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The list of Babylon 5 characters contains characters from the entire Babylon 5 universe. In the show, the Babylon station was conceived as a political and cultural meeting place. As such, one of the show's many themes is the cultural and social interaction between civilizations. There are five dominant civilizations represented in the Babylon 5 universe: humans, the Narn, the Centauri, the Minbari and the Vorlons; and several dozen less powerful ones. A number of the less powerful races make up the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, who assembled as a result of the Dilgar War occurring 30 years before the start of the series.

Main characters

Jeffrey Sinclair

Jeffrey Sinclair, played by actor Michael O'Hare, is the Commander of the Babylon 5 station in season one. After one full season, O'Hare and series executive producer/creator J. Michael Straczynski made the mutual and amicable decision for the character and actor to depart as a regular.^[1][2] O'Hare subsequently reprised the character of Sinclair briefly in season two and a two-episode guest appearance in season three, enabling the show to wrap up loose ends. As a result of this departure, there are several minor inconsistencies between the first season and the remainder of the show, most visibly in "And the Sky Full of Stars" and "Babylon Squared". At O'Hare's personal request, the full reasons for his departure from the show were kept secret until after his death in 2012. The following year, Straczynski revealed that O'Hare struggled with delusions and paranoia due to mental illness, which ultimately prevented him from continuing to act. However, Straczynski emphasized that O'Hare's fans, particularly those of his role as Sinclair, had helped him cope with his struggle in ways medication never could.^[3]

The character was born on Mars Colony. In an early episode of season one, Sinclair stated that his family had been pilots "ever since the Battle of Britain" and Sinclair's father was a fighter pilot for EarthForce who participated in the Battle of Balos, the last engagement of the Dilgar Invasion. Sinclair continued the tradition and became a fighter pilot. Sinclair enlisted in EarthForce in 2237. During his time at EarthForce Academy, he met Catherine Sakai, with whom he had a relationship. After a year of living together, the two of them broke up, but continued to see each other off and on through 2258, when they became engaged. Sakai went missing in late 2259, while on a mission for the Rangers.^[4] The season one episode "By Any Means Necessary" establishes that Sinclair received Jesuit education as a young man.

In 2240, Sinclair was promoted to fighter pilot, continuing a Sinclair family tradition. Less than a year later, Sinclair was promoted to squadron leader. Due to his rapid rise through the ranks, the rumor of the day was that Sinclair was on the fast track to making Admiral. As squadron leader, Sinclair fought at the Battle of the Line, the last major battle in the Earth-Minbari War. During the course of the battle, his squadron was destroyed by the Minbari, and his fighter was badly damaged. In a last act of defiance, Sinclair attempted to ram one of the Minbari cruisers. He failed in this when he was captured by another Minbari cruiser for interrogation by the Grey Council. The council's Triluminary detected Valen's DNA in Sinclair, so they assumed, to their profound shock, that he possessed the soul of Valen, a hero of the Minbari who led them to victory 1,000 years ago against the Shadows. It was concluded by the Grey Council that Minbari souls were being born into human bodies. The discovery of what Sinclair possessed led the Minbari to surrender and return Sinclair to his fighter. The memory of his time aboard the Minbari cruiser was blocked—though this block would not be permanent and would break down years later. Sinclair — and the Earth Alliance — believed that he had blacked out from the acceleration. When Babylon 5 was brought into operation in 2257, Sinclair was selected by the Minbari to command the newly constructed station. He was selected over many more senior officers, including Colonel Ari Ben Zayn, all of whom had been vetoed by the Minbari (they had stipulated that they should approve the choice of Station Commander, as they had shared the cost of construction).

In January 2259, Sinclair was reassigned as ambassador to Minbar, where he took command of the Rangers. He was succeeded at Babylon 5 by Captain John Sheridan. In 2260, Sinclair received a 900-year old letter from himself on Minbar, revealing that he was not the reincarnation of Valen, as the Grey Council believed, but in fact Valen himself. Armed with this knowledge, Sinclair took Babylon 4 back with him 1,000 years to aid the Minbari in their first war against the Shadows, and in so doing, fulfilled Minbari prophecy by becoming the One Who Was. It was here that Sinclair used the triluminary to transform himself into a Minbari, thus fulfilling the legend about Valen being "a Minbari not born of Minbari", also explaining why the triluminary responded so strongly to him during his interrogation by the Grey Council, as it had been programmed to respond to his DNA.

