JMS: Where does he get this stuff anyway?

I noticed that some of the philosophy and structure JMS put into his B5 Universe came from pre-existing sources, so I thought it might be fun to toss out the ones I spotted and see if any of ya'll have some "revelations" about his sources to contribute.

First the Delenn quote about "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth leaving the world blind and toothless" seems to be an almost direct quote from Ghandi. Very cool source.
Another, I like to think major, notice was that (posted originally by me on the Sci Fi board):

"
I don't know if JMS has talked about it specifically before, but I stumbled accross a book a couple years ago that talked about Celtic and some other "Indo-European societies" and I found a place that talked about how they often divided their societies into three groups:

"Priestly intelligentsia (the learned, I believe that means)"
"the Warriors"
"the agriculturalists" (sounds like a working class to me)

It seems to be right on the money, but maybe their was another similar source he drew from.

One other thing, the whole persona of the Vorlons and the Shadows (or what ever their name actually was, what is it with unpronouncable names anyway, the Hand and all)
anyway, the character of the Vorlons and Shadows and their relationship to each other reminds me ALOT of a concept I heard of in Sociology ... I can't remember the name of it right now but it broke living systems into two ways of looking at peoples interaction; Functionalist theory: trying to explain society in terms of trying to "achieve and remain in equilibrium or balance", and Conflict Theory: Society as being held together by some groups wielding power over other groups to the benefit of the more powerful group(s).

Anyway I got the Celtic bit from Funk & Wagnalls dictionary of folklore, mythology, and legend. And the Sociology stuff I got from Sociology for the twenty-first century (By Curry, Jiobu, and Schwirian). Maybe this will give some people a new way to look at some of the stuff that went on in the original B5 series, and show how (if I am right, that is)JMS does not go off half-cocked and probably has more quality set up in the Rangers concepts from the movie than some people are giving it credit for.
"

Anyone else got any other juicy background info on B5 lore?



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"Humanity IS my business"
or the always popular
"You can get farther with a kind word and a 2 b four, than you can with just a kind word"

Short and sweet on the Shadows vs the Vorlons. JMS has said that he based that on the ancient Babylonian Creation Myth (Order vs Chaos), hence the name Babylon 5.

Both literary and historical references dot the show and if you're well read and informed you spot them all the time. You could almost make a drinking game out of guessing the quotes. Woohoo!

Delenn's "We are Star Stuff" speech comes from the late great Carl Sagan.



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"Draal gave Zathras list of things not to say.
This was one. No.... *tsk tsk*
No. Not good.
Not supposed to mention... "one", or... THE one.
Hmmmm.
You never heard that."

"An eye for an an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is also in the Bible.

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Dulann: You don't solve your problems by hitting them.
David Martel: Yeah, well, it made me feel better.

"An eye for an an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is also in the Bible.

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Dulann: You don't solve your problems by hitting them.
David Martel: Yeah, well, it made me feel better.

I believe the "Star Stuff" episode was written by D.C.(Dorothy)Fontana
not JMS.

Also, some more insight from the man himself:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> jms speaks:

Correct; the title of "The War Prayer" is a nod to Twain's piece of the same name, which should be read by *everyone*.
Given the growing problems with illiteracy, I try to refer not to pop society so much, as to literature ... Tennyson, Twain, even writers whose last names don't begin with T. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>



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Do not ascribe your own motivations to others:
At best, it will break your heart.
At worst, it will get you dead."

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by RW7427:
"An eye for an an eye and a tooth for a tooth" is also in the Bible.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I think that's why such a careful point was made about it.

It might be a quote from the bible, but it is also a disastrous policy, if you actually try to apply it.


