possible explanations or, at least, excuses.
Hello, and first, welcome to this Mythology and In-joke compendium. In it, the many and varied (and downright ridiculous, if you want my opinion. But you don't) in-jokes and mythologies of the alt.babylon5.uk group are gathered under one subject header, and a desperate attempt made to demonstrate that, despite these, we may still be sane. Some of the time.
I have also been asked by Callum to note that this is actually somewhat funny, indeed even witty, and as such may induce paralysis, heart attacks or in extreme cases befuddlement in some individuals.
Yours excusingly, Mark Dunne, mdunne@iol.ie
This document posted fortnightly to alt.babylon5.uk and an up-to-date copy kept on the group web site at: http://www.altb5uk.freeserve.co.uk
INTRODUCTION
hat is Mythology? What's an in-joke? Who are you? Have you anything worth living for? Do you want fries with that
What is Mythology? What's an in-joke? Who are you? Have you anything worth living for? Do you want fries with that?
- Mythology is a series or collection of stories and legends. In this case, the stories and legends regarding alt.babylon5.uk Something is a Mythology if it affects either five threads or ten posts in the course of a week, or lives on for a full month. Or if I just really think it is.
- An in-joke is one which, in a certain group, causes hysterical laughter, rolling on floor, and gratuitous use of net acronyms with L in them. Those outside the group pause in puzzlement and mild terror. They are usually based on whatever shared interest has brought the group together, or on something which happened which only the members of the group are aware of. As such, only members of the group will get the joke.
- Mark Dunne. MarkWCats. Strange person. Goth. Cat worshipper. Visit my web site at http://www.iol.ie/~mdunne for. mmmmfmfmfmfmf Let me go!!! I won't advertise again! I promise. I'm the one the other members of the group will sidle away from when I start giggling inanely at nothing.
- Yes.
- Yes, please. And a Diet Coke.
ITEMS
The Great War - struggling to rule the universe.
One of the most prevalent sources of enmity and general shouting at each other on alt.babylon5.uk is the argument over the supremacy of cats or hamsters. (that and the one about monarchy, but this one's important) It's generally agreed that one of these species is supreme. Which, is of course debated <subliminal> CATS CATS CATS</subliminal>
The cats are of course, true masters of everything, and are greater even than the Vorlons. There are rumours of an alliance, but this is absolute tosh. My views on the subject are as objective as always. The main proponents are um, me, um representing the cats, and in the shadowy corner, Rodders (Roderick Hunt) representing those 'orrible little rodents.
The Geese and the Wildebeest (singular :-) are also players in the Great War, with Andrew Brack representing the Geese, and Parhum the Wildebeest. The Geese are slav^H^H^H^H allies of the Cats, as of the 30 October 1998. The Wildebeest is generally regarded as being compltely insignificant, and the Armadilloes just got in the Cats way once too often. Take your side, you can't remain neutral. :-)
BTW, for Cat followers, the Internet Cat Cult is available at http://www.iol.ie/~mdunne/icc/
He is *SO* 14! - "I'll be Brack"
Andrew Brack is one of the regulars of the group, and, indeed, on of the more unusual ones. On first joining in, he was 14. In fact, he was *SO* 14. You get the picture. Indeed, he provided the ultimate proof on starting a thread to collect Andrew Brack jokes, especially those related to the *SO* 14 bit. Or now, *SO* 15.
We think he'll grow out of it sometime around 28, if he lives that long.
The Youth Of Today - My 9 year old daughter.
This came about because of Undead Hedgehog complaining that his 9 year old daughter could read this group, and as such that language and content should be kept within certain limits. (As an unmoderated group not targeted specifically at young children, he is probably wrong, I think, or at least not right). Now, it is used in a certain sarcastic manner. C'est la vie.
All right, you can have your way. - The Dude thing.
Dudeman is a character that appeared from Stormys twisted imagination, I think. After that, he and others insisted that he be put in the Mythology. I, obviously, knew that he did not yet qualify. However, he finally did qualify, as he was mentioned so many times in relation to not being in the Mythology. Such is the logic of alt.babylon5.uk.
The Vorlon in our Midst - Shaun Gerrans.
