A Race Through Dark Places

You finally managed to bring the Transport Tube to a hard stop in-between floors Grey 16 and Grey 18.  Levering the elevator doors open manually, using the crank handle, you find you have arrived on the missing deck, Grey 17!  Clearly, someone has been trying to isolate this deck from the rest of the station.  Some kind of strange alien influence seems to be at work, twisting the very fabric of space-time!  Possibly a nightmare awaits you...  So please take care...

Impossible Topology

Here on Grey 17, we take a look at some of the major inconsistencies in the descriptions given of parts of the Babylon 5 Station.   One of the hazards of working with the raw materials of Babylon 5 is the discovery of irreconcilable differences in some of the screen and dialogue elements.  Much as we would like to infer a consistent mental picture of the station's internal structure, there are places where the fine details of a scene will sometimes defeat us!  However, it is worth considering what effort went into making it possible to stage Babylon 5 at all, on the show's relatively small budget (compared to other science-fiction franchises), before complaining too much about small breaks in continuity!

The Illusion of Truth

In reality, the coloured sectors were a masterstroke of set design, since it allowed the same sets to be reused with different coloured stripes and numbering to denote different locations on the station, all built to a common pattern. One of the explicit decisions taken by the show from the outset was to adopt a theatrical, rather than cinematic, approach to set design, since this would allow for rapid set transformations, within the show's limited space and budget.

Not only were the sets re-labelled and re-dressed, but sometimes the same set was used to denote two different places, when filmed from two different angles.  While there is a remarkable degree of consistency in all the TV episodes, it is sometimes possible to spot rare inconsistencies.  These can be described as impossible topology, or the apparent connecting of parts of the station that are not properly contiguous.

For example, the original Medlab in seasons one and two is clearly sited on level Blue 2 (see episodes "Soul Hunter", "The War Prayer", "A Spider in the Web").  This can be seen from the "Blue 2" sign on the corridor wall at one of the entrances to Medlab.  This is the view from the inside, looking out.  However, the same set is filmed from the outside, looking in, during the episodes "A Spider in the Web" and "The Coming of Shadows".  As the Captain and others leave Medlab, there is another sign on the facing wall that reads "Blue 1".  Now, the same floor cannot be both Blue 1 and Blue 2, unless the numbers refer to radial sectors on the same level (elsewhere, we argue this is not the case). In the final analysis, this inconsistency is most likely an artifact of the way the shows were staged.

The Geometry of Shadows

This isn't the only example of parts of the station that appear to be contiguous, but which logically should not be.  In season two, Sheridan's office (which need not be the same as Sinclair's office in season one) is shown to overlook the garden.  He has an open-plan entrance, with a big bay window looking down onto the rising curvature of the station's inner ground level, with other low buildings scattered around.  If it were not for the curvature, one could suppose this was a view from the closed end of the northern built-up area, which would site the office in Red Sector, like the better hotel suites, such as Amanda Carter's Suite 15 on Red 7, in "A Spider in the Web".  This also has a view of the open garden.

Because of the curvature, we have to assume that Sheridan's view is not down the axis of the station, but across it.  This can only sensibly happen if his office has a side-facing window in the open part of the station, rather than an end-facing window.  In season two's "The Geometry of Shadows", the camera pulls back in an exterior shot to reveal that his office is indeed another freestanding building in the open part of the Carousel.  However, the stripe on the corridor wall outside his office is blue, meaning that this is somehow directly connected to Blue Sector.  If Sheridan's office were in Blue Sector, then the view of the open garden would be entirely blocked by the built-up stories of Red Sector.  The topology is impossible, unless the sectors are not demarcated zones, but interleaved sections, coloured according to their function.

Other episodes seem to feature invisible floors that logically should float in mid-air in the Carousel!  Agent Cranston directs his Security officers to search through topologically impossible parts of the station in the season two episode "Hunter, Prey".  Referring to a station map that has Blue Sector at the north of the Carousel and Brown Sector at the south, he asks his men to search "levels 1 through 15, starting in Blue Sector and moving across to this part of Brown Sector".  Likewise, he directs the officers to search "levels 50 and 51 between the Blue and Grey Sectors".  Now, we know that Blue 1 is the highest level in Blue Sector, near the core, and so moving sideways would presumably enter the open air after Red Sector, unless the levels started at different absolute heights in each sector.  Similarly, the line joining Blue 50 to Brown 50 would seem to go through open air in the Carousel!

A Race Through Hyperspace

On other occasions, characters seem to make impossible journeys through the station.  In season one's "Survivors", Garibaldi is framed and goes on the run.  He seems to get directly from Brown 9 to Blue 3 (by opening a side door on the same level); and later ends up in Brown 8 again!  These locations are possibly at different ends of the station.  We can try to explain this away as unconnected clips from the edited highlights of his flight, assuming he has somehow doubled back to evade his pursuers.  In reality, the same set was probably coloured differently on either side.

