" Kosh: And so it begins.
G'Kar: there is a hole in your mind.
Sheridan: What do you want?
G'Kar: No one here is exactly what he appears.
Sinclair: Nothing's the same any more.
Earthforce officer: Commander Sinclair is being reassigned.
Londo: Why don't you eliminate the entire Narn homeworld while you're at it?
Addric: I see a great hand reaching out of the stars.
Lorien: Who are you?
Anchor: President Clark has signed a decree today declaring martial law.
Sheridan: These orders have forced us to declare independence.
Minbari Warrior: Weapons, Supplies.
Sheridan: ...So people get off their encounter-suited butts and do something!
Zathras: You're the one who was.
Kosh: If you go to Z'Ha'Dum, you will die.
Lorien: Why are you here? Do you have anything worth living for?
Delenn: I think of my beautiful city in flames.
Sheridan: Giants in the playground.
Sheridan: Now get the hell out of our galaxy.
Sheridan: We are here to place President Clark under arrest."

The world of Science-Fiction (Sci-Fi) is a variegated world, you can say that the sky's the limit, that the limit depends only in  the imagination of the writer/creator, and we know that there are no limits to the imagination. Thanks to Sci-Fi the scientists of today are working on the technology of tomorrow, because without Sci-Fi we wouldn't have developed satellites, cellular-phones, night-vision equipment, jet-planes, submarines, flights to the moon, medicines and much more.

"Babylon 5" is a five seasons arc that tells the story of man-kind and a few alien cultures through the life on a space-station, that operates as a United Nations to all alien worlds and Earth.

If you watch the video promo you can tell that the story is very colorful and includes many Sci-Fi elements, but mainly introduces the life of man (or alien) in the darkness of space.
As I mentioned before, the series is a story, a five books story if you wish, every book describes a year in the world of "Babylon 5" - starting in the year 2258 and ending in the year 2262. Throughout the story we learn of the perversion that the world knows (namely Earth).

Let's start with the year 2258, which is, of course, the first season of the series.

The story in this season introduces us to the characters of the show and to the different worlds in its universe. But sometimes the show introduces them in an informal way.
Usually, religions are not shown in Sci-Fi series, so they won't offend the feeling of the religious who watch those shows, like in the world of  "Star Trek", where the religion is not shown, or other shows, where only the Christianity is shown.
In the world of "Babylon 5", that tries to be as realistic as possible, the faiths are shown in "Parliament of  Dreams". In this episode, Commander Sinclair introduces the various faiths of Earth to the ambassadors and the command staff on all their derivatives, and that's how the story is built. In fact, one of the main characters in the show, then Lt. Commander/Commander and now Captain Susan Ivanova, is a Russian-Jew that has to come to terms with her Judaism when her father dies, and the family Rabbi comes to the station, in order to persuade her to sit Shiva on her father at the Jewish Organization for television criticism award winning "T.K.O.".

Another sentient cow in those Sci-Fi shows is the future medicine. Usually in the future, medicine is so advanced, that after 45 minutes per episode, the doctor finds the cure and saves the day at the last minute, that was the deal with "Star Trek". But, in "Babylon 5", the situation is not that simple, as we well noticed in "Believers" - an alien child is terminally ill, the doctor has the cure, but the belief of the parents prevents the child from the proper treatment. The doctor then decides to cure the child in any cost, and indeed the child lives. A happy end to all opinions... except the religion of the parents forces them to kill the child!

At the end of the first season there's an event that the Israeli people have experienced a few months after the episode aired. The president of Earth tried to work for a global peace using his position for that goal. But a few parties in the opposition, that were against those acts for peace, made sure that the president would be stopped - the president was assassinated. Try to imagine how you felt when you heard about Rabin's assassination when you watch "Chrysalis" again.

The second season of the show crystallizes one of the main stories of the series, and that's the great war of the universe against the ancient creatures called Shadows, but during a chess play between the various parties, we learn of the true and sad history of Earth through the continuing was between the two races - the Narns and the Centauries. Furthermore, Earthgov that went through an extreme change ever since the president was assassinated, is starting to reveal it-self as an anti-alien, in other words - racist.

In the second season, we have the story of the relationship between two races in the universe - Narns and Centauries, and the evil hatred between them that caused the Narn holocaust. The Centauries finally conquered the Narn homeworld, and the story is told from that point of view.

In "The Coming of Shadows", you can see G'Kar, the Narn ambassador, after shaking his enemy's hand, ambassador Mollari, thinking he could finally talk peacefully with them, and finds out that the Centauries attacked one of the Narn outposts, and killed almost a quarter of a million Narns. When you get to see this episode again, learn G'Kar's reaction to it.

Throughout the season we can also find some trading marks of the mind-work the Nazis did in the Second World War.
The Nazis started their way to the top quietly, through information promotion films, by creating public institutes with the soul purpose of making the Germans believe in racism. And just like them acted the new law on Earth, and at the night of the change of the government from pro-aliens to anti-aliens, a new group was founded called "Night Watch" which, at first, seemed like just one more voluntary organization for keeping the peace, but only later revealed its true face.

Even the media is shown here, in the beginning as an independent station, called Inter Stellar Network (a.k.a. ISN), with original and true stories, like on "And Now for a Word", but in the future when the station is influenced by the new law, the reports turn to anti-alien and pro-current Earthgov.

Moving on to the third season, we experience the Narns, whom are trying to stay as a united race, though they are being persecuted and abused by the Centauries. Earth policy has cross the lines, and the stations command staff has decided to declare the station as an independent station that stand alone from Earth. The main problem is with the ancient race that wants to take over the universe, and because of that we see great personal sacrifice from the Captain of the station.

We will start from the end - in order to save the universe, the Captain of "Babylon 5", Captain John J. Sheridan, goes on a suicidal journey to the homeworld of the Shadows, knowing there is no way back. Sheridan hopes that his sacrifice will end the war and save the universe, as seen in "Z'Ha'Dum".

The fourth season ends the great war between the universe and the Shadows, but the problems at home remained unsolved, and so the "Babylon 5" commanding crew goes to war against Earth, in order to replace the government, and return Earth to the hands of it's people.

In order to win the war against Earthgov, there is another war growing - the war on the people's opinion in this situation through the mass communication. The same ISN station that is now in the hands of the government shows "Babylon 5" in a negative light, but on "Babylon 5" there are original broadcasts of its own, and it's now up to the viewers to decide which ones to believe. Take "The Illusion of Truth" and "Conflicts of Interest" and put them one against the other and see what I mean.

If we take all those examples I gave you now, we can see that Sci-Fi can be looked upon as something serious, and learn about ourselves in the process. The show is following the growing of humanity during those five years and all the perversions it's experiencing through them.We learned that the media is a powerful weapon, that can have the right affect, depending who's controlling it. We learned that the human spirit is the one that will eventually survive and grow stronger.

But what does the future hold? Watch the opening credits of "The Corp is Mother, The Corp is Father", perhaps that's the answer to that question.