The problem, of course, with (to use your term) "fan scripts" is that
B5 is unlike just about any other SF series ever done for American
television: it is a NOVEL for TV. To clarify by way of comparison: let's
say you're writing a novel. And someone out there wants to write a spec
chapter for that novel, without the knowledge of where you want to go with
the novel overall. It becomes next to impossible.

This show is not hard-up for ideas, as some others have been in the
past. Basically every single episode is broken-out in synopsis or outline
for a full five-year run...110 episodes. Now, we won't necessarily use
all of those stories; there's room in each season set aside for non-arc
related stories developed in close association with our writers. Which
generally means assigning them a story, or giving them an incident which
must take place in the story, while leaving the overall episode story to
the writer to develop.

*Every* episode this season, with one exception, has been based on an
assigned premise, which I've written and given or described in detail to
the writer. (The exception is DC Fontana's second story/script for us,
"Legacies." The first one was assigned to get her well acquainted with
our universe, after which she's in a better position to develop her own
stuff in close coordination with us, and the overall story arc...when she
developed "Legacies," we had to be sure to give her a certain number of
scripts that circle the area she chose to explore, so that she would know
where that part of the arc was going.)

Nonetheless, we're still determined to find some way to integrate
newer writers with pros. A fan script, for instance, might work as a
sample, but almost certainly couldn't be bought on its own terms. (And
btw, this is actually the rule in nearly every series out there; even ST
almost never buys a spec wholecloth, only in exceptional cases...as a
matter of course, the spec just gets the writer in the door to pitch a
story. The difference here is that a spec might get the writer in the B56
(B5) door to *get* a story assigned. But again, we're still working out
the dynamic of how that works. The other complication, of course, is that
we want to concentrate on using established SF writers, since that is the
venue least tapped by other shows.)

The model created by ST in this regard has virtually nothing to do
with how 90% of TV series work, and definitely nothing to do with the way
B5 works.

jms