A quote from Delenn in this episode sums up the first ones: "According to legend, some went to sleep in secret places, deep beneath their ancient cities, where no one can bother them. The rest walk among the stars, on errands we never hope to understand, barely aware of our existance." The first ones contacted by Cdr. Ivanova at Sigma-957 are the same ones that made an earlier appearance in the Season 1 Episode Mind War. In that episode Cdr. Sinclair's friend, Catharine Sakai went looking for Quantium 40 at Sigma 957, had an encounter with the aliens (known as the Walkers of Sigma 957), lost power to her ships systems, and had to be rescued by Narn fighters that were dispatched by Ambassador G'Kar to rescue her.
I think Ivanova's trick worked because the First Ones are not the great mysterious beings G'Kar made them out to be. They were technologically advanced beyond anything around no them but they were no more advanced intellectually than the younger races. Ordinary folks fall for that shit all the time. Pride and ego are often the downfall of the powerful. I think JMS was working along that idea with the First Ones. The show could have gone the route of G'Kar's speech where the First Ones had evolved to a point they were inexplicable and impossible to communicate with like we'd have no chance of communicating with our ancestors of five million years ago or they with us. However, that would make the lesser races, Humans included, fodder for the ancient and timeless elder things that once ruled here and will again like Lovecraft's terrors. Impossible to communicate with and you can only stay out of the way and out of their sight.
I don't know. William R. Forstchen's "Lost Regiment" series was pretty good. Though the guy is an American Historian by trade.
The Vorlons and the Shadows are a million years more advanced than humans but they are much younger races than the First Ones, who are billions of years old. The only way to get the latter to communicate with you seems to be to demonstrate that you're acknowledged by the former, for example, by showing up in a White Star that incorporates Vorlon technology. But, yes, they don't seem anything like Lovecraft's Old Ones - probably due to the fact that our tiny little minds can't imagine such beings. In B5, they're either slightly comedic or Tolkien knockoffs. As for the other series on which JMS is working, it sounds sort of a post-apocalyptic thing, loosely similar to Jeremiah. I can't say I'm excitedly anticipating watching that.
IIRC, JMS said it was less that the goading actually worked on the Walkers, and more that the little ant-people had the audacity to try it rather than cowering and running away (or dying) as younger races typically do when they came to their territory. Actually, it's a recurring theme in Babylon 5 that stepping out of the role of child (or victim) and asserting yourself is the marker of adulthood and is how you become respected, that parents (or bullies) depend on the image of power and authority rather than actually being able to force you to bend to their will. Which, having read his autobiography, makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, we're quibbling over semantics. They were among the last of the first ones. What the cut-off date is, I have no idea other than it's whatever JMS decided sounded cool.
Why is that? I've seen good things said about the books and JMS is known to be faithful to the source material when he adapts thngs. His WWZ scripts were very good adaptations before they were trashed, for example.
Why is that? Because: JMS is writing the pliot for a new series based on novels by a guy who co-wrote several books with Newt Gingrich.
Are you in some way suggesting that the series and the Gingrich books are in some way connected? That's as silly as pretending that JMS' Superman: Earth One graphic novels were somehow connected to Babylon 5, isn't it?
Actually, unless I'm misremembering something horribly, the Shadows are explicitly called out as one of the OLDEST of the First Ones. Maybe the oldest, excluding Lorien.
Lorien is THE First One, while the others we saw in "Into the Fire" at the Coriana VI battle were other old First Ones. (Lorien mentioned a lot of the others went out ahead beyond the rim. This was why Ivanova was going out and getting them to go to that battle... so ALL First Ones can leave the galaxy afterward. Basically, they were the parents leaving for retirement after the kids have grown up.) First Ones are a group of alien races that are far more advanced than other races like Minbari, Drazi, Narn, etc. The First Ones are almost noncorporeal, or at the very least evolved to be in a state between matter and energy... like the Vorlons. Shadows and Vorlons are part of the group consisting of the First Ones.
The B5 wiki seems to substantiate this, but unfortunately doesn't source it, and I'm not recalling when this might have come up, or whether it was alleged by a reliable source.
I thought the Shadows and Vorlons were a similar age and relatively young but perhaps that's just me misremembering. Most of the earliest First Ones had gone beyond the Galaxy. Lorien seemed to just like tooling around on his own in his basement on Z'ha'dum, playing his VR video games. The Shadows perhaps moved in upstairs or evolved there later and decided to give the weirdo god-like entity some respect and leave him alone. Lorien's encounter suit for his energy form looks like a corporeal organism, while other advanced beings' suits look obviously mechanical or biomechanical. His real energy form looks a bit like a galaxy but that's just my interpretation. The First Ones of B5 seems to be more like the Ainur (Valar and Maiar) of Tolkien than the Great Old Ones of Lovecraft. The clue is in the borrowing of names such as Lórien and Khazad-dûm. Lorien in B5 seems to be similar to Tolkien's Eru Ilúvatar, which is Quenya for "The Lone One, Father of All", although Lorien is not God.
I don't remember the episode names but Lorien tells Ivanova about his species and him when she's asking about how he could be the first sentient creature in the universe. Lorien told Sheridan about the Shadows and Vorlons being the children of his species in that they were among the first races his people helped evolve into First One-ishness. Delenn told Sheridan the Shadows were the oldest of the First Ones known to the Minbari, presumably the Vorlons as well since Kosh was there as part of the conversation, when Delenn was trying to convince Sheridan to let Morden go from custody. I assume that excluded Lorien's people and Kosh meant the races Lorien's folk raised were thought of as First Ones. I assume the Vorlons could have had a different name for Lorien's people. One species I am curious about are the demons from Earth Lochley ran into in the post series films. I've thought they could be renegades from Lorien's people, immortal and godlike from the start but cast down and imprisoned on a minor rock on the outskirts of the galaxy where they couldn't cause trouble to the younger races being helped by Lorien's people. Accidents of evolution later, they had access to a species who could get them off the rock but only if someone severed them from the host since they'd presumably die with the host if they weren't. I assume they'd die because otherwise they could bond with someone and wait for the person to die or even walk them out an airlock once they were off the planet. They could be from some species prior to Lorien's that even he didn't know or were part of the universe itself. When talking to Ivanova Lorien talked about the universe as if it had a sentience of its own which produced his people. It's also possible the demons were part of the universal consciousness, god's id so to speak. To finish up this progressively less coherent thought, many characters, Franklin, Delenn, G'Kar, and even Lorien, express the universe/god as an entity which created the beings of the galaxy as a test bed to figure itself out through watching versions of itself (the beings of the galaxy) live out their lives. The universe may be like Vishnu.
Speaking of Z'ha'dum, I think I noted something while the series was airing. In "Learning Curve", we learn the Minbari use mora'dum in their training of Rangers, which means 'the application of terror'. That told me that Z'ha'dum likely means 'planet/place of terror', which by all rights, seems apt.