I never watched Babylon 5 but know I need to.... I hear nothing but good things about it. And maybe that's kind of the key to a more believable alien race, having internal divisions. Humans have many cultures. A HUGE race of billions of aliens should also have many cultures, even if none of them are like human cultures. Though it's also believable if a fascist regime in one such race eliminates all the others...
Well the thing is that in Star Trek all space faring races the crews are dealing with are roughly at the same technical level. In Babylon 5 this is different, there are huge differences in the technical capabiliites of the visible and known races.
Earth in B5 is kind of the new kid on the block, a new voice to the choir but getting more powerful pretty quickly. Earth didn't get the FTL capability by own research, instead they got it from the alien race called the Centauri in 2156.
Since then Earth explored space, colonised some worlds and is establishing its own turf so to speak. The Centauri, who are an empire on decline and knowing it, are acting as non-binding guidance to Earth. Earth does anyway what it wants. Also Earth is governed by a global government, where the headquartes is located in Geneva. The official name is the Earth Alliance, which spans multiple planets.
During the first 89 years or so Earth became a local, emerging power and also went into some space battles with lesser races, where Earth always was on the winning side of things.
So when drunk on winning it happened, what always happens: Earth overestimated its own capabilties by a long margin.
Earth wanted to know more about one of the older younger races called the Minbari. Centauri's ambassador to Earth, Londo Mollari, advised against it saying that within the Minbari are one of the oldest know space faring races, having FTL technology at least since one millenium, and their technology is unmatched. Even when Centauri Prime was at its peak of power they never, ever dared to anger the Minbari. (For example Earth has not managed yet to produce artificial gravity, so they using rotating centrifuges. The Minbari on the other hand have this ability since eons.)
Londo advised if Earth wants to communicate with them to send one small, diplomatic and unarmed vessel only. And also warned to not wake a sleeping dragon.
Earth of course sent an armada of battle ships, which were unfamilar with Minbari culture when greeting a new species. What was a greeting in Minbari culture the fleet viewed as attack, so without warning they launched an attack on the Minbari ships. The Minbari themselves have 3 castes - warriors, workers and priests. They are ruled by a council of 9 people, 3 of each category, but have one leader. Earths attack killed the acting leader. The Minbari went ballistic, wanted revenge and launched a full fledged war on Earth.
The EA had no chance of winning, and it took only about 1 week before the Minbari fleet reached Earth, bent on destroying the planet. Then when all humans thought all is over the Minbari suddenly declared for unknown reasons their unconditional surrender to the surprise of the whole galaxy. It is later discovered what happened.
So later as meeting point and to prevent another war Earth decided alien races should have a neutral place to talk to, which is what the Babylon space stations are about. Babylon 1 up 3 were destroyed by terrorists, Babylon 4 went missing in action, to Babylon 5 is then this place becoming a reality.
And aside Earth, Minbari and Centauri also the Narn, a race of humanoid reptiloids under the servitude of Centauri, are sending ambassadors there. On top of it they even got a Vorlon. Vorlons are a race shrouded in mystery, and they prefer to be that way, speaking only in riddlesome language. Nobody knows how a Vorlon looks like, or how their home world, because nobody who dared to travel there made it back alive. Vorlons are using some sort of biological technology. And one thing is clear: they are much, much older than the Minbari. And technoligically so advanced some do view them near godhood. While their technology is there, many fail to understand how it works or even how to produce it. Sometimes though the Vorlons tend to pickup a living outside being and use them for their own purposes, like the interrogator named Alexander, who later is revealed to be Jack the Ripper, only wanting his own death but the Vorlons don't give him that.
BTW even humanity is not always united in the series, an important arc is how the new president of EA, Morgan Clark, is erecting a fascist regime really quickly. For example by introducing his own Gestapo like league called Nightwatch. Main episode is "Severed Dreams", which one the 1997 Hugo award for best dramatic presentation.
Earth also gots telepath, which are put into an organisation named Psi Corps. One of the high ranking officers of it is a manipulating psycopath named Alred Bester, who is played by Walter Koenig. Yes, Pavel Chekov from TOS, but oh boy what a different role it is. And you will never even begin to think "Oh, Chekov", nono. The telepaths have their own strict codes they need to abide to, like no mind reading without permission. Of course some don't care. More powerful telepaths also can erase and rebuild a personality.
Which also is used for a new type of death penalty, namely death of persona. When somebody is found guilty, his body can still put to good use, like as janitor, cleaning toilets, whatever. It's just his nasty, old persona which is standing in the way, so they got full mind wipe and are replaced with a fake persona full of fake memories, having only one big desire - to serve society. Which has of course tons of philosophical implications as well, some discussed in the series.
The series gots many interwoven story arcs. So some stuff started in season 1 is resolved in season 4. Well, it's a vast universe to discover for sure. Also with some fun moments as well. Half of the main cast is sadly already dead by now.
These snippets are from the episode "Voices of authority", where this female Earth officer lays down Clark's playbook to remodel the government and society as well. This aired in 1995. The show also has still some of the best space battles seen on screen.
www.politico.eu
www.ctvnews.ca
www.the-independent.com
