What if Babylon 5 were written by.....

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Heinlein?

• Talia and Ivanova would already be sleeping together...
• this would surprise no one, for everyone else would be sleeping together as well...
• did I mention they'd all be related?
• Mars rebels would be throwing large chunks of rock at Earth...
• every female on the show would possess multiple doctorates...
• every female on the show would be pregnant...
• Franklin would spend most of his time gene-splicing (see above)...
• Garibaldi would spend most of his time arguing with his (sentient) computer...
• Sheridan and Sinclair would *both* have discovered that they were long-lost by-blows of Lazarus Long...
• What other races? Humanity would have exterminated them long ago!

Asimov?

• Kosh would eventually be revealed to be *somehow* in league with R. Daneel Olivaw...
• the Psi-Corps would have pronouns like "I/We/PsiCorps"...
• action scenes? What action scenes?
• the show would be off the air because the creator got bored with it; twenty-odd years later, it would continue, bit by bit...
• fortunately, the Shadows would be limited by Three Laws; by using tricks of logic, as well as trial and error, their threat could be alleviated...

Clarke?

• Rendezvous with Babylon 5; Garden of Babylon 5; Babylon 5 Revealed; need I say more?

Gibson?

• the CGI would be even *better*...
• everybody would have cybernetic enhancements (the GroPos would have had *lots*)...
• most of the show would take place on the network which everyone's jacked into...
• Sheridan would watch cyber-porn of his wife in VR glasses...
• a couple guys with VR equipment would attempt to get information out of... hey! Wait a minute!

Herbert?

• Jason Ironheart would have ruled the Empire for 1500 years...
• Kosh would have been highly praised by said God-Emperor for his line, "What is need compared to the The Path?"
• the Shadows would have told the Emperor, unless he did as instructed, "You will live out your life in a pain amplifier!"

Anthony?

• the Narn and Centauri, Earthers and Minbari... heck, even the Shadows and the Vorlons, would all get together and be friends in the end, when they realized that they really don't have anything to fight over, after all...

Lovecraft?

• the whole arc would be played back on a twisted piece of alien machinery found in a cave in Antarctica; all the viewers would die or vanish mysteriously sometime later, leaving a "foetid stench"...

William Shakespeare -

• we'd be getting foreshadowing of every major plot turn... hmm...
• the clowns would actually turn out to be tragic characters...
• it would not be called Babylon 5, would instead be named after a character who would likely die before the series is done.

William Shatner -

• "And THE sky... FULL OF stars..."
• Sinclair and Sheridan would have a new Lt. Commander to boff each week
• Bester would have a cheesy Russian accent
• tek pushers would be running rampant!
• Shatner would _have_ to have a role...

Robert Jordan -

• Eight seasons and counting, no end in sight...
• The Shadows are breaking free from their ancient prison. The One - sorry, the Dragon Reborn - must come into his power to fight it - he who will save the galaxy and break it. Delenn would have come out of her prison not as a human, but as a werewolf; and Garibaldi would start wearing a big hat & gambling a lot.

Frank Herbert -

• The Character that Will Not Die
• The station would be a self-contained ecosystem, within which a species of giant drug-producing sandworm lives...

David Lynch -

• Changes his mind halfway through the arc
• Two words: Dancing midget.
• Julie Cruise appears every other episode.

God -

• It would probably make a lot less sense.

Dr. Seuss -

• "Babylon 4, back again? When's it been, Sheridan? When's Delenn been?"
• "Sinclair's fair. But barely there, Sinclair. Where's Sinclair? Having fun? The One, having fun? The One's done having fun. He's arranging strangers into rangers."

