Why didn't the shadows do something about the telepath weakness?

[G2309]

I can't remember if this was discussed in the series. I've watched every episode and don't think it was addressed.
A shadow vessel could be paralysed by one telepath. Couldn't they find another way to pilot their ships? It seems like a huge weakness and they had a millennia between wars to change.
Considering how all of the Vorlons appeared to be telepathic I don't know how they ever faced them.

 

[Mr Light]

They wiped out all Narn telepaths a thousand years ago.

They infiltrated and neutralized the PsiCorps, taking out the majority of the Earthican telepaths.

They started using human rogue teeps as ship pilots in "Ship of Tears" to neutralize the telepathic weakness, but the good guys prevented that.

They attempted to send paid human assassins to kill the teeps working for the Army of Light but were unsuccessful due to Narn security.

They helped William Edgars create a virus that would kill all telepaths, but that wasn't ready until after the war ended.

 

[Aeon]

And keep in mind that it was never a direct one-on-one conflict between the Shadows and the Vorlons, so the latter being telepathic wasn't a huge problem per se, most likely just inconvenient.

 

[Gov Kodos]

Also, the Shadows were more about kicking over the ant hills to force along evolution's hand in developing species. They weren't trying to simply wipe out life in the galaxy, which they could easily do, but prune out the (according to their philosophy) weaker races.

 

[Guy Gardener]

And keep in mind that it was never a direct one-on-one conflict between the Shadows and the Vorlons, so the latter being telepathic wasn't a huge problem per se, most likely just inconvenient.

I've heard the theory that the so called Shadow ships, might have had shadows on them, but they weren't primary crew, and in all honesty since they should have been able to block any telepath trying to block their ships "CPUs" they must have hardly ever at all ever been on one of the so called Shadow Vessels...

however philosophically speaking, for even their allies they wouldn't help after the point to which the agreement of their alliance stretched, because strength comes from over coming obstacles not doing what they're told.

Something Justin didn't completely understand when he told Sheridan to do what he was told.

But then Servants of the Shadows must be different to students of the Shadows, if you think of Justin and Anna as Skinner and krabappel, which makes Morden Grounds keeper Willy, obeying a Shadow (Chalmers) to make Bart and Lisa better human beings... Of course Lisa goes on to be President and Bart is managing Ralph's band... yes there was a new future story that conflicts with that this year...

 

[DonIago]

I believe one of the Technomage novels specifically mentions that the Shadows start making a point of "recruiting" telepaths for their ships to counter Sheridan's use of them.

 

[Zero Kelvin]

It seemed to me that the Shadows had an inherent taboo against telepathy. Perhaps they associated it with hive-like social systems where order is imposed downward through a hierarchy. Telepathy could be used as a tool to detect and control radical elements that might act to threaten the established order. The Shadows appeared to be social Darwinists, preferring a more libertarian approach to organising societies to allow for the rapid generation and competition of memes. I agree with Guy that Justin appeared to have gone "off message".

 

[Guy Gardener]

Technomages are the bastard children of the shadows.

The novels were cohesively interlocking with canon information from the show when they were talking about the psi corps' participation with the preamble to the Shadow War... Even if a (crazy) friend of mine was swearing that Bester was an Agent of the Vorlons, Mordons opposite number, after reading these books.

But his is what any wise person can figure out from looking closely at technomage technology...

They seem to prefer radiotelepathy over organictelepathy.

As an aside.

The technomages forgetting, or their leaders at some point Orwellian goodspeaking their history to scrub the Shadows from their origins was a bad decision from JMS. It deflates the technomages as all seemingly alpowerful if they are ignorant about who they are and where they are from...Although what they want being more important than who they are would be in line with Shadow Philosophy in the most abstract sense, if not a bridge too far.

 

[Holdfast]

But then Servants of the Shadows must be different to students of the Shadows, if you think of Justin and Anna as Skinner and krabappel, which makes Morden Grounds keeper Willy, obeying a Shadow (Chalmers) to make Bart and Lisa better human beings... Of course Lisa goes on to be President and Bart is managing Ralph's band... yes there was a new future story that conflicts with that this year...

