterium. Energy output of this reactor system is 2.5*10²⁴ joules.

Babylon 5 has a total of eight fusion reactors, which can generate an average, combined power output of approximately 16,182 Terawatts (1.6*10¹⁶), time averaged over five years. This powerful reactor system handles all the stations power needs. In addition to the main fusion reactors, there are many smaller fusion reactors strategically placed throughout the station, designed to ensure key systems remain operational should it ever become necessary to eject the stations main energizer.

A marvelous achievement for all parties involved, despite complaints that the station was build using substandard parts, Babylon 5 will continue to faithfully serve the ideals and goals that lead to her creation, the dream of one point in space where the entire universe is equally represented.