About Babylon 5.14159

Two doors down and across the hall...

Fast-forward about four years, to when Catherine (along with almost every other sci-fi nut in the universe) has been going into ecstasies about the show to Perri for a while, Christina's friend Lianna Zoe has been passing around some excellent B5 smut [Lianna: I'm a writer, not just a smut-peddler!], and Perri has finally given in. When TNT began airing the series from the beginning, she started watching. And promptly got as hooked as the others. [Perri: It's all their fault! All of it!]

This was a Bad Thing. Or a Good Thing, considering how you look at it -- the phone company and everyone making Babylon 5 merchandise certainly appreciated it. The phone calls between Denver, Wyoming and Chicago flew thick and fast, as Catherine and Chris took great delight in tormenting Perri by refusing to spoil her for anything coming up (but having absolutely no compunctions about making veiled references, then chuckling evilly [Chris: heehehehehehehehe. Like that.]). Then Perri discovered the incredible coolness (and, well, sexiness) that is Garibaldi and the calls got even more frequent (so she and Chris could lust together and Catherine 'I Worship Bester' could continue tormenting).

One of the side-effects of more than two fanfic writers obsessing on the same show at the same time is that, eventually, fanfic will be produced. In Chris's case, her obsession with various forms of news media overlapped with ISN's very cool reporting, and mushroomed into a look at the Resistance movement back on Earth and on Mars. In Perri's case, it took the form of a British Ranger named Sinjun, who just happened to be hopelessly gone on one Michael Garibaldi, and expanded to include a vast percentage of the Rangers. Neither of these stories would probably ever have been written down if Bad Things hadn't started happening to Garibaldi in fourth season. But since they did... well, obviously someone had to put right what once went wrong... Oops, wrong show -- but you get the idea.

And, since Perri was writing, Chris had to be pulled in as well, since Perri's not good at suffering alone. [Chris: Not at all. If Perri ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!] And, since both felt that things needed to be fixed, it made sense for their stories to run parallel through the same universe, two doors down and across the hall from the canonical Babylon 5 universe.

Catherine bowed out of all involvement at this point (we told you, she worships Bester. She's scary sometimes), but that was okay -- because 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer' had just finished for the season and Dianne, Lizbet and Celli (the remaining Horsechicks) all needed a new fix.

Horsechicks -- Welcome to Babylon 5!

In due course, Chris and Perri (with lots of help from Catherine the Evil) pulled in all three of the above (Lizbet and Celli out of boredom more than anything; Dianne fell hard for Garibaldi), and Perri persuaded to pass on the torture that Chris and Catherine had been dishing out to her.

Then Lizbet started taunting Perri by not only producing her own story, but setting in the same universe!

So there we were, giggling back and forth on the phone, making sure everyone had their timelines synched, borrowing everything from characters to riots from each other and occasionally even remembering to put them back where we got them. We plotted and schemed and twisted and warped and the result was a little place we like to call Babylon 5.14159. [Chris: And I can't believe we did it. I still can't believe we did it.][Perri: I believe it.]

You'll recognize lots of things about this universe -- the cast of characters is very similar, the villains are still evil, and most of the history is more or less the same. And, of course, the place is still Babylon 5.

But there are some faces you won't recognize right off -- and some you will that now actually have names and backgrounds. And while every action still has an equal and opposite reaction, some of those reactions have changed just a bit. Power of Persuasion and Freedom Network, for the most part, take only a few liberties with canon -- Scenes from a Spaceside Bar, on the other hand, throws vast chunks of post-second season canon out the window on a regular basis, and has fun doing so.

So, take a seat in the Zocalo, pull up a bar stool in Paulie's, or settle in on the Satellite of Love, and let us tell you how it really happened.

The years are 2259 to 2262. The name of the place -- Babylon 5.14159.