B5 IS a modern interpretation of Lord of the Rings

[Arrghman]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by solaris5:
But that's against the essence of being me. You see, I can't be wrong

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>


*snort*

------------------
### Hi, I'm a sig virus. Please add me to the end of your signature so I can take over the world.### - caught from Saps @ B5MG

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

 

[bakana]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>I mean, hey, the Itanium processor was based upon the old card readers <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Where on earth did you get That??

A card reader was a gadget that shined a Light through a bunch of Holes in a piece of cardboard and generated a set of Voltages on a connector cable based on just where those holes were in the card.
How does That give you the basis for a microprocessor??

BTW, the last I read, the Architecture of the entire Intel line is very different from anything that ever used a Card Reader.

It's part of the "Big Endian" vs "Little Endian" controversy in computer architecture.
Intel went a different way to avoid Patent disputes.



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

 

[solaris5]

That's not what I meant, I just didn't know what the shits were called

They were the old computers that you had to input the data using cards and stuff. And the Itanium was just a random new product, since they're all based on past designs, just enhanced. They still use switches, only now they're semiconductors, and they're a whole lot smaller.

------------------
My name: Solaris5....
My mission: to burst the bubble of idiocy that has enveloped everyone and bring common sense back from beyond the rim.

 

[A_M_Swallow]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bakana:


It's part of the "Big Endian" vs "Little Endian" controversy in computer architecture.
Intel went a different way to avoid Patent disputes.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Strange I thought the X86 was simply made compatible with the 8080 eight bit machine. Getting the address field in jump instructions the wrong way round meant that the 8080 only had to store 8 bits rather than 16 bits. The 8080 was very short of gates.



------------------
Andrew Swallow

 

[Arrghman]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by solaris5:
That's not what I meant, I just didn't know what the shits were called

They were the old computers that you had to input the data using cards and stuff. And the Itanium was just a random new product, since they're all based on past designs, just enhanced. They still use switches, only now they're semiconductors, and they're a whole lot smaller.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

LOL, yeah, they all use switches. and guess what... all stories use words! so therefore, anything with words in it must be based off something that was previously written that contains words! thus b5 is actually a modern interpretation of a receipe that says how to make cheese raveolli!

thats essentially what your argument says...

------------------
### Hi, I'm a sig virus. Please add me to the end of your signature so I can take over the world.### - caught from Saps @ B5MG

 

[Teekas Dragon]

Thank you for giving your spill on this Joe, since you know a hell of a lot more than me about B5. Maybe you can answer this for me though, didn't JMS say somewhere that he dropped a few things into B5 just to piss off the people that were taking sol's stance on this and saying that B5 is a rip off of LoTR??? I thought i read that in one of his posts once upon a time but i can't seem to find it now.

Solaris: You should try reading a wide selection of fanatsy novels. In every fanatsy novel/series i've ever read i can point out hundreds of things that are similiar in all of them, but they are all different also. Just because the concept of good vs evil is in both B5 and LoTR doesn't mean that one was based on the other. This has already been said but maybe if it's said enough you'll catch on to what ppl are trying to tell you. B5 is NOT, key word NOT!! a rehashed version of LoTR.

Now maybe if we all smoked enough crack and fucked up our brains maybe we'd agree

Sinc.
Jerome

------------------
I am a Ranger. We walk in the dark places no others will enter. We stand on the bridge and no one may pass. We live for the One. We die for the one.

 

[bakana]

Teekas Dragon, you can find over 16,000 of jms posts going back to 1991 at http://www.jmsnews.com/

There IS a "Search" function.

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

 

[Delbert]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Teekas Dragon:
Just because the concept of good vs evil is in both B5 and LoTR doesn't mean that one was based on the other.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Absolutely right, Teekas Dragon! But there's something important to add here: B5 uses the concept of good vs evil, using our expectations that the angelic-appearing Vorlons are good and the spidery Shadows are bad. But then we get a trademark JMS twist and it turns out not to be about good vs evil at all! Rather, the conflict at the heart of B5 is between chaos and order, developed from the ancient Babylonian myths, with the name of the station being a hint from JMS that this was the case! So perhaps people should be looking less at Tolkien as an influence, as Tolkien was concerned with good vs evil, and more to Michael Moorcock, whose various fantasy series are concerned with the conflict between chaos and law.

------------------

 

[Mack]

Thanks, Joe DM for your reply. Just seeing the topic on the board made me uneasy and had I got here sooner, I would have voiced many of the same things.

Even in my mundane life, if I come up with something I'm proud of and someone says it's based on someone else's work it hurts. With writers whom I admire and who have entertained me so much, I really feel it's unfair.

Food for thought...

------------------
"Tastes like chicken." -- Mack

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

When people hear a story based on conflict, they automatically want to decipher who are the "good guys" and who are the "bad guys." JMS did a LOT in the first three seasons to establish that the Vorlons were the good guys and that the Shadows were the bad guys. By the middle of Season 3, we were probably all thinking that the Vorlons were going to help the younger races destroy the Shadows forever.

Tolkien played on our instincts and created a great and powerful enemy - the epitome of all evil. JMS turned our instincts on their ear because he established who the good guys and bad guys were, and then dropped the bomb that nothing we had seen was exactly as it appeared (foreshadowing - imagine that

).

