Editing Babylon 5 (section)

== Themes Explored ==
[[File:Minbari_Sharlin_Warcruiser.jpg|Right|350px|thumb|Explosions are red, our ships are all blue<br>Our enemies are dead and that includes you]]
* '''Order vs Chaos''' - The third and half of the fourth season are dominated by the Shadow war, which is an explicitly lawful vs chaotic conflict, over the question of whether evolution is better served through cooperation or competition.  The protags end this conflict by refusing to choose, telling both sides to "Get the hell out of our galaxy."
* '''Dictatorship will come draped in the flag''' - Bookending the Shadow war is the Earth civil war.  Earth gradually falls into the governance of a paranoid, police state regime that uses telepaths and fear of alien subversion to undermine liberty, while ironically receiving support from the Shadows.  Mars and a number of peripheral colonies (including Babylon 5) secede in response, and portions of the military go renegade.  The writers of the show very accurately depict the kind of disinformation tactics used by real dictatorial regimes, and these episodes have only become more poignant in light of the 21st century culture war.
* '''Stress & Addiction''' - Over the course of the series, one character becomes addicted to stimulants while another relapses on alcoholism.  The effect this has on their lives and relationships is very genuinely and painfully depicted.
* '''Arthurian Legend Arc''' - Babylon 5 is not a traditional heroic space opera.  It has a couple heroic figures with heroic arcs, but their stories are not the whole story.  Instead the overarching theme can be very broadly described as Camelot in space, complete with the round table.  Multiple episodes explicitly deal in Arthurian themes, and the relationship between Kosh and Sheridan deliberately parallels Merlin and Arthur.  
* '''Faith without Gods''' - In this regard Babylon 5 is a direct rebuttal to a prior work, Gene Roddenberry's ''Star Trek The Next Generation''.  Roddenberry had conjectured that by eliminating scarcity with limitless energy humanity would be freed to embrace higher ascetic virtues of discovery and charity, and that religion would vanish in favor of the pursuit of greater knowledge of the limitless cosmos.  The writers of Babylon 5 did not go that way.  Free of want?  Humans will want more.  Progress?  It's the 23rd century and people are still drinking Zima.  Exploration and discovery?  The hard questions elude science: "Who are you?  What do you want?  Do you have anything worth living for?"  In the world of Babylon 5, beings tend to be selfish and competitive.  A rare few aspire to be more, to seek for higher truths and aspire to nobler causes.  The writers eventually make their point bluntly clear in a character's monologue: gods didn't create people, people created gods because they were searching for meaning, and will never stop searching for meaning; the seekers are the best of us, not the worst of us.  ''Star Trek Deep Space Nine'' was ultimately saddled with Roddenberry's baggage on this subject and thus had to make the Bajoran prophets a tangible thing, an alien life form that could be experienced and comprehended so as to give the Bajoran faith legitimacy in Roddenberry's universe.  Babylon 5 has no such limitations and thus features catholic monks studying alien faiths, a wanderer claiming he's the continuation of Percival's quest to find the grail, and a human time traveling to become alien jesus.