Ah I have a big contradiction

[Phil Harmonic]

When Sheridan goes to Z'ha'dum, Morden tells him the Vorlon have been Manipulating other species for a very long time, "Why do you think certifiable telepaths only appeared 100 years ago".

I'm assuming the Vorlon's genetically altered humanoids in the galaxy in oder to better fight the shadows upon their return.

But I'm wondering....

The Narn had telepaths over 1000 years ago!!!!!

Yet telepaths only started appearing in the other species only a hundred year before this episode.

Do the Vorlon know what happen on the backwater Narn homeworld way back then and strived to give the other races the same ability?

If they knew why did it take 900 year for telepaths to start appearing?

Why not manipulate just the Narn again, they had the gene naturally, did the Vorlon know when the war would really heat up and what dire straits the Narn would be in at that time?

Are the Narns the only TRUE telepaths?

[Garibaldi's Hair]

I don't think it is a contradiction.

We hear from several characters of various races through the course of the series that the humans are seen as a (if not the) key race in the future shape of the galaxy. If the Vorlons share that view (which they appear to, from as early in the story as In The Beginning) it makes sense for them to concentrate some significant effort on producing human telepaths.

Moreover, it is clear from early on that the Vorlons don't consider the Narn or Centauri to be important. Can't remember which episode it was in, but this exchange was pretty early in the story arc ...

Kosh: They are a dying race, we should let them pass
Sinclair: Who, the Narn, or the Centauri?
Kosh: Yes

On that basis, I think the Vorlons are concerned with making sure they had the right telepaths for the future shaping of the younger races, rather than just any old telepaths.

That's what I think anyway,

[Jan]

I'm pretty sure that Morden's "Why do you think certifiable telepaths only appeared 100 years ago?" only referred to humans. The other races almost certainly had them longer ago, as they seem to have become integrated into their societies better than the humans have managed so far.

As for why...well, a lot was happening on Earth right then. Just after the verifiable teeps were discovered, the Centauri introduced themselves, too. Could be that the Vorlons just came to the realization that those unruly Earthers might just end up important? Or perhaps the Vorlons only took serious note once a race got to a certain point in being spacefaring?

Jan

[Harrdy]

Narns where surely modified by the Vorlons, as they see Kosh as a "higher being". So the Vorlons visited Narn and did their work, then the Shadows came and killed nearly all Telephaths. As you might remember the Vorlons didn't like people who where visited by the Shadows, they even destroyed some Planets because they where "tainted" by the Shadows. So why would they go back to Narn? They would just kick back and watch the Narns as they struggle, maybe using them as they see fit, but from their point of view Narn is dead.

PeAcE

[Capt.Montoya]

My take on this:
Morden's "100 year" comment was only about humans.
When we see Lyta's flashback to her stay and enhancement in the Vorlon planet (Secrets of the Soul) there are tubes with babies from other races (Centauri among them), so we can conclude that for most races telepathy arose from Vorlon manipulation.

Vorlons would likely modify as many races as possible, to have more soldiers. They modified the Narn long ago, when they weren't even spacefaring, but the Shadows were around Narn space even then. That the modification payed off is obvious, the Narn drove away the Shadows, they lost their telepaths in the process, but by then (if not from the very beginning) the Vorlons knew that the Narn would not progress to "first-oneness" and decided not to reintroduce telepathy.

The Vorlons noticed humans, but Shadows weren't an important presence in this part of the Galaxy yet, so telepathy was not activated early.
(The Shadow ships on Mars were an isolated case, not really a big Shadow presence yet.)
However once humans reached the tipping point for becoming a spacefaring race the Vorlons finally finished the modifications for telepathy becoming active. Now, IIRC in the Telepath Novel Trilogy it is stated that Vorlons had started their genetic manipulation of humans long ago, "hundred years ago" only marked when those manipulayions resulted in active telepaths that bred true.
Another possible tipping point for making telepathy active was realizing that Centauri explorations were bringing them closer to Earth, which would end up incorporating humanity into the Galaxy.

