Thinking about writing some more stories set in the B5 universe

[oberoc]

Hi Everybody!

I have been kicking around a bunch of plots and subplots based in the B5 universe with all (or most) of the characters that we have all grown to know and love. I am going to be re-watching the Crusades and Lost Tales for dates and key plot points. My first questions are:

Does anybody have a physical map of the B5 universe - where the home worlds are including the Narn, Minbari, Markab, Centari, and Earth are?

Where can I get the B5 books from for cheap? Anybody sell them besides Ebay?

Has the Vorlon language every been translated or has been attempted to be translated?

Do we know anything else about the Captain Mathew Gideon's box besides what is told in the story?

Does Gideon's character have anything to do with the biblical Gideon?

I have a bunch more, but that is it for now. Stay tuned!

-Tino

[Triple F]

Hi,

A B5 Map
There’s no official map of the B5 universe that I know of but I believe there’s been a few attempts by fans based on comments made on the show. You’ve probably found all this before but . . . .

A half serious attempt at explaining the B5 cartography.

http://www.chronology.org/noframes/b-five/astronomy.html#02

This is the oldest attempt at a map that I remember seeing. (there’s probably a lot more earlier ones).

http://forums.spacebattles.com/showthread.php?p=1849144%2520

There are others, usually created by gamers for game mods etc.

http://individual.utoronto.ca/Swordships/HouseRules.html

http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e358/KclCmdr/Maps/B5_SpaceMap2258.jpg

Though none of it is canon, of course, and contain various holes and assumptions that any sceptic or armchair expert will be more than happy to point out. Some fans create – some fans just ‘comment’. ; )


The books
The guys over at B5TV sometimes hand out copies to folks when they come across them in the attic or garage. You may have better luck with some of them, or at least keep an eye on the forum.

http://www.b5tv.com/showthread.php?t=11875

http://www.b5tv.com/showthread.php?t=11726

Also, I remember reading that Summer over at the Babylon podcast is trying to get a collection together, she may be able to help out.

http://www.babylonpodcast.com/

Glindros on here has connections with the Podcast. Perhaps he can tell you what Summer is up to and if she has any spare copies of any of the books.

Vorlon Language
Never heard of the written language being translated. Though I know some folks have tried creating a Narn and Minbari dictionary. There was talk of some official release which may have covered this, I’m sure Jan is more up on this. Also remember a few post from jms a long time ago about how some of the letters ,in minbari at least, correspondend to English, and mention of some possible invovement with a linguistic expert to help design stuff!!?. You can also download fonts of the various languages, including Vorlon.

http://webspace.webring.com/people/uu/um_362/b5font.html

Though like most/all of what I’m posting you most likely know all this anyway. Sorry for not being much help.


As for the Gideon stuff. jms has put some info on the Box in some of his replies but appart from that, haven’t a clue.

If no one responds to this then I’d try Firstones.com or B5TV. Those are two other forums which contain some knowledgeable folks as well.


Cheers
Tom

[Jan]

Wow, there's stuff there I didn't know existed, Tom. Thanks.

Regarding language translations, there wasn't a whole lot of that available on the show since we generally 'heard' the characters in English. One bit of trivia about that is the shirt that Vir wore when he came back to the station from Minbar read 'Aloha' in Minbari.

When asked whether Gideon was a biblical reference, JMS replied:

Brent Barrett <[email protected]> asks:
> So was the biblical reference related to the genesis (pardon the
> pun) of this character's name?

There are certain reasons for that name choice, yes, which is
all I'll say for now.

jms

Hopefully we'll find out more in the upcoming Crusade books.

Jan

[Triple F]

Part of the joys of doing all that ‘research’ a while back. Though I’ve forgotten (or didn’t bookmark) most of it.

There’s a whole undercurrent of fan activity (still going on) that generally never comes near the likes of jmsnews, B5TV or even Firstones. Though it does pop up occasionally like that guy who created the Starfury and Omega models a few months back or someone advertsing one of the many B5 mods to PC games . . . . or writting some fan fiction.

