The Babylon 5 Security Manual

Reviewed by General Tangent. Written By: Jim Mortimore Price: �15.99 Publisher: Boxtree. Pages: 160 First off, I am a big fan of the show so I had to get this book. The book runs to a total of 160 pages grouped into nine sections and four appendices. Throughout the book; there are some great stills, quite a few in colour; sidebars with "quotes" from characters from the series; and some brilliant diagrams. Since the books deals with B5 in 2260 some of the information will not help gamesmasters running campaigns in 2250. Aside from this gripe the book is well written and presented. The cover is embossed and is a fairly sturdy card which when creased leaves ugly marks. I had to inspect a half dozen copies before I found one almost undamaged. The book breaks down into the following sections: Part One: General Unit 1: Station Overview Eighteen pages Covers what is B5 and a section layout of the section. Well written and presented, however little is of use to the RPG unless you want info for Minos stations. Unit 2: Communications Twelve pages 2.1: Electronic comms. A nice piece here about the "Link" and its function, what it can do. The small info about Babcom, other comm channels and credit chips make useful background knowledge. 2.2: Other comms. The award for most holidays goes to the post office! See if you can spot the fictional holiday that belongs to a book title. A section that HAS to be read. There are also some very good shots of C&C; to be found here. A few paragraphs about the Dockers Guild, Guilds and the Core shuttle are worth reading. Part 2: Security This section runs 97 pages! This is where you find the meat for the RPG. Since this is the largest chunk of the book, I'll skim over the main sections. Unit 3.1: The history of EA will do until the EA sourcebook makes an appearance. WARNING!!!! Some of the history items DO NOT match those in TBP! According to this book, PSI-Corp is founded in 2161, TBP gives the date as 2152. Also Centari meet us in 2184 rather than TBP date of 2155. Narns are met in 2230 rather than 2219. Minbari during 2243 and the war begins in 2244 contradicting TBPs 2245 date for both these. The rest of this section covers law and so forth. Its all good stuff and IMHO very well written. Unit 4: Take time to study the Ranking system and uniforms for material. Rush through 4.2 and stop at 4.3 to see a good diagram of a PPG and the multiple settings. I personally like the multi setting option so I have a quick patch: Setting 1 Shots 15 Dam 6 Setting 2: Shots 8 Dam 10 Setting 3: Shots 5 Dam 14 Feel free to ignore. Also a couple of good pictures of the PPG Rifle, Grenade Launcher and the Shock Stick. Go past the picture of Zack and Garibaldi to Cells and Identicards. 4.6 Contains info on disease, whilst 4.7 gives us the first mention of Spoo and Swedish Meatballs, of which the Vorlon ones are intelligent! Also read the dangerous species and toilets. Unit 5 covers special security measures. Read and then move onto unit 6 and drool at the Starfury cutaways, this includes the Thunderbolt! Unit 7 contains colony information before moving on to individual races and good pictures of the ships. Pages 104 and 105 have pictures of the Vorlon PK. 7.9 has the Shadows and some good pictures of the White Star on the following pages. Unit 8 deals with PSI-Corps. Look at the Refined Telepathic Headgear which boost weak PSIs, interesting material for the game. Quick patch: RTH boosts a PSI up by 5 points but no higher. The downside, for each hour or fraction thereof of use, the teep has to make an Average Difficulty Endurance roll. The difficulty increases by one level for each hour or fraction thereof past the first hour. Failure results in a loss of PSI ability points for DOUBLE the duration of use of the RTH. Points are recovered at the rate of one per two hours rest. Again feel free to ignore. The next pages mention Black Ops and Nightwatch. The Appendices are good, listing common comm codes, training schedule and a rather good looking record card. Appendix 3, covers case notes for crimes. Londo is mentioned in the final case, his sentence for Genocide etc. Is funny! The final appendix is a who's who. Overall In conclusion, the book is worth getting, there is more useful information than duff stuff and it is a shame to see all the white space there. Overall Rating: 4/5 Value For Money: 4/5 Usefulness: 3/5 Presentation: 3/5 Babylon 5 is a trademark of Warner Brothers, a division of Time Warner Entertainment Company L.P.

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