Babylon 5 history and reference

REFERENCE

Original B5 Mailing List Archives

BAB014.TXT

Date: Sun, 17 Jan 1993 09:22:17 -0800
From: Jonathan Roy <ninja@halcyon.halcyon.com>
To: b5@iastate.edu, rlewis@isi.edu
Subject: JMS, languages

I stuck the new Grid Epsilon Log file in pub/Babylon-5/b5log.txt.Z.

Has anyone been collecting the recent JMS postings from the mailing list?
If so, please upload a collection of them. The first few have expired on
my system, since I pipe this list into a local newsgroup. I think there've
been enough now to warrant a b5jmsjan2.txt.

-Steve
---
Date: Mon, 18 Jan 1993 21:12:59 -0800
From: Jonathan Roy <ninja@halcyon.halcyon.com>
To: b5@iastate.edu
Subject: Re: Exploding doors/bolts, etc.

GE Mail
Item 0575752 93/01/18 20:30
From: STRACZYNSKI J. Michael Straczynski
To: J.ROY18 Jonathan E. Roy

Sub:
Reply: Item #9018068 from J.ROY18 on 93/01/18 at 16:39

Actually, I mis-spoke myself. There are two matters at hand: the
weaponry, which is concealed behind *retractable* doors, and the station
thrusters, which *are* behind explosive bolts, since they're rarely if
ever used, only in emergencies, and need to be kept enclosed (they're
basically open tubes to carry the thrusts) for both security and
maintenance purposes.

You'll see the thruster doors blowing off in the pilot; I was tired
at the time of the initial message and confused the two.

jms
---
Subject: Babylon 5 in Computer Graphics World
To: b5@iastate.edu
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 93 3:06:18 EST
From: William L.R. Cruce <wlrc@uhura.iastate.edu>

The magazine COMPUTER GRAPHICS WORLD for January has some discussion
of B5 graphics as well as several good pictures in an article titled
"Prime-Time Proving Ground for 3D Graphics"
---
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 14:01:35 -0800
From: Jonathan Roy <ninja@halcyon.halcyon.com>
To: b5@iastate.edu

Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 8
Message 261 Sat Jan 16, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 22:37 EST

The language facilities of aliens will vary; probably the most fluent (by
virtue of necessity) are the ambassadors, whose english is perfect or nearly
so (cyberlink to the brain dumping the English equivilants of their own
language and grammar directly into the brain, very expensive and not a little
painful). The drawback is that some cultural references or some contextual
areas may not be as clear as required. (Londo wondering about ramoras, Delenn
unsure for a moment about poetry....)

Re: language in general...I agree that all languages must be "living
languages" in that they are free to grow and expand and add new terms. There
is a difference between this and a *collapsing language* in which the
distinction between terms (the aformentioned less and fewer) becomes degraded,
and meanings blur through misuse. Ase gradually becomes less precise. A
language should be graded on how well it manages to communicate the thoughts
of one to the other. If it begins to fail in that regard, then it is not a
living but a dying language.

(Another example: the way that "anxious" and "eager" have come to mean
the same thing. "Anxious" carries with it some degree of worry or dread or
fear; "eager" is a pleasant term, connoting something wonderful and nice for
which one is longing. So when someone says, with a smiling and expectant
attitude, "Yeah, I'm really anxious to see the new Lucas movie," it's a misuse
of the term, unless there's some reason for worry.)

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 2
Message 685 Tue Jan 19, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 22:47 EST

Re: starships from Earth...yes, you'll be seeing a wide range of ships,
from smaller transports and trading vessels to big mothers. It is something
of an empire, and the ships come in as many varied forms as we have cars and
trucks and semis and tanks and on and on....

Re: talking vs. action...there's a shade more exposition than I'd like in
the pilot, mainly because there's so damned MUCH background to establish, so
much ground to lay...it'll be more evenly proportioned in the series. I like
action. For me, the #1 crime of any TV show or movie is that it should bore.
When in doubt, kill somebody.

