Neo said:
would be inclined to agree, were it not for two facts your failing to take into account
a) shadow tech is "Organic" just as vorlon tech is, and
True, but as "pure" (as in - small fragment without other YR being wired into it) ShadowTech was scanned (Psi Corps trilogy, first book IIRC), the teep went mad. And even the enhanced Lyta had troubles surpressing the ShadowTech implants of the frozen teeps... while normal teeps could jam ShadowShips in "Shadow Dancing". So - ShadowTech drives them mad, YR brains they can play with... seems the latter is the weaker link!
b) its the tech that keeps the teep in the role he's filling on the shadow ship. If it wasn;t the tech keeping him under thier influence there would be little need to use powers on the pilot as he could possibly resist of his own free will... yet we know from the series that the tech takes thier free will. So its fairly obvious that to disrupt the teep you have to disrupt the tech.. simple process of elimination.
Yet when a ShadowShip is "jammed" it doesn't suddenly act as the "mad" (because the pilot was uncontrolled and unprepared) ShadowShip at Ganymede in S-3. It just stops. Doesn't maneuvre, doesn't fire, doesn't use it's energy diffusion mechanism - nothing works. That would indicate it's a "jamming" of the CPU, not the "influence tech", wouldn't it?
I'd imagine their ships "now" are more suited to being piloted by lesser subjugated species and captives entirely, leaving them to direction activities and act more directly in other regards.
Yees, that's what I wrote, they redesigfned their "current" ships for the task at hand.
(I personally also think considering their ideology and modus operandi, they they deliberately designed
those ships to be tough, but barely beatable - their goal isn't to wipe out all life in the galaxy, but to create strife and thus further evolution; I think they would be delighted when someone takes up the challange, and "defeats" them like Valen did - in doing so, he did what they wanted, grew through conflict and strife)
Technomages have had the benefit of understanding shadowtech, and taking it apart and putting it back together so they can use it for thier own ends to a point. But your probably right they probably "could" if they needed to fly the ships directly, though I doubt its something they'd ever do except in emergencies or no captive teeps are available.
Actually not. They didn't understand it, they didn't take it apart - doing that to their own TM tech was forbidden within the TM's (remember the TM trilogy, the inner circle forbade that old mage to continue her studies... OK, she went ahead anyway, but "Technomages" as a rule would have obeyed this one - she was the exception, and suffered for it in her blunder, and the fact that she couldn't reveal it to try and get help). And as the TM trilogy explained, the tech they Do understand is what they gathered through their 1000 year existance, some advanced stuff, sure, but niot even within shouting distance of the levels the ancients are at.
And a fully activated TM
CAN enter and fly a ShadowShip, and disengage on his own without problems - that's how Galen escaped Z'ha'dum after all. It's in the book. Of course, to date only Galen has reached that level of integration with his TM magic tech... but if he could do it, it will be routine for every Shadow.
Just because a race is old doesn;t mean it can do everything... LOL if that were true the interstellar alliance wouldn;t have ever been able to beat them in any respects.
Everything - no. Not even Lorien can do that. But the Interstellar alliance didn't beat them - they convinced them to let go. That was JMS intention - as he let Lorien say: "You cannot win this through force of arms, you have to... understand your way out of it"
As for Vorlon ships being more powerful, I think thats fairly easy to explain as a cultural difference. both may have had thier agreement not to directly fight each other, but the shadows weren;t called the shadows for nothing... powerful weapons aside they are always seen using ambush tactics, dropping in, letting loose, then fading out just as quickly as they'd appeared. Then there is the actual design of thier vessels, which in and of itself has less overall mass than vorlon vessels that are generally much stockier overall. It's also a lot more obvious from the series that the Shadows used far more "servitor" type species to do thier dirty work than the vorlons who only really dealt with the minbari exclusively until the Humans came on the scene.
the shadows just didn;t need big awesome ships, as their war was all about intrigue and subterfuge and manipulating an enemy from within.
Not really - they Always attacked sooner or later. They did it in Valen's war, they did it in the wars that came before, they did it in the last Shadow War.
whereas the vorlons mostly advised sure, but you only need to watch the pilot episode to see how readily they will appear en mass to confront a suspected enemey even over the smallest of things (I'm dam* sure all those ships were needed to bring one human into custody <g>).
Yeah, they did love a good show, didn't they :wink: :lol:
the vorlons also had thier planet killers look how readily they used those in the end, where as the shadows death clouds except for in testing only laid waste to strategic planets.
Says who? Oh, the Shadows were only using them late in the war, but they did just the same as the Vorlons did - start killing every planet the other side had influence. Like Zander prime, which now really wasn't a strategic target...
then you have the corlons history with the thirdspace aliens and having to drive those back (that certainly would have taken some firepower).
Sure... but we also heard that the Shadows have been fighting all the ancients in times long past.
No I think of the two there a lot more reasoning to support the vorlons having tough more combat ready vessels of the two, as they are culturally the more militaristic of the two... they are just wiser and more tempered when the humans come on the scene (though still lose the plot somewhat towards the end of Bab 5).
Rewatch "Z'ha'dum" again, and really listen to Justin. The Shadow philosophy can't be something they had as brain fart while lounging in their armchairs, they must have grown through strife themselves to come to such strongly an belief. Stands to reason that if they believe a race can only grow through conflict and strife, that they would be likely to seek out conflict and strife themselves, to better their own race too. And as every wargamer knows, you don't get better by beating up lesser opponets (that's only for satisfaction and to salve the wounds after you loose big time to a better opponent), you learn by playing guys who are at least as good as you. So I think in times long past the Shadows will have gone out of their ways to pick fights with every race they considered worth battling (and that'd be all the other ancients, which would fit with what Delenn and Kosh told Sheridan in "In the Shadow of Z'ha'dum").
