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BABYLON STATION #4
Babylon 4 was a 7.72-kilometer (4.8-mile), 22 billion-ton O'Neil type space station, making it the single largest space complex ever built in the history of the Earth Alliance, to that date. Created from all the available parts and matterial left over from the three previous stations, which had been destroyed due to human error or sabotage. Babylon 4 was designed to be mobile, fitted with the largest ion engine on record. While Babylon 4 was to be located at a pivotal main jump gate at the L-5 point, the area currently assigned to Babylon 5, she was also supposed to have the ability to move wherever it was needed. Being the largest and most powerful of all the Babylon stations, Babylon 4 had enough firepower to defend its self from an attack from any race and boasted a life support system capable of supporting over a million people from multiple races in various gravities, mostly as transit passengers. Unfortunately, do to reasons unknown, Babylon 4 disappeared and was presumed to be destroyed on July 14, 2254 less than twenty-four hours after going on-line. Normal planetary gravity was simulated on Babylon 4, by rotating the station inner and outer sections in different directions and at different speeds, providing the inhabitants with the illusion of living and working in a planetary environment. Babylon 4 was the first station built by the Earth Alliance to employ this counter rotation system successfully. This same type of counter rotation system was to be used in the construction of Babylon 5, but due to budget cuts was never introduced into the Babylon 5 design. A high-level defense grid defended the Babylon 4 station, with enough firepower to take-on up to three warships at any given time. The reason for this massive weapons payload was due to the threat of sabotage and attack from alien races that did not want to see the station succeed in its mission to promote peace. This station was to have also been armed with a full complement of 108 SA-23E Starfuries. Do to the stations unexpected disappearance however, Earthforce never had the opportunity to equip the station with her complete set of nine fighter wings. In the year 2258, almost four years after her disappearance, Babylon 5 received an urgent distress signal from the Babylon 4 station, which had miraculously reappeared in sector 14, after coming through some type of temporal vortex. A scout ship was immediately sent to investigate the distress signal and ascertain if it really was from the long lost Babylon 4 station. The pilot succeeded in his mission to investigate Babylon 4s amazing return from the brink, and died of old age upon his return. The accelerated aging process was believed to have been caused by a powerful disturbance in the space time continuum. Babylon 5 station commander Jeffrey Sinclair, along with his good friend and Babylon 5 security chief Michael Garibaldi, risked their lives to rescue the crew of Babylon 4 before the stations main reactor went super critical. Once aboard Babylon 4, it was soon discovered that Babylon 4 was in fact being stolen by a group of aliens, presumably to fight an unknown war in the distant future. This information came from an alien known as Zathrus, and some strange alien being in a blue space suite, who kept appearing and disappearing all over Babylon 4. Eventually the crew of Babylon 4 was rescued from the station, scant moments before Babylon 4 disappeared... somewhere in time. Years later it would come to light that Babylon 4 was indeed stolen by Captain John Sheridan, Minbari ambassador Delenn, ambassador Jeffrey Sinclair and their White Star crew. Babylon 4 was taken back into the past and use against the Shadows during the last Great War. Due to having passed through the temporal distortion field back in 2258, Ambassador Sinclair found he could not return to the present. Thus Sinclair and the alien packrat Zathrus stayed aboard Babylon 4 and escorted it back into the past, in order to ensure those in the present had a chance to defeat the Shadows. There has been some speculation as to what ever happened to Babylon 4, as there was no evidence of the station having ever existed during the last Shadow war. It was not until the later part of the 2261 that the truth of Babylon 4's fate was discovered when space station Babylon 5 once again received a distress signal from Babylon 4. Captain John Sheridan and his crew discovered Babylon 4 trapped in orbit around a lifeless planet in a distant solar system, in sector 730-12-9. Following the destruction of a White Star however the station was knocked off her orbit and was destroyed after burning up in the atmosphere of the world the great station had resided for more than 900 years, taking with it valuable insights into the rise of Valenn and the last great war. [*All information for Babylon 4 taken from the TV series, RPG, Official Time-Line, and the comic book "In Valen's Name", written by JMS which tells of the final fate of Babylon 4.] Last
Updated 12-21-02 |
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