I think that JMS used the same kinds of techniques to establish good and evil, but made the story all his own by changing everything we thought we knew.

------------------
You are finite. Zathras is finite. This...is wrong tool.

jtk724@hotmail.com

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>JMS turned our instincts on their ear because he established who the good guys and bad guys were, and then dropped the bomb that nothing we had seen was exactly as it appeared<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And yet, there are hints from the very beginning. Nearly all of "our" information about the ancient enemy (later identified as the Shadows) comes from the Minbari (who never tell anyone the whole truth) and to them from the Vorlons (who are deliberately mysterious and enigmatic.) That we trust it implicitly is due more to our failure to take all the evidence into account than JMS's deliberate manipulation. The clues are there for those who want to see them.

Kosh has Deathwalker murdered, after all, in cold blood, with as little compunction as a Mafia Don. Certainly she deserved death for her crimes, but she had medical knowledge that could be very useful, even if her immortality serum could not be replicated. (Her research may have contained, or pointed the way to, the cure for many diseases.) Kosh has her killed without even the pretense of a trial process, and without consulting any of the other races, simply because he thinks he knows best. Unalloyed good guy?

Here's something JMS had to say on the subject:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Morden tried to find out what the ambassadors would like. Morden arranged to rescue an important Centauri artifact. Morden helped wipe out the crooks. Morden saved Londo's career, and asked for nothing in return.

And yet we get the sense that Morden is a bad guy.

Kosh destroys our chance for immortality. Refuses to get involved in the affairs of others. Is plainly studying us. Terrorizes one of our main characters, Talia, for unknown reasons.

And yet we get the sense that Kosh is a good guy.

If anyone should ask, I really *love* writing this show....

jms
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Regards,

Joe

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

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

"Understanding is a three-edged sword."

B5 was set up in a way that for nearly three whole seasons, all we got was one side of the story - the Vorlons' side. We automatically assume that the Vorlons are acting in our best interest because they oppose the same things that our heros opposed.

Sure, the Vorlons killed Deathwalker, but she was a mad scientist bent on death and destruction.

Sure, Kosh fooled with Talia's head, but we learned from Ironheart that the Psi Corps was bent on its own corrupt agenda.

Since these things were perceived as evil, we the viewers were more than willing to believe that the Vorlons were benevolent caretakers. Though they had their own agenda that we couldn't see, we liked the Vorlons because they seemed to have the authority to do the things that the younger races couldn't do.

With all this in mind, they influenced us that the Shadows were "bad" by using adjectives like "dark," "evil," and "enemy." Simply the name that the Vorlons gave them, "Shadows," conjurs images of evil lurking in the darkness. One wonders why these creatures are shrouded in darkness - what do they have to hide? If they weren't as evil as the Vorlons said they were, then why don't they move about in the open like everyone else? (JMS frequentily reminds us, though, that even though the Vorlons are seen moving about, they are always hiding within their ships or their encounter suits.)

Also, don't forget that the only real facts about the Shadows that we got came through the Minbari, and the Minbari never tell you the whole truth.

------------------
You are finite. Zathras is finite. This...is wrong tool.

jtk724@hotmail.com

 

[superbob]

It's actually an interesting point. The Vorlons are good simply because we want them to be "the good guys". There always has to be a "goodie" and a "baddie". Were the shadows evil? maybe not there method of achieving what they wanted may be seen as evil but they view the universe as a great big Darwin type experiment. Survival of the fittest. Doesn't nature work that way. I can't remeber which thread it was but it spoke about humans reaching the point where the Vorlons are now and the Minbari eventually reach it too. The Centauri and Narn don't! The shadows may have viewed it all the same way we do when we cull elephants. A cruel practice but ultimately essential to the survival of the species.
Humans have always looked at the spectrum as black and white, purposely ignoring the grey in between.

------------------
"I am Grey. I stand between the candle and the star. We are Grey. We stand between the darkness and the light. I come to take the place that has been prepared for me"
-------------------------
the present becomes the past, the past becomes history, history becomes legend, legend becomes myth, myth becomes obscurity! please pass the flarn!

 

[A_Ranger]

The majority of people roaming message boards are stubborn, ignorant, "my opinion rules all" idiots who look at things as if they are right and the world is wrong.



------------------
We're all born as molecules in the hearts of a billion stars, molecules that do not understand politics, policies and differences. In a billion years we, foolish molecules forget who we are and where we came from. Desperate acts of ego. We give ourselves names, fight over lines on maps. And pretend our light is better than everyone else's. The flame reminds us of the piece of those stars that live inside us. A spark that tells us: you should know better. The flame also reminds us that life is precious, as each flame is unique. When it goes out, it's gone forever. And there will never be another quite like it

 

[**DONOTDELETE**]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, arial">quote:</font><HR>Superbob said
Humans have always looked at the spectrum as black and white, purposely ignoring the grey in between. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I thought the whole point of having things like discussion boards (like this one) about millions of different things was a way that we humans *do* explore the grey.

------------------
YOU ARE NOT READY FOR IMMORTALITY!