[terran_emperor]

I'm going to post what i know about the original outline/story for B5. I will also put up some campaign ideas. If anyone else knows any of JMS' unused plot points for B5, post 'em and, if possible, give campaign ideas

Cmdr Sinclair
Originally Sinclair was to remain throughout the series and be involved in the shadow war and the Civil war. He would eventually take his place as Valen at the end of the series. JMS realised that he had thus boxed Sinclair in to a narrative corner with little room for character development. Ergo Sheridan was introduced.

Catherine Sakai - Sinclair's on/off girlfriend.
Originally, she was planned to go on an expidition to Z'ha'dum during Season 2. She would return is Season 3 luring Sinclair to Z'ha'dum. When Michael O'Hare left after s1, the relevant plot points were carried over to Anna Sheridan

Laurel Takashima - original 1st officer
Called Laurel Chang in the original treatment.
Originally, she was to have been involved in assassination attempt on ambassador Kosk as the insider. She was to be the one who housed the Control personality and under its control the one who shot Garibaldi. When revealed as control, she would have been relieved and replaced by the Russian 2nd Officer, Susan Ivanova.
Also Takashima would have been in an intimate relation ship with Ivanova.
Personallity and plot elements for this character were transfered to Talia Winters and Jack (Garibaldi's Second)
*It also seems like this original idea for Takashima was used for the Lt Boomer that shot Cmdr Adama in BSG (RMD)...possibly coincidence


Delenn
Delenn was to originally be a male character. When he underwent the transformation, he would have become female...

Taila Winters
I presume that she was introduced when Patricia Tallman didnt originally sign on for the series. I futher presume that she would have gone on to fufill Lyta's role in the series had Andrea Tompson stayed.
Also does anyone remember the Data chrystal that "Abbut" recorded and gave to Kosk in "Deathwalker"?Well if Mrs Tompson had remained with the series, it would have been revealed that it contained a copy of Talia's personality. Kosk would destroy the Control personality and use the crystal to restore Talia

Ivanova
(See Takashima)
Also had Ivanova been in season 5, She would have had the romance with Byron. It was instead transfered to Lyta

THE VORLON EMPIRE
Originally the Vorlons would not have been "Ancients" they'd be one of the 5 modern big races. They would also have been a very different race. Something like a cross between the "Terran Empire" from Star Trek's Mirror Universe and X-File's "Syndicate"
*This would make a rather interesting campaign...Metallic reskins of the vorlon ships and possibly playing a Vorlon pilot in a Vorlon Civil war

BABYLON PRIME
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_4
this would also make a great basis for a campaign...and a chance to use the B4 model for something different

PS does anyone have that Poster which had the original Pre-Pilot Treatment on it?
PPS I will ask for anyone who posts the link to that "Babylon-5: The Anime" prank site to be banned

[Colonol Dekker]

"What if" early on in the Earth-Minbari war before we got severley arse whooped. A suicide taks force managed to get to Minbar and nuke a few cities?

[Akalabeth Angel]

    Hmmn, not really sure what you're trying to say. It's not really a what if scenario, it's more of a "what would have happened had . . . " such and such happened. Ie, if Sinclair hadn't got booted off the show he would've stuck around. Same with his girly friend. All the changes are basically due to cast changes rather than new ideas as far as I know. It's the story that would have been had the production been ideal.

     I have a decent what if story of my own written out already, but no inspiration to do a TBP campaign nor really the resources in ships to carry it out. Not without significant plot changes. TBP still perpetually crashes to desktop for me. If I'm lucky. If I'm not lucky, my monitor goes black and I have to by trial and error somehow log myself out of my computer and then restart. Good times. I might run a debug sometime to see what the hell the problem is but I'm guessing it's to do with my lackluster video card.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

"What if" early on in the Earth-Minbari war before we got severley arse whooped. A suicide taks force managed to get to Minbar and nuke a few cities?

Like it but there are some problems.  Biggest is did we know where their home world was?  I remember only hearing of Minbari space and to stay away from it.  Second would be our jump drives.  We didn't have very accurate ones like the Minbari did.  Most likely any attempt would have been blasted out of the sky before it got close. 

On that note forget the nukes.  If it was a suicide strike what about just jumping a big ship into the atmosphere?  My guess is a big impact crater would be the result.  Heck the WhiteStars at the time of the EA Civil War still didn't know if the Mars jump would succeed. 

[Akalabeth Angel]

"What if" early on in the Earth-Minbari war before we got severley arse whooped. A suicide taks force managed to get to Minbar and nuke a few cities?

      How does that change story? Other than, the extermination of humanity being deserved.

[Flipside]

What if the Vorlons that were overpowered by Thirdspace were still alive somewhere?

[FUBAR-BDHR]

"What if" early on in the Earth-Minbari war before we got severley arse whooped. A suicide taks force managed to get to Minbar and nuke a few cities?

      How does that change story? Other than, the extermination of humanity being deserved.

B5 wouldn't have been built and the Shadows could be ruling the galaxy.  Or B5 could have been built but by a Shadow alliance.  B4 wouldn't have been built either so Valen would never had a ride back. 