Vorlons were telepathic themselves, so if we must assume only one original telepathic race it would be them, however I seem to remember that Lorien had some telepathic abilities too.

[SLerman]

The nasty critters from Thirdspace were also telepathic, and the way Lyta described them ("Telepathic, all of them") would seem to indicate that they were even stronger telepaths than the Vorlons. It may also be taken literally, that they were all telepathic, whereas not every Vorlon was.

I also seem to remember comments from JMS that said telepaths occurred naturally in some races, though I don't recall exactly which ones.

[Stunning_in_Purple]

I'm willing to bet the Centauri were naturally telepathic considering they dream about their own deaths and that Londo didn't see anything when Kosh appeared. They may have been further modified later on by the Vorlons, but it would make since to me.

[Boo Gee]

I'm not sure if it would be considered cannon, but the mongoose book "Darkness & Light" covers everything regarding the creation of telepaths by the Vorlons. Even if it isn't canon, it's a cool read.

[Leto II]

Read J. Gregory Keyes's Dark Genesis: The Birth of the Psi-Corps...the entire canonical Terran telepath history is laid out there, in exquisite detail. In a nutshell, Human teeps didn't start showing up until the early 22nd Century, and were officially "discovered" not long after the founding of the Earth Alliance.

[Phil Harmonic]

Also the Vorlons seem HIGHLY telepathic, why do they need ANY help dealing with the shadows?

[Jan]

Because neither the Vorlons nor the Shadows want to confront each other openly. For centuries they've been manipulating the younger races and getting them to do the fighting for them. That was why Sheridan manipuleted *them* into the confrontation with each other at Coriana 6.

Jan

[Raapys]

I always saw telepathy as the next step in evolution for a race. Like when Psi Corp managed to produce the right drug combination to elevate one of their telepaths into an energy being, in season 1, you can see telepathy eventually leads to becoming 'all-knowing', sort of God-like( Like the Vorlons, Lorien, and the Shadows).

It goes like: Intelligent->Telepathic->Telekinetic->Being of energy. So eventually, the entire population of any race would evolve into that, assuming they lived long enough. What the Vorlons did was to speed up the natural evolution of the younger races.

Assuming that's correct, then all first ones had both telepathic and telekinetic ability. You can see proof that the Shadows have abilities to travel space without ships and enter other people's minds too, when Lyta & CO goes to Zha'ha'Dum looking for Sheridan. Then again, the Shadows also seem entirely different from all other races with their ability to phase in and out of reality and hyperspace.

[Phil Harmonic]

Perhaps cause their ships are only piloted by one being? And the piloted are quite mad anyway. Perhaps they can phase in and out only because they are plugged into those ships?

BTW - The Battlecrab is still the coolest looking ship in Sci Fi history to me.

[Capt.Montoya]

I always saw telepathy as the next step in evolution for a race. Like when Psi Corp managed to produce the right drug combination to elevate one of their telepaths into an energy being, in season 1, you can see telepathy eventually leads to becoming 'all-knowing', sort of God-like( Like the Vorlons, Lorien, and the Shadows).

The First Ones were not all-knowing. Knowing a lot is not the same as "all knowing".
Really, you can explain their powers as advanced technology combined with lots of brainpower and lots of knowlegde.
But if you must believe they are god-like (or your conception of godhood is that limited)... well, mileage does vary.

It goes like: Intelligent->Telepathic->Telekinetic->Being of energy. So eventually, the entire population of any race would evolve into that, assuming they lived long enough.

Not any race, we know they Centauri and the Vorlon are "a dying race" and won't reach first-oneness. We can assume it goes like you say, however there might be an intermediate stage, and I think that it can be telepathic or telekinetic, or even neither. To assume that a race has to be telepathic to reach first-oneness would imply that all Humanity and Minbarity would become telepathic, I didn't see anything in the series to indicate that.

