B5 as WWII in space

[JoeD80]

Telepaths were definitely short range weapons. P5s could only scan people in the same room.

To be viable against Shadow ships the Shadows would have had to have used contact weapons like claws and teeth. (That is a major plot hole.)

Not all telepaths were P5s, though.

True, the Centauri had telepaths that communicated across vast distances; the Emperor's telepaths were always connected to those back on the planet no matter where they were. And we did see Lyta stop a Shadow ship so that the White Star could destroy it.

[Aris]

Also, G'Quan and the last of the Narn telepaths put up enough of a fight to convince the Shadows to leave their planet, the Shadow in Ship of Tears runs away from Bester, and the Minbari telepaths don't even need to be in line-of-sight.
But the point is, as weapons go, it's quite a radical departure from what we've seen in up to the 20th century, no?
Aris

[Macbeth]

The telepaths are not so much a weapon as a jamming device that are good to have to either run away or allow you to use your weapns. More like radar jammers or a computer virus. I have not seen a telepath "blow up a ship" or kill everyone like a weapon would. Now that would be cool.