It’s one of the reasons why I believe there is still a lot of interest in the show, just not overtly active interest that posts on recognised fan forums such as this. The DVD sales being another big hint.


[Edit]
Just checked to see if I remembered something correctly to support that assumption. I did something similar a few years ago and the results do indicate the same thing.

If you look at the viewing stats of the jms wiki article it shows it’s been viewed 5915 times this year.

http://stats.grok.se/en/201007/J._Michael_Straczynski

The wiki article on Babylon 5 has been viewed 21468 times!!

http://stats.grok.se/en/201007/Babylon_5

(its currently ranked as the 4,380th most viewed article – which out of 3.3 million in the English wikipedia means it’s viewed more than 99.87&#37; of the others – not too bad at all, and a big hint to that popularity)


[edit, edit]
Just out of curiosity I tried looking at this years wiki (article) viewing figures for the other space based sci-fi television shows that I could remember (a quick straw poll).

Never tried that before but seemed a fun thing to try . . . . . . . . Crusade isn’t doing too well, it’s behind buck bloody rodgers. ffs. Considering it’s age though, B5 is doing exceptionally well. Still a hell of a buzz surrounding Firefly obviously.

Firefly - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 52,321
BSG (new) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 23,676
Babylon 5 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 21,468
ST : TNG - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 19,860
Farscape - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 14,332
ST: TOS - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 13,006
ST: Voyager - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 12,176
ST: DS9 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10,581
Lost In Space - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 10,116
ST : Enterprise - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 9,689
Lexx - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 6,547
BSG (old) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 5,323
Blake’s 7 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 4,974
Buck Rodgers in the 25th century - - - - 4,663
Space 1999 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2,537
B5: Crusade - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 2,529
Space: Above and Beyond - - - - - - - 1,698

[Garibaldi's Hair]

. . . . . . . . Crusade isnÆt doing too well, itÆs behind buck bloody rodgers. ffs.

Buck Rogers had Erin Gray ... more than enough to keep generations of internet SF fanboys happy. Tracy Scoggins just doesn't measure up to that, I'm afraid (not to mention she was only in a few of the episodes anyway).

[Triple F]

Ahhh yes, colonel Deering, forgot about her.

Looking back now IÆm not sure why. But personally (at 14 or so), I was more drawn to the Servalan character from B7 (Jacqueline Pearce). Purely from an acting point of view you understand. Looking like she never wore a bra had nothing to do with it. ; )

[Garibaldi's Hair]

Wilma had long hair. Long hair trumps all ... well, most ... other things.

[PMvanova]

Speaking of B5 writing...

I just came to the realization that the B5 ranger story that I had worked on for about 3 or4 years is gone.
All the notes, little vignette stories, some real gem character bits... gone.
It was on a USB drive that was in my purse that was stolen last year.
This really sucks.

I have some of the scenes still in my head, and could likely recreate the story, but it will never be the same as when that creative spark was bright.

:: four letter words ::

[babylonlurker]

I just came to the realization that the B5 ranger story that I had worked on for about 3 or4 years is gone.
All the notes, little vignette stories, some real gem character bits... gone.
It was on a USB drive that was in my purse that was stolen last year.
This really sucks.

I have some of the scenes still in my head, and could likely recreate the story, but it will never be the same as when that creative spark was bright.

:: four letter words ::

What can we say - more 4-letter words :

back uupp - back uupp !



Sorry you lost it, you may have to regenerate it if possible

[Reverend]

Has the Vorlon language every been translated or has been attempted to be translated?

If by that you mean has the font cypher been cracked, then yes...more or less. I've been gradually getting my hands on the old magazines of late and one of the things I've noticed how much of the alien fonts was used in those publications. So much that I've been able to at least partially decipher most of them. I don't really have anything to hand to show for it right this moment, but I can tell you what the messages Kosh's and Ulkesh's ships were displaying; "steve pugh" and "john teska" respectively. Gee, I wonder who animated those two scenes?

As for the other languages, I have (with Jan's invaluable assistance) managed to compile an incomplete glossary of Minbari words an phrases for the wiki with at least rough translations where possible.