Angel Tarragon
Dawn Dragon
My Favorite Babylon 5 Alien Species: The Vorlons
The Vorlons are a race from the science fiction series Babylon 5. Advanced, ancient, enigmatic and extremely reclusive, the Vorlons are more than a little frightening. They maintained only one representative, Ambassador Kosh, on the station. When in the presence of other races, Vorlons invariably cover themselves entirely with bulky encounter suits.
Nature
You have sought the Vorlons. They will not come to you. They will not embrace you for they do not love you. They do not want you to have knowledge, for knowledge is power and they desire all the power for themselves. - The Thirdspace Aliens.
It was common knowledge/speculation that the Vorlons are old, powerful and manipulative. All three points are understatements by orders of magnitude.
The Vorlon race is a member of the First Ones, a group made up of the earliest species to gain sentience, and their age and development reflect this. While almost all the other species of First One left the galaxy for greener pastures, the Vorlons stayed behind to act as guardians and guides for younger races. It is said (in the movie Thirdspace) that while the Vorlons shepherded these worlds, the inhabitants were enthralled by their appearance and some worshipped them as gods. In the Babylon 5 role-playing game (RPG) books the Orieni Empire was one such race.
Unfortunately for all concerned, they were not the only one to do so. The Shadows took on the same mantle with a diametrically opposed philosophy. For untold amounts of time the histories of these two races have been intertwined in a struggle for their protectees. In the conflict, the Vorlons represent Order. At their best, they act as architects, building alliances, encouraging the rule of law and inspiring cooperation. It is no accident that these qualities are associated with benevolence. In reality however, truly benevolent Vorlons like Kosh were rare - violent, hateful Vorlons like Ulkesh are the norm. Vorlons enforce strict adherence to their rules and unquestioning obedience to their authority.
Vorlon philosophy is embodied by the question "Who are you?" Sometimes called "The Vorlon Question", it encourages introspection, patience, and places identity as the proper motivator over personal goals. "The Shadow Question", in contrast, is "What do you want?" Londo Mollari falls into this trap, failing to foresee the cost in death and destruction, to say nothing of its corruption on a personal level, of his lust for power and prestige.
By the time of the series, both the Vorlons and Shadows have long since lost sight of the original goal. Originally, the intent of both elder races was to encourage the growth of younger species through the competition of order and chaos. As they began "playing to win", the conflict metamorphosed into a bizarre game for ideological, rather than military, dominion. The Vorlons operate among the younger races, and often provide beneficial guidance to the main characters, but in the long run the younger races cease to be seen as protegés and are treated as pawns. This shift in some ways was prompted by the death of the first Ambassador, Kosh Naranek, who eventually became willing to overcome his tendency to be aloof, insular, and controlling, in order to prompt the Vorlon fleet to attack the Shadows directly at the behest of Captain Sheridan. Unfortunately, this action gave the Shadows leave to attack Kosh directly, and his successor would personify the worst tendencies of the species. It is possible that the loss of the first Kosh's moderating, even empathetic voice would allow the Vorlons to undertake their radical course of action later in the second war.
The race is usually identified on screen as the "Vorlon Empire" but there is very little known about the actual structure of Vorlon government; it is unknown whether Vorlon society is organized into anything that most races would recognize as an "empire".
Appearance
When in the company of aliens, Vorlons wear complex and intimidating encounter suits that completely conceal their physical form. The suits are tall, looming and ornate affairs apparently displaying the social station of each Vorlon, with one-'eyed' heads. Their speech is accompanied by an illumination of the suit's front and eerie background sounds, and is extremely terse and usually cryptic. Suited Vorlons tend to give a haughty impression, observing rather than participating and saying only what suits them, when it suits them. Casual conversation with a Vorlon is a contradiction in terms. Among themselves, they seem to communicate telepathically, or using some form of communications built into their suits. This is implied when Kosh and Ulkesh are together in the TV movie, 'In the Beginning' and the novel 'To Dream in the City of Sorrows' where both look at each other pointedly during pauses in conversation.
The stated reason for the use of encounter suits – that they provide the specific environmental conditions their users need – is a front. The race is perfectly capable of functioning in an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere; even vacuum seems to have no ill effects. The point of the suits is to hide the Vorlons' forms, a tool very rarely used.
When extreme circumstances force a Vorlon to appear outside its encounter suit in the presence of others, observers will usually perceive it as a being of pure light. That many, if not all, of the younger races associate a white-clad, winged figure as a benevolent, supernatural guardian is a product of Vorlon manipulation. For example, a Christian human might see an angelic form such as the Archangel Michael, a Drazi might perceive a being known as Dro'shalla, a Narn G'Lan, and so forth. Invariably, the Vorlon appears as a secondary character within the observer's religious mythos rather than a principal god. These projections have not been witnessed speaking.
As an interesting side-note, when Ambassador Londo Mollari of the Centauri Republic observed an unsuited Vorlon at the same time as many others on board Babylon 5, he was reported not to have seen anything at all. Whether this was unique to him, or a trait of his race, was left unexplained by the series (although J. Michael Straczynski has stated that "Londo saw what he said he saw"). One explanation for this is his affiliation with the Shadows, which made him unable to see the Vorlon as others more favourable to them did, another is that the Centauri simply haven't been manipulated by the Vorlons as the other races, and so aren't 'sensitive' to their projections in the same way. Outside of the television show, Peter David's book Out of Darkness indicates that Mollari just saw a very bright ball of energy, though it should be noted that when Vorlons outside of their encounter suits are seen later in the Babylon 5 series, they do not appear either as balls of energy or as projected, angelic beings of light. It is only under very exceptional circumstances that a Vorlon abandons its illusion and shows its true form however, and the one time when they are seen thus, the Vorlons in question are enraged and fighting, so whether or not their quiescent forms are more similar to the ball of energy observed by Mollari remains unknown.
In the final episode of Season Four, a human of the far-future is shown leaving Earth for the last time, and is capable of assuming a monkish, robed human form, and that of a glowing ball of light which hovers above the ground, most akin in appearance to the effect seen for the First One Lorien. Mollari may be presumed have seen something similar to this. This future-human then enters an encounter suit similar to a Vorlon one, but with a head and shoulder arrangement reflecting human anatomy (binocular vision, distinct head). This may suggest that during their original evolution, the Vorlons were monocular beings with high shoulders, and thier encounter suits are designed to reflect their heritige for either cultural reasons, or ease of use.
