Babylon 5 is by far the best Science Fiction series ever to grace our TV screens! Now before all you Trekkies out there fill my e-mail box with flame mail for expressing that opinion (no doubt considered sacrilige among those who sleep in their Trek uniform jammies and study Klingon as a serious language!), I should mention that I consider myself a Trekkie as well (although I personally own no Trek jammies!), and have and continue to enjoy all the Star Trek TV shows and movies. But where Star Trek entertains and often provokes thought, Babylon 5 has been able to amaze as well! It's plots are so rich and unpredictable, and its characters so well-developed and multi-dimensional, it has managed to grip and hold my attention far better than any form of entertainment I've yet experienced. Not surprizingly, many teenagers I've talked to find it less interesting than the four Trek series: Babylon 5 is intended to be adult fiction, and while its special effects are always first-rate, it is primarily a show that revolves around the characters and their interaction, not the technology. And like real life, it's never easy to determine who the "good guys" and "bad guys" are! But that unpredictability is part of its appeal to adults, even if it confuses the kids!

As a tribute to this outstanding series, I have gathered a collection of Windows 95 themes and sound clips, and links to other Babylon 5 sites I've found around the web. The meager offerings below are a small part of the Babylon 5 media I have available at home (I can only do so much with the 10MB of web space allotted to me!). I have tried to pick out the best of my private collection, and have added links to other, more ambitious sites out there that cover this remarkable series better than I can. My appologies in advance if I missed your favorite!

Windows 95 Themes

Below are two Babylon 5 themes. The 256-color theme is one I built myself, mostly from scratch, and includes animated cursors, and many alternate WAV files to allow you freedom to customize your sound effects, and additional icons to use for other links you like to keep on the desktop. The second theme is a high-color theme I found on the Web. It is mor ambitious (and much larger than mine!), but I like mine better! They are both in self-extracting ZIP files, since they contain long filenames and not everyone has WinZip! Please note that these themes have many duplicate file names, so installing one theme will overwrite many of the files previously installed by the other theme.

WAV Files

It was an extremely painfull task deciding which WAV files I would place here and which would be left behind. But with over 25MB of Babylon 5 WAV files on hand to date, it had to be done! As newer files become available, I may have to agonize again! If you can think of one you'd rather see here let me know. If I can find it, in my collection or elsewhere, and agree it deserves a place, I'll put it up . . . in place of something else, of course!

I recorded most of these WAV files myself from on-air broadcasts, and all are monaural 8-bit WAV files sampled at 22KHz. They have all been edited to equalize volume and apply proper fade-in and fade-out. To save space on the server, and reduce your download time, all are stored in ZIP files.

The links below are the best, content-rich Babylon 5 support sites I've found so far. If you find a good one I don't have listed, please e-mail me at byoung@spnt.com and I'll check it out!