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"The Bible is a book: it is a good book, but is is not the only book" - Inherit the Wind

"I do not believe that the same God who
has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use."—Galileo

hypatia@b5fan.b5lr.com

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>It might be a quote from the bible, but it is also a disastrous policy, if you actually try to apply it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Of course, what everybody always misses about "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is that it was a limitation on violence and vengence. In a time and place when death was meted out for the most trivial offenses, Mosaic law said that you could only take an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth. You couldn't kill the man you half-blinded you or knocked your tooth out, or hack-off the arm that did the dee.

Re: Celts. Actually, the whole "Those who work, those who fight, those who pray" thing obtained in pretty much all of feudal Europe, and in most non-European feudal societies, for that matter. There is nothing specifically Celtic about it. JMS has researched the period in depth on more than one ocassion for writing projects (he was working on a play set during the Middle Ages when he wrote "Deconstruction" for instance, and said that his head "was full of monks" at the time.

Regards,

Joe

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Joseph DeMartino
Sigh Corps
Pat Tallman Division
joseph-demartino@att.net

Joe's right.

I've noticed that Minbari society is lifted right out of feudal Europe, where you'd have those who fight, those who pray, and those who work.

Those who work, as you can imagine, really had no voice.

The main power struggle was between the secular leaders - Holy Roman Emperors, Frankish leaders, and the rest, and the religious (the abbey at Cluny, for example). Despite popular opinion, the Pope was NOT at this time the overarching leader of the Church that he is now.

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channe@[url="http://cryoterrace.tripod.com"]cryoterrace[/url] | "Last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer." -lost in space

And of course, when Jesus (in a purely social-reformer, rabbi/teacher sort of way) comes about, he institutes quite a new idea: turn the other cheek. Which isn't what Delenn had in mind, but I bet you anything she had the same criticism.

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channe@[url="http://cryoterrace.tripod.com"]cryoterrace[/url] | "Last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer." -lost in space

Sorry, one more post. I can't help myself -

About the unpronounceable names bit. If we ever meet *real* aliens, I doubt we're going to be able to pronounce their name. I don't think we should seriously expect aliens to have the system of vocal cords and tongue that allows humans to make certain sounds.

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channe@[url="http://cryoterrace.tripod.com"]cryoterrace[/url] | "Last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer." -lost in space

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR> I don't think we should seriously expect aliens to have the system of vocal cords and tongue that allows humans to make certain sounds. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Channe, if you wnat to pursue that line of thought, look up the works of Suzette Hayden Elgin, particularly the "Native Tongue" series and the Starbridge series by A.C.(Ann) Crispin.

I believe both are available on Amazon.

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Do not ascribe your own motivations to others:
At best, it will break your heart.
At worst, it will get you dead."

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Of course, what everybody always misses about "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" is that it was a limitation on violence and vengence. In a time and place when death was meted out for the most trivial offenses, Mosaic law said that you could only take an eye for an eye, or a tooth for a tooth. You couldn't kill the man you half-blinded you or knocked your tooth out, or hack-off the arm that did the dee.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And what even more people seem to conveniently forget is that this is from the Old Testament = Torah- it is a Jewish phrase, from Jewish Hallukha (religious law).

"Eye for an eye" actually means that if one person would take someone's eye, the criminal, as part of his punishment, would pay the victim a set amount- the monetary "price" for an eye. This is one reason why it lists tooth for a tooth, foot for a foot, etc.

This law, like much of the Torah, applied in the days of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem and Court of Elders. Like sacrificing animals and the Jubilee Year, it has absolutely no application to us today.

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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."

Minbari philosophy seems to have much in common with Zen to me. I saw somewhere on Lurkers' where JMS said that Babylon was meant to evoke the market place, a meeting place of people. Before I got into the series, as a fan of reggae music, my main connotation of Babylon was as a place of corruption and evil. Not exactly what JMS wanted. Did anyone else have to overcome that preconception to appreciate B5?

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You're speaking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Maid Marian
Fluently! Errol Flynn as Robin Hood
You're talking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Arabella Bishop
I trust I'm not obscure. Errol Flynn as Dr. Peter Blood

Pallindromes of the month: Snug was I, ere I saw guns.
Doom an evil deed, liven a mood.

