29

Throughout the TV series Babylon 5, we hear about different sections of the eponymous space station referred to by colours and numbers, e.g. "Green Two" or "Grey Seventeen". These two parts of the classification system seem to be orthogonal: e.g. in the episode "Ceremonies of Light and Dark" in S3, a call is traced to the Green sector and also found to be from level 14, after which they know it comes from Green Fourteen.

I love a good bit of worldbuilding, especially detailed maps of imaginary places. Is it ever explained, perhaps in supplementary materials to the show, exactly how the different "sectors" and "levels" are organised? Is there a canonical map of Babylon 5 showing all the coloured and numbered regions?

Improve this question
2
  • 5
    Please don't mention Grey 17.
    – Ian Thompson
    Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 19:51
  • 1
    @IanThompson - It's missing, and I'm ok with that.
    – Jeff
    Commented Oct 20, 2017 at 17:47

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
27

Babylon 5's Art Director Ted Haigh was kind enough to provide a map in the Feb 1993 edition of Cinefantastique. This shows each of the major sections and their functions.

enter image description here

From the show itself (and the in-universe map seen in B5: Shadow Dancing) we can extrapolate the various sectors, their locations and function;

  • Brown - Life Support and Waste Reclamation facilities
  • Blue - Maintenance and Operational controls
  • Green - Arponics and the ambassadorial quarters.
  • Grey - Atmosphere monitoring and the station's original power station.
  • Red - Public and Commercial facilities including hotels and Medlab
  • Yellow - Power supply, fuel tanks, various labs.

enter image description here

This non-canon (but otherwise excellent) image from the licensed B5 Station Guide RPG, courtesy of TheWertZone seems a solid reference.

enter image description here

As an aside, based on Mr Garibaldi's trips in the elevator in B5: Grey 17 is Missing, we can reasonably assume that levels don't simply go from top to bottom (like decks on a Trek starship) but circulate outward from the core of the station in concentric rings with level 1 at the innermost and level 20+ at the outside.

Improve this answer
10
  • 1
    So B5 is basically a metal greenhouse with bits tacked on each end? Ummm...
    – Jon Clements
    Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 18:03
  • 9
    @JonClements - That's the very point and essence of an O'Neill Cylinder
    – Valorum
    Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 18:11
  • If you compare the wertzone image with the one in the answer below for the station guide, they are the same.
    – JohnP
    Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 21:13
  • 7
    I never realised there was a reason to call it the "brown" sector...
    – Nacht
    Commented Oct 19, 2017 at 22:26
  • 5
    "we can reasonably assume that levels don't simply go from top to bottom" I don't think it ever occurred to me that anyone could think otherwise. In a rotating cylinder, outside is down. How would any other system work?
    – Acccumulation
    Commented Oct 20, 2017 at 3:21
12

The Babylon 5 Station Guide (now out of print) contains more maps than you can shake a stick at. It has several books containing lots of maps, including pages and pages of deck plans, along with four double-sided posters containing more maps.

Photo of the product

I'm not sure how canonical it is. It was an officially licensed product. I think JMS had to give approval for the final version of each of Mongoose's products.

Improve this answer
1

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.