Physiology
Without their accustomed illusions, the Vorlons resemble luminescent, levitating Jellyfish apparently around ten feet in length. Little is known about what the Vorlon evolutionary history is like, they may have evolved in a form similar to this, or they may have been radically different - humans at a similar level of development have undergone complete physical change to the degree of being unrecognisable beings of light - this even happened to one individual during the Babylon 5 station's operation, one Jason Ironheart, due to the tampering of the psicorps. However, this does not otherwise happen for millions of years (one may perhaps infer that Kosh assisted Ironheart in this transformation in some way). A naked Vorlon is a remarkable thing to behold. They are a species of bioluminescent, semi-translucent jelly fish with a number of tendrils. They are very nearly immortal (barring violence) and are able to fly, a key element of the plot to second-season episode The Fall of Night, and can apparently pass through solid objects, as the two Koshes did while fighting one another in fourth-season episode Falling Toward Apotheosis, though in order to do this, they appear to have displaced matter out of their way, rather than passing through it as ghosts.
The Vorlons are one of the very few known silicon-based lifeforms in the galaxy. They are capable of flight; probably through the use of psychokinesis perhaps along with crystalline wings, though these would be useless in a vacuum, through which vorlons are capable of propelling themselves. They supposedly are heavy methane, sulfur, and CO2 breathers, however, being outside of the encounter suit in a nitrogen/oxygen environment does them little or no harm. Nutrient circulation is carried out by "blue cells." Vorlons are susceptible to the poison Florazyne (a rare poison only found in the Damocles Sector).
Next to nothing else is known about a Vorlon's physical makeup with surety. The Vorlons True form was seen only once in the series, as the second Vorlon ambassador to Babylon 5 is forcibly ejected from the station and the situation degenerates into a firefight. The specifics are left vague. A poisoning incident involving the first Vorlon ambassador indicates that Vorlons do possess a physical body of some sort. J. Michael Straczynski confirms that the Vorlons are indeed physical beings capable of physically striking objects with their bodies.
Vorlon "names" (i.e. Kosh Naranek, Vorlon Ambassador on Babylon 5) are actually the closest we can come to the original Vorlonese. Like Whales, they speak through a series of musical/tonal/atonal chords, almost a chorus of voices.
Also, three Shadows were able to kill a Vorlon, which suggests that their advantage in space combat is not reflected in melée. (Human PPGs were completely ineffective against a Vorlon. According to the Technomage Trilogy, Kosh let himself be killed by the Shadows for violating an unwritten law prohibiting direct attacks between Vorlons and Shadows. Although this contradicts the statement by JMS who said Kosh fought and fought hard. And he did not go down easily...and one might say that yes, he did not go down alone...but not entirely in the way you're thinking. Thus that statement cannot be considered canon.)
The episode 4-22, The Deconstruction of Falling Stars, says something for the theory that the race's original forms had only one eye because the human encounter suit seen one million years in the future was representative of the original human body. The human encounter suit had two glowing 'eyes' on its headpiece in the location that normal human eyes would be, so it stands to reason that the Vorlons' encounter suits were representative of their original form as well. However this hypothesis can be challenged because the Vorlons where shown as having two red eyes in Falling towards Apotheosis. However, whether these 'eyes' are actually ocular organs is entirely speculative. Other arrangements of vision which the vorlons may have possessed can be speculated to be large primary eyes, with secondary eyes elsewhere on the body for judging distance and three-dimensionality - a likely necessity in order to develop space travel (though they had assistance in this area).
Mental Capabilities
Vorlons appear to be extremely powerful telepaths and telekinetics, or to possess equivalent abilities. They have at least enough finesse to leave sharp scratch wounds on human skin, and enough strength to ram an adult man against a wall and strangle him. Vorlons have also been known to tap into the minds of sleeping younger beings and communicate with them in this way. When "seen" outside their encounter suits, their projected form – whether accomplished through telepathy or telekinesis or both – is quite a feat, and has been known to be taxing for them, especially when presented to multiple beings at once; Kosh, who was seen by the majority of races present at Babylon 5, had to recover for weeks, though the nature of the station's interior where he was seen (akin to an O'Neill cylinder) would perhaps let thousands of people see him at that time.
But the Vorlons' telepathy must be different to other species telepathy because the Shadow ships in Interludes and Examinations were able to function as the Vorlons attacked, unlike the ship near the White Star when Bester was aboard ("Ship of Tears.") On the other hand, the small Vorlon fighters did seem to be doing a good job of confusing the Shadow warship they were attacking; it seemed to spin around randomly, and never fired back. The Vorlons are known to have designed the telepaths of younger races as weapons, which suggests that 'lesser' telepaths may be better for 'jamming' shadow vessels than they themselves are, though of course, initially, it was not the intention of the Vorlons to destroy the Shadows, and they may have created 'young-race telepaths' simply to allow lesser races to destroy Shadow ships for philosophical reasons, even though their own vessels are quite capable of this.
It must also be pointed out that the Vorlons didn't instantly respond, to Lyta's signals given the fact that it took five days to respond to her telepathic broadcast. What's interesting is that they apparently didn't come until she was nearly unconscious. Could that be related to the fact that Kosh could only contact Sheridan when he was weak in "All Alone In the Night?." Maybe Vorlon telepathy is at its greatest when the person is unconscious, its mind quiet enough to hear them. This would also fit in with what we know with Centauri and Minbari telepathy which works through dreams. Or, of course, it could simply have taken them several days to locate her, in which case they could even have been responding to the non-telepathic signals.
As can be inferred from above, Vorlons do have emotions. Also Kosh's death was instantly known to the Vorlons, which suggests that all the Vorlons are linked together in some fundamental way. Perhaps the killing of Kosh, then, was less a blow against him personally than a retaliation against the Vorlon people as a whole. Their subsequent, excessive even by their own standards, reaction, likely comes from this emotion; no Vorlon had died for millennia before this. Their intellectual capabilities can only be guessed at. They are capable of breaking off parts of themselves and storing them in other beings. No details are available, perhaps fortunately.