Or blow something up.

Re: technology...yes, the point about the sudden jump via new
technologies is exactly dead on. It *did* have a tramautic impact, and to
varying degrees still does. The effect of technology, and the desire for
same, will be a recurrent thread. There are some technologies that are
considered too radical for some species, and are thus kept off limits, with
prison sentences or even death sentences for smuggling certain kinds of
technologies. One such tech-runner appears in the pilot. The parallel, I
suppose, would be our current concerns with the spread of nuclear technology.

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 8
Message 281 Mon Jan 18, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 23:49 EST

Re: TRON v2.0....I'd rather write kids in space.

Re: places of origin...my sense is that they have their own unique names.
We don't call our planet Terra (well, not really), or Hum (for Human) or
Planet Human. Because some of the names are difficult to pronounce, the
logical approach is to note them by designation, i.e., "And shall be shipped
off to the Narn homeworld." That is the only time or I should say context by
which we refer to their places of origin. The only exception to this, and I
don't recall if this is in the pilot or not, is the Centauri homeworld,
designated Centauri Prime.

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 8
Message 288 Tue Jan 19, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:35 EST

Yes, there are definitely other human settlements...colonies and outposts
and co-operative projects on other worlds with other species. It's mainly
from this overlap that the EA draws its non-human members, though a few worlds
have chosen to ally themselves directly with the EA.

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 13
Message 158 Tue Jan 19, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:37 EST

The two things on front -- the spikes, as it were -- are on either side
of a second loading bay, this one expressly for cargo held in the zero-g cargo
hold.

The vanes in the back are heat radiators, as I recall from the original
design notes.

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 15
Message 71 Tue Jan 19, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:01 EST

Yeah, that's one thing I've kind of slated in as a B story in a given
episode...an alien comes aboard and they just can't quite manage to
communicate, it's just too damned foreign in its thinking. (What I'd love is
for them to find out at the end that it's some other alien's damned cat or
something, and they've been spending all this time trying to communicate with
something that ain't sentient...but with aliens, how can you tell sometimes?)

jms
---
(Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 16:37:06 -0800
From: Jonathan Roy <ninja@halcyon.halcyon.com>
To: b5@iastate.edu
Subject: Second SF&F RT

Category 18, Topic 2
Message 700 Thu Jan 21, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:18 EST

The death penalty question is one I've been debating in terms of B5 for
quite some time. Look at the math involved...if you find someone guilty of
murder, do you spend all the money and time and effort and so on to ship them
to a penal colony? The cost would be ENORMOUS. Do you keep them imprisoned
on B5? If so, eventually you'll run out of room. So the question becomes, Do
you space them? Kill them humanely?

There's a B5 story I have in mind that will explore this question, but
I'm not yet sure which way I want to go on it.

And to the question above...some stations air PTEN shows on different
nights, yes, there's some flexibility.

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 2
Message 703 Thu Jan 21, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:29 EST

Ah, but you see, for starters, the issue may not be one of reform; okay,
A kills B, so we transform A into a better person...this by you is a
punishment? What is the purpose of the law, to reform or to avenge?

Plus you run into the other problem...what of the other species out there
who may require death for certain offenses, such as murder of their own
species?

And consider this: A kills B. B happens to be your little sister, age
12. A gets transformed by the psychs. And you're now living side by side
with A, you see him every day, in a closed station...would thisn ot lead to
MORE murders?

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 2
Message 712 Thu Jan 21, 1993
STYROMAN [Ct. Trekula] at 20:50 EST

But the death penalty is picking up momentum in the U.S. And if the rate of
violent crime in other western countries increased to U.S. levels, I could see
the death penalty returning there.

If dangerous criminals cannot be reformed, logically they should not be
returned to society. If life imprisonment is too costly, execution is the
obvious alternative.
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 3
Message 498 Thu Jan 21, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:20 EST

While we may indeed have a CGI character down the road, it most assuredly
*won't* be a shapechanger. I don't like to swim in somebody else's pond.

