By now some of the more diligent chronology watchers will have noticed that
there is extra material in the chronology being posted, namely the comic
stories referred to in Kathryn Drennan's "To Dream In The City Of Sorrows"
and data from Jeanne Cavelos' book "The Shadow Within".
Why the changes you ask, especially after my earlier comments about not
including them?
Well the answer is simple. After the magazine finished, I decided to go back
to the work again about 6 months ago and look to see if things could be
improved for a potential book release. One of the first things I did was
reconsider what to put in, that being the two stories involving Sinclair's
trial on Minbar and Garibaldi's investigation of Londo and his retelling of
the events on Mars in 2253 from the comics, and data from Jeanne's book (I
wasn't really comfortable leaving them out in the first place). Also having
had the outlines for the Techno-mage trilogy sent to me there were story
points in them that had made reference to the Anna Sheridan/ Morden/Z'ha'dum
plotline. As these were/will be mentioned in cannon novels I had to put them
in.
I will be totally honest here and say the reason that at the time I didn't
put that information in wasn't because these stories were contradicted by
television stories, it was entirely down to the way I'd structured the
original chronology. The fault lay in my efforts to be detailed as possible
in the research. Looking back, I found I had become too pedantic with some of
the things said in the show, particularly in early Season 2 which was where
the comic stories took place.
While consulting with Jeanne over some continuity points regarding The
Geometry of Shadows and Summoning Light, this gave me the impetus to alter
some of the data with a little creative explanation, especially around
Sheridan's comments in Revelations about his time on B5 which was the
sticking point. A quick check with the 23rd Century calender had left me with
the option of moving events of Revelations back a few days, opening up the
time needed for the Home guard plot/Sinclair trial story.
I was also reviewing the Long Dark and noticed a lone Ranger (no pun
intended) sitting at the bar as Amis was giving his warning to all those
gathered. Based on the information from "To Dream.." I reasoned that this
episode must take place after the new Rangers had been commisioned so the
epsidoe was moved to the beginning of June 2259. This gave me the scope to
now include the story of Garibaldi's investigation of Londo.
The final change is regarding Delenn and the whole Minbari cycles thing.
Having worked out that a cycle is the equivalent of 16 Earth months (July
2245 to July 2258) I began revising some of the Delenn data as well and dug
back into some of Joe's postings. Lo and behold, things worked out there as
well.
The revised version of the chronology will appear in full over the next few
months, but some of the changes are already appearing so check out The
Galactic Gateway for the personal chronologies. I hhope that people will be
pleased with this version.