Government
Vorlon territory is known as the Vorlon Empire. Despite being called the Vorlon empire, nothing is known if there is a Vorlon Emperor, but there is a High Command. The Vorlon Empire maintains a strict immigration policy. The Earth Alliance has sent three expeditions into Vorlon space. None have returned. The Vorlons said they had met with accidents and suggested they send no more expeditions into their territory. The Centauri have also sent expeditions into Vorlon space. The Centauri have many strange stories about the Vorlon. Even the Minbari, long-time allies of the Vorlons, lose any ships that travel into Vorlon territory. While no one has mapped the Vorlon Empire, its borders are well known.
History
Before recorded history
Over a million years ago, the Vorlons, believing themselves just one step short of godhood, decided to build a jump gate to open a doorway to what they believed was the well of souls, the source of life. The Vorlon Jump Gate takes one neither to normal space nor to hyperspace but to a "third" space. The purpose was to make contact with the gods. In reality, thirdspace was inhabited by a violent telepathic race that posed a threat even to the Vorlons. Their purpose was later defined as simply as "wiping out all life that is not their own" - they believed they were the only race in the multiverse that had the right to exist. They took control of many Vorlons with their telepathy and in the ensuing battle, the Vorlons, at what is implied to be significant cost, forced the aliens back into their own dimension, and sealed the portal. A group of Vorlons (controlled by the thirdspace entities) captured the artifact and jettisoned it into hyperspace, hoping to recover it later, but they were never able to do so. Presumably they were either exterminated or rehabilitated into Vorlon society.
Given the potential danger, it was possible that the Vorlons fought alongside Lorien's race, the Shadows and the other First Ones against the alien forces as they who would have as much of a vested interest as anyone else in seeing the aliens beaten back (though it would be consistent with Vorlon arrogance to not mention anyone else's involvement.)
10,000 years ago
Millions of years later, many younger races had began to evolve on thousands of worlds and the First Ones realized that in order for these new sentients to succeed, the ancient races would have to move on. Thus many of the First Ones moved beyond the Galactic Rim, to explore the vast emptiness between galaxies. Several of the First ones decided to stay behind and shepherd the younger races until they were fit to control their own destiny. The primary care takers were the Vorlons and surprisingly enough, the Shadows.
At first there was a balance between the two sides. Then the Vorlons began tinkering with races on a genetic level, in an effort to make the younger races evolve more like them. Among this genetic dabbling, the Vorlons manipulated the younger races to make them see the Vorlons as angelic prophets. They then used their telepathic abilities to shield their true form from the beings they manipulated.
Through this action the Vorlons were able to control the perceptions of the younger races. Finding the actions of their fellow ancients appalling, the Shadows and the Vorlons began to fight amongst themselves and those who tried to mediate, like the Walkers of Sigma 957, left the conflict embittered.
About Year 1260
Over the course of the centuries that passed, the wars between the Shadows and Vorlons persisted. Then at some unknown point in time they decided to have their students fight for them, in an effort to prove who was right. This lead to the Great War during the Earth year 1260.
In 1260, the penultimate Shadow War raged between the Shadows and the combined forces of the Vorlons and many of the younger races such as the Soul Hunters and the Minbari. The exact date of the penultimate Shadow War is unclear, but it first began roughly one thousand years before the founding of the Babylon 5 station. So violent was the last Great War a thousand years ago, the Vorlons were forced to ask the other First Ones for assistance in curbing the Shadows advance.
And so the gods of old fought along side the younger races in a no-holds barred war with the Shadows and their students. In the aftermath of the war, there was no clear winner to decide if the Shadows or Vorlons had been right. Almost all the younger races involved in the war were extinct. Only a precious few survived.
Despite these tremendous losses, the Vorlons and Shadows continued to squabble. As the Shadows went into their thousand-year seclusion, the Vorlons began to once again tinker with the DNA of young races all across the galaxy, creating telepaths to use as cannon fodder for the next war against the Shadows.
Years 2260-2261
The final Shadow War, which occurred one thousand years later in 2260, in which the Shadows battled the combined forces of Babylon 5, the Minbari Federation, the Narn Regime, the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, and the Rangers. The Vorlon Empire originally consented to aid this combined force. However, following the death of the Vorlon Ambassador Kosh Naranek at the hands of the Shadows and Captain John Sheridan's trip to Z'ha'dum, the Vorlons became convinced that the only way to stop the war was to destroy all the planets that had been touched by the Shadows. The Shadows decided to pursue the same policy following the destruction of one of their major cities. Billions of sentients died when the two forces began destroying the planets influenced by the other.
Sheridan brought the two forces into direct contact at Corianna VI, and then launched a suicidal assault on both sides at once. An armada of allied ships and the remaining First Ones managed to stop the Vorlon planet killer, but more importantly demonstrated that the younger races were in open defiance against their "protectors". Faced with either letting them go or exterminating them completely, the Vorlons and Shadows finally stepped down and left the galaxy with the remaining First Ones to join the others beyond the rim.
After the Departure
Take me with you! Don't leave me behind! Don't leave me wanting answers without even understanding the questions - Lyta Alexander
After the Vorlons left the galaxy, their homeworld was left abandoned, but they left their defense systems on their homeworld (and presumably their major colony worlds) operational. As a result, several expeditions to the planet were destroyed. The Vorlons also left a message with Lyta Alexander that the planet was not for the younger races. The Vorlon Homeworld was not to be theirs until they were ready; at least another million years.
Lyta Alexander was also left with other information as well. She was left with a command to activate the self-destruct systems on Z'ha'dum. When she did so after the Drakh looted the planet, the planet exploded. In the movie Thirdspace, she was able to give information on a new alien menace that was discovered in hyperspace, and to destroy that menace. When the Drakh used Shadow control pods to operate Centauri vessels during their war with the Alliance, Alexander was able to identify the devices as such due to information left with her.
