Vorlon Planet Killer poll

[Master of Ossus]

So, how do we know that the Shadow ships' defensive systems are also shut down while being assaulted by teeps? We know that they freeze, and that they do not open fire, but most defensive systems are fairly well automated. Why wouldn't they be able to use their defenses, anyway? Also note that Narn dreadnaughts did manage to damage a shadow ship on their own in less than one second of firing.

[Master of Ossus]

Alright, thank you. In that case - no, they're probably not orders of magnitude above the Minbari. I imagine that a dozen Sharlin ships or so might match a Shadow BC's firepower, but that's just my estimate.

Personally, I think the PK's appearance on Centauri Prime was just PIS that happened because the story could use the drama (and that was an impressive scene). There's no other way I can think of that'd explain it.

FX gaffes are not acceptable theories under suspension of disbelief. The two possibilities I can think of are that the VPK had extremely limited range, or that it was moving for a cleaner shot on a particular area of the planet that it wanted to fire on.

Incidentally, do you think that the Vorlons are orders of magnitude more powerful than the Shadows?

[Master of Ossus]

Evidence? Remember that the Shadows wiped out deliberately all Narn telepaths long ago to prevent them from being used in a future war against them. This indicates that their new ships really are pretty similar to the ones they used 1000 years ago.

I believe he was referring to an earlier time than that, a time when the Shadows still interacted, and at times fought, the other First Ones.

Where did you get that from? The Narn preserve detailed records of Shadow ships in their holy book. The Narn homeworld was occupied by the Shadows only fairly recently, and only then did they wipe out all of the Narn telepaths. That was not a time when they fought other First Ones, with the possible exceptions of the Vorlons.

[Guest]

FX gaffes are not acceptable theories under suspension of disbelief. The two possibilities I can think of are that the VPK had extremely limited range, or that it was moving for a cleaner shot on a particular area of the planet that it wanted to fire on.

Incidentally, do you think that the Vorlons are orders of magnitude more powerful than the Shadows?

The individual Vorlon ships are more powerful, but all in all, the two races are about equal. However, since the Vorlons pilot their own ships and the Shadows don't, the former tend to go more for quality whereas the latter emphasize quantity.

[Guest]

Where did you get that from? The Narn preserve detailed records of Shadow ships in their holy book. The Narn homeworld was occupied by the Shadows only fairly recently, and only then did they wipe out all of the Narn telepaths. That was not a time when they fought other First Ones, with the possible exceptions of the Vorlons.

The text you quoted had nothing to do with the Narn homeworld. I was talking about Nephilim's (I think, too lazy to go back and check whose it was) comment about Shadows having had stronger ships when they piloted them themselves - and that was way before the time they were ever on Narn.

[Nephilim]

So, how do we know that the Shadow ships' defensive systems are also shut down while being assaulted by teeps? We know that they freeze, and that they do not open fire, but most defensive systems are fairly well automated. Why wouldn't they be able to use their defenses, anyway? Also note that Narn dreadnaughts did manage to damage a shadow ship on their own in