Scientology and B5?

[b5jms-owner at cs.columbia.edu]

Subject: Scientology and B5?
+  1: Nov 12, 1995: kamamer at io.org (karl mamer)
   2: Nov 12, 1995: tzoq at csd.uwo.ca (James HG Redekop)
   3: Nov 13, 1995: un034546 at wvnvms.wvnet.edu (Carlos L. Myers)
   4: Nov 14, 1995: scottr at hevanet.com (Scott Rainey)
   5: Nov 14, 1995: kamamer at io.org (karl mamer)
   6: Nov 14, 1995: scottr at hevanet.com (Scott Rainey)
   7: Nov 15, 1995: royd at ERE.UMontreal.CA (Roy Daniel)
+  8: Nov 17, 1995: gharlane at ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore)
*  9: Nov 17, 1995: straczynski at genie.geis.com

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

From: kamamer at io.org (karl mamer)
Lines: 16

Hmmmm... this most recent episode, they visited a system
called Marcab, or something that sounded like it. Now
I don't know much about Scientology but what I picked
up from alt.religion.scientology, Marcab and Marcabians
figures into L. Ron's rather odd religion.

The Mormons had Battle Star Galactic. Do the scientologist
have B5?

-- 
"We are good men. We act because we must for the good of all. Yet when
we have left this earth, what then? How can we guarantee that those who
rule after us will be good? How can we guarantee *their* motives? It does
not matter if the man with the wire in his head is good or bad. What 
matters is the moral standing of the ruler who holds the wires. Will he 
make the puppets dance? Or will he leave them be?" -- David Wingrove

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

From: gharlane at ccshp1.ccs.csus.edu (Gharlane of Eddore)
Lines: 58

In <4851jo$4fg at ionews.io.org> kamamer at io.org (karl mamer) writes:
>
> Hmmmm... this most recent episode, they visited a system
> called Marcab, or something that sounded like it. Now
> I don't know much about Scientology but what I picked
> up from alt.religion.scientology, Marcab and Marcabians
> figures into L. Ron's rather odd religion.


"Markab" is simply a Class B9 sun, about 100 light years away; 
it has a visual magnitude of about 2.5; absolute magnitude about
.1 (which means it's around eighty times the energy output of 
our own sun, and DANGED unlikely to have habitable planets that
have had time to evolve life, particularly including intelligent
races; too hot, too limited a planetary-orbit ecosphere, way too
young.....)

Since the stars that compose the constellation, "Pegasus," are 
mostly in the magnitude 2.0-3.0 range, they're all easily visible,
and got verbal names attached a LONG time ago; thus the names are
easy to find in star charts and lists of stars.

The fact that someone saw fit to place an invented race there in
the fifties has nothing to do with the fact that JMS chose to use
the name of a star (which has probably been known by that name 
since the heyday of the Persian and Arabian astronomers, nearly
a thousand years ago!) in his TV series.

Had Joe been thinking, or checking his material with a technical 
advisor, he'd probably have chosen a low F-class or a G-class 
star to serve as the home of an alien race which is comfortable
with Terran-style pressure, temperature, gravity, light levels,
and so on; but this can be explained away without much effort
if we just assumed the Markabs evolved in some other stellar 
system and MIGRATED to Markab ages ago, to live in constructed
orbital habitats, in effect "mining" the greater energy density
available around a hot B-class star.

Of course, JMS' recent references to the "Markab home world" 
kind of obviate such an assumption, since an orbital-habitat
species that moved to Markab so long ago they're now called
"Markabs" should have lost track of their homeworld by now;
a misty myth.   Perhaps they *built* a "homeworld* near Markab,
by finding a planet about the right size and insolation levels,
and "terraformed" it  ("Markabiformed it?") and *that*'s the 
"homeworld" referred to.
 
 .




>
> The Mormons had Battle Star Galactic. Do the scientologist
> have B5?
>-- 



=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

From: straczynski at genie.geis.com
Lines: 4

     There is absolutely, positively, NO scientology link or refrence in
the name markabs.  I find the organization generally abhorrent.

                                                              jms