Need more ways?

[Akalabeth Angel]

B5 wouldn't have been built and the Shadows could be ruling the galaxy.  Or B5 could have been built but by a Shadow alliance.  B4 wouldn't have been built either so Valen would never had a ride back. 

Need more ways?

        Yeah but how does Earth nuking Minbar impact the other story points? Does it make the Minbari not stop at the battle of the line? Or is the some important valen-library/artifact destroyed? (like the note Sinclair wrote to himself).
 
         I mean, nuking a city is fine, but how does that affect the story line, and what are the consequences. Beyond the fact that a few more Minbari died. Maybe Dekker's got something in mind but he didn't elaborate on it.

[FUBAR-BDHR]

Now that's the real question isn't it?

I see at least a few possibilities. 

First it doesn't matter at all as the news doesn't reach the Minbari fleet until after the surrender.  Good BlackStar plot there.

Second it shows the Centauri that the Minibari are vulnerable and they start a second front.  Earth winds up on the wrong side of the Shadow War.

Third Earth is annihilated so no B1, B2, B3, B4 or B5 resulting in a tear in the fabric of time itself. 

Fourth like you said we could hit something critical resulting in either no battle of the line or a delay as the Minbari go back to try save their world. 

[terran_emperor]

ah found it!
http://www.zteamproductions.com/protob5.html

What if- the main races (Humans, Minbari, Vorlons, Centauri and Narn) were exactly like their descriptions in the original flyer

Going by this Flyer, the Vorlons are the main enemy, not the shadows.
It would be hard to fit in the shadows...Maybe they would be the heroes?....:

!!!!Just got a good idea using just the information on the flyer

Or in this what if time line the shadows and Vorlons were two factions of the same race. The vorlons are evil, shadows are good. After a long war, the evil Vorlon faction were the victors. Defeated the Shadow faction went into exile, biding their time until they could stike back and when they do...it will shake the Galaxy. Meanwhile, the Vorlons have ambitions against the EA, because of a prophecy fortelling the destruction of the Vorlon Empire at the hands of the EA. They dont move directly...Instead they opporate through various other Races some directly (Like the Dilgar, Ch'Lonas, and Koulani) others by manipultion (The E-M war being the result of Vorlon manipulations)....

Meanwhile, the E-M war is pretty much the same. Except that in the following ten years, the EA and the Minbari become the B5 versions of Earth and the Vulcans from star Trek...(Except, its more like Earth with the Romulans).

The Narn and Centauri are essentially the same as in S1...Though the Narn war machine secretly recieves funding from the Vorlon Empire

[-Norbert-]

Thanks to that post I understand the "stuck in a tincan"-comment better 

Third Earth is annihilated so no B1, B2, B3, B4 or B5 resulting in a tear in the fabric of time itself. 

Not neccesarily. In the Dark Mirror Universe fan-fict. Earth was destroyed, but both Babylon 4 and 5 were build.
One by G'Kar controlling the Great Machine on Epsilon 4 and the other by an Alliance of races allied with the Vorlons.

The implications of Babylon 4 never being build and sent back with Valen would totally screw over ANYTHING we know about the state of the galaxy from 1260 up the to point of the story.

And if Babylon 4 was never build by Earth (or anyone else) I'm sure the Vorlons would be able to build it themselfs. The only problem would be ajusting Sinclair in the right way, to make sure the repeats history rather than change it and controlling the timerift.
But from "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" we know that both Shadows and Vorlons have the technology and knowledge to controll the time rift.

[Colonol Dekker]

I didn't really have such a deep plot in mind. Justa "If Sheridan can nuke one ship, why not a few Captains nuke Minbar" train of thought.  I play the E-M war too much and i wantd some payback...

[Vidmaster]

Since everything I did so far was closely related (and enriching ) to b5 canon, I better stay away from this discussion. Maybe MAG should post here. Earth-Brakiri-War anyone? 

[LeGuille]

My mind has always played along the lines of how the Minbari have acted towards earthers. To start, before, during and partly after the Earth-Minbari War, the Minbari Warrior-caste always considered the humans to be barbaric. It was not until the Battle of the Line that the Religious-Caste via the Grey Council thought otherwise.

With the way the Minbari really pushed back the humans, had the theory off thier shared souls not come into play, the entire fleet would have been wiped out, and Earth would have been quarantined. I say this, because the thought at that time is that we were barbaric, uncivil creatures who were nothing more than leeches upon the universe. It may have been the thought that Minbari would not have thought us ready for the universe, and would have quarantined us with a way to do that.

The best way I can think of, is the very thing that is considered sacrilege to all sentient beings. Destroying our jump gate. Imagine that. Humans completely scattered among the galaxy with the hot knife of the Minbari cut through our defenses and stopping our contamination of the Universe. It would have been the wisest decision.

Humanity would be left to the fringes of the galaxy and would fall into the care of several races within the galaxy to aide us in rebuilding away from Earth. Minbari would re-educate us. The Centauri would enslave us. The Narn would recruit us. The Vorlons... who the hell knows what they'd do...