Finally in 2262, it was revealed that the Vorlons had modified her to be a living telepathic superweapon - a doomsday machine to be used against the Shadows if the Vorlons lost the war. They made her into the most powerful human telepath in existence, with the possible exceptions of Jason Ironheart, who had already transformed into something similar to a First One; and Kevin Vacit, former Director of Psi Corps, who had carried a Vorlon fragment inside himself which, together with the unique abilities he had to begin with, resulted in him becoming even more capable than Lyta (as revealed in The Nautilus Coil).
One million years after the events of Babylon 5, the humans who had become First Ones in their own right left Earth for the last time, after as of yet unknown forces artificially caused the sun to explode, taking most of the solar system with it. The future humans then left for what was called "New Earth." J. Michael Straczynski indicated that New Earth was in fact the old Vorlon homeworld. These future humans had evolved beyond the need for physical bodies. These humans used encounter suits very similar to the Vorlon encounter suit, and also used bioengineered organic ships.
Technology: Spacecraft
Vorlon spaceships were an interesting departure from the norms of science fiction television in being organic in nature and at least partially sentient. Vorlon ships were styled to look like living things, and Vorlon transports at least have a skin that can change colour (as seen in Walkabout) and an external shape that is flexible enough to allow passengers in and out (as shown in Hunter, Prey). In the same episode, it was mentioned that Vorlon transports "sing", and can have an unnerving effect on non-Vorlons around them.
Although it is safely assumed that Vorlon technology is highly advanced and comparable to that of the Shadows, the Shadows are the older race, and some differences can be seen between them. Vorlon ships seem to use jumpgates similar to those of the younger races, rather than fading in and out of hyperspace as do the Shadows. In addition, while both Shadow and Vorlon ships are organic in nature, Vorlon ships do not use living beings as the central processing unit in the same way as large Shadow ships do, though this different operational system is not necessarily inferior - even if the Vorlons could duplicate the Shadows' control system, they are not necesserily immoral enough to use the young races in this manner.
The Vorlons were the creators of inter-dimensional gateways into Thirdspace and there is some speculation among fans that it was they who built the first jumpgate network.
Transports
Within the Babylon 5 series, Vorlon transports are the most frequently seen Vorlon ships, with Kosh and Ulkesh both having their own transports. According to the Babylon 5 video game, Into the Fire, Vorlon transports are 131 metres long and heavily armed. There is a strong bond between a Vorlon and its transport, with the ship even communicating to its pilot by displaying text in an unknown script, presumably the Vorlon written language, on its skin (this is seen in Hunter, Prey) which suggests that communication between it and its owner is not necessarily always telepathic. When its pilot is in danger, the transport becomes extremely agitated and will try to help its Vorlon escape, as seen in the Season 4 episode Falling Toward Apotheosis.
Should its pilot die, as happened with Kosh in Interludes and Examinations, Vorlon transports are said to grieve and in that instance at least the ship cremated itself and the remains of Kosh in a nearby star. Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski put it thus: It was made for Kosh, as Delenn points out, was almost a part of him; it wouldn't function as well, if at all, for anyone else. There was nothing else to be done.
One Man Fighters
Little is known about Vorlon fighters. According to the Babylon 5 video game they are about 25.5 metres long. Externally, they lack exhaust ports of any kind, suggesting that they use some type of gravimetric drive similar to that used by the Minbari. In groups they perform very effectively, being able to destroy a Shadow vessel (Interludes and Examinations).
Unlike other small fighters in the Babylon 5 universe, Vorlon fighters appear to have independent jump capability, as seen in the episode Into the Fire, where large numbers come out of hyperspace without the apparent need for a capital ship's support. According to J. Michael Straczynski, Vorlon fighters have a much weaker bond between themselves and their pilots (thought it is unknown whether they have anyone on board them, they are very fragile (being destroyed by an Earthforce fighter in one volley in 'Into the Fire' Babtech on vorlon ships, including a clip of this destruction), and it seems unlikely a Vorlon would risk its life aboard a fragile ship in combat, it is therefore possible that they are autonomous, or controlled remotely by the vorlon crews of their capital ships) than Vorlon transports.
Capital Ships
These large ships, called Star Dreadnaughts are said to be over 1300 metres long and tactically at least equal to the fearsome Shadow vessels. They likely carry a large number of Vorlon fighters, and, according to J. Michael Straczynski, carry a full crew of Vorlons.
Planet Killers
The biggest ships in the Vorlon fleet appear to be the Vorlon Planet Killers, huge starships capable of destroying entire worlds. How big these ships are, and whether they actually disintegrate planets or merely wipe out all life on them, is much debated among hardcore Babylon 5 technology fans.
Technology: Bioengineering
As is typical with this cryptic race, very little is known about their level of biotechnology. It is implied throughout the series that they have interfered with the evolution of many races, including humans, Minbari, Narns, and Drazi, in various ways. In particular, each of these races "see" Vorlons outside their encounter suits as a some religious or mythological character particular to their culture. The Centauri apparently see nothing when looking at Vorlons directly, which may imply that they have not been influenced or altered by the Vorlons (see Appearance, above) this may however, be only Londo Mollari himself, who was likely known by the Vorlon in question to be in league with the Shadows, and not other Centauri.
The Vorlons also have the ability to alter alien species to better serve their purposes. Lyta Alexander was given "gills" on her neck that allowed her to breathe the atmosphere within the Vorlon ambassador's chamber (though how difficult such modifications are is debatable, given that even the Narn can create analogous structures, as seen in the pilot episode, Babylon 5: The Gathering). Vorlons also use other beings as receptacles for a fragment of their personality, allowing them to travel widely without being noticed.
Telepaths
A major theme of the fifth season is the revelation that the Vorlons engineered the creation of telepaths among various alien species, with the goal of using them as weapons in any subsequent wars with the Shadows. Given that the Centauri were likely not significantly modified by the Vorlons yet have many telepaths (e.g., Lady Morella in Point of No Return and the commercial Centauri telepath used in And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place), some races seem to have evolved telepathy naturally, or at least without assistance from the Vorlons. Alternately, they may have been engineered by the Vorlons as were most other races, or they may have acquired their telepaths using their own genetic engineering, as the Narns intended to (their own families of Vorlon-created telepaths having been exterminated in a purge by the Shadows when they occupied Narn in the penultimate Shadow War.