What the Vorlons did was to speed up the natural evolution of the younger races.

The transition to first-oneness seems to have been a collective one, that could be achieved independently of the meddling of Vorlons (or Shadows), as seen in River of Souls.

Assuming that's correct, then all first ones had both telepathic and telekinetic ability. You can see proof that the Shadows have abilities to travel space without ships and enter other people's minds too, when Lyta & CO goes to Zha'ha'Dum looking for Sheridan. Then again, the Shadows also seem entirely different from all other races with their ability to phase in and out of reality and hyperspace.

The Shadows ability to phase in-out of hyperspace without jumpgates to me only means a different technology, one likely related to their ability for invisibility.
I believe that what was going at Lyta's mind was the Eye at Z'ha'dum, probably and anti-telepath technology more than a telepathic Shadow.

Perhaps cause their ships are only piloted by one being? And the piloted are quite mad anyway. Perhaps they can phase in and out only because they are plugged into those ships?

I think the pilots only go mad when not plugged in to the Shadow Tech device they were supposed to control. They are modified into a CPU, you don't want a mad CPU (especialy when you already have a maddening OS like Windows ), but a CPU would act erractically if not connected to the right input/output units.

[Raapys]

The First Ones were not all-knowing. Knowing a lot is not the same as "all knowing".
Really, you can explain their powers as advanced technology combined with lots of brainpower and lots of knowlegde.
But if you must believe they are god-like (or your conception of godhood is that limited)... well, mileage does vary.

What I meant about 'all-knowing' was more about them seeing the world as it really is, instead of just the illusion of senses. Not all-knowing as in knowing everything happening everywhere, at any time. As you say, mileages does vary. God-like, to me, is 'very powerful', not like the christian all-powerful God.

Not any race, we know they Centauri and the Vorlon are "a dying race" and won't reach first-oneness.

Yah, that's why I added the 'if they live long enough' part. Both Narns & Centauri has telepaths, though, so that shows they at least were evolving in the same direction.

We can assume it goes like you say, however there might be an intermediate stage, and I think that it can be telepathic or telekinetic, or even neither. To assume that a race has to be telepathic to reach first-oneness would imply that all Humanity and Minbarity would become telepathic, I didn't see anything in the series to indicate that.

Yes, it would. There's the problem that we don't really get to see anything of the Human or Minbari race after they've reached that stage of evolution. Except in Deconstruction, but that just shows the human morphing into energy form. I think it's logical to assume, though, that based on the information we have, telepathy and telekinesis are a prerequisite to evolving further. And as time went by, the telepathic gene would only get stronger, and telepaths more common, until finally the 'normals' would be extinct.

The transition to first-oneness seems to have been a collective one, that could be achieved independently of the meddling of Vorlons (or Shadows), as seen in River of Souls.

Agreed, but I was thinking that the Vorlons hastened the evolution of humans, amongst others, so they could make better use of the younger races against the Shadows the next war, since the rest of the First Ones had left. Most of them, anyway.

The Shadows ability to phase in-out of hyperspace without jumpgates to me only means a different technology, one likely related to their ability for invisibility.

Yes, but they seem to be unique in their ability to do so. All the other First Ones are shown entering and exiting hyperspace in a similar form to the Vorlons. Which speaks volumes about how different the Shadows are from the other races.

I believe that what was going at Lyta's mind was the Eye at Z'ha'dum, probably and anti-telepath technology more than a telepathic Shadow.

As I see it, that was the Shadows in their energy form, while the rest of the time we see them in corporal form. You see more of them in the Sigma system when Ivanova is using Draal's Great Machine to search for First Ones, in S3E05. Fourteen eyes aligned just as they are in the Shadow corporal form. And also 'it knows my name', as she says, indicating telepathy, and more, as "the eyes" manage to persuade the entire Whitestar crew to descend to Zha'ha'Dum, in season 4.