Jaguar, did you grow up listening to some fundie preacher frothing at the mouth about the "Whore of Babylon" or something??


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Do not ascribe your own motivations to others:
At best, it will break your heart.
At worst, it will get you dead."

There seems to be alot of references to Reincarnation and Karma through out the series too. Except for Ivonova's comment about paying off Karma at a vastly accelerated rate, Delenn and the Minbari seem to have Reincarnation mixed in heavily, with souls being reborn and a comment she made, to Lennier I believe, about looking like he had been scared into an (older and better, or something like that) Incarnation.

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"Humanity IS my business"
or the always popular
"You can get farther with a kind word and a 2 b four, than you can with just a kind word"

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bakana:
Channe, if you wnat to pursue that line of thought, look up the works of Suzette Hayden Elgin, particularly the "Native Tongue" series and the Starbridge series by A.C.(Ann) Crispin.

I believe both are available on Amazon.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Will do, bakana.

I took a few courses in linguistics and the development of seperate languages in my day, and while I'm far from an expert, it really interests me.

Wouldn't it be interesting to try and communicate with someone whose language is deals with an entirely different set of concepts than human language? Wouldn't that be a riot? Could we even do it?

I mean, given enough time, I could walk up to a Chinese woman and we could communicate fairly simple ideas.

But what if I went up to an alien - and that alien had no concept of love, or eating as we know it, or pain? Or they knew those things, it's just that - not in the way we know them?

Hee hee! It could be really neat!

I have a new story idea... muahaha...

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channe@[url="http://cryoterrace.tripod.com"]cryoterrace[/url] | "Last one to kill a bad guy buys the beer." -lost in space

Bakana, I was thinking of Bob Marley, and others, as Rastafarians consider Babylon to be the symbol of corruption, or actually the historical example of corruption.

I did go to Catholic school in first grade, but the constant rap from the nuns was about the war between God and the Devil. They didn't mention Babylon. My dad was a Baptist, so I went to Baptist Sunday School for a couple of years, and thus learned to dislike Baptists. But if they mentioned 'the whore of Babylon', I don't recall it. Guess not many listen to Marley any more.

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You're speaking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Maid Marian
Fluently! Errol Flynn as Robin Hood
You're talking treason! Olivia De Havilland as Arabella Bishop
I trust I'm not obscure. Errol Flynn as Dr. Peter Blood

Pallindromes of the month: Snug was I, ere I saw guns.
Doom an evil deed, liven a mood.

There's a reference of that manner about Babylon in Revelations. I don't have my bible on hand right now... it's in my backpack, and my feet are in a gallon of water right now.

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Sheridan: Are you trying to cheer me up?
Ivanova: No sir, wouldn't dream of it.
Sheridan: Good, I hate being cheered up. It's depressing.
Ivanova: So in that case we're all going to die horrible, painful, lingering deaths.
Sheridan: Thank you, I feel so much better now.

Jade, mon, I here ya me bruther. I and I been in Babylon too long. Back in the day, we smoke da tree and here the words of the Prophet Marley, man.

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"You do not make history. You can only hope to survive it."

Vocal communication? Bipedal air-breathers with a head... are likely to have a placement of lungs/mouth similar to us. Hence their basic selection of vocal expressions would overlap with ours.

As for other forms of life... you never know. The Shadows sound awfully similar to a modem. I would suspect that their words and sentences are transmitted as modulated and encoded pulses.

Vorlons are another odd sort. Their speech is musical. My guess would be that their modulation type is different. Shadows transmit their sentences in a narrow part of the sound spectrum with extreme speed.

Vorlons do the opposite. Their vocal range is incredibly wide, their speech is slow and feels multilayered. They might actually be saying all of their words in parallel. I guess that would explain why the sound a bit cryptic.

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited February 18, 2002).]