Author Archives: evilrooster

Allochthonia: Languages

Lennier: And in my eleventy-fifth year in the temple, I began to study the 97 dialects and subtongues of our homeworld. And I discovered something truly amazing. Londo: Yes? Lennier: Yes. The same word, n!kai, appears in every Minbari dialect … Continue reading →

Posted in Allochthonia | 51 Comments

Babylon 5: The Quality of Mercy

Mal: But it ain’t all buttons and charts, little albatross. You know what the first rule of flying is? Well, I suppose you do, since you already know what I’m about to say. River: I do. But I like to … Continue reading →

Posted in Babylon 5 | 8 Comments

CSS not working

Technical thing: for some reason, all of my CSS changes, which include a lot of formatting improvements and comment numbering, have stopped working in both Firefox (3.x and 4) and Safari. They still work fine in Chrome. I haven’t checked … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog | 8 Comments

De Nieuwe Batavia: Watchfulness & Distraction

I’m walking the perimeter, checking for an air leak. I know it’s here, I just don’t know where it is. We use a very old-fashioned way to locate leaks. Whenever we get a flag that the air mixture is off … Continue reading →

Posted in De Nieuwe Batavia | 29 Comments

De Nieuwe Batavia

“Space…the final frontier.” I’ve been a Trekkie since I was four. I grew up believing these words the way kids believe nursery rhymes: unthinkingly. Grown up now, thinking about it, I know that it’s not Roddenberry’s fault. He didn’t invent … Continue reading →

Posted in De Nieuwe Batavia, Worldbuilding | 16 Comments

Babylon 5: Babylon Squared

Never believe in a meritocracy in which no one is funny-looking. —Teresa Nielsen Hayden In the last episode, we brushed up against one of the persistent themes of the series: vocation. Draal was called to the Machine, both by Varn’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Babylon 5 | 25 Comments

Allochthonia: Numen, Faith, Religion, and Lack Thereof

One of the persistent topics of discussion in the Babylon 5 threads has been annoyance about the depiction of religion in the alien societies of the series. The consensus is that Bab 5 isn’t unique: religion and faith are frequently … Continue reading →

Posted in Allochthonia | 149 Comments

Allochthonia

Being an expat (as I have been for most of my adult life) is a profound and repeated experience of otherness. It’s a constant rediscovery that people can do things, and structure their societies, in entirely unexpected ways. And they … Continue reading →

Posted in Allochthonia, Worldbuilding | 25 Comments

Welcome to N2S

So, welcome to my new place. What do you like about it? What do you hate? I’m still tweaking the CSS, trying to get it to feel like home rather than just a generic WordPress blog. Suggestions are welcome, though … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog | 47 Comments

Babylon 5: A Voice in the Wilderness

Live with a man forty years. Share his house, his meals. Speak on every subject. Then tie him up, and hold him over the volcano’s edge. And on that day, you will finally meet the man. — Xian Yu, as … Continue reading →

Posted in Babylon 5 | 41 Comments