Re: observatories...we'll be introducing the many other specialists who
work at B5 as we go along, from environmental techs to astrophysicists, so
we'll definitely find a place for this.

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 7
Message 433 Thu Jan 21, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 03:32 EST

It's a very difficult area, and I thank Katherine for making the call for
me...it becomes hard at this end sometimes to call. My sense, really, is that
if there are VERY SPECIFIC plotlines put forth, then it becomes an issue
suddenly.

As an aside, though, one thing I did hear from the message was the
Vorlons as Minbari question. This I can say definitively ain't so. They are
two completely different species, with no common points of origin.

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 13
Message 164 Thu Jan 21, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:26 EST

Yes, there are definitely different levels in each section of B5.

And yes again, down the road there will be both small flyers and
individuals with air-packs in the zero-G section at the center of the Garden.
Ron's worked out how to do it.

How's it illuminated? Quite nicely, actually....

jms
----------

Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 2
Message 730 Fri Jan 22, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:35 EST

Yes, but of course the problem *there* (making them work it off) is that
it begins to institutionalize slavery. How can you safeguard against
situations leading to indentured slavery...Person A is *falsely* accused of a
crime for the purpose of shipping him off to the work colony where he will
slave away for the Company indefinitely?

In a way, when you're dealing in this context -- far space -- the
question of "is murder humane?" is really less and less the operative
question. (By "murder" I mean the death penalty in the above.) You're living
in *very* small quarters, when you get down to it. It costs quite a lot in
time and money to get there. And to send someone away. How much time and
money do you allocate for extradition across, potentially, x-number of light
years?

The best metaphor, I suppose, is a boat at sea. There are ten people in
the boat. A kills B. You don't really have the resources to rehabilitate
there. And barring that option, there's no way of knowing if A won't kill C
in his sleep...or that D, B's friend, won't kill A at the first opportunity.
Meanwhile, you've got to put your attention to getting this ship to port
without totally disrupting operations and sinking before you reach port.

On Earth, if someone commits a crime, you send them to prison upstate,
out of sight, out of mind. But where do/can you send them in such closed
quarters? I raise this mainly because what I've always tried to do with B5 is
to Ask The Next Question. Very often the answers to those questions aren't
easy, or comfortable...but they have to be asked, and answered, if your
universe is to make any sense or have any degree of consistency.

(And just in general, btw, everyone who comes to B5 operates under EA
laws, so Earth laws have jurisdiction under *most* circumstances. But there
are always exceptions. And those would be a *real* test.)

As to the idea that the death penalty costs more than life...yes, that's
true as far as it goes on Earth...but a station wouldn't have time or money or
resources for those kind of endless appeals. Justice wold (would) have to be
fairly swift, or the entire operation would come to a screeching halt. So
what happens to civil rights? To the question of cruel and unusual
punishment? Where does one draw the line?

They're very hard questions. And the thing is...there IS no right
answer.

On to other things (meanwhile, feel free to keep this discussion
going...there are a lot of sides to this argument, and it's good to hear all
of them).

Yes, there are starmaps around, some are visible in Sinclair's briefing
room, although they got kinda washed out to a light blue and you really can't
see them well. We'll fix this later.

There are weapons, and we'll see them eventually. Can the station move?
Yes, but only marginally, as required to maintain its L5 position. As for
the engine room...since this isn't a starship, the engine room is not exactly
the same. There's not much of an engine per se; it was built IN one place to
STAY in one place. There are maintainance areas and operational sections, the
blue-collar stuff, though, and that we will be seeing.

Had something great happen today. Got a call from a friend, and there
was a guy in town from Magazine X (I can't give the title), which covers
computers, and SF, and other related areas. He wanted to see B5 and do a
quick interview/review. Now, this guy is very skeptical and not a little
cynical, even by his own admission. I said okay, and he came to the house
where I cranked up the system and showed him the finished pilot.

