Another possibility: Their purpose in life was creating stife among the races and forcing them to devlelop to counter the adversity so they felt they had done all the could do for then so withdrew to Z'ha'Dun, thus stopping the war and allowing their allies time to develope (and thus be much stronger) for the next round. Once there the hibrination cycle kicked in.
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Vorlons and jamming Shadow vessels
- Thread starter RW7427
- Start date
Another possibility: Their purpose in life was creating stife among the races and forcing them to devlelop to counter the adversity so they felt they had done all the could do for then so withdrew to Z'ha'Dun, thus stopping the war and allowing their allies time to develope (and thus be much stronger) for the next round. Once there the hibrination cycle kicked in.
Another possibility: Their purpose in life was creating stife among the races and forcing them to devlelop to counter the adversity so they felt they had done all the could do for then so withdrew to Z'ha'Dun, thus stopping the war and allowing their allies time to develope (and thus be much stronger) for the next round. Once there the hibrination cycle kicked in.
Jade Jaguar
Regular
I buy the part about them thinking they had done all they could for the time being. As to the hibernation, well, to beings of their age, 1,000 years is nothing, just a cat nap.Could also be that it took them that long to regenerate.
Would it also be possible that the Narns were a race that developed telepaths naturally and that this was when the Vorlons discovered that telepathy interferes with the Shadow vessel technology??? So the Narn telepaths were wiped out, but that would sure give the Vorlons the idea to create a whole lot of new ones on a whole lot of other worlds.
vacantlook
Super Moderator
I've wondered that some on my own too. I don't know what jms's intent was and what he says about it, but I personally think it would be really cool if the Narn telepaths were naturally telepathic and the Vorlons just caught on to what was going on. While Anna's comment to John on Z'Ha'Dum about telepaths most likely was just refering to human telepaths, if it was speaking from the Shadow's knowledge of Vorlon genetic manipulation of younger races, her comment could be referencing more than just humans. In such a case, if other races' telepaths popped up around the same time that telepaths popped up in the human race, that would mean that the Narns were telepathic long before the other races. It's amazing to think of what the Narns would have become had they not had to deal with the Centari.
A_M_Swallow
Regular
The skeletons found in the magazine story "Nautilus Coil" suggest that Vorlon experiments with telepathy have been going on for thousands of years.
I watched "The Fall Of Night" this morning on SCI-FI and had this thread running around in my mind also. It made me think about Londo's vision of Kosh in the garden (or lack thereof). Sheridan later asks Delenn if the Vorlons had been manipulating races so that when they finally saw a Vorlon they would react favorably. Delenn tells him that he's partly right.
Londo's lack of a vision could be taken to mean that the Vorlons had not been to Centauri Prime or at least had not manipulated the Centauri. But the Centauri DO have telepaths. Did they develop naturally within the Centauri population? Was Londo's vision of "nothing" common to all Centauri or only to him because of his connection with the Shadows? We hear many other species talk about what they saw in the garden, but never a Centauri point of view.
Londo's lack of a vision could be taken to mean that the Vorlons had not been to Centauri Prime or at least had not manipulated the Centauri. But the Centauri DO have telepaths. Did they develop naturally within the Centauri population? Was Londo's vision of "nothing" common to all Centauri or only to him because of his connection with the Shadows? We hear many other species talk about what they saw in the garden, but never a Centauri point of view.
Defectivehead
Beyond the rim
I've sussed it.
The Shadows (their Ships, the Eye, everything) run on Mi'Kro'Sft software, created by the Drakh Bi'Ul'Gatez (who is a moron).
As a result, the Shadows can only have wars for a few years before everything starts running badly and they have to do a system restart.
What with messages like "You failed the shut down The Eye(TM) properly, please wait while I run ScanZha'Ha'Dum" etc. you can see why it could take a thousand years.
Later releases planned to be immune to Telepathy. Ships with this ability can be identified by the small sticker "Psicorps Inside"
Defectivehead
A little ashamed that I enjoyed writing that so much.
The Shadows (their Ships, the Eye, everything) run on Mi'Kro'Sft software, created by the Drakh Bi'Ul'Gatez (who is a moron).
As a result, the Shadows can only have wars for a few years before everything starts running badly and they have to do a system restart.
What with messages like "You failed the shut down The Eye(TM) properly, please wait while I run ScanZha'Ha'Dum" etc. you can see why it could take a thousand years.
Later releases planned to be immune to Telepathy. Ships with this ability can be identified by the small sticker "Psicorps Inside"
Defectivehead
A little ashamed that I enjoyed writing that so much.
MartinRoth
Regular
Explains the screams coming from the Shadow ships, anyway...
RW7427
Super Moderator
I think that Londo's actions have blinded him to these things. G'Kar asked him from his prison cell just before Cartagia was killed if he knew that his heart was dead. Perhaps Londo couldn't see things like Kosh appearing as an angel because his heart was hardened by the life he lead and the things he did, all in the name of returning the Centauri to their past glories.
