2260 - Point of no return

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"The Babylon Project was our last, best hope for peace... it failed. In the year of The Shadow War it became something greater, our last best hope... for victory. The year is 2260, the place: Babylon 5."
- Commander Susan Ivanova, 2260 opening narrative

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In early 2260 the new founded Army of Light received a new ship. The new ship is called White-Star and is a combination of Minbari and Vorlon technology. Capt. Sheridan became the commander of the ship and proofed its capability in several battle against Shadow forces.

Sheridan and the other members of the Army of Light knew that the forthcoming war against the Shadows would be very hard to win. They decided to contact others of the First-Ones to ask for help. Cmdr. Ivanova used the Great Machine to locate the "home system" of the Walkers. When they reached the Walkers at Sigma 957 and asked for help the Walkers didn't respond unless Cmdr. Ivanova mentioned the Vorlons.

"This is the White Star to departing ship, I just want to say I appreciate your response and I fully understand. The Vorlons said that you wouldn't be up for a fight like this. In fact, they said in the last War, they carried you and did most of the work, while you took most of the credit for it. They said that if you got involved in this one, you'd just get hurt. Come to think of it, we've got the Vorlons, we don't need much more help do we? I mean the Vorlons are really, pretty close to perfect, aren't they? And strong?" 'Vorlon che'gu dom'chog.' "Yeah well, whatever. Listen I'll be sure and give them your message as soon as I get back. In the mean time, you have a nice flight. We'll be sure and send you a message as soon as the fighting is over, so you can come back out again."
- Ivanova and The Walkers, "Voices Of Authority"

Finally the Walkers agreed to help the Army of Light. There seemed to be some kind of conflict between the Walkers and the Vorlons.

After Morgan Clark became the President of the Earth Alliance he pursued a more anti-alien policy. Most of the key positions were given to loyalist persons. Clark formed a group called Nightwatch to control and act on non loyalist persons on earth and earth colonies. Nightwatch also tried to undermine the security on Babylon 5.

The situation on earth became more violent from day to day when the earth senate found proofs that Clark was involved in the death of former President Luis Stantigao. Clark dissolved the senate and declared martial law on earth and the colonies. When the colonies at Mars, Proxima III and Orion VII refused to declare martial law, Morgan Clark ordered to bomb the Mars colony.

The beginning of the Earth-Civil-War

Babylon 5 now became the "official" head quarters of the Army of Light. The station was protected by many alien races against Earth Alliance or other attacks but without money and resupply from earth a hard time began.

In mid 2260 the war against the Shadows was going bad. Some alien races thought that they could handle the conflict with the Shadows better alone and left the Army of Light. Others didn't want to join the AOL because they were afraid of Shadow attacks and so Sheridan needed a great victory against the Shadows to unite the races.

He asked Vorlon Ambassador Kosh if he could sent some Vorlon ships in a battle with the Shadows. First Kosh disagreed with Sheridan but finally a small Vorlon fleet annihilated many Shadow ships. As a reprisal for this interference the Shadows killed Kosh in his quarter. The death of Kosh was a big loss but many races now fought side on side against the Shadows.

In autumn of 2260 Draal created time rift with the Machine to steal Babylon 4. He said that if Babylon 4 didn't become the replacement of the destroyed headquarters in a war against the Shadows, the Shadows would be to strong to beat. With the help of Zathras, a kind of engineer of the Great Machine, and former Babylon 5 commander Jeffrey Sinclair, Babylon 4 was taken back in time.

All except Jeffrey Sinclair left Babylon 4 before the station finally disappeared. During the travel back in time Sinclair transformed himself into somewhat half Human and half Minbari. He was accompanied by two Vorlons when he arrived back in time . With the new station the alliance finally managed to beat the Shadows.

Meanwhile the Vorlons sent a new ambassador to Babylon 5. His name is also Kosh but he's another kind of personality. While the old Kosh cared about the younger races the new one seemed to be quite uninterested in them.

In late 2260 Capt. Sheridan heard of a plan of the Shadows to attack and destroy a very large fleet of refugee ships. The Shadows have driven them into one sector of space. Sheridan and Delenn organized a very big fleet. All races sent some of the ships that they didn't need.

The great battle against the Shadows

The Shadows now knew that Babylon 5 and Sheridan were the main actors against them. They removed Sheridan's wife, Anna Sheridan, from one of their cruisers and sent her to Babylon 5.

	Her mission was to convince Sheridan to go with her on a visit to Z'Ha'Dum, the Shadow homeworld. Sheridan agreed and they both flew to Z'Ha'Dum. While being there several Shadow Cruiser appeared around Babylon 5, but they didn't attack the station.
	The Shadows wanted to convince Sheridan of their position but Sheridan didn't agreed to that. Before they could kill Sheridan he killed a Shadow and escaped the room. Sheridan got to a huge underground city and was trapped by some Shadows.

He commanded the White-Star to crash down to this city. When the White-Star hit the ground the city was destroyed in a huge explosion caused by two fusion bombs on board the ship.Before this Sheridan jumped into a pit that he saw on the ground.
	Another victim of this encounter was Security Chief Michael Garibaldi. He was one of the pilots that were assigned to defend Babylon 5 against the Shadow ships. When the Shadows left Babylon 5 his Starfury was gone.

"It was the end of the Earth year 2260 and the war had paused suddenly and unexpectedly. All around us it was as if the universe were holding its breath, waiting. All of life can be broken down into moments of transition or moments of revelation. This had the feeling of both."
- Citizen G'Kar's closing statement, 2260, "Z'Ha'Dum"

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