This pattern appears in the Babylon 5 season 3 episode ‘Walkabout’:
(It appears on the side of Kosh’s ship.)
Does anyone know what it means/what it says, and whether it is in Vorlon?
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Sign up to join this communityThis pattern appears in the Babylon 5 season 3 episode ‘Walkabout’:
(It appears on the side of Kosh’s ship.)
Does anyone know what it means/what it says, and whether it is in Vorlon?
During the show's run, J. Michael Straczynski answered this question on IRC in a facetious manner:
What was the message?
"Welcome to Hawaii."
There was apparently a hideous malfunction...they never talked about it thereafter....
jms
According to the Lurker's Guide page for Walkabout, he gave another response as well, but I haven't been able to find it on JMS' official IRC archive:
Will we ever find out what was written on the side of Kosh's ship?
What, do I look like someone who can speak Vorlon? Oh, sure, a few words, mainly "Where is the bathroom" and "What's that smell?" but to translate something like that...pfsh, please.
(Answer: probably not.)
This second quote does clearly state that the message is in Vorlon, which answers one of your questions. Given JMS' evasion of what it means and the second quote having him specifically say that we will probably not ever get an answer, it seems clear that if there was a translation that we were never intended to know what it was. One more mystery in the wide universe that we will never know.
The writing on the Vorlon ship reads "John Teska". John Teska was the senior computer animator at the time. sourced from imdb
I just used the Vorlon Substitution Cipher (located here), and it says "John Teska."