Talk:Babylon 5

Egyptian blessing
"May the Gods always stand between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk" - Captain John Sheridan quoting an ancient Egyptian blessing

It's a blessing of the 18th dynasty of Egypt. Does anyone have a reference to the papyrus it comes from? Any idea of how to write it in hieroglyphs? BTW, I think it first appears in Season 3, "Shadow Dancing" episode. I'll check ASAP. Chopinhauer


 * Nearly all the Google'd sites I found quote either directly or indirectly from Babylon 5 (on which Harlan Ellison consulted) or from Twilight Zone's "Paladin of the Lost Hour" (which Harlan Ellison wrote). Ellison's webpage on the latter seemed no more forthcoming. I found an implication that it may be in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which I'm looking into. &mdash; Jeff Q (talk) 17:37, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, it first appears in Season 2, episode 4, "A Distant Star". The "Unknown Episode or Movie Quote" section below is referring to this fact -- and I'm only eight years late to the party, silly me. ansak

Cleanup needed
This page uses a non-standard format for quotations: seasons should have level-3 headers per episode, with the episode title italicized and the episode's number in the format "Episode Name [2.05]". Within such headers, quotations should look like


 * Character: Text

They should be separated by half-width rules. Thanks ~ MosheZadka (Talk) 09:40, 6 December 2005 (UTC)

Compact table of contents
With the ever-increasing number of episodes with quotes in this article, I have created a custom table of contents that compacts the TOC into a single screen (or two, depending on browser window size). Just for fun, I've given it color-coding based on the Babylon 5 sector scheme, in rough left-to-right order that they appear in the station's diagrams (except that Grey Sector — the films and other media — is on the far right). I have also removed the episode numbers, as they are no longer needed to keep the correct order and indicate missing episodes. (Not to mention the hash they make of section links.) I hope readers and editors find this more useful than the standard TOC. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 10:26, 18 May 2006 (UTC)
 * Another option would be to match the seasons to the color of the DVD boxed sets. It's the almost same colors, except purple is used instead of yellow for some reason, and they would be in a different order - red, blue, green, purple, and brown (keeping grey for films and misc.). I believe that the same colors were used for all regions. Just a thought. Koweja 19:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Unknown Episode or Movie Quote
I moved this quote to the epsiode "A Distant Star" because that's where it was spoken. I don't know what kind of source to cite except that I have the DVDs of the second season, and I went through the episode looking for it. It starts at 20 minutes 7 seconds into the episode, so anyone who wants to do so can check it. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.189.233.202 (talk • contribs) 18:06, 17 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for moving this quote. (You really should mention what the quote is, so that readers of this page don't have to search through the article history to discover what edit you made. You might call this the "gene pool" quote. And please sign your talk-page posts with four tildes, which the wiki editor converts to your signature and timestamp.) With the structure we've implemented for TV shows, placing a quote within an episode is implicitly sourcing it as coming from that episode. We also try to make sure the quotes are in the correct chronological order. To achieve a TV equivalent to the full sourcing we want for printed material, we would probably need to start using timecodes, but there hasn't been any enthusiasm for that yet. (Indeed, we find it hard enough for folks to get quote into the right episode, let alone the right order.) ~ Jeff Q (talk) 18:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

"...I am helping you." -where from?
"You know, before I got married, Emily used to come by sometimes and help me clean out my apartment. Well, I asked her, "How come you're so eager to help clean up my place when your place is just as bad?" She said, "Because cleaning up your place helps me to forget what a mess I've made of mine, and… when I sweep my floor, all I've done is sweep my floor. But, when I help you clean up your place, I am helping you." --Rev. Will Dexter in #3.20, "And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place"

I think I read something quite similar (many years ago; maybe in one of Kerouac's books?? but was not able to find it again, yet.) Anyone knows, where it is from or by what it is inspired?

Wda 12:24, 24 March 2008 (UTC)

Where does G'Quan-quote in Z'Ha'Dum end?
there's disagreement where to put the closing ": G'Quan wrote, "There is a greater darkness than the one we fight. It is the darkness of the soul that has lost its way."(1) The war we fight is not against powers and principalities, it is against chaos and despair. Greater than the death of flesh is the death of hope. The death of dreams. Against this peril we can never surrender."(2) The future is all around us, waiting in moments of transition, to be born in moments of revelation. No one knows the shape of that future, or where it will take us. We know only that it is always born…in pain."(3) (1) DVD subtitles (2) en.wikiquote (3) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0517724/quotes --Wda 00:38, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Severe trimming needed
This article currently exceeds the amount of quoting that we're trying to aim for in order to avoid copyright violation. I ask regular readers and editors of this article to prune out all but the most original and pithy 3-5 quotes per episode, with a goal of keeping the total number of quotes down to no more than 100. This is even more urgent than usual because a JMS-sanctioned quote book has now been published. I plan to wield the scissors at various times this week over the next few weeks. I don't want to be the sole arbiter of what stays and what goes, so your assistance would be greatly appreciated. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 21:33, 19 October 2008 (UTC)
 * (Amended my editing period, given my slow rate of editing. ~ Jeff Q (talk) 12:52, 27 October 2008 (UTC))
 * I am working on trimming per your instructions.--FeralOink (talk) 11:32, 13 November 2016 (UTC)