It'd be a very different story in that case, if humanity was scattered among the Four Great races, and considered students to the Masters of the Universe. It's interesting to think about, at least.

[Akalabeth Angel]

My mind has always played along the lines of how the Minbari have acted towards earthers. To start, before, during and partly after the Earth-Minbari War, the Minbari Warrior-caste always considered the humans to be barbaric. It was not until the Battle of the Line that the Religious-Caste via the Grey Council thought otherwise.

With the way the Minbari really pushed back the humans, had the theory off thier shared souls not come into play, the entire fleet would have been wiped out, and Earth would have been quarantined. I say this, because the thought at that time is that we were barbaric, uncivil creatures who were nothing more than leeches upon the universe. It may have been the thought that Minbari would not have thought us ready for the universe, and would have quarantined us with a way to do that.

       Quarantined? The Minbari would have wiped the humans out. The war had absolutely nothing to do with the Minbari's view of us, it was simply the Earthers killed their leader, and the Minbari turned it into sort of a xenocidal holy war which would have not stopped until every last human was dead.

[-Norbert-]

"Follow them to their home panet and kill them all! Show no mercy! No mercy!"
I'm pretty sure that's exactly the words of Delenn in "In the Beginning" (slightly different wording in "Atonement" though, when she relives her memories in the dreaming ).

So Akalabeth Angel is absolutely right.

[Flipside]

It would have been interesting to see how JMS would have handled rebuilding relations if the Minbari had to not targetted the Military first, with the intention of moving on to the Civilians later, and had, instead, sterilised each planet as they went along.

Would the surrender/peace have even been possible under those circumstances? It is kind of odd that there seemed to be no particular compulsion against targetting civilians during the civil war, which I always thought as odd, since, whilst I can understand the rule of 'Minbari do not kill Minbari' being overturned, altering the entire tactical mandate of the Warrior Caste would have been far more difficult, I would have thought.

[LeGuille]

Sorry, I missed an entire paragraph in my point, and I think 'Flipside' filled in the thought I originally had.

I'm assuming that the Religious-Caste would have been more opt to a surrender under extreme circumstance. There has to have been some sort of way to allow the earthers to surrender. And say this happened before the Battle of the Line, Sinclair never would have been scanned and started the revelation among the Grey Council.

The whole problem is that the Warrior and Religious castes are not very opt to agree with each other. And for the Grey Council to allow them to surrender, period, would have been looked at as bad. The Trigati would have stilled rebelled and gone rogue.

I'm assuming a lot, and yes it does seem really out of place. But it's a what-if scenario. A surrender in the sacrifice of their non-terrestrial solar systems, and their jump gate maybe not destroyed, but guarded by the Minbari, to ensure they did not leave or something.

This brings in the interest of Narn, Vorlon, and Centauri governments questioning the Minbari. And perhaps the Trigati would attempt to finish the job, and this breaks out into a civil war among religious and warrior castes. Who knows. It's probably too far-fetched.

[Akalabeth Angel]

I'm assuming that the Religious-Caste would have been more opt to a surrender under extreme circumstance. There has to have been some sort of way to allow the earthers to surrender. And say this happened before the Battle of the Line, Sinclair never would have been scanned and started the revelation among the Grey Council.

I'm assuming a lot, and yes it does seem really out of place. But it's a what-if scenario. A surrender in the sacrifice of their non-terrestrial solar systems, and their jump gate maybe not destroyed, but guarded by the Minbari, to ensure they did not leave or something.

This brings in the interest of Narn, Vorlon, and Centauri governments questioning the Minbari. And perhaps the Trigati would attempt to finish the job, and this breaks out into a civil war among religious and warrior castes. Who knows. It's probably too far-fetched.

       The Earth forces were trying to surrender or negotiate terms well before the battle of the line, the president's speech before the Line makes reference to that. Remember that the war was STARTED by the Religious caste, not the Warrior caste. Without some reality-shattering relevation like the shared-souls thing, I doubt that the Minbari would have ever stopped. Unless they got so tired of exterminating humanity that they left some shell of a species left. But I doubt humanity would have much in the way of society left, let alone any sort of space faring force. Except for whatever they managed to evacuate, assuming it wasn't hunted down and killed like all the other ships.

[terran_emperor]

...Read the Babylon 5 Parallel Universe at http://www.b5-dark-mirror.demon.co.uk/ for fantastic "What If"...

It was rather interesting to "see" all these familiar faces in completly different roles...Especially Ivanova... Cant say any more without giving spoilers

Maybe this could be made into a campaign...

Of course it would mean putting engines on the B5 and giving it more anti-cap and anti fighter weapons...
Actually, I pictured the EAS Babylon in this story being a cross between S3 Babylon 5 and Grand Inquisitor Dask's EAS Tillman Dreadnought (The EA Civil war upgrade of course), which can be found at http://efni.org

Random Fact: The omega deatroyer was originally going to have fighter bays in its rotating section. The starfuries would be launched in the same way as they are from B5. If you look carefully you can see the bay doors on the CGI model in the show.