The Vorlons are a race from the science fiction series Babylon 5. Advanced, ancient, enigmatic and extremely reclusive, the Vorlons are more than a little frightening. They maintained only one representative, Ambassador Kosh, on the station. When in the presence of other races, Vorlons invariably cover themselves entirely with bulky encounter suits.
Nature
You have sought the Vorlons. They will not come to you. They will not embrace you for they do not love you. They do not want you to have knowledge, for knowledge is power and they desire all the power for themselves. - The Thirdspace Aliens.
It was common knowledge/speculation that the Vorlons are old, powerful and manipulative. All three points are understatements by orders of magnitude.
The Vorlon race is a member of the First Ones, a group made up of the earliest species to gain sentience, and their age and development reflect this. While almost all the other species of First One left the galaxy for greener pastures, the Vorlons stayed behind to act as guardians and guides for younger races. It is said (in the movie Thirdspace) that while the Vorlons shepherded these worlds, the inhabitants were enthralled by their appearance and some worshipped them as gods. In the Babylon 5 role-playing game (RPG) books the Orieni Empire was one such race.
Unfortunately for all concerned, they were not the only one to do so. The Shadows took on the same mantle with a diametrically opposed philosophy. For untold amounts of time the histories of these two races have been intertwined in a struggle for their protectees. In the conflict, the Vorlons represent Order. At their best, they act as architects, building alliances, encouraging the rule of law and inspiring cooperation. It is no accident that these qualities are associated with benevolence. In reality however, truly benevolent Vorlons like Kosh were rare - violent, hateful Vorlons like Ulkesh are the norm. Vorlons enforce strict adherence to their rules and unquestioning obedience to their authority.
Vorlon philosophy is embodied by the question "Who are you?" Sometimes called "The Vorlon Question", it encourages introspection, patience, and places identity as the proper motivator over personal goals. "The Shadow Question", in contrast, is "What do you want?" Londo Mollari falls into this trap, failing to foresee the cost in death and destruction, to say nothing of its corruption on a personal level, of his lust for power and prestige.
By the time of the series, both the Vorlons and Shadows have long since lost sight of the original goal. Originally, the intent of both elder races was to encourage the growth of younger species through the competition of order and chaos. As they began "playing to win", the conflict metamorphosed into a bizarre game for ideological, rather than military, dominion. The Vorlons operate among the younger races, and often provide beneficial guidance to the main characters, but in the long run the younger races cease to be seen as protegés and are treated as pawns. This shift in some ways was prompted by the death of the first Ambassador, Kosh Naranek, who eventually became willing to overcome his tendency to be aloof, insular, and controlling, in order to prompt the Vorlon fleet to attack the Shadows directly at the behest of Captain Sheridan. Unfortunately, this action gave the Shadows leave to attack Kosh directly, and his successor would personify the worst tendencies of the species. It is possible that the loss of the first Kosh's moderating, even empathetic voice would allow the Vorlons to undertake their radical course of action later in the second war.
The race is usually identified on screen as the "Vorlon Empire" but there is very little known about the actual structure of Vorlon government; it is unknown whether Vorlon society is organized into anything that most races would recognize as an "empire".
Appearance
When in the company of aliens, Vorlons wear complex and intimidating encounter suits that completely conceal their physical form. The suits are tall, looming and ornate affairs apparently displaying the social station of each Vorlon, with one-'eyed' heads. Their speech is accompanied by an illumination of the suit's front and eerie background sounds, and is extremely terse and usually cryptic. Suited Vorlons tend to give a haughty impression, observing rather than participating and saying only what suits them, when it suits them. Casual conversation with a Vorlon is a contradiction in terms. Among themselves, they seem to communicate telepathically, or using some form of communications built into their suits. This is implied when Kosh and Ulkesh are together in the TV movie, 'In the Beginning' and the novel 'To Dream in the City of Sorrows' where both look at each other pointedly during pauses in conversation.
The stated reason for the use of encounter suits – that they provide the specific environmental conditions their users need – is a front. The race is perfectly capable of functioning in an oxygen/nitrogen atmosphere; even vacuum seems to have no ill effects. The point of the suits is to hide the Vorlons' forms, a tool very rarely used.
When extreme circumstances force a Vorlon to appear outside its encounter suit in the presence of others, observers will usually perceive it as a being of pure light. That many, if not all, of the younger races associate a white-clad, winged figure as a benevolent, supernatural guardian is a product of Vorlon manipulation. For example, a Christian human might see an angelic form such as the Archangel Michael, a Drazi might perceive a being known as Dro'shalla, a Narn G'Lan, and so forth. Invariably, the Vorlon appears as a secondary character within the observer's religious mythos rather than a principal god. These projections have not been witnessed speaking.
As an interesting side-note, when Ambassador Londo Mollari of the Centauri Republic observed an unsuited Vorlon at the same time as many others on board Babylon 5, he was reported not to have seen anything at all. Whether this was unique to him, or a trait of his race, was left unexplained by the series (although J. Michael Straczynski has stated that "Londo saw what he said he saw"). One explanation for this is his affiliation with the Shadows, which made him unable to see the Vorlon as others more favourable to them did, another is that the Centauri simply haven't been manipulated by the Vorlons as the other races, and so aren't 'sensitive' to their projections in the same way. Outside of the television show, Peter David's book Out of Darkness indicates that Mollari just saw a very bright ball of energy, though it should be noted that when Vorlons outside of their encounter suits are seen later in the Babylon 5 series, they do not appear either as balls of energy or as projected, angelic beings of light. It is only under very exceptional circumstances that a Vorlon abandons its illusion and shows its true form however, and the one time when they are seen thus, the Vorlons in question are enraged and fighting, so whether or not their quiescent forms are more similar to the ball of energy observed by Mollari remains unknown.
In the final episode of Season Four, a human of the far-future is shown leaving Earth for the last time, and is capable of assuming a monkish, robed human form, and that of a glowing ball of light which hovers above the ground, most akin in appearance to the effect seen for the First One Lorien. Mollari may be presumed have seen something similar to this. This future-human then enters an encounter suit similar to a Vorlon one, but with a head and shoulder arrangement reflecting human anatomy (binocular vision, distinct head). This may suggest that during their original evolution, the Vorlons were monocular beings with high shoulders, and thier encounter suits are designed to reflect their heritige for either cultural reasons, or ease of use.
