Rikki Tikki Traveller
Cosmic Mongoose
Exploration ships can drop Hyperspace Beacons to extend their travel off of the known routes. In the case of the Minbari, they knew ABOUT where Earth was (after all there are only so many stars between here and Epsilon Eridani (B5)).
Also, I didn't get the impression that they blew the beacon, they just shut down the gate, so the beacon (connected to the rest of the network) was still active. I could be wrong of course.
Given how Sheridan found the Cortez, I get the impression that Hyperspace is SMALLER than Normal Space. As such, there would NOT be a 1-1 correlation. Every spot in hyperspace has a corresponding spot in normal space, but not vice versa. Also, there seem to be certain places in hyperspace that are better for placing jump gates than others.
The B5 Galaxy book (which I just downloaded!) has a good section in it and basically ignores JMS's comments about getting lost and being hundreds of light years off course. If you have a working Jump Drive, then you can pop into normal space, get your bearings, jump back into Hyperspace and head toward a nearby system. You might have to make several intermediate stops because of accuracy, but within a relatively short period of time, you would get back onto the Beacon Network. Without a working drive, you would drift potentially forever until you happened to cross a beacon line again (very unlikely) or encounter another ship (also very unlikely) or die from lack of air/water/food (very likely).
Also, I didn't get the impression that they blew the beacon, they just shut down the gate, so the beacon (connected to the rest of the network) was still active. I could be wrong of course.
Given how Sheridan found the Cortez, I get the impression that Hyperspace is SMALLER than Normal Space. As such, there would NOT be a 1-1 correlation. Every spot in hyperspace has a corresponding spot in normal space, but not vice versa. Also, there seem to be certain places in hyperspace that are better for placing jump gates than others.
The B5 Galaxy book (which I just downloaded!) has a good section in it and basically ignores JMS's comments about getting lost and being hundreds of light years off course. If you have a working Jump Drive, then you can pop into normal space, get your bearings, jump back into Hyperspace and head toward a nearby system. You might have to make several intermediate stops because of accuracy, but within a relatively short period of time, you would get back onto the Beacon Network. Without a working drive, you would drift potentially forever until you happened to cross a beacon line again (very unlikely) or encounter another ship (also very unlikely) or die from lack of air/water/food (very likely).