The Dawn of the Fifth Edition of Mankind

In the run up to WotC's impending release of their vandalism update of Spelljammer, there was a discussion of potential inspirations for a campaign, and one of the replies was "Babylon 5". Having looked at this, there is clear inspiration there... but I think it actually runs the other way. There are some really significant similarities that are actually quite striking.

Some examples:

The Factions

• The Earth Alliance are, of course, just humans. No big deal.
• The Minbari are the elves. They have three castes: Religious (high), Worker (wood), and Warrior (drow), and most definitely fit that niche.
• The Centauri are dwarves, with the hair replacing the beards. Of note is that the ancient elven empire from Spelljammer has been reassigned to the Centauri here.
• The Narn are orcs. Initially perceived as the "bad guys" this proves not quite to be the case.
• The Vorlons are mind flayers. Just look at the ship designs!
• And the Shadows are Neogi - again, those ship designs are striking.

Other Similarities

• 2nd Edition featured a psioncist class, and so the Telepaths would be of that class, with a focus on the Telepathy, and sometimes Psychokinesis, disciplines. In 5e I guess they'd be Sorcerers of the nonexistent Psionic origin.
• Technomages are simply Mages, of course.
• There is a thri-kreen and a grell in season one. The former eventually drops out, mostly for budget reasons.
• I have no idea what the Rangers are supposed to represent.
• And, of course, alignment is a big deal, especially the Law vs Chaos axis.

What To Do With This

There are a couple of possibilities here. One option would simply be to recast the Babylon station as the Rock of Bral, install the same council there, and run the B5 plotline, or something like it, in Spelljammer.

Another option that suggests itself would be to raid the sourcebooks for the unlamented "Babylon 5" d20 game for adventure ideas. That's certainly appealing, since I've never found the opportunity to use those books.

Or, of course, you could simply re-do Crusade in Spelljammer. Indeed, in one of the special features for that series JMS specifically talks about bringing together a D&D party for the campaign, so the fit should be very good.

On the other hand, just about every attempt to revive Babylon 5 has, sadly, fallen flat and ultimately failed. Maybe the best thing to do, really, is to just leave it be.