Physiology
Without their accustomed illusions, the Vorlons resemble luminescent, levitating Jellyfish apparently around ten feet in length. Little is known about what the Vorlon evolutionary history is like, they may have evolved in a form similar to this, or they may have been radically different - humans at a similar level of development have undergone complete physical change to the degree of being unrecognisable beings of light - this even happened to one individual during the Babylon 5 station's operation, one Jason Ironheart, due to the tampering of the psicorps. However, this does not otherwise happen for millions of years (one may perhaps infer that Kosh assisted Ironheart in this transformation in some way). A naked Vorlon is a remarkable thing to behold. They are a species of bioluminescent, semi-translucent jelly fish with a number of tendrils. They are very nearly immortal (barring violence) and are able to fly, a key element of the plot to second-season episode The Fall of Night, and can apparently pass through solid objects, as the two Koshes did while fighting one another in fourth-season episode Falling Toward Apotheosis, though in order to do this, they appear to have displaced matter out of their way, rather than passing through it as ghosts.
The Vorlons are one of the very few known silicon-based lifeforms in the galaxy. They are capable of flight; probably through the use of psychokinesis perhaps along with crystalline wings, though these would be useless in a vacuum, through which vorlons are capable of propelling themselves. They supposedly are heavy methane, sulfur, and CO2 breathers, however, being outside of the encounter suit in a nitrogen/oxygen environment does them little or no harm. Nutrient circulation is carried out by "blue cells." Vorlons are susceptible to the poison Florazyne (a rare poison only found in the Damocles Sector).
Next to nothing else is known about a Vorlon's physical makeup with surety. The Vorlons True form was seen only once in the series, as the second Vorlon ambassador to Babylon 5 is forcibly ejected from the station and the situation degenerates into a firefight. The specifics are left vague. A poisoning incident involving the first Vorlon ambassador indicates that Vorlons do possess a physical body of some sort. J. Michael Straczynski confirms that the Vorlons are indeed physical beings capable of physically striking objects with their bodies.
Vorlon "names" (i.e. Kosh Naranek, Vorlon Ambassador on Babylon 5) are actually the closest we can come to the original Vorlonese. Like Whales, they speak through a series of musical/tonal/atonal chords, almost a chorus of voices.
Also, three Shadows were able to kill a Vorlon, which suggests that their advantage in space combat is not reflected in melée. (Human PPGs were completely ineffective against a Vorlon. According to the Technomage Trilogy, Kosh let himself be killed by the Shadows for violating an unwritten law prohibiting direct attacks between Vorlons and Shadows. Although this contradicts the statement by JMS who said Kosh fought and fought hard. And he did not go down easily...and one might say that yes, he did not go down alone...but not entirely in the way you're thinking. Thus that statement cannot be considered canon.)
The episode 4-22, The Deconstruction of Falling Stars, says something for the theory that the race's original forms had only one eye because the human encounter suit seen one million years in the future was representative of the original human body. The human encounter suit had two glowing 'eyes' on its headpiece in the location that normal human eyes would be, so it stands to reason that the Vorlons' encounter suits were representative of their original form as well. However this hypothesis can be challenged because the Vorlons where shown as having two red eyes in Falling towards Apotheosis. However, whether these 'eyes' are actually ocular organs is entirely speculative. Other arrangements of vision which the vorlons may have possessed can be speculated to be large primary eyes, with secondary eyes elsewhere on the body for judging distance and three-dimensionality - a likely necessity in order to develop space travel (though they had assistance in this area).
Mental Capabilities
Vorlons appear to be extremely powerful telepaths and telekinetics, or to possess equivalent abilities. They have at least enough finesse to leave sharp scratch wounds on human skin, and enough strength to ram an adult man against a wall and strangle him. Vorlons have also been known to tap into the minds of sleeping younger beings and communicate with them in this way. When "seen" outside their encounter suits, their projected form – whether accomplished through telepathy or telekinesis or both – is quite a feat, and has been known to be taxing for them, especially when presented to multiple beings at once; Kosh, who was seen by the majority of races present at Babylon 5, had to recover for weeks, though the nature of the station's interior where he was seen (akin to an O'Neill cylinder) would perhaps let thousands of people see him at that time.
But the Vorlons' telepathy must be different to other species telepathy because the Shadow ships in Interludes and Examinations were able to function as the Vorlons attacked, unlike the ship near the White Star when Bester was aboard ("Ship of Tears.") On the other hand, the small Vorlon fighters did seem to be doing a good job of confusing the Shadow warship they were attacking; it seemed to spin around randomly, and never fired back. The Vorlons are known to have designed the telepaths of younger races as weapons, which suggests that 'lesser' telepaths may be better for 'jamming' shadow vessels than they themselves are, though of course, initially, it was not the intention of the Vorlons to destroy the Shadows, and they may have created 'young-race telepaths' simply to allow lesser races to destroy Shadow ships for philosophical reasons, even though their own vessels are quite capable of this.
It must also be pointed out that the Vorlons didn't instantly respond, to Lyta's signals given the fact that it took five days to respond to her telepathic broadcast. What's interesting is that they apparently didn't come until she was nearly unconscious. Could that be related to the fact that Kosh could only contact Sheridan when he was weak in "All Alone In the Night?." Maybe Vorlon telepathy is at its greatest when the person is unconscious, its mind quiet enough to hear them. This would also fit in with what we know with Centauri and Minbari telepathy which works through dreams. Or, of course, it could simply have taken them several days to locate her, in which case they could even have been responding to the non-telepathic signals.
As can be inferred from above, Vorlons do have emotions. Also Kosh's death was instantly known to the Vorlons, which suggests that all the Vorlons are linked together in some fundamental way. Perhaps the killing of Kosh, then, was less a blow against him personally than a retaliation against the Vorlon people as a whole. Their subsequent, excessive even by their own standards, reaction, likely comes from this emotion; no Vorlon had died for millennia before this. Their intellectual capabilities can only be guessed at. They are capable of breaking off parts of themselves and storing them in other beings. No details are available, perhaps fortunately.