Shaun is, we have concluded, obviosuly a Vorlon, or a Minbari, or some kind of generally omniscient being. He knows, with some minor exceptions, everything. He tends to have an unerving habit of simply replying with the correct answer, without any display of uncertainty or anything. This is not limited to Babylon 5, but many, many TV shows, movies, indeed lots of stuff.
It is very impressive, and just a tad frightening. My own personal advice is to bow down before him in worship, just to be safe.
Rasta-Kosh - <wibble> Ya, mon <wibble>
This is a rather interesting one, really. It creates some rather interesting images, as well as answering some difficult questions: What does Kosh really sound like? What does Kosh smoke in that encounter suit? What the *hell* makes Kosh talk like he does?
It came about because of the other Babylon 5 newsgroup, rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5 - in other words, rastb5. If you know the members of the group, then all is now clear. If not then: rastb5 -> rasta b5 -> Rastafarian B5 -> Rastafarian Kosh -> Rasta Kosh!
The Rasta Kosh we all have come to know and love, and whose Jamacian accent we subconciously use whenever Kosh speaks on screen.
Mon.
When's it coming back?
It's possible that by the time you read this, B5 will have ended, and indeed that you will know nothing about the fact that the last 5 episodes were delayed by Channel 4 because of their contract with TNT.
Over the course of the weeks it was delayed, people subscribed to the group, and asked if we knew when it was coming back. We didn't. We told them so, politely.
They kept asking.
And asking.
And.... But you get the idea.
So we got just a tiny bit annoyed and this question, and a great many people shouted at those who asked this question. Then some rather malicious people gave them false information - it's finished. JMS died[1]. You missed the last episode. It's never going to be shown. Etc.
The Clock - Timekeeping the bloody annoying way.
During the first run of the final 5 episodes of B5 in the UK, they were shown as part of the Biigger Breakfast, an infantile and pathetic waste of programming time. Included in this was The Clock. The Clock was a large pink and white onstrosity used to censor the depraved acts of violence apparently taking part in the lower right hand corner of the screen throughout the entire episodes. We hated the clock. It covered the credits, leading to us believing Christopher Franke (music) had been replaced with Christopher Fr(BB)11:41.
On the plus side, it did led us see exactly how late the episodes were (11:38, perhaps, despite the 11:29 trailer telling us that they would start at 11:30......)
And they talked over the end credits of SiL. And then the presenters of the BB cheered.
We hated them too.
If your wondering why I'm talking in the past tense, I'm merely anticipating the action which shall be undertaken against them.
IRC and Vargol - bad typing, violence and alcohol.
Vargol, as all should know, is that member of our small group who uses Linux, programs for a living, and is quite frequently at the IRC meets. As a result of being a professional programmer, he is now unable to type proper English. It shows. This wouldn't be too bad, as it would give us an excuse to mock him, but the Curse of Vargol has affected some others.... Our typing ability is slowly being drained away.... Never to be seen again...
Vargol is also used somewhat regularly as a weapon in hand to hand combat.
Why, we don't know, apart from the fact that he tends to be hanging around anyway, and usually lagged or doing something else, and so unlikely to notice for a while.
On those occasions when we decide to have a Jovian Sunspot or two (or three, or four, or....) Vargol may be the barman at the official #altb5uk bar.
The Wondrous And Magical Taglines of Pluto & Co.
Pluto, in case you didn't know, is a newsreader for the Acorn computer platform, and is used by Certain Individuals(TM) It's random (ha!) tagline generator rapidly entered alt.babylon5.uk mythology as an intelligent and somewhat witty piece of software, because of its amazing aptness, despite the fact that it is completely random. Or so we're told. Consider: Simmonn talks about Garibaldi's alcoholism. Pluto, as a tagline, uses ' * I need a drink'. An argument between a tag line generator and a Real Person (TM) has also occurred.
It does however seem to be somewhat cynical regarding romance.
VinceH also notes, whenever Pluto is mentioned, that his software had this feature, allegedly, before Pluto was a singkle binary bit on the hard drive of John Duddington.
All random tag line generators associated with this newsgroup have managed to learn this trick fomr Pluto, including Callum's one, CWN.sig.
Down and Trout - Self defence and general antagonism the piscine way.
