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Various Speeches from Babylon 5

Opening narrations, and a few other speeches




Monologue from the Pilot
spoken by Londo Mollari


I was there at the dawn of the third age of mankind.

It began in the Earth year 2257, with the founding of the last of the Babylon stations, located deep in neutral space. It was a port of call for refugees, smugglers, businessmen, diplomats . . . and travelers from a hundred worlds. Could be a dangerous place – but we accepted the risk, because Babylon 5 was our last, best hope for peace.

Under the leadership of its final commander, Babylon 5 was a dream given form: a dream of a galaxy without war, when species from different worlds could live side by side in mutual respect. A dream that was in danger as never before, by the arrival of one man on a mission of destruction.

Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. This is its story....



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Season One



Monologue from Season One
spoken by Jeffrey Sinclair


It was the dawn of the third age of mankind – ten years after the Earth-Minbari War.

The Babylon Project was a dream, given form. Its goal: to prevent another war, by creating a place where humans and aliens can work out their differences peacefully. It's a port of call – home away from home – for diplomats, hustlers, entrepreneurs, and wanderers.

Humans and aliens, wrapped in two million, five hundred thousand tons of spinning metal . . . all alone in the night.

It can be a dangerous place, but it's our last best hope for peace.

This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2258. The name of the place is Babylon 5.



Speech in Mind War
spoken by G'kar to Catherine Sakai


There are things in the universe billions of years older than either of our races. They are vast, timeless. And if they are aware of us at all, it is as little more than ants. And we have as much chance of communicating with them as an ant has with us.

We know. We've tried. And we've learned that we can either stay out from underfoot, or be stepped on.

They are a mystery, and I am both terrified and reassured to know that there are still wonders in the universe – that we have not yet explained everything.

Whatever they are, they walk near Sigma 957, and they must walk there . . . alone.



Final note of Season One
spoken by Jeffrey Sinclair


"Nothing's the same any more."



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Season Two



Monologue from Season Two
spoken by John Sheridan


The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace.

A self-contained world five miles long, located in neutral territory. A place of commerce and diplomacy for a quarter of a million humans and aliens. A shining beacon in space . . . all alone in the night.

It was the dawn of the Third Age of Mankind – the year the Great War came upon us all.

This is the story of the last of the Babylon stations. The year is 2259. The name of the place is Babylon 5.



Speech in In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum
spoken by Vir Cotto to Morden


Morden:   What do you want?

Vir:   I'd like to live just long enough to be there when they cut off your head and stick it on a pike – as a warning to the next ten generations that some favors come with too high a price. I want to look up into your lifeless eyes and wave . . . like this.

Can your associates arrange this for me, Mr. Morden?



Final note of Season Two
spoken by Susan Ivanova


It was the end of the Earth year 2259, and the war was upon us. As anticipated, a few days after the Earth-Centauri treaty was announced the Centauri widened their war to include many of the Non-Aligned Worlds. And there was another war brewing closer to home. A personal one, whose cost would be higher than any of us could imagine. We came to this place because Babylon 5 was our last, best hope for peace. By the end of 2259, we knew that it had failed.

But in so doing, it became something greater. As the war expanded, it became our last, best hope – for victory.

Because sometimes, peace is another word for surrender. And because secrets – have a way of getting out.



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Season Three



Monologue from Season Three
spoken by Susan Ivanova


The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace.

It failed.

But in the year of the Shadow War, it became something greater: our last, best hope – for victory.

The year is 2260. The place: Babylon 5.



Speech in Dust to Dust
spoken by Londo Mollari to Vir Cotto


Vir, I have only seen political naïveté this complete once before – in a speech before the Centaurum by Lord Jarno. When he was finished, we recommended that he be sterilized in the best interests of evolution. But then we remembered that he was married to Lady Jarno, so really there was no need.



Speech in Severed Dreams
spoken by John Sheridan


As of this moment, Babylon 5 is seceding from the Earth Alliance.

We will remain an independent state until President Clark is removed from office.



Final note of Season Three
spoken by G'kar


It was the end of the Earth year 2260, and the war had paused, suddenly and unexpectedly.

All around us, it was as if the universe were holding its breath . . . waiting.

All of life can be broken down into moments of transition or moments of revelation. This had the feeling of both.

G'Quon wrote, There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way.

The war we fight is not against powers and principalities – it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope, the death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender.

The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation.

No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born in pain.



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Season Four



Monologue from Season Four
spoken by just about everybody


Lennier:   It was the year of fire,
Zack Allen:   the year of destruction,
G'Kar:   the year we took back what was ours.

