It's Perri's fault. Really. And Lizbet didn't help.
Okay, so, I helped get her addicted to Babylon 5 without a second thought. It was a sadistic, calculated move, guaranteed to make Perri suffer and bliss at the same time, and thus give me and Cath something to chortle over for many months until she got caught up on the episodes. Then she could just suffer like we had through the four years of week-to-week airings, and know how easy she'd had it until then.
She decided to return the favor by making me write fic. < sigh > Never, never make a personification of War mad (as in, more insane), if you possibly can help it.
I'd been half-playing, half-imagining some ideas for a group of ISN reporters who did not end up dead, in prison, or collaborating after the middle of third season; but I hadn't even worked out all their names, okay? Or what they were like when they weren't working. Or if any of them had ever met Garibaldi and Ivanova and Sheridan and Delenn. Or what they were doing besides having far too much fun and annoying the hell out of EarthGov at the same time.
Then Perri started making up things for Sinjun Ross to do on Babylon 5, and I thought that if she had the guts to turn a Mary Sue from Hell into a real story --- well, why couldn't I put a plot around my random bits of silliness? Perri enthusiastically agreed (she's evil, she's just evil) and I wrote the beginning of Freedom Network, starting with the day ISN went black.
But I still didn't know these people I was imagining, so I had to work backwards, starting with Margo --- and Margo met Sinjun halfway through her prologue.
After that it just got out of hand.
Lizbet was writing Power of Persuasion by now, and keeping it a secret from Perri, and she asked my (and Margo's, and Sophie's) help with some of Mingala's activities, so it was getting even weirder... and then Sophie and Drew got sucked into working for Cynthia Torquemann, and Perri, Lizbet and Dianne DeSha pitched in to 'help' with the interviews. By then it was too late; I had a herd of original characters stampeding across the Babylon 5 landscape, determined to get the truth, the story, and all the good coffee to be had on this side of the Epsilon Sector. My only comfort is that Perri has suffered more at Sinjun's hands (so far) than the entire Crew has managed to inflict on me (yet).
Aside from the Prologues, where you meet most of the Freedom Network team of intrepid journalists --- Margo, Wally, Sophie, Drew, Flynn, Daniel and Robin --- most of the action in this story takes place off Babylon 5 proper. It sticks pretty close to the storylines for Babylon 5 canon --- except where we had to tweak references to the other stories. There is direct interaction with the Babylon 5 characters, but it's significantly less than there is in Perri's and Lizbet's stories. However, given the opportunity, any glancing reference to any passing character that has appeared onscreen has been taken advantage of, especially if it involves ISN, Clark, the Earth Alliance, the Free Mars Movement, or the Rangers.
Perri's right, it is all JMS's fault. The story's too big for the canvas....
So, if you admire gonzo journalism, Penn & Teller, cartoons, Monty Python references, CNN, the reporters who covered the Blitz, Godzilla movies, the Legion of Doom, or have ever goofed around with a video camera in the privacy of your own home --- don't change the channel.
Let FN and the Satellite of Love bring you the galaxy!
Chris Kamnikar
(and the Freedom Network News Crew)
I. Marc Carlson and company for the Timeline of the Babylon 5 Universe, which helped me narrow down a *lot* of when-stuff-happened, even if I had to kinda mess with a few things to have them make sense inside the story.
The one and only Lurker's Guide to Babylon 5, for cultural and organizational information, synopses, and reminders of which episodes ISN reporters appeared in, even if they were only doing broadcasts.
The great, funny, talented, subversive Linda Ellerbee, and her 1985 book, "...And So It Goes: Adventures in Television" which I realized inspired at least half of the antics of the FN crew almost five years after the last time I read it. Get a copy. It'll give you a much better perspective on the realities behind the camera as well as those that make it onscreen.
And to whoever discovered caffiene: thanks.
Last and most gratefully, my betareaders, who also performed double-duty as IRC victims and interviewees:
Dianne "Sybil" DeSha, (who played the parts of Bashanto, Anita Lacey, Magda, and Bruce)
and Lizbet Lewis (who started off the IRC interviews by needing one with Sophie for Mingala Chang, and paid me back by standing in for Freddy until her ISP connection went *spuh*).
Chocolate all around for the Horsechicks who made working for Cynthia fun, and who caught all my worst mistakes.
And one last thank-you to Catherine Boone, for, as Perri says, trying to keep us honest. It's impossible to get too far off-track when a purist is looking over your shoulder and pointing out all the unavoidable realities; and if she hadn't tried so hard to get Perri
addicted last April, I wouldn't have helped, and none of this would have happened.
On to Prologue 1 -- Surfing Over the Abyss (Flynn, Daniel and Robin)
Back to Freedom Network
Back to Babylon 5.14159
Acknowledgements
J. Michael Straczynski, for coming up with Babylon 5, and giving me a new obsession.
Perri Smith, she who sucked me into writing about these lunatics in the first place, (and acted as Sinjun, Coreen Dickerson, and Jesse in the interview situations);