This is the first time a civilian has seen the *completed film*, sound,
music, pic all. And a reviewer, no less. His responce, (response), when the
pilot was over? He pronounced it the best SF pilot ever made, the "most
significant SF event" he had ever seen. He was just croggled by it.

I am a happy man. It's a start.

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 13
Message 172 Fri Jan 22, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 00:41 EST

250,000 is the *maximum* number of beings who can be there at one time;
that's not necessarily the maximum number of living quarters. In some ways,
B5 is like an airport; you come in, linger, then move on to your eventual
destiny (catching a few winks in the customs area waiting for the right ship
to come in or go out).

jms
---------

Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 403 Fri Jan 22, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:03 EST

You say, "New characters and sets apparently do not work." The basic
problem, you seem to feel, is that it's the same show, and how do we go about
making B5 different?

I think that the question is more accurately phrased as, "How does one
make DS9 more like TNG?" I'm going to do this absolutely as non-pejoratively
as humanly possible, because this is fundamentally the truth.

When TNG first went on the air, a lot of the legwork was done for them
already. Much of the universe was established: phasers, the Enterprise,
starfleet, klingons, warp speed, doors, terminology, on and on. There was
additional material added on, but the basic *foundation* is the same. This is
neither good nor bad. One can do (and there have been) good stories within
this format. What it *is* is a continuation of the same universe. You can do
good stuff with that, but it's still fundamentally the same universe.

Now comes DS9, and again, it's much the same situation: it builds upon
and integrates what went before. We have the Federation, stuff introduced in
TNG (Bajorans, Cardassians), some overlapping characters, and a carry-through
of many pre-existing stories and themes. Once again, and let me be clear
about this, this doesn't mean you can't do good stories here.

It's just that it's the same universe. It's not a question, really, of
"sets and characters," it's a question of the universe overall, and the fact
that it's really a repackaging of the same show, with some modifications.

B5 simply does not take place within that universe. Every frame of film
reminds you of this. Without making a qualitative judgment for a moment,
consider ST vs. Battlestar Galactica. Both are space shows, but very
different in tenor, tone and universe. (BG and Star Wars is, of course, a
very different discussion.)

The comparison I've always made has been to say "What if all the space
science fiction stories ever published were written by Larry Niven?"
Yes, they would be fine stories...but one kinda wants something different
after a while. He might change characters, create different empires, but it's
still a Niven point of view.

And that -- to get to the heart of your question -- is the point re: B5.
It's a question of *voice* as well as all the physical elements you see on
your television. The *voice* is the underlying philosophy of a show and its
creators, the perspective they bring to it. Babylon 5 brings in a whole
different voice. Better or worse, that's a question for the viewer to
decide...but it IS different.

We don't really have to try to be different from DS9 or TNG because we
were never like them in the first place. As opposed to DS9, which is linked
to another show, and proceeds from the same producers/writers, and to which
they have an obligation to make it, to whatever degree, much the same as TNG.

Those who have seen the two shows have no problem telling them apart.
And future B5 stuff will continue to remain separate and fresh for the same
reason that the pilot is different and fresh: because it proceeds from another
voice. Just as Clarke's stories have always been different from Asimov's has
been different from Ellison's have been different from Bova's have been
different from...well, you get the idea.

No comparison of quality implied there, only as examples of voice. (One
final note: B5 has always been conceived as, fundamentally, a five year story,
a novel for television, which makes it very different as well.)

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 2
Message 739 Fri Jan 22, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:05 EST

Matt: the most entertaining thing for a writer is creating a character;
the second most entertaining thing is killing off a character. Believe me, as
you'll see in the Fight To The Death in the pilot, I have no problem dropping
a body. And as far as I'm concerned, only 2 or 3 characters in this series
are indispensible...the rest are open to all kinds of interesting fates.

