Similarities between Babylon 5 and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine

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Comparisons between the science fiction television series Babylon 5 (B5) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9) are natural because they were contemporary programs in the same genre and shared certain plot points in their development. There are also allegations that DS9 was created by Paramount after Paramount executives were shown the story outline for the entire B5 series (the "bible") and passed on the series.

Similarities

1. Both series premiered in 1993, and were set aboard space stations that were hubs of interstellar trade and politics.
2. Both stations were located beside portals to distant places. (B5 guarded a hyperspace "jumpgate"; DS9 guarded the mouth of a wormhole.)
3. Both series originally featured a shapeshifter character; however, Babylon 5 dropped that element before filming.
4. Both started off with unmarried commanders haunted by a recent conflict.
5. Both commanders had a girlfriend who was a freighter captain, Carolyn Sykes for Commander Sinclair and Kasidy Yates for Captain Sisko.
6. The commander of each station eventually became a religious figure who fulfilled a prophecy, advised by enigmatic aliens who were regarded as spiritual beings.
7. In both series the spiritual beings (the Vorlons, the Prophets) had an enemy (the Shadows, the Pah Wraiths) generally viewed as evil spirits by other races, with whom they had been at war for millennia.
8. Both series build up to a war between Humans and a militarily powerful, hard-to-detect enemy (the invisible Shadows, the shapeshifting Founders).
9. Both series had a sarcastic, cynical but dedicated head of security who started out as perceptive and extremely competent, but later succumbed to insecurity and compulsion (Garibaldi's drinking, Odo's link with the female Shapeshifter)
10. Both series had an idealistic young doctor with a hidden secret (Bashir's genetic enhancement, Franklin's involvement with the Underground). Both doctors also had strained relationships with their fathers.
11. Both series involved the use of genetically engineered diseases, designed to work against a specific group (Changelings, Markab, Human and Narn Telepaths, others) as a means of control or genocide.
12. The second-in-command of each station was a woman with a hot temper who had lost a family member in a war.
13. Central to each series were two alien races, one of which had until recently occupied and oppressed the home planet of the other. Furthermore:
    1. The oppressed race was a deeply religious one.
    2. The oppressors in both series were later manipulated by a powerful alien race to achieve its goals.
    3. The plot of each series eventually centered around a war against the oppressors and those who manipulated them.
    4. These wars resulted in the devastations of the former-oppressors' homeworlds.
14. Both series involved an alien race who had once been humanity's main enemies, but were now strong (but often troublesome) allies (Klingons, Minbari)
15. Both series involve a character who must deal with the conflict between their alien heritage, and their adopted human qualities (Worf, Delenn)
16. Each series added a small, tough starship, each the first of its kind, during the third season: DS9's Defiant and B5's White Star.
17. Each series includes a sinister organization working within the humans' government: DS9's Section 31 and B5's Psi Corps and Bureau 13.
18. Each series had a male character named "Dukat" (though B5's is spelt "Dukhat") and each series had a female character named "Lyta" (although DS9's is spelt "Leeta").
19. Each Station was administered by an Earth based government but was not in that government's territory.

Comparison

Some Babylon 5 fans contend that DS9 plagiarized elements of the premise and details of B5. J. Michael Straczynski approached Paramount Pictures, the studio which produced DS9, with the idea of producing B5 and had given them a copy of the series "bible" in 1989, several years before production on either series began. Straczynski has been quoted that DS9 was not developed until about 1991/1992 on the JMS message archive [1], and it is documented that DS9 was not announced by Paramount until nearly two months after the announcement of B5 by Warner Bros./PTEN in November 1991. Straczynski does not think that the producers of DS9 (Berman and Piller) borrowed the B5 concepts but the borrowing was done by the Paramount executives who had been given the series "bible" who directed the development of the series. ("Grand Theft, drama!" and "Re: DS9 vs B5 comments")

Babylon 5's pilot film was put into production first, in August 1992, while Deep Space Nine didn't begin filming until right after the B5 pilot production wrapped in September. However, the first DS9 episode was broadcast the month before the B5 pilot film in early 1993. The actual B5 series was not put into production until later that year. By the time B5's first season was produced and aired, DS9's entire first season had been televised and its second season had just started airing.

Many of the points listed above have caused much debate between fans of each franchise. In regard to the wormhole question, while some fans point out their existence in Star Trek before Babylon 5, wormholes had long been an established element of science fiction, pre-dating both shows.

Some Trek fans contend that since the Ivanova character, a hot-headed female, didn't appear until the first season of B5, one year after the DS9 premiere, that DS9 had the lead there; however, in the original Babylon 5 pitch material there is one Laurel Chang (later Takashima in the pilot), a "no-nonsense, but with a sly sense of humor" second-in-command.

Going the other way, however, it should be noted that in regard to the Defiant/White Star debate, DS9's third season began in the fall of 1994, while B5's third season began in the fall of 1995, thus the Defiant predates the White Star by a year. Furthermore, the two ships went in very different directions, with the White Star being the first ship of an entire fleet, while the Defiant was a troublesome prototype with only a handful of sister ships.

There were considerable differences between the oppressed races, also. Unlike the Bajorans, Babylon 5's Narn were a major power. Furthermore, the Bajorans and their story of oppression had already been established in a 1991 episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

DS9 was the first Star Trek series to break with the traditional standalone-episode format and adopt serial storyline arcs across several episodes, a format central to the B5 series. There are allegations that it only adopted the arc format in the later seasons, however its producers later contended that the entire series was one long story arc. Given that arc-oriented television had existed well before either series, in the form of soap operas and television shows such as St. Elsewhere and Hill Street Blues, it could be argued that there was no need to copy B5's format, since it had been successfully established elsewhere. In the favor of both series, a program taking place in a static location is more conducive to arc-driven storytelling than a series involving a transient starship.

Whatever surface similarities both shows shared in the beginning, they exhibited many significant differences as they progressed, both becoming well-respected and admired series.

External link

• A review of the Babylon 5 series bible