Editing Civilizations in Babylon 5 (section)

==The Hand==
'''The Hand''' are an incredibly ancient race claimed by those who serve them to be more powerful than even [[Shadow (Babylon 5)|The Shadows]]. They were imprisoned one billion years ago by another as of yet unidentified ancient race which was said to be a "force of light".

While the ships seen in use by The Hand in the Babylon 5 feature-length production ''[[Babylon 5: The Legend of the Rangers|The Legend of the Rangers]]'' are described by Minister Kafta as being "toys given to those races which serve The Hand", they are indeed still very powerful. So much so that they are even capable of destroying an entire colony along with several other Interstellar Alliance ships with relative ease. At no point has an actual member of The Hand's race ever been seen, nor has their age or connections with any other [[Civilizations in Babylon 5#First Ones|First Ones]] race been revealed. It is known that a pyramid located within a city buried eight miles beneath the surface of the planet Beta Durani 7 contains a portal that leads to another dimension. The expedition studying the billions of years old city sent a probe through which returned "distorted beyond recognition". It turns out that the portal leads to the dimension where The Hand was imprisoned ages ago and it was shortly after this discovery that servants of The Hand destroyed the colony on the planet's surface along with the Interstellar Alliance ships with their "toys".<ref>{{cite web | url=http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/synops/117.html | title=Synopsis: The Legend Of The Rangers by Jon Acheson | accessdate=2015-07-14}}</ref>

The Hand is behind the events of ''The Legend of the Rangers'', but are not mentioned in any other Babylon 5 media. However, according to the Vorlon and Shadow Sourcebook and other Factbooks, The Hand might refer to Vorlon and other First Ones who were taken over by the [[Babylon 5: Thirdspace|thirdspace]] aliens when the Vorlons first opened the Gateway to their dimension. These sources make clear that after the Vorlons opened the Gateway, thirdspace aliens (the Walkers routinely visit thirdspace as part of their long standing mission to catalog all things and quickly leave when noticed by the thirdspace aliens) poured out of the Gateway destroying and enslaving the nearby Vorlons. With each battle the thirdspace aliens would enslave more minds thus increasing the numbers in their zombie-like First One fleet. They continued to make inroads into the galaxy, conquering more and more territory and enslaving and destroying attacking fleets. Eventually all of the other First Ones, Lorien's species, the Speakers, and even the Shadows had to join the Vorlons in their fight to hold back the onslaught. After shifted their strategy from directly manning their ships to building automated ships that operated remotely or autonomously, the various First Ones and Speakers slowly pushed the thirdspace aliens and their enslaved army back to their initial beachhead at the Gateway. It was there that the invaders were eventually defeated in a great battle. However, those still in their thrall hid the Gateway. It is possible that The Hand represents those First Ones still in thrall to the thirdspace aliens or perhaps they represent the thirdspace aliens themselves.