The Moment of Creation

Babylon5b
There's something about sci-fi writers getting sudden inspiration in the shower. Don't know what it is.

Ron Moore recently mentioned that he got the idea for how the final episode of Galactica should work while he was in the shower. (And I'll probably have some comments on the final episode soon–as well as getting back to theological blogging.)

Joe Straczynski can do Moore one better, though. He got the whole idea for Babylon 5 in the shower.

He then scrambled out of the shower and struggled to scribble down a bunch of notes on the idea, before the ideas could get away from him.

A while back, I offered a brief summary of some of the points made in an early B5 story document that JMS wrote between the pilot and season one, but JMS has also released a copy of the initial notes he wrote as soon as he got out of the shower, offering an even earlier look at his original concept for the show.

They were first published in a magazine ten years ago that I never saw, but for the tenth anniversary of their publication, JMS decided to make them available–online.

One interesting note is that, though the pre-season one story document didn't mention it, he did have the order/chaos idea that would be manifested through the vorlons and the shadows, and the idea of humanity needing to break out of the cycle of being torn between the two.

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

8 thoughts on “The Moment of Creation”

  1. Doc Brown got the idea for the flux capacitor when he slipped in the bathtub and hit his head on the sink.

  2. I get all sorts of great ideas in the bathroom. Then I go to write them down, and I can’t remember.

  3. Snif. And it’s pretty much all right there, the whole run of the show.
    Now I do wanna watch B5 all over again, darn it.

  4. “Doc Brown got the idea for the flux capacitor when he slipped in the bathtub and hit his head on the sink. ”
    Funny, that’s how the inventor of the bath mat got his inspiration.

  7. I am a firm believer in sci fi, as I blog on my blog about disorders to hopefully seek a cure which is sci fi now , but genetics and stem cells, will over take the sci fi hopefully later.

  8. Great story on the idea he had in the shower. Ron Moore is a good movie producer. Sci Fi rocks!

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