John Sheridan

Bruce Boxleitner played Captain John Sheridan (seasons 2–5), Sinclair's replacement on Babylon 5 after his reassignment, and a central figure of several prophecies within the Shadow War.

Susan Ivanova

Lieutenant Commander Susan Ivanova (seasons 1–4, guest season 5), second-in-command of Babylon 5, was portrayed by Claudia Christian.

Michael Garibaldi

Michael Garibaldi was played by Jerry Doyle in seasons one to five and voiced by Anthony Hansen in Babylon 5: The Road Home.^[5] He is named after the Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi.^[6]

In the first three seasons, Garibaldi served as chief of security aboard the space station Babylon 5. He held the rank of Chief Warrant Officer. In season four, during the Shadow War, Garibaldi was secretly subjected to mental reprogramming, which was triggered after the war. Garibaldi resigned from his job as chief of security to work as an independent investigator, helping people find what they had lost during the war. Increasingly, he came into conflict with Babylon 5 staff. Eventually, Bester released Garibaldi from his psychic conditioning by making subtle adjustments to Garibaldi's personality.

Garibaldi started drinking again in season five. Eventually, his long-time lover Lise Hampton returned to Babylon 5 to help support him. They married soon afterwards, and he left Babylon 5 to help her run Edgars Industries on Mars, one of the largest corporations on the planet. During the fifth and final season of Babylon 5 he was the Director of Covert Intelligence for the new Interstellar Alliance, a post parallel to the real-life present-day CIA Director. After the episode "Sleeping in Light" Garibaldi returned to his family on Mars. Upon arriving home, he found that his daughter had won a tennis match. Garibaldi's life after Sheridan's departure was relatively peaceful. Series creator J. Michael Straczynski said that his ultimate fate would be much quieter than Garibaldi could have imagined.^[7] In three novels - the last book of the Psi Corp trilogy, and the last two books of the Centauri Prime trilogy - the authors explore the period between the end of Babylon 5 and Sheridan's "death" in 2281.

Delenn

Satai Delenn was played by Mira Furlan in seasons 1–5. She is the Minbari ambassador to Babylon 5. Delenn was originally conceived as being a male character but played by a female actor, in order to give the character feminine mannerisms and therefore make him more "alien".^{[citation needed]} The Babylon 5 pilot TV movie The Gathering was filmed with this in mind, but the computer alteration to Mira Furlan's voice to make it sound masculine wasn't convincing, so the idea was dropped and Delenn was changed to a female.^[8] The Minbari makeup used from then on gave Delenn a much more feminine appearance.

When first appearing as the Minbari ambassador to Babylon 5, Delenn initially hid her status of being a leader of the Grey Council. At the start of the 2nd season, Delenn used a special artifact to transform into a half-human, half-Minbari hybrid - initially treated with suspicion by humans and Minbari alike. Delenn was instrumental also in getting Sinclair to be stationed as the first Earth ambassador to Minbar since, unbeknownst to Sinclair initially, they chose him because he was the first human the Grey Council had any direct contact with during the Battle of the Line.

In season two, Delenn and John Sheridan fell in love, which drove a further wedge between the Minbari religious and warrior castes, who soon broke a thousand years' of cooperation and began a civil war against one another. After Sheridan and Babylon 5 broke away from Earth, it was Delenn who rescued the station with a fleet of Minbari ships, at the cost of destroying the symbolic circle of the Grey Council. The religious and worker castes sided with Babylon 5 and the Army of Light. Unfortunately, without the Grey Council keeping order, the divisions in Minbari society became so strong that civil war soon broke out. It was later learned that Delenn herself was descended from Valen.^[9] Delenn is the "One who is," representing both halves of the Minbari and human race merged, more literally merging in the marriage of Delenn and Sheridan. Together they became war leaders, with Delenn managing to bind together diverse planets and races into a great alliance. Sheridan was the "warrior", while she was the "spirit". This alliance ended the great war between the Shadow and Vorlon races, and ushered in the Third Age for Mankind - a great time of growth and change.