Government
Vorlon territory is known as the Vorlon Empire. Despite being called the Vorlon empire, nothing is known if there is a Vorlon Emperor, but there is a High Command. The Vorlon Empire maintains a strict immigration policy. The Earth Alliance has sent three expeditions into Vorlon space. None have returned. The Vorlons said they had met with accidents and suggested they send no more expeditions into their territory. The Centauri have also sent expeditions into Vorlon space. The Centauri have many strange stories about the Vorlon. Even the Minbari, long-time allies of the Vorlons, lose any ships that travel into Vorlon territory. While no one has mapped the Vorlon Empire, its borders are well known.
History
Before recorded history
Over a million years ago, the Vorlons, believing themselves just one step short of godhood, decided to build a jump gate to open a doorway to what they believed was the well of souls, the source of life. The Vorlon Jump Gate takes one neither to normal space nor to hyperspace but to a "third" space. The purpose was to make contact with the gods. In reality, thirdspace was inhabited by a violent telepathic race that posed a threat even to the Vorlons. Their purpose was later defined as simply as "wiping out all life that is not their own" - they believed they were the only race in the multiverse that had the right to exist. They took control of many Vorlons with their telepathy and in the ensuing battle, the Vorlons, at what is implied to be significant cost, forced the aliens back into their own dimension, and sealed the portal. A group of Vorlons (controlled by the thirdspace entities) captured the artifact and jettisoned it into hyperspace, hoping to recover it later, but they were never able to do so. Presumably they were either exterminated or rehabilitated into Vorlon society.
Given the potential danger, it was possible that the Vorlons fought alongside Lorien's race, the Shadows and the other First Ones against the alien forces as they who would have as much of a vested interest as anyone else in seeing the aliens beaten back (though it would be consistent with Vorlon arrogance to not mention anyone else's involvement.)
10,000 years ago
Millions of years later, many younger races had began to evolve on thousands of worlds and the First Ones realized that in order for these new sentients to succeed, the ancient races would have to move on. Thus many of the First Ones moved beyond the Galactic Rim, to explore the vast emptiness between galaxies. Several of the First ones decided to stay behind and shepherd the younger races until they were fit to control their own destiny. The primary care takers were the Vorlons and surprisingly enough, the Shadows.
At first there was a balance between the two sides. Then the Vorlons began tinkering with races on a genetic level, in an effort to make the younger races evolve more like them. Among this genetic dabbling, the Vorlons manipulated the younger races to make them see the Vorlons as angelic prophets. They then used their telepathic abilities to shield their true form from the beings they manipulated.
Through this action the Vorlons were able to control the perceptions of the younger races. Finding the actions of their fellow ancients appalling, the Shadows and the Vorlons began to fight amongst themselves and those who tried to mediate, like the Walkers of Sigma 957, left the conflict embittered.
About Year 1260
Over the course of the centuries that passed, the wars between the Shadows and Vorlons persisted. Then at some unknown point in time they decided to have their students fight for them, in an effort to prove who was right. This lead to the Great War during the Earth year 1260.
In 1260, the penultimate Shadow War raged between the Shadows and the combined forces of the Vorlons and many of the younger races such as the Soul Hunters and the Minbari. The exact date of the penultimate Shadow War is unclear, but it first began roughly one thousand years before the founding of the Babylon 5 station. So violent was the last Great War a thousand years ago, the Vorlons were forced to ask the other First Ones for assistance in curbing the Shadows advance.
And so the gods of old fought along side the younger races in a no-holds barred war with the Shadows and their students. In the aftermath of the war, there was no clear winner to decide if the Shadows or Vorlons had been right. Almost all the younger races involved in the war were extinct. Only a precious few survived.
Despite these tremendous losses, the Vorlons and Shadows continued to squabble. As the Shadows went into their thousand-year seclusion, the Vorlons began to once again tinker with the DNA of young races all across the galaxy, creating telepaths to use as cannon fodder for the next war against the Shadows.
Years 2260-2261
The final Shadow War, which occurred one thousand years later in 2260, in which the Shadows battled the combined forces of Babylon 5, the Minbari Federation, the Narn Regime, the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, and the Rangers. The Vorlon Empire originally consented to aid this combined force. However, following the death of the Vorlon Ambassador Kosh Naranek at the hands of the Shadows and Captain John Sheridan's trip to Z'ha'dum, the Vorlons became convinced that the only way to stop the war was to destroy all the planets that had been touched by the Shadows. The Shadows decided to pursue the same policy following the destruction of one of their major cities. Billions of sentients died when the two forces began destroying the planets influenced by the other.
Sheridan brought the two forces into direct contact at Corianna VI, and then launched a suicidal assault on both sides at once. An armada of allied ships and the remaining First Ones managed to stop the Vorlon planet killer, but more importantly demonstrated that the younger races were in open defiance against their "protectors". Faced with either letting them go or exterminating them completely, the Vorlons and Shadows finally stepped down and left the galaxy with the remaining First Ones to join the others beyond the rim.
After the Departure
Take me with you! Don't leave me behind! Don't leave me wanting answers without even understanding the questions - Lyta Alexander
After the Vorlons left the galaxy, their homeworld was left abandoned, but they left their defense systems on their homeworld (and presumably their major colony worlds) operational. As a result, several expeditions to the planet were destroyed. The Vorlons also left a message with Lyta Alexander that the planet was not for the younger races. The Vorlon Homeworld was not to be theirs until they were ready; at least another million years.
Lyta Alexander was also left with other information as well. She was left with a command to activate the self-destruct systems on Z'ha'dum. When she did so after the Drakh looted the planet, the planet exploded. In the movie Thirdspace, she was able to give information on a new alien menace that was discovered in hyperspace, and to destroy that menace. When the Drakh used Shadow control pods to operate Centauri vessels during their war with the Alliance, Alexander was able to identify the devices as such due to information left with her.