Lyta Alexander:   It was the year of rebirth,
Vir Cotto:   the year of great sadness,
Marcus Cole:   the year of pain,
Delenn:   and the year of joy.

Londo Mollari:   It was a new age.

Stephen Franklin:   It was the end of history.

Susan Ivanova:   It was the year everything changed.

Michael Garibaldi:   The year is 2261.
John Sheridan:   The place: Babylon 5.



Dialogue in Into the Fire
spoken by John Sheridan to Delenn


Sheridan:   We are all alone now, just the younger races. We can't blame anyone else from now on. It's a new age, Delenn. A third age!

Delenn:   Why third?

Sheridan:   We begun in chaos, too primitive to make our own decisions. Then we were manipulated from outside by forces that thought they knew what was best for us. And now – now we are finally standing on our own. Lorien was right, it's a great responsibility. This is ours now.

Delenn:   Strange. The galaxy seems somehow smaller now that the First Ones are gone forever.

Sheridan:   It feels like the magic's gone now.

Delenn:   No, not gone. Now we make our own magic. Now we create our own legends. Now we build the future. Now we stop....

Sheridan:   ... being afraid of shadows.



Final note of Season Four
spoken by Delenn


It was the end of the Earth year 2261. It was the dawn of a new age for all of us. It was the end of one chapter, and the beginning of another.

The next twenty years would see great changes, great joy, great sorrow. The telepath war. The Drakh war. The new Alliance would waver and crack.

In the end, it would hold – because what is built endures. And what is loved endures. And Babylon 5... Babylon 5 endures.



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Season Five



Monologue from Season Five
(excerpts from previous episodes)


Kosh:   And so it begins ....
(Chrysalis, December 2258)

Wind-Sword Warrior:   There is a hole in your mind.
(The Gathering, March 2257)

Jeffrey Sinclair:   What do you want?
(And the Sky Full of Stars, May 2258)

G'Kar:   No one here is exactly what he appears.
(Mind War, April 2258)

Jeffrey Sinclair:   Nothing's the same any more.
(Chrysalis, December 2258)

General Hague:   Commander Sinclair is being reassigned.
(Points of Departure, January 2259)

Londo Mollari:   Why don't you eliminate the entire Narn homeworld while you're at it?
(Revelations, January 2259)

Elric:   I see a great hand reaching out of the stars ....
(The Geometry of Shadows, January 2259)

Sebastian:   Who are you?
(Comes the Inquisitor, November 2259)

ISN Reporter:   President Clark has signed a decree today declaring martial law.
(Messages from Earth, April 2260)

John Sheridan:   These orders have forced us to declare independence.
(Severed Dreams, April 2260)

Bester:   .... weapons supplies ....
(Ship of Tears, July 2260)

John Sheridan:   .... unless you people get off your encounter-suited butts and do something!
(Interludes and Examinations, August 2260)

Zathras:   You are the one who was.
(War Without End II, August 2260)

Kosh:   If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die.
(In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum, August 2259 and Z'ha'dum, December 2260)

Lorien:   Why are you here?
(Whatever Happened to Mr Garibaldi?, January 2261)

Lorien:   Do you have anything worth living for?
(Whatever Happened to Mr Garibaldi?, January 2261)

Delenn:   I think of my beautiful city in flames ....
(Rumors Bargains and Lies, July 2261)

John Sheridan:   .... like giants in the playground ....
(The Long Night, January 2261)

John Sheridan:   Now get the hell out of our galaxy!
(Into the Fire, January 2261)

John Sheridan:   We are here to place President Clark under arrest.
(Endgame, November 2261)



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The Finales



Final Note of Sleeping in Light
spoken by Susan Ivanova


An expedition to Coriana space found Sheridan's ship a few days later, but they never found him. All the airlocks were sealed, but there was no trace of him inside. Some of the Minbari believe he'll come back some day, but I never saw him again in my lifetime.

Babylon 5 was the last of the Babylon stations. There would never be another. It changed the future, and it changed us.

It taught us that we had to create the future, or others will do it for us. It showed us that we have to care for each other – because if we don't, who will? And that strength sometimes comes from the most unlikely of places.

Mostly, though, I think it gave us hope that there can always be new beginnings, even for people like us.

As for Delenn.... Every morning for as long as she lived, Delenn got up before dawn and watched the sun come up.



Final Note of The Deconstruction of Falling Stars
spoken as Earth's sun explodes


This is how the world ends, swallowed in fire... but not in darkness.

You will live on – the voice of all our ancestors, the voice of our fathers and our mothers, to the last generation.

We created the world we think you would have wished for us.

And now we leave the cradle for the last time.


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Monologues from Babylon 5 / Updated 9 August 2008 by Larry King

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