But after the Shadow War ended, both Delenn and Sheridan found their homeworlds embroiled in civil wars. Although her work had saved countless lives and ended the great war, she returned home to a world racked with chaos and death. Delenn and the religious caste surrendered to the warrior clans. She then forced a showdown between herself and the new leader of the warrior caste. This would be a purification in which Delenn could sacrifice herself for her caste and for the Minbari people. With her sacrifice, the leadership of Minbar would continue to be held by the religious caste - not the warriors. Her old rival Neroon saved her life, however. And in his death cries he joined the religious caste, which returned to Delenn the balance of power. Delenn then gave control of the Grey Council to the worker caste, who had for many years stayed in the middle, as the religious and warrior castes simmered with disagreement. After John Sheridan refused to stand for re-election as President of the Interstellar Alliance, Delenn was chosen to succeed him. When she accepted the role, Sheridan took command of the Rangers until his death. Delenn asked Ivanova to succeed him.

Stephen Franklin

Stephen Franklin was played by Richard Biggs in seasons 1–5 and voiced by Phil LaMarr in Babylon 5: The Road Home.^[10] Franklin serves as the chief medical officer on the Babylon 5 space station. He first appeared in the episode "Soul Hunter". In the script of this episode, he was explicitly described as black.^{[citation needed]} J. Michael Straczynski was adamant throughout the run of the series that Franklin be a true individual who could have been played by an actor of any race.^{[citation needed]} Richard Biggs later expressed his gratitude at being able to play a role purely as an actor, not a black actor.^{[citation needed]}

Franklin has strong moral convictions. Although he spent most of the series in MedLab saving lives, Franklin also saw his share of action and adventure during the series. He was an active participant in the Earth Alliance Civil War, where he aided the Mars Resistance in its fight to free the Mars colony from Earth control. During the war between the Centauri Republic and the Interstellar Alliance, he worked with the telepath Lyta Alexander in investigating reports of Drazi atrocities against the Centauri on the Drazi homeworld. During the series's fifth and final season, Franklin resigned from his post at Babylon 5 to accept the position of "Head of Xenobiological Research" on Earth upon the retirement of Dr. Benjamin Kyle. He appeared in the Crusade episode "Each Night I Dream of Home".

J. Michael Straczynski has said that Franklin eventually dies while exploring an unknown planet, but has not revealed the details of exactly how or when he dies.^[11] When Biggs died in May 2004, Straczynski had been working on a Babylon 5 script titled The Memory of Shadows. Straczynski decided not to recast the Franklin character, and rewrote the script to remove him from the story. In the Babylon 5: The Lost Tales anthology, it is explained that both Franklin and G'Kar – played by Andreas Katsulas who died in February 2006 – had left to explore space beyond the "galactic rim".

Talia Winters

Talia Winter was portrayed by actress Andrea Thompson in seasons 1–2. Winters was a licensed, commercial telepath from Earth and a member of the Psi Corps organization. She was assigned to the Earth space station Babylon 5 in the year 2258 to serve as its second resident commercial telepath. Like all Psi Corps members, Winters' telepathic ability was numbered according to ability; Winters was classified as a P5, the level of most commercial telepaths. Typically, commercial telepaths were assigned to help two or more business parties broker deals, by monitoring their honesty during business negotiations.

Talia Winters' telepathic abilities manifested at age five. As required by law, her parents immediately sent her to be raised, educated, and trained in her gifts by the Psi Corps. During this time Talia was also tested for telekinesis, but was disappointed to learn that she did not have enough to move even a penny. Over the years, Ms. Winters developed a strong loyalty to Psi Corps, and accepted an internship in the commercial telepath division. During this internship, she met and befriended Lyta Alexander, another P5 telepath who had transferred out of the Psi-Cop division. After completing her education, Winters entered the workforce as a commercial telepath.