I want to study your brain...

 

[Triple-F]

It was a hell of a weakness in the (large) Shadow ships, but I guess they *had* to have one. ; ) I think it was the episode “Ship of Tears” that basically pointed out that earth telepaths (presumably to counter the threat) were going to be used to pilot the shadow destroyers – they were described as weapon components.

 

[Guy Gardener]

it would be weird if this huge weakness had generated randomly, like in Hitchhikers where they claim that an infinite universe will produce anything naturally that could be fabricated, you just had to find it... To explain the bablefish and these animals 9squash?) that look and feel just like mattresses...

But telepahty wasn't natural.

Maybe the Narn's developed naturally, maybe a thousand years earlier they were the only telepaths in the galaxy, but after they had been so tragically removed form play, the Vorlons had to mass produce telepathy everywhere else to make sure that the Shadows couldn't just cull all the Vorlons eggs in one basket again.

 

[JoeD80]

Since a Shadow Ship is organic and its core is a living being, it makes sense that telepathy would be able to interfere with it.

 

[Guy Gardener]

If the ships are living beings, then they can be made into telepaths just like the Vorlons would do with everyone else.

The Shadow Ships must be incredibly telepathic, which is why people can here them screaming through a vacuum, and through the hulls of their ships... That's a things right?

Actually if the ships are incredibly telepathic, that would explain why telepathic sabotage is possible, a fly in the ointment, so the trick would be to castrate the ships and see if they can work with out using a telepathic field as an information conduit. Like the difference between using a wireless computer set up at home compared to having cables all up the hallway to your kids room.

 

[G2309]

It just seems stange that they didn't find a counter to the weakness or remove the pilot altogether. even without telepathy one biological pilot isn't a good option. But triple F is right they needed some kind of weakness,
But then as guy said they ships are probably lving. It makes the shadows nice and different.

 

[Guy Gardener]

The ships are living, but are they living like a dog, or living like a person, or at some point inbewteen... But that means that to function faster and better in combat situations that these life forms needed a parasitically relationship with... Doesn't this remind you of those Aliens form Torchwood who were using human children as drugs? "The chemicals feel good."

Or is it a symbiotic relationship like with the pilot/Leviathans in Farscape?

Then, the humans are mentally neutered before being fed into the machine, and it's possible that the ships are equally retarded on purpose to control there dreams to only be slaves.

How smart do we think Vorlon ships are? Are they like whales or gold fish?

 

[Deranged Nasat]

How smart do we think Vorlon ships are? Are they like whales or gold fish?

I assumed they were bordering on sapience, but of a sort entirely dependent on the Vorlon pilot/crew/creator. As in, totally loyal servants who were lost without the presence of the Vorlon and existed to bask in its glory and serve it to the best of their ability. Like Lennier, turned up to 11, only "programmed" on the genetic level to be that way (assuming they have genes). The ship, we're told, is essentially an extension of the Vorlon. Given that Vorlons can split off parts of their conciousness, I wonder if a ship isn't given a small part of a Vorlon's mind, enough to make it a just-barely sapient extension? Either way, I always assumed they were "smart", only utterly incapable of being anything other than instruments of the Vorlons' will.

Kosh's ship, of course, performed its "last duty" of diving into a star when he died, and apparently had no sense of any further function or purpose. I guess that's one way to ensure your "smart" ships do as instructed - program them so they can't grasp the point of individual life after their creator's passing. Of course, the ships, being products of the Vorlons, were no doubt built/grown/programmed to require a firm guiding hand and an inflexible structure of command in order to be happy and healthy. Directly altering the younger races to make them blind instruments would violate the rules of engagement and the whole point of the struggle, but I suppose your own created creatures/tools are a different matter.

 

[Guy Gardener]

How do you explain the singing?

 

[Mr Light]

Birds sing

 

[Guy Gardener]

Birds also crap on people.

 

[Mr Light]

Of their own free will, or because of their biological programming?