But are Centauri telepaths the result of Vorlon tampering or did they develop naturally? Centauri religion is fundamentally different from the other major races because they worship a true pantheon (not different religions with different gods [e.g. the Narns or Humans], and not worshippers of the universe [e.g. the Minbari]), but one religion with many gods. We don't hear stories about beings of light who helped the ancient Centauri to battle the forces of darkness, etc., etc.
I have to wonder if the Vorlons ever fooled with the Centauri at all, or if maybe the Centauri have just forgotten those stories (or filed them away with all their other stories and myths about the gods). Do we know if ALL telepaths in the younger races were brought about through Vorlon interference?
On a related note: What about "lesser" telepathy? Like the telepathic link that the tall Lumati had with the short Lumati in "Acts of Sacrifice"??? Their brand of telepathy doesn't seem to extend to the same reaches as the "true" telepaths that we see in other races. Did the Vorlons do that or was the Lumati telepathy a natural development?
I hope someone understands at least a little of what I'm rambling on about.
vacantlook
Super Moderator
I would think that with the variety of life in the galaxy that at least one group of naturally developed telepaths must exist somewhere.
RW7427
Super Moderator
I think ALL the younger races were tinkered with by the Vorlons at one point or another.
I just watched Thirdspace tonight and there is that scene where Lyta is speaking to Sheridan and Delenn under Vorlon influence or whatever.Through her they say that they visited hundreds of worlds as beings of light and that the residents of those worlds thought of them as gods. Now, that doesn't specify that the Vorlons created telepaths, but it does say that they visted hundreds of worlds. Chances are the Centauri were among those worlds. I mean, how many worlds have had sentient life on them?
I just watched Thirdspace tonight and there is that scene where Lyta is speaking to Sheridan and Delenn under Vorlon influence or whatever.Through her they say that they visited hundreds of worlds as beings of light and that the residents of those worlds thought of them as gods. Now, that doesn't specify that the Vorlons created telepaths, but it does say that they visted hundreds of worlds. Chances are the Centauri were among those worlds. I mean, how many worlds have had sentient life on them?
M
Mike G
Guest
Maybe the Vorlons manipulated the Xon insted of the Centauri.
Joseph DeMartino
Moderator
JMS originally spoke of both Vorlon-created and natural telepaths, without indicating which were which. But later "canonical" writings strongly suggest that not only are all the telepaths we've seen ultimately Vorlon-created, but that a naturally-occurring sentient telepathic species is almost impossible.
What appears to have happened in nature is that some species developed telepathy at a point prior to acquiring sentience. Since this allowed them to communicate without language and to sense and perhaps even control prey animals without weapons, intelligence never developed among telepathic creatures, anymore than it did among specialized predators like the big cats. Their natural abilities let them thrive in their evolutionary niche - they never had a need to develop tool-making or to organize the efforts of a large number of individuals through language to make up for a lack of individual strength. Only life forms lacking the telepathic gene became intelligent. The Vorlons did not create telepathy, they grafted it onto sentient lifeforms in order to create the weapon they needed. They didn't even come close to perfecting their weapon until about 100 years before the start of the B5 story, when they finally created viable Human telepaths. Before that they'd been down many blind alleys, as Lyta learns in the course of the Telepath War when she visits a very strange planet. (Short story, "The Nautilus Coil" by John Gregory (Psi Corps Trilogy) Keyes.) This notion is also covered in the Psi Corps trilogy.
BTW, I wouldn't dismiss the Lumati as true telepaths. True, they never seemed to make contact with alien minds that we saw, but given their nature, they probably wouldn't. And they may well have privacy laws for "deserving" aliens not unlike Psi Corps's. So once Ivanova was accepted the head Lumati would not read her mind and uncover her deception.
Regards,
Joe
What appears to have happened in nature is that some species developed telepathy at a point prior to acquiring sentience. Since this allowed them to communicate without language and to sense and perhaps even control prey animals without weapons, intelligence never developed among telepathic creatures, anymore than it did among specialized predators like the big cats. Their natural abilities let them thrive in their evolutionary niche - they never had a need to develop tool-making or to organize the efforts of a large number of individuals through language to make up for a lack of individual strength. Only life forms lacking the telepathic gene became intelligent. The Vorlons did not create telepathy, they grafted it onto sentient lifeforms in order to create the weapon they needed. They didn't even come close to perfecting their weapon until about 100 years before the start of the B5 story, when they finally created viable Human telepaths. Before that they'd been down many blind alleys, as Lyta learns in the course of the Telepath War when she visits a very strange planet. (Short story, "The Nautilus Coil" by John Gregory (Psi Corps Trilogy) Keyes.) This notion is also covered in the Psi Corps trilogy.
BTW, I wouldn't dismiss the Lumati as true telepaths. True, they never seemed to make contact with alien minds that we saw, but given their nature, they probably wouldn't. And they may well have privacy laws for "deserving" aliens not unlike Psi Corps's. So once Ivanova was accepted the head Lumati would not read her mind and uncover her deception.
Regards,
Joe
So how did the Vorlons, themselves, become telepathic? Were they the exception to the rule, or did they make themselves that way through science?
Joe D. says that they probably didn't evolve that way and that they didn't "create" telepahty, but then how did they gain the ability among their own species?