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 4
Message 505 Fri Jan 22, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:06 EST

Also, the contracts with the actors for the series extend to the window
at which time Warners *must* either give us a decision. So we're covered.

jms
---
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 93 00:44:33 PST
From: koreth@hyperion.com (Steven Grimm)
To: b5@iastate.edu
Subject: ftp.hyperion.com B5 archives available via E-mail

I've installed an ftpmail server at hyperion.com. You can use it to get to
ftp.hyperion.com (and nowhere else; the "host" and "connect" commands are
disabled for all but our UUCP neighbors). Send ftpmail@hyperion.com mail
with "help" as the subject for some brief instructions.

Since this is a dedicated server, it should give you much better turnaround
time than ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com.

If your From: line comes out screwy when your mail hits the Internet, you might
not see a response from the server. Mail me at ftpmail-admin@hyperion.com if
you don't get anything back within a day or so.

-Steve
---
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1993 13:30:15 -0800
From: Jonathan Roy <ninja@halcyon.halcyon.com>
To: b5@iastate.edu, rlewis@isi.edu

Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 18
Message 41 Sat Jan 23, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 01:03 EST

And there I agree...in our current situation, I much prefer live (er,
life) imprisonment to the death sentence, first because it allows for more
time to correct errors if the person's innocent; and second, if the person's
guilty...deny him an easy way out.

But again, that's *here* and *now* and may not necessarily reflect the
sorts of problems and considerations that may exist on a station such as B5.

Leviathan: you say that the law should "protect, not avenge." But
protect how? How do you protect against the lover who, in a fit of jealous
rage, knifes his fiancee to death? Do we have cameras in every room of every
house, monitoring for potentially dangerous behavior? What is the dividing
point between privacy and endangerment? Is not the aspect of protection or
prevention hinged upon the idea of retribution if caught? If there is no
avengement, where then is the prevention? If there is any privacy at all,
where is the protection?

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 2
Message 751 Sat Jan 23, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:35 EST

Yes, I *strongly* believe that there has to be diversity among our alien
races...accents, political beliefs, religion, name it. I think that is VERY
important. Yes, from time to time, you want the monolithic, perfectly
homogeneous aliens, but if so, you want them to stick out a bit in contrast to
the rest.

As has been noted, there's a *big* split currently going on between the
Minbari warrior and religious castes, for instance. More will come later.

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 1
Message 405 Sat Jan 23, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:33 EST

That's not a bad notion. As it is, the date given in each season of the
show will change. I.e., "I was there at the dawn of the third age of mankind.
It began in the year 2257." Then, "I was there at the dawn of the Third Age
of Mankind. It was the year 2258." And so on. So it not only tracks the
storyline, it'll be easier for folks to know which season they're coming into
as soon as they tune in.

BTW, y'know, I was thinking about this discussion as I sat chewing my
lemon sesame chicken at the Good Earth Restaurant in Glendale this evening (my
Spousal Overunit insists that I eat something healthy once in a while,
apparently not believing that one can actually SURVIVE on beef jerky and
little chocolate donuts and Crystal Pepsi)...and I was thinking about how this
on-line discussion has now generated -- what? -- 7,000+ messages even before
the show airs.

So I got to thinking...what's going to happen AFTER this sucker airs?
I kinda suspect that either a) we will see a lot of "I WUZ ROBBED!" notes
followed by a silence vast as space, or b) this category is going to explode
in the biggest blast since Tunguska.

jms
----------
Second SF&F RT
Category 18, Topic 15
Message 88 Sat Jan 23, 1993
STRACZYNSKI [Joe] at 04:40 EST

Yeah, you kinda need binocular vision for survival purposes and the
utilization of tools.

Re: alien plans...that's something that we'll have to work out down the
road with our prosthetics people. I don't think we used the full range of
aliens (both versions) as well as we might have in the pilot. We get only
one medium-long shot of Black Eyes, for instance, and that's one that I feel
came out VERY well and should be highlighted more. Some of the others were
less effective, but were kept to the background.

I'd like to keep a mix going, about 50/50.

jms
----------

SeaQuest Show Guide [Skip]