In 2258, Talia Winters arrived on Babylon 5 as its second resident commercial telepath. Her work on the station repeatedly brought her into contact with the command staff. Both of the station's commanding officers (Commander Jeffrey Sinclair and Captain John Sheridan) considered her a valuable ally despite her strong loyalty to Psi Corps. Security Chief Michael Garibaldi, who harbored a not-so-secret crush on Winters, was in frequent contact with her. Garibaldi would routinely flirt with her and show up in the stations' transport tubes just when she was about to board them. Although annoyed by his unsubtle advances, Winters remained friendly with him and used her Psi Corps connections to help him contact his former lover, Lise Hampton, during the riots on the Mars colony. Talia Winters's most complicated relationship was with Susan Ivanova, the station's second-in-command. Initially, Ivanova was hostile to Winters' arrival and refused to acknowledge her presence. She quickly discovered that Ivanova's mother was a telepath who, rather than joining the Corps and leaving her family, submitted to a decade's worth of drug injections which dampened her spirit along with her abilities. Ivanova blamed Psi Corps for her mother's suicide; her experience gave Talia her first opportunity to learn about the darker side of the Psi Corps.

Also in 2258, Jason Ironheart arrived on the station in secret while on the run from the Psi Corps.^[12] The experiments he had participated in had strengthened his abilities to the point where he could telekinetically manipulate matter at the subatomic level. Ironheart gave his lover two gifts as he transformed into a being of pure energy: her own minor telekinetic abilities, substantially less powerful (and therefore less dangerous) than Ironheart's, and the ability to block the scans of P12 (the highest rated) telepaths. Winters put these new abilities to use the following year when Psi Cop Al Bester came to Babylon 5 to stop an underground railroad that Ironheart had set up for runaway telepaths. Her experience with the fugitive telepaths finally made her aware of how corrupt the Psi Corps had become. It was this epiphany that finally dissolved the tension between herself and Susan Ivanova; from that point on, the two women developed a mutual respect which later blossomed into a relationship.

In 2259, dissident telepath Lyta Alexander learned of a Psi Corps sleeper program that the Psi Corps had hidden in her.^[13] Although she knew one such sleeper had been sent to Babylon 5 to spy on its command staff, she did not know the identity of the spy. Lyta traveled to Babylon 5 with the password that would activate the hidden personality. With the permission of Captain John Sheridan, Lyta sent the password into the minds of individuals among and close to the command staff. When she sent the password into Winters' mind, the hidden personality took full control of her psyche, effectively killing the Talia Winters that everyone had come to know.

Talia became hostile and returned to Earth after the hidden personality took over. There were concerns among the stations' command staff over how much inside knowledge this new Ms. Winters could use against them. By that time, they had become convinced that then Vice President Clark had assassinated his predecessor with help from outsiders so he could assume the presidency, and they were clandestinely gathering evidence to that effect to ensure it was passed to members of the military who felt the same, and who could discreetly get it to the right hands. The staff had just agreed to bring Talia in on the operation, and were on the verge of doing so when Lyta had arrived to inform them of the sleeper. Garibaldi himself had mused that if Lyta had come one week later, they'd all be standing in front of a summary court martial board, if not worse. Psi Cop Bester hinted that she was dissected after arriving back on Earth, saying, "We learned some interesting things about Ms Winters in the course of her debriefing and dissect—that is, examination."^[14]

Vir Cotto

Vir Cotto was played by Stephen Furst in seasons 1–5. He is a Centauri male who was from a family of minor nobility. Vir first appears in the episode "Midnight on the Firing Line" as an assistant to Ambassador Londo Mollari. At the time, Vir was an embarrassment to his family, and his family arranged for him to be assigned to this position as a means of getting him as far away from them as possible. In the first two seasons, Vir proves himself to be an able assistant to Ambassador Mollari and also develops a friendship with the aide to the Minbari Ambassador Delenn, the acolyte Lennier.

Vir appears less frequently during the third season, since Stephen Furst had taken a role in a sitcom and couldn't appear in many episodes. This was explained in-universe as a reassignment as liaison to Minbar. Mollari arranges to have this happen in order to help Vir further develop in his career, but privately admits to Delenn that he does not want Vir around with the events - namely the Shadow War - that are soon to come.

