PS. IDIC Explained

[eldritchhobbit]

A PS. To My Earlier Post Today: Some who took my recent poll asked what "IDIC" means.

It's become part of the language of science fiction readers and fans (its symbol can be found on shirts and buttons and keychains, for example), but it traces its roots to the original Star Trek. In that series (and later incarnations of Trek), the Vulcan philosophy of IDIC equals "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations."

According to Inside Star Trek in 1968, "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations represents a Vulcan belief that beauty, growth, and progress all result from the union of the unlike. Concord, as much as discord, requires the presence of at least two different notes. The brotherhood of man is an ideal based on learning to delight in our essential differences, as well as learning to recognize our similarities. The IDIC symbol is a union of a plain circle and triangle, uniting to produce the beautiful gemstone in the middle. The circle represents infinite, nature, woman, etc; the triangle can represent the finite, art, man, etc." You can see the IDIC symbol here.

Or, to put it another way, "it takes different strokes..."

And that is, I'm sure, way more than you ever possibly wanted to know about that. Live long and prosper!

PPS. The 2007 Hugo Award Winners have been announced.

Comments

[agentxpndble.livejournal.com]

*Love* the icon!

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It seemed appropriate. :)

[dracschick.livejournal.com]

Vulcans are cool:)

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

I agree! :D

[rosamundeb.livejournal.com]

I didn't know that, but the pin looks familiar. Does Spock's father wear it in some episode?

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

I think Spock wears it in the "Journey to Babel" episode, and it also shows up in his quarters a couple of times in the films. They also used the symbol in Deep Space Nine and Enterprise episodes. So it gets around! :)

[sittingduck1313.livejournal.com]

The Girl in the Fireplace was an interesting episode of Doctor Who, and not just because of the clockwork robots. I've also been following a Gothic series called Le Chevalier d'Eon, in which Marquise de Pompadour is a prominent character. The appearances made for an interesting comparison. For the record, here's an actual portrait of the Marquise, here she is on Le Chevalier d'Eon (the gent in the background is Comte de Saint-Germain), and here she is on Doctor Who.

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

This is fascinating!!! Thanks so much for the comparison pictures.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I certainly agree about Arthurian legend being largely the equivalent of fanfic (as you suggest in the essay on Rose Cotton), with such characters as Lancelot being the invention of what would today be called "fan writers," and I'm glad to see the point being made in a formal paper. But it strikes me that among the earlier cases of fanfic (which you concessively allude to but don't specify) should be counted the Nostoi: The series of epic poems by ancient Greeks other than Homer recounting the return home from Troy of heroes other than Odysseus. In a way, copyright law was an attempt to transform literature by doing away with its collaborative and reinterpretative character and instead demanding that all characters and incidents be new inventions.

In a sense, one of my hobbies also involves collaborative and reinterpretative treatment of literature: I've run role-playing campaigns based on the Rick Brant novels, David Brin's Uplift universe, Atlas Shrugged, E. R. Eddison's Zimiamvian novels, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and yes, The Lord of the Rings. I've found that doing this tends to suggest interesting questions about these works that I wouldn't have thought of otherwise (for example, the implications of the elemental ties of the Three Rings); in a sense, the campaign is an exercise in informal literary criticism.