A community for fannish manifestos (This thing is AMAZING. Here's why.)

What Is the Canon?

Babylon 5 was a military science fiction/space opera TV series that ran from 1993 to 1998 (plus or minus a variety of spin offs and TV movies, which are not relevant to this manifesto). It followed a space station in a neutral area of the galaxy, which was built to be a diplomatic and trading hub between various galactic empires. After about one and a half seasons of trying to keep the peace, the plot moved on to several inter-planetary wars and attempts to build a new order.

The special effects showed off the very finest of computer-generated images from the 1990s, and the plot showed off one guy manically writing almost the entirety of five 22-episode seasons. It will spoil you for all other science fiction arc plots, and is also awkwardly earnest a lot. I've seen it short-handed as "The Lord of the Rings in Space" which is... fair if you forget that the Hobbits were the main characters in LotR.

Here's the opening credits from season one, to give you an idea of the tone:

(Also, every season redid the credits to match where the arc plot was, including with different music, which was really cool. Also, also the music throughout the series was great!)

Show Me the Space Ladies!

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Is There Much Shippy Canon?

This is admittedly more of a "two great tastes that taste great together" type ship, rather than a "Wow! It's practically canon!" situation. Because they both have separate romance plots, and Ivanova tends to be in charge of the station when other characters are off doing stuff, Delenn and Ivanova don't interact whole lot. However, here's a handful of jumping off points. ( Read more... )

So What Do You Like About Them?

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What's the Fandom Like?

Small. The fandom is small. There are, as of posting, forty two works on AO3, and a handful in older archives. However, what fic one can find is great quality, and the fandom's very welcoming and enthusiastic about new people joining in.

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(Big thank you to kanadka for helping me put this together, to nenya_kanadka for beta reading, and to cap-that for the images.)