This originated from the Saturday and Sunday IRC chats in #altb5uk (see Simm^Hon Jones' Posting Rules for more), where the common IRC client mIRC has a slap function, which sends a message such as:
*** MarkWCats slaps Vargol around with a trout (no reason)
Naturally, nobody could let this go unpunished. But why settle for mere trout? Why not a vicious Minbari fighting pike? Or the Blue Whale of Power?
(You know who you are...) Then, there's my favourite, the Cetacean Probe from Star Trek IV. Various fish-proof shielding and the like has become standard equipment for these chats.
Socks - Keeping feet warm and Jimbo in tag lines.
Socks, as mentioned several times by babylon 5 characters (most memorably Sheridan's discussion with Delenn about socks and his military career and surviving and washing them, and all sorts of slightly worrying stuff). Jimbo is frequently to be found wearing socks on this newsgroup, and comments on them in his tag line. In a way, socks have become an in-joke because they *are* an in-joke. (The It In-joke?)
The Golden Age of alt.b5.uk and The Time The Group Nearly Died.
Funnily enough, these two ages were very close. The Time The Group Nearly Died (TTTGND, or even T3,GND from now on) occurred after season 4 of Babylon 5 ended in the UK, and slowly, gradually, people drifted off. There were only a few of us left..... Me, for one, Simon Jones, Steevie, Jeremy "Look What The Cat Dragged In (or Drugged Out, if you prefer)" Smith, Moyra, Bob, Rodders and that lot. We were saved only by our relentless insistence on conversing on the most ludicrous subjects. The Golden Age was more during the middle/end of season 4, when the Comedy Reviews abounded, Steevie's humour was plentiful, and Simon started the Posting Rules and his reviews. Actually, they sort of marked the *end* of the Golden Age......
The Friendly Americans - America meaning the continent, not the USA.
Of course, this groups spoiler policy (see Simon Jones' Posting Rules for details) means that all those ahead of us poor UK/Ireland viewers have to be wary of spoilers, and keeping such a close watch on their typing often sends them scurrying from our midst. But for those who are brave enough, careful enough, or just plain always off-topic anyway, a welcome is always available. These Friendly Americans (and Canadian) are usually hanging around, acting quite as insanely as the rest of us. The most familiar are Bob MacAdu, Moyra Bligh (the Canadian. Don't ever imply she's in the US :-) and Suzziwu. Bob hates Day of the Dead, Moyra kills spammers and first came up with the duct tape, and Suzziwu is everyone's granny :-) Of course, there are other Americans, but they blend in very well.... They're cunning, out in the Colonies...
Green vs. Purple - and you thought cats vs. hamsters was slightly eccentric?
Well, it's all the Drazi's fault. It's that simple. They started it, we just sort of might have possibly by mistake accidentally carried it on. How does it work? Well, we had one of them but the knob fell off.
Seriously (muffled cynical chuckle), there was once a spate of test posts, which are people posting posts to check that they can. There are newsgroups where they enjoy these things (alt.tv.thundercats, for example - they love a good lot of test posts.) here, we posts a reply containing, either overtly or cunningly hidden, a colour, or indeed anything else. For instance:
>>>> This is a test!!!!!
>>>Green!
>>Purple!
>Orange!
Apple!
For this reason, you are advised to redirect all test posts to /dev/null, or if you can't, scream.
Topic Wars - IRC, lots of ops, and and itchy /topic commands....
Topic Wars are another feature of our IRC meets, and it can get a tiny bit competetive at times. As those who are familiar with IRC know, each channel has a topic, e.g. #altb5uk is the channel, the topic is "Cats are God". Of course, if people don't agree on the topic, it can get nasty, with /topic commands being fired off rapidly, occasionally remainging long enough to be readable. IMHO, completely futile, but at the same time, strangely fulfilling to sneak a topic change in the middle of a conversation so that nobody notices.
Bester & Plant-pots - Psi Corp Gardening, or something more sinister?
This originates from Jeremy Smith's wonderful, indeed utterly fantabulous, Comedy Reviews, regarding Bester's disturbing habit of lurking behind plant pots and then leaping out to scare station personnel with scary masks. Well, the first bit anyway. It's something he mentioned in one of the Reviews. It stuck. Perhaps that's related to the next item?
Duct tape - I'd rather not talk about this one, actually.
