Fluff for Shadows?

[captainsmirk]

The Vorlons did have a physical body as well. Neither race had taken the final steps towards Transcendance before they went beyond the Rim

Where's the evidence of that?

Kosh does several things during the series that somewhat preclude him having a physical form. Such as inhabiting Lyta and (as a fragment) later Sheridan. That's a bit difficult to achieve if you have a physical body...

Plus we know (from Lorien) that energy beings can take on corporeal form, perhaps the Shadows are energy beings but just like taking corporeal form most of the time.

Nick

 

[Burger]

Plus we know (from Lorien) that energy beings can take on corporeal form, perhaps the Shadows are energy beings but just like taking corporeal form most of the time.

Certainly makes sense to me. Morden's entourage would need a way of getting around, it would be pretty difficult for them to get onto B5 and around the narrow corridors, into Morden's cell, and go all the other places Morden goes if they were corporeal. What does the Centauri Royal Palace have a Shadow-flap to let them in or something?

 

[H]

I had always believed that the Vorlons had not reached true transcendence in that they had a visible element of energy attributed to them, which is what we usually see when vorlon leaves his suit, the shadows on the otherhand I think were solid, but they had an ability to phase out of this reality, while still seing into it, hence the "apparant" invisibility,

 

[frobisher]

Are they evil? Arguably, but they do truly believe they are doing the right thing.

Well technicly they ARE doing right thing(what they do DOES help evolution...). It's the way they do that is not "nice" to say the least.

Younger races have evolved into better form due to their action but wether that's good or bad is of course depatable concidering the cost.

I think the actions of the Shadows are more readily prortrayed as "evil" ("random" destruction of races and settlements, utilisation of younger races as weapons components etc) than that of the Vorlons just due to perspective, but neither race is above acts that would be determined to be "evil" from a human perspective (Vorlons posing as gods to manipulate the younger races, genetic manipulation of the younger races to turn them into weapon systems...).

It doesn't help that humans have an inate fear of spiders (I'll blame the Vorlons for this) in regards winning the Shadows any favours...

Now the Drakh are downright evil as they are just twisted up with all their bitterness about being deserted by their gods and bent on revenging themselves upon the ones who made the Shadows go away. Whilst they were loyal followers of the Shadows, they are not "on message". It's just a power thing to them.

I suspect they are Vorlon vassel races out there with the same huge chip on their shoulder (there was a fan scribed B5W supplement that cast the Orieni into this role...).

 

[Locutus9956]

yup thats the essence of why I suggested that the spidery things are sort of encounter suits.

Also when Ivonova sort of encounters them as glowey eye sort of things over sigma 957 (via the great machine) leads me to think that thats more what theyre ACTUALLY like

As noted its not confimed canon fact but it fits the facts

 

[combatdroid113]

well what are the subject races of the vorlons? did they have any?

 

[H]

well what are the subject races of the vorlons? did they have any?

well, the vorlons manipulated a lot of races, none of them became the complete bitches like the Drakh to the Shadows, but the Minbari, Humans, Drazi etc all had their development aided by Vorlons at some stage. Although the Oreani or however it is spelt were pretty damned fanatical

 

[frobisher]

well what are the subject races of the vorlons? did they have any?

We've got very little information on this, from the show, or in fact any other source.

The Minbari are pretty close to being a Vorlon subject race though, just slightly more in the dark than the Drakh, Wurt and Streib were for the Shadows

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

The Vorlons did have a physical body as well. Neither race had taken the final steps towards Transcendance before they went beyond the Rim

Where's the evidence of that?

JMS said it, it's on the Lurker's guide somewhere (possibly the guide page for Falling towards Apotheosis) If Kosh wasn't at least somewhat physical, the poison wouldn't have effected him in the Gathering.

Kosh does several things during the series that somewhat preclude him having a physical form. Such as inhabiting Lyta and (as a fragment) later Sheridan. That's a bit difficult to achieve if you have a physical body...

Unless it's a side effect of their mastery of Telepathy, or the fact that they're very close to Transcendance.

Plus we know (from Lorien) that energy beings can take on corporeal form, perhaps the Shadows are energy beings but just like taking corporeal form most of the time.

all possible, but like I said, IIRC JMS said both the Vorlons and Shadows still had a physical component

 

[frobisher]

The Vorlons did have a physical body as well. Neither race had taken the final steps towards Transcendance before they went beyond the Rim

Where's the evidence of that?

Kosh does several things during the series that somewhat preclude him having a physical form. Such as inhabiting Lyta and (as a fragment) later Sheridan. That's a bit difficult to achieve if you have a physical body...

However, there's entire getting poisoned in the pilot thing, Dr Kyle's mention of the "blue cells" etc. And Lorien did say that the Vorlons were capable of breaking off pieces of themselves and placing them in other sentients. And jms did say when directly questioned about it

The Vorlons are an interesting half way house at the very least, with a corporeal body that they spend most of their time in, with little jaunts out and about hitching a lift.

The corporeal body is the one that appears as an angel (or whatever) when viewed directly by the prepared races - this is something that the Vorlon has no control over (hence Kosh's comments after saving Sheriden...), and not entirely humanoid either (note no legs, but it does have wings which we hear flap...). I suspect if we could truly see a naked Vorlon, it would be something like a manta ray or the aliens from Abyss, but certainly not a being with a ridgid skeleton.