Steven Spielberg -

• all the aliens just want to go home
• Babylon 5 located in the heart of a vast jungle, populated by ravenous, prehistoric, CGI... oh, you know the drill...
• Alpha, Delta and Zeta squadrons would consist of ranks of precocious child fighter pilots. Every time a ship died it would roll over in slow motion amid a cloud of debries to eerie, ominous music. Sheridan would carry a whip and a dusty fedora. Kosh's encounter suit would open to reveal Yakko, Wakko and Dot. Ivanova would be played by Goldie Hawn, and Garibaldi by Dennis Weaver. We would never see Morden's face, but rather just a shot of a pair of dusty cowboy boots. The Shadows would turn out to be really pissed offed Velociraptors.

Philip K. Dick -

• Remember the VR in And The Sky Full Of Stars? That was actually reality, and Sinclair is living in a virtual reality machine manifested within a virtual reality. Or is he?
• The main villian would be the Happ-EE Corporation.
• Garibaldi would be selling forged Warner Bros. animation cels to discriminating Centauri.
• Talia Winters is faking her telepathic abilities.
• Sheridan would be quite distressed by the divine messages that are being projected onto his morning cup of Koffee.
• The Vorlon would be obsessed with late 20th century television soap operas.
• Spoo would have inexplicable hallucinigenic properties.
• Londo would suddenly begin to sport a mechanica eye and arm for no previously discernable reason.
• Morden's last name would be Fremont
• The Vorlon, when finally unmasked, would turn out to be Richard M. Nixon.

John Woo -

• Garibaldi gets to slide along the bar in slow motion shooting two PPGs at heavily armed and undertrained thugs. Every episode.

Sergio Leone-

• A Soul Hunter at one end of the corridor. Delenn at the other. They face each other. The Soul Hunter pulls his jacket aside to reveal the holstered remote control to the device he is standing in front of- which is starting to glow. Delenn looks at him. A triluminary in her pocket. Five minutes of incredible music, during which the Soul Hunter's eyes narrow, Delenn looks ever more intensely back, the machine continues to glow even more, nobody moves and the camera continually closes in upon their eyes. The music reaches a crescendo- quietens- In C&C, an explosion is heard. The Soul Hunter staggers a few steps forward, his broken machine behind him. He tries to holster his remote control, and collapses. Delenn shows him the triluminary. He dies. ...The series ends.

Oliver Stone-

• --It's all a conspiracy. (hang on... that's how jms writes it...)

Sam Peckinpah:

• PPG fights instantly go into slow motion, with plenty of spraying blood, vaporized flesh and many closeups on agonized faces. Space battles also go into slow motion, with plenty of spraying flame, vaporized hull, and many closeups on agonized faces.

Ridley Scott:

• Every corridor on B5 would be equipped with flashing red lights, strobes and steam jets. Kosh would not speak, but would leave small, origami animals at the doors to character's rooms. There would be constant close-ups of people's eyes. Fans would forever argue over whether Delenn was or was not really Minbari. The Centauri would be Japanese. The soundtrack would consist of weird, distorted Asian music. B5 would have a lot of fans.

Tim Burton:

• Station interiors would be even darker than they are now. Danny Devito would be playing Garibaldi. Delenn would emerge from her Chrysalis with a pair of scissors for hands. Kosh's encounter suit would have a pumpkin for a head. All ships would be grotesquely misshapen organic tech. The Shadows would by sympathetic.

Roman Pulanski:

• Sheridan and Garibaldi would be having an affair; Kosh would be a vampire. PPG fights would turn into long, drawn-out sequences with thousands of shots. Ivanova and Talia would be having an affair, and Dr. Franklin would be molesting children on the side. Londo would turn out to be a mafia don. Lennier would be a necrophiliac, G'Kar a transvestite.

Douglas Adams:

• The final episode would be titled ``So Long, and Thanks for All the Kosh''?

John Varley:

• Delenn would again have the cleft chin and deep voice she had in the premeire. This would appear and reappear every 4-6 episodes. Kosh would be one giant lung filled with liquid oxygen. Mars Dome would be a simulation of Mars' atmosphere located in Ireland, and eveyone on Mars would live in Kinshasa Dome, Cape Cod Dome, or EuroDisney Dome. (Come to think of it, nobody would live in EuroDisney Dome.)