A Dark, Distorted Mirror (7)

With Babylon 5 complete at last, the Alliance is ready to enter a new age, a golden time of peace and prosperity.  But in a galaxy that has known only war, the concept of peace is hard to grasp.  The new age brings many challenges, not learning how to fight, but learning how to live.  Some seek that understanding through work and labour, others through continuing to build a better world, while for some there is no understanding, only continued war.  And across the dead vastness of space, ancient ships continue to move, gathering for a purpose no one can comprehend.

It begins as shock.  It turns to anger, then fear.  A dead world.  A homeless people.  And a lust for revenge.  All forces begin to converge on Babylon 5, demanding answers, demanding retribution, demanding justice.  Kats and Sinoval and Corwin and Delenn and Sheridan and the remnants of the Narn people.  And Sebastian.  And the Vorlons.  Truth is a three-edged sword - but then understanding is not required.  Only obedience.

All things have a price, all actions have a consequence, but no one suspected this.  Across an entire world, eyes look up at the heavens to see a black shadow fall across the sun, and a voice speaks to an entire race. 

 "Behold the price of disobedience.  Behold the price of dealing with the Shadow."  And then the screaming begins.

2261 was the year the war ended. 2262 was the year the peace began. But for some people the difference between peace and war is very small indeed. Decisions made in wartime look harder in the cold light of day, and the greater the light shining in the galaxy, the greater the shadows cast by it.

2261 was the year the war ended.

2263 was the year the peace fell apart.

2262 was the year in between. The year the dream was born.

The year is 2261.  Earth and Minbar both lie in ruins.  Babylon 4 has been sent back in time a thousand years, bearing the prophet Valen, and John Sheridan has been healed of his infection and his injuries.  But at what cost?

For a year and a half, he has been gone.  Shrouded in mystery and rumour, he has been walking in the shadows at the corner of the mind's eye.  It is time for him to return.  As the Brotherhood Without Banners prepares the next stage of its devastating campaign of terror, as Dexter Smith struggles to investigate what is happening to the telepaths, as G'Kar learns some horrifying secrets, and as Sheridan stares into the abyss of his own soul, Sinoval will reach out his hand and return to the galaxy.  And two steps behind him.... is Sebastian.

This is "Babylon Five" spin-off fiction, using the characters and situations of the television show, written on an amateur basis by a fan of the show. However, the sheer quality of the plotting and the writing set this work apart from the usual run of "fan fiction" and clearly establish Gareth Williams as a major storytelling talent.

Unlike the well-known "Star Trek" mirror universe, which in part provided the inspiration, the characters are not evil caricatures clad in black leather and brandishing whips, but themselves – changed in various ways by ten years of conflict and hardship never experienced by the originals, but still the same people, with the same hopes, aspirations and dreams. And this is no crossover story, with the heroic originals from the fortunate "real" universe materialising from nowhere to turn their counterparts back to the paths of righteousness.

These are characters working out their own destinies. That which they are, they are. One equal temper of heroic hearts... strong in will, to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.