This is another one that comes from the IRC chats, some of the earlier ones when Moyra was there. Purely to help, um, somebody stay in the channel (they kept being dragged out by some unfortunate software problem) she was kind enough to duct tape them to the floor. From this act of kindness, it became one of the many weapons in an alt.babylon5.uk regulars defensive/offensive arsenal.
As to who the most frequent victim of these duct tape attacks is, that is probably best consigned to the mists of time.
It also led to this little ditty:
Boom Boom Boom!
I've been duct taped to the floor of a room,
I won't say who did the deed,
But it fulfills an inner need,
I've been duct-taped to the floor of a room.
This is only part of a slightly longer song.
Rouge Teeps - Have the Vorlons altered more than their *genetic* makeup?
This one's source was an honest typo, or more probably, simple misspelling of the word Rogue. As in Rogue teep, one who refuses to join Psi Corp. Of course, *rouge* means something entirely different. We've had all the red jokes, all the make-up jokes, even Julia Clary jokes. Plus some people sharing their... umm.... intriguing picture of Byron in fishnets......
I'd much rather if this one was forgotten, but as long as people use primitive manual input devices, I fear it shall remain. Just letting you know in case it comes up. If it doesn't, let it lie. Or better yet, stab it through the heart with a stake. And burn it. And scatter the ashes at some cross-roads. And then kill yourself, because you've probably been contaminated.
Mondeo and Renault - Babylon 5 in car advertisements (unoriginal, but accurate)
This resulted from the mistaken identity of the voice-over on that Mondeo (?) ad where David Duchovny almost gets killed by a falling tree. Somebody thought it was Mira Furlan (the voice over, not David Duchnovny. BTW, she wasn't either). But from there on, we had the inevitable "why is it relevant?" question. It wasn't, so we made up reasons - as we always do. You see, the Mondeo has White Star-like organic armour. It can absorb pedestrians if it has to. Plus the inevitable G'Car joke. And Londo demonstrating the headroom in the car. And then getting out and shouting "Great Maker, even the trees are trying to kill me now!"
Secondly, from Reebo & Zooty, to Penn & Teller, which some people thought should have been replaced by Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, two popular British comedians. They are in the "Nicole?" "Papa?" series of Renault ads,
but it was getting dangerously off-topic (like we cared :-) so Simon decided that he'd seen Vorlons reflected in the car window (like in Lyta's Secrets of the Soul flashbacks, only Nicole wasn't naked)
You see? It _does_ make sense after all :-)
Monarchy - they'll be superseded by the cats eventually anyway.
This is the source of the blood-feud (well, amiable occasional bicker) between Simon (damn - Simmonn) Jones and John... umm.... I'll just guess.... Duffey? John has this bizarre notion that they should rule the country, while Simon thinks they shouldn't. Um. They managed a massive newsgroup-swallowing thread on this. I'm not sure how.
Chas & Dave
These are the names of Mr. Morden's Shadow companions, who follow(ed) him everywhere. At least, according to Steevie's piece de resistance Mr. Morden's Diary, which is on the website.
Read it. You won't be sorry.
Vir Makes Things Simple - A brilliant mind hidden behind that bumbling exterior
Steevies Vir Makes Things Simple posts are very funny. They range from Boffing to Jump Gates to Beards. Um, see the web site for more.
OTHER ALT.B5.UK OFFICIAL STUFF
The Posting Rules
The Posting Rules for alt.babylon5.uk are basically, a list of guidlines and rules which should be adhered to by those posting to alt.babylon5.uk. They embody group policy, and have been brought about by debate ont he group. The basics are : no spoilers, no binaries, no special HTML posts. They are posted regularly by Simon, and have a subject as such: ! Posting Rules - 5/7/98
The Web Site
Lots of group information, humour, details on IRC meets and other stuff is kept on the group web site, which Callum runs. It's URL is: http://www.altb5uk.freeserve.co.uk or: http://come.to/alt.babylon5.uk If you want to know something regarding alt.babylon5.uk, it's your best bet.
Anyway, if you finished reading this, then you're either very obsessive or just clinically insane. If you understood it, you're both. Whichever, you're prime alt.babylon5.uk material.
Anyway, if you have any further suggestions, please e-mail me or post them to the news group, wheter further Mythology items, or just comments on the Mythology itself.
©1999 Mark Dunne.