Finally in 2262, it was revealed that the Vorlons had modified her to be a living telepathic superweapon - a doomsday machine to be used against the Shadows if the Vorlons lost the war. They made her into the most powerful human telepath in existence, with the possible exceptions of Jason Ironheart, who had already transformed into something similar to a First One; and Kevin Vacit, former Director of Psi Corps, who had carried a Vorlon fragment inside himself which, together with the unique abilities he had to begin with, resulted in him becoming even more capable than Lyta (as revealed in The Nautilus Coil).
One million years after the events of Babylon 5, the humans who had become First Ones in their own right left Earth for the last time, after as of yet unknown forces artificially caused the sun to explode, taking most of the solar system with it. The future humans then left for what was called "New Earth." J. Michael Straczynski indicated that New Earth was in fact the old Vorlon homeworld. These future humans had evolved beyond the need for physical bodies. These humans used encounter suits very similar to the Vorlon encounter suit, and also used bioengineered organic ships.
Technology: Spacecraft
Vorlon spaceships were an interesting departure from the norms of science fiction television in being organic in nature and at least partially sentient. Vorlon ships were styled to look like living things, and Vorlon transports at least have a skin that can change colour (as seen in Walkabout) and an external shape that is flexible enough to allow passengers in and out (as shown in Hunter, Prey). In the same episode, it was mentioned that Vorlon transports "sing", and can have an unnerving effect on non-Vorlons around them.
Although it is safely assumed that Vorlon technology is highly advanced and comparable to that of the Shadows, the Shadows are the older race, and some differences can be seen between them. Vorlon ships seem to use jumpgates similar to those of the younger races, rather than fading in and out of hyperspace as do the Shadows. In addition, while both Shadow and Vorlon ships are organic in nature, Vorlon ships do not use living beings as the central processing unit in the same way as large Shadow ships do, though this different operational system is not necessarily inferior - even if the Vorlons could duplicate the Shadows' control system, they are not necesserily immoral enough to use the young races in this manner.
The Vorlons were the creators of inter-dimensional gateways into Thirdspace and there is some speculation among fans that it was they who built the first jumpgate network.
Transports
Within the Babylon 5 series, Vorlon transports are the most frequently seen Vorlon ships, with Kosh and Ulkesh both having their own transports. According to the Babylon 5 video game, Into the Fire, Vorlon transports are 131 metres long and heavily armed. There is a strong bond between a Vorlon and its transport, with the ship even communicating to its pilot by displaying text in an unknown script, presumably the Vorlon written language, on its skin (this is seen in Hunter, Prey) which suggests that communication between it and its owner is not necessarily always telepathic. When its pilot is in danger, the transport becomes extremely agitated and will try to help its Vorlon escape, as seen in the Season 4 episode Falling Toward Apotheosis.
Should its pilot die, as happened with Kosh in Interludes and Examinations, Vorlon transports are said to grieve and in that instance at least the ship cremated itself and the remains of Kosh in a nearby star. Babylon 5 creator J. Michael Straczynski put it thus: It was made for Kosh, as Delenn points out, was almost a part of him; it wouldn't function as well, if at all, for anyone else. There was nothing else to be done.
One Man Fighters
Little is known about Vorlon fighters. According to the Babylon 5 video game they are about 25.5 metres long. Externally, they lack exhaust ports of any kind, suggesting that they use some type of gravimetric drive similar to that used by the Minbari. In groups they perform very effectively, being able to destroy a Shadow vessel (Interludes and Examinations).
Unlike other small fighters in the Babylon 5 universe, Vorlon fighters appear to have independent jump capability, as seen in the episode Into the Fire, where large numbers come out of hyperspace without the apparent need for a capital ship's support. According to J. Michael Straczynski, Vorlon fighters have a much weaker bond between themselves and their pilots (thought it is unknown whether they have anyone on board them, they are very fragile (being destroyed by an Earthforce fighter in one volley in 'Into the Fire' Babtech on vorlon ships, including a clip of this destruction), and it seems unlikely a Vorlon would risk its life aboard a fragile ship in combat, it is therefore possible that they are autonomous, or controlled remotely by the vorlon crews of their capital ships) than Vorlon transports.
Capital Ships
These large ships, called Star Dreadnaughts are said to be over 1300 metres long and tactically at least equal to the fearsome Shadow vessels. They likely carry a large number of Vorlon fighters, and, according to J. Michael Straczynski, carry a full crew of Vorlons.
Planet Killers
The biggest ships in the Vorlon fleet appear to be the Vorlon Planet Killers, huge starships capable of destroying entire worlds. How big these ships are, and whether they actually disintegrate planets or merely wipe out all life on them, is much debated among hardcore Babylon 5 technology fans.
Technology: Bioengineering
As is typical with this cryptic race, very little is known about their level of biotechnology. It is implied throughout the series that they have interfered with the evolution of many races, including humans, Minbari, Narns, and Drazi, in various ways. In particular, each of these races "see" Vorlons outside their encounter suits as a some religious or mythological character particular to their culture. The Centauri apparently see nothing when looking at Vorlons directly, which may imply that they have not been influenced or altered by the Vorlons (see Appearance, above) this may however, be only Londo Mollari himself, who was likely known by the Vorlon in question to be in league with the Shadows, and not other Centauri.
The Vorlons also have the ability to alter alien species to better serve their purposes. Lyta Alexander was given "gills" on her neck that allowed her to breathe the atmosphere within the Vorlon ambassador's chamber (though how difficult such modifications are is debatable, given that even the Narn can create analogous structures, as seen in the pilot episode, Babylon 5: The Gathering). Vorlons also use other beings as receptacles for a fragment of their personality, allowing them to travel widely without being noticed.
Telepaths
A major theme of the fifth season is the revelation that the Vorlons engineered the creation of telepaths among various alien species, with the goal of using them as weapons in any subsequent wars with the Shadows. Given that the Centauri were likely not significantly modified by the Vorlons yet have many telepaths (e.g., Lady Morella in Point of No Return and the commercial Centauri telepath used in And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place), some races seem to have evolved telepathy naturally, or at least without assistance from the Vorlons. Alternately, they may have been engineered by the Vorlons as were most other races, or they may have acquired their telepaths using their own genetic engineering, as the Narns intended to (their own families of Vorlon-created telepaths having been exterminated in a purge by the Shadows when they occupied Narn in the penultimate Shadow War.