However, stranger things sometimes happen with the station's transport system.  In season two's "The Coming of Shadows", Londo Mollari is making his way to the docks and takes a Transport Tube from Green 2 to Blue 10.  Logically, this can only happen if the elevators in Babylon 5 can travel sideways, as well as vertically.  We see no evidence of this behaviour in the shows (all shots of Transport Tubes show vertical movement within the supporting pillars of the station).  Nonetheless, the elevator would have to move sideways through all of Red Sector to accomplish this feat.  We could presume that Mollari was merely giving his intended final destination; and the elevator would stop at the most appropriate connecting station in Green Sector.  However, elsewhere we also see the lighting inside the elevator cars change colour to match the current sector!

In season one's "The Quality of Mercy", the serial killer Mueller escapes from the Security detail on Blue 1 and dives into a Transport Tube; and appears to emerge again in Grey 27.  This is topologically impossible, since Blue and Grey Sectors are at the opposite ends of the station.  Alternatively, this could simply be a colour matching problem, since Laura Rosen, his next target victim, is in Brown 27.  Perhaps the wrong coloured sign was used; or else the choice of lighting affected the grading of the colour.  Similar grading problems occur elsewhere, for example, N'Grath's home is in Brown 9 ("Soul Hunter"), but in the later episode "Survivors" the coloured stripe on the walls seems to be of a much redder hue than the usual dirt brown colour.

In the final analysis, attempting to make all of this data consistent is most likely a doomed exercise.  We have to admit that the shows were really trying to convey an impression of a big place, with multiple locations and levels, rather than match up all of the numbers precisely.  Once we admit that the canonical material is faulty in its fine details, this gives us the freedom to develop an original, but more self-consistent model of the station.

Seeking the Station Sectors

Babylon 5 is divided up into a number of colour-coded sectors.  From the television series, it is clear that each sector is defined by its main function; but slightly less is said about the precise location of each zone and its proper extent. What we do know is that Blue Sector is devoted to station operations, Red Sector is the commercial heart of the station, Green Sector contains the diplomatic residences, Grey Sector is the heavy industrial zone and Brown Sector handles recycling, but is also taken over by Lurkers in "Downbelow", the unfinished part of the station. In several on-screen readouts, Yellow Sector is seen to be the zero-gravity part of the station.  In the end, no single source is entirely satisfactory, so in the further development, we propose a more satisfactory rationalisation that takes all of the above views into account at some point (see Grey 1).

There are reasons to question some of the zone colourings, for example the horns of the zero-g docking bay are coloured red (but the zero-g docks are not really part of the commercial zone) and various circular red routes exist in Green Sector and forward of the reactor in Yellow Sector. Brown shading appears further south than the grey shading, which would make Brown Sector a zero-g zone (which it is not). Parts of the Spinal Collar are shaded red, yellow or are undesignated. Apart from this, the general ordering of Blue, Red and Green sectors makes sense, since C&C and the main Docking Bay must come in Blue Sector; and most visitors will want to seek out the commercial zone next. The Diplomatic Quarter is certainly situated in the central garden somewhere.

Although Blue Sector is correctly sited, the adjoining "commercial zone" is described as "Brown Sector", which clearly goes against the prescribed colour-coded function, so this violates the TV show's intentions. Red Sector is shown occupying the southern half of the main Carousel and is supposedly an "entertainment zone". Also, the rotating part of the station is extended into Grey Sector, where the Spinal Collar terminates, which contradicts rotating views of the station in the TV Shows. However, the Spinal Collar and zero-g docking bays are all part of Yellow Sector, which seems to make sense.

Hunting for Bad Evidence

An expanded version of this sector map (not illustrated) is shown in the later season two episode, "Hunter, Prey", when Agent Cranston is directing officers to track down the missing Dr Everett. The Carousel section is blown up and the radiator/solar panels are removed to reveal the south end of the Carousel. Here, the widest part is divided such that the north half is Grey Sector and the south half is Brown Sector. This mirrors the equal division of the north end into Blue and Red Sectors.

This is unsatisfactory for several reasons. Firstly, Grey Sector has many fewer levels than Brown Sector in the dialogue (thirty, as opposed to ninety-five) and so should ideally occupy a narrower part of the station. Secondly, if Grey Sector contains the heavy machinery for the rotation gear, it must adjoin the non-rotating part of the station. Elsewhere in the dialogue, Agent Cranston refers to topologically impossible parts of the station, such as "levels 50 and 51 between the Blue and Grey Sectors", which logically should describe a line through the open air in the garden, given that the widest parts of the station have up to 95 levels. So perhaps none of this account is technically reliable.

There are some advantages to this division of zones. Extending Green Sector into the built-up north end of the Carousel allows the Ambassadorial Suites to rise high above ground-level and overlook the garden, as seen in the TV shows. Grey Sector is properly situated at the interface between the rotating and non-rotating parts of the station; and is suitably restricted to fewer floors by the bevelled design of the maglev bearings for the rotation gear. However, it is not enough to relegate Brown Sector just to "Downbelow", since there are proper suites and corridors in Brown Sector (see season two's "The Geometry of Shadows") and levels that rise as high as N'Grath's domicile in Brown 9 (season one's "Soul Hunter").