Yet when Ulkesh (Kosh II) is blown out of his encounter suit, he doesn't appear angelic so presumably this is the energy form (which Kosh also assumes), the corporeal body going down with the suit.

Death of the "body" clearly isn't the end for Vorlons, and it takes a little something more (which is what the Shadows (mostly) did to Kosh), but you can incapacitate the Vorlon through injury to that body (see pilot).

 

[frobisher]

Certainly makes sense to me. Morden's entourage would need a way of getting around, it would be pretty difficult for them to get onto B5 and around the narrow corridors, into Morden's cell, and go all the other places Morden goes if they were corporeal. What does the Centauri Royal Palace have a Shadow-flap to let them in or something?

I suspect what they do is phase in and out of hyperspace, the way their ships do. So whilst they are corporeal and not actual energy beings they get some of the benefits. Certainly if they were true energy beings, I think they would be a little more hardy than what we've seen of them (the Centauri guards taking them down with those heavy PPPG things, Sheriden clearly fighting one off with only a PPG and his wits, needing four Shadows to take down a Vorlon (three was a no score draw...))

 

[H]

Certainly makes sense to me. Morden's entourage would need a way of getting around, it would be pretty difficult for them to get onto B5 and around the narrow corridors, into Morden's cell, and go all the other places Morden goes if they were corporeal. What does the Centauri Royal Palace have a Shadow-flap to let them in or something?

I suspect what they do is phase in and out of hyperspace, the way their ships do. So whilst they are corporeal and not actual energy beings they get some of the benefits. Certainly if they were true energy beings, I think they would be a little more hardy than what we've seen of them (the Centauri guards taking them down with those heavy PPPG things, Sheriden clearly fighting one off with only a PPG and his wits, needing four Shadows to take down a Vorlon (three was a no score draw...))

and in all fairness to Kosh he didn't fight, he stood their and took it, knowing I suspect that he was hiding some of himself in sheridan, thus allowing the shadows to think they ganked him, and leave B5 alone.. but we seem to agree on the shadows, more or less. You went with hyperspace, i said dimensional, so as hyperspace is an alternate dimension of sorts. . .

 

[Alexb83]

When we see Ulkesh (and the remains of Kosh) we see 'a Vorlon enraged' as Lorien puts it, so that may well be them in their pure energy form. What the Vorlons (and the Human first one in DoFS, and Lorien) show us is that they can seemingly take on a physical form if they wish, or not.

The wierd thing in the Gathering is: in order to put the poison tab onto Kosh's physical body, he would've had to have been out of his suit in the first instance. So, for some reason, Kosh would have revealed himself to Sheridan at their first meeting.

Wierd? Or did the Vorlons plan to involve Valen/Sinclair in their plans from the get-go, but revise this when one of them was nearly killed?

 

[Burger]

Wierd? Or did the Vorlons plan to involve Valen/Sinclair in their plans from the get-go, but revise this when one of them was nearly killed?

Kosh did greet the fake Sinclair, "Entil-Zha, Valen", although even if it had been the real Sinclair he wouldn't have understood it.

 

[frobisher]

Kosh did greet the fake Sinclair, "Entil-Zha, Valen", although even if it had been the real Sinclair he wouldn't have understood it.

I think it was meant to be Kosh getting excited in a fan-boyish manner

Though if you want to go down the temporal predestination conspiracy route (though I suspect Valen wouldn't have mentioned the episode to Kosh because he didn't want to change history...) it could be that Kosh said it as that would really enrage a Minbari assassin...

 

[Alexb83]

Was that dialogue from the novelisation? I don't recall it in the actual movie...

Also, if Sinclair was met by a Vorlon outside of its suit, I imagine he would be a bit too overwhelmed to worry about the words it used to greet him?

 

[frobisher]

and in all fairness to Kosh he didn't fight, he stood their and took it,

I'm not sure we could completely say that he didn't fignt back not having seen the actual conflict, but certainly Kosh's entire attention wasn't on winning the fight, and I suspect he knew that four had a damn good chance of killing him whatever he did.

It's probably that the Vorlons' Force Fields are of less defensive value against tha Shadows phasing ability than the they were against the PPG later on. One thing to note though, the Shadows had to be let into Kosh's quarters by Morden (by a mundane picking of the lock no less...), there was obviously something else that prevented them coming in until that point...

 

[H]

I've just figured out what was in the Case in pulp Fiction!! It was A Vorlon!!

 

[frobisher]

Was that dialogue from the novelisation? I don't recall it in the actual movie...

It's from the revised/re-edited version of the Gathering that was done at the same time as the other TV movies. Emphasis is changed on quite a few scenes, some stuff shifted around, music de-Copleanded etc.

Also, if Sinclair was met by a Vorlon outside of its suit, I imagine he would be a bit too overwhelmed to worry about the words it used to greet him?

It was just an "arm" that was extended out of the encounter suit (it has all those nifty little hatches and the like...).

 

[Alexb83]

Curious - I'll have to see if the DVD I've got is so edited. When I started re-watching, I avoided the Gathering and dived right into S1.