I don't think either would or are shoddy in the tech department, though I don;t really agree that they are conflict oriented by nature.
What - our "growth through strife" Shadows? Are you sure you don't confuse them with some other shadows... shadow bunnies for example :wink:
Power hungry and manipulative sure.. but not conflict oriented.. I mean look at the lengths they go to to avoid moving before they are ready, and that wasn;t because they were building masses of ships and training millions of ground troops. They were using subterfuge and manipulation all along to reduce the need for over the top military action. And when actual conflict was required it was done decisively and strategically and always to make a point.
You still seem to think they all did it to conquer the galaxy. They didn't however - been there, done that a million years or two before our time.
They did all they did because they thought a climate of strife and chaos would speed up the evolution of the younger races, something they (who shared "guardianship of the younger races" with the Vorlons after the other ancients mostly went away) wanted to do (but couldn't agree with the Vorlons about How, because Vorlon ideology of growth through order and obidience is diametrically opposed to the Shadows way of thinking). In terms of ideology, the Shadows just took Nitzsche's "That which doesn't kill you only serves to make you stronger" to an extreme, and used their "kicking over the anthill" tactics to weed out those their belief deemed too weak or inflexible to survive. And they used that much manipulation because they were playing this as a "galactic chess game" against the Vorlons, to see whose way proved the better (using those tactics much like Arisia and Eddore in one of the SF works JMS went to for inspiration, though those two have other basic considerations).
The shadows with all thier biologically manipulated viruses and shadow death clouds and all the rest of it, could quite easily have either dropped a single death Cloud at any point around earth before earth and the minbari secured forces and wiped earth off the face of the universe. and even later on, how difficult would it have been for them to have 20, heck even 1 shadow battlecrab appear above earth and drop a plague?
It'd have been very easy - but wouldn't further their goal of forced evolution. See above.
In the end they didn't in the end it fell to thier less wise, less knowledge..and more conflict oriented minions the Drakh to do such a thing.
Well, the Drakh Are power-hungry and all that. They don't care about helping the younger races evolve, they just want two things: Revenge on those who caused their benefactors to leave them and an interstellar empire of their own.
No the shadows were many things but they weren't confict oriented, at least not in the militaristic meaning of the words.
I think they were - they just hid their iron fist in a glove of midnight velvet, and preferd to strike at night as the light favored their opponents.
But how could a race believe in conflict and strife as the driving forces of evolution, and not be conflict oriented???
I don;t think they saw thier vessel as cheap and expendable... heck just look at the lengths they go to retrieve them in the series when found. sure they didn;t want people to get the tech, but if that was the driving motivation they could have just blow the vessel up but they don;t they retrieve it.
Well... that's another point... who said they did
retrieve them?? I have my own thoughts on that... so let me give you an little essay I once wrote and sent to Agent-1 and the guys who were in charge of making the B5W ancients back then:
Buried Shadow Ships
Why do the shadows bury their ships? They could easily find a better way to hide them, if that is what this is about; but I think differently! What if this is their way of building ships? Think about it, a shadow vessel shoots a packet of self-replicating nano-machines into a planet of moon, where they multiply and start to build... "grow" a shadow ship – minus the central control matrix, which is provided later by inserting the "pilot". After the ship is finished, it lies dormant until the shadows call, or it is exposed to sunlight, at which time it sends out an automated call to it's masters, who come, complete it, and take it with them. This way perfectly fits the shadows active/inactive periods; it allows them to field massive fleets in little time – after all, they were "seeded" during their last active period (and shooting a tiny nanotech-projectile into a planet or moon doesn't require much time) and "grew" into big bad shadow vessels during their dormant period. This would also explain why they insert sentients as control matrix, instead of just building an artificial intelligence (which supposedly is the way vorlon ships are build, or grown, or whatever), since an AI might require some time to reach full decision capability, "adulthood" if you will (it takes humans a couple of years, too), while a adult sentient being chosen to fill this slot has had this time. So, upon awakening the shadows just have to send out a call to their buried ships, abduct some beings and field a impressive fleet in record time. Actually it is a distinct possibility their fleet size is limited only by the available sentients for use as "pilots", and (if they "planted" enough seeds during their last time around) they can recover massive losses easily by just gathering some more beings and activating some more buried ships… and these ships would be In Addition to any from their surely existing shipyards… which could be produced (and activated) the same way – a fearful but quite possible thought; it surely explains how they can go from zero (=Z'ha'dum) to an galaxy-shaking power in just a instant compared to the years, decades and centuries other races needed to build their stellar empires. This would also indicate that there might be more shadow vessels and other things buried in our galaxy than everybody thinks – even after the shadows went beyond the rim! Who knows what things the younger races might still face.
I agree at some point they must have piloted them directly, and likely could if needed to do so again, but I think it would be a very rare thing, or for them to be aboard a much smaller craft. But they didn't have to outclass the other ancients with firepower as that wasn;t what the shadows were about... thier shadows faded in and out, they bided thier time and struck decisively when and if they needed to strike at all. I mean how many of the other ancients vessels do we see that can fade in and out at will, thier stealth was thier edge.
Well, I think they would have built their ships as good as they could when they were still flying them personally against enemies of the same caliber, but just didn't see the need for such quality (and the time & effort it took to get it) when they were just facing younger races and not in danger themselves anyway...
But in primordial times, when they did fight with the Vorlons or the Kirishiac, they certainly would have built ships that made the current ShadowShips look like Inse... oh... well, you know what I meant :wink:
:lol:
(whew, what an sting of text... I really need to cut down on online rants... some day... for now I enjoy furthering conflict of ideas and chaotic dicsussions too much! :mrgreen
