Season 2, Episode 2: Babylon Cubed

by Simon-F. Laflamme

When a lucrative underhanded deal brings the crew of the Goliath to investigate the tail of Brakir’s famed comet, they suddenly find themselves back in the year 2251, on a transport to the unfinished Babylon 3. The transport’s name is Goliath, and its captain is Ta’Ren. His passengers are all Babylon 3 personnel: engineer Salambo St-Cloud, Erich Crowley of the Psi Corps, Babylon 3’s wing commander Colonel Thomas Carlson, and his second-in-command Major Emily Jane Banks. The station’s commander is an old friend of Carlson’s, Colonel Tommi Salmainen. He has arranged festivities in an effort to get his crew to gel before the station is completed and goes online. But the celebrations are cut short when a rumor spreads that the station’s core is going critical and a general evacuation is ordered. As they flee with Banks and St-Cloud on the Goliath, Ta’Ren and Carlson discover the station is really under attack. Their last memory of the incident is the Goliath being boarded by the attackers. Carlson, Enoch, St-Cloud and Ta’Ren awake to discover they are on Babylon 5, hooked up in a VR Cyber-Net. A Drazi is seen fleeing the scene. Carlson and Ta’Ren catch up with him but discover his memory of the incident has been wiped clean. That night, in Carlson’s quarters, the frame holding the old photograph of he and his buddies crashes to the floor. Carlson discovers the picture had been folded so that the image Avis Ames was kept out of frame.