Vir Cotto remains an important character during the Shadow War arc, which comprises parts of season 3 and 4. Vir was once again used as a "moral counterpart" to Mollari towards the end of the Shadow War arc. Mollari has Vir come to Centauri Prime to assist in the assassination of Emperor Cartagia. The assassination plot goes astray, with Vir finally being the person to kill the Emperor. Following the Shadow War, Vir returns to Babylon 5. In season 4 and 5, he continues to act as Mollari's assistant, and as a representative of the Centauri to Babylon 5 when Mollari is back on Centauri Prime. When Mollari ascends to the throne as Emperor, he names Vir as the Ambassador to Babylon 5, by then an important position. As was prophesied, Vir succeeds Londo as Emperor of Centauri Republic during the Drakh War. Vir appears after the main series in "The Fall of Centauri Prime" trilogy of tie-in novels, and is Emperor of the Centuari Republic twenty years after the end of the Shadow War, as shown in "Sleeping in Light".

Lennier

Lennier was played by Bill Mumy in seasons 1–5. He is Minbari and acts as ambassadorial aide to Delenn throughout most of the series.

Just as Delenn was an acolyte of Dukhat, Lennier was the faithful acolyte of Minbari Ambassador Delenn for five years. A member of the Third Fane of Chu'Domo of the religious caste and a fierce fighter, he later joined the Rangers. He had family aboard the Minbari flagship Black Star when it was destroyed by Babylon 5 commander John Sheridan. Though other Minbari felt much animosity towards Sheridan, as they felt he'd acted dishonorably in destroying it, Lennier held no hard feelings, apparently understanding why Sheridan had done it.

In the episode "Day of the Dead," Lennier is confronted by the ghost of Morden, the human who worked with the Shadows. Lennier, who had returned from training hoping to speak to a spirit as part of an alien religious observance, makes the mistake of asking Morden for wisdom. Morden predicts that Lennier will one day betray the Rangers. This encounter foreshadows later events in the series.

Eventually it was revealed that Lennier was secretly in love with Delenn. He explained to Marcus Cole that it was "not romantic love as you would understand it, something nobler." Lennier did not act on his feelings due to her involvement with John Sheridan. Lennier did confess his feelings to her when he and Delenn were both trapped in hyperspace facing death, but Delenn, who had long known of his feelings for her, feigned that she hadn't heard his confession to spare him embarrassment.

Lennier's feelings later caused his downfall. When Sheridan suffered an accident aboard a White Star ("Objects at Rest"), Lennier, seeing for the opportunity to remove his 'competition', refused to help him and fled, for a short moment leaving him for dead. Almost immediately after he realized the foolishness of his actions and did come back, but by then Sheridan had managed to rescue himself. Lennier ran away, deeply ashamed of what he had done, and was never heard from again, except for a final, untraceable call to Delenn in which he asked her and Sheridan for forgiveness. This would likely constitute his "Betrayal of the Rangers" as predicted by Morden.

The series left Lennier's final fate unknown, although most of Morden's prophecies came true and there are hints in the series finale "Sleeping in Light" (during a sequence when the guests were remembering their fallen friends), that Lennier was killed in the Telepath War. This has been confirmed by J. Michael Straczynski in The Babylon 5 Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski TV Movies, in which he writes that both Lennier and Lyta Alexander were killed in the explosion of Psi Corps Headquarters in a major battle of the Telepath War. Straczynski had previously said of Lennier's death (in his commentary for "Sleeping in Light"): "That's a very sad story and maybe I'll tell it some day". .

Elizabeth Lochley

Elizabeth Lochley was played by Tracy Scoggins in the fifth and last season of Babylon 5, replacing the previous commander of the station, John Sheridan, and filling the role of the character Susan Ivanova. She was also a semi-regular character in Crusade, where she has a romantic relationship with Matthew Gideon, the captain of the Excalibur. Lochley featured prominently in the first volume of Babylon 5: The Lost Tales entitled "Voices in the Dark", released on DVD in July 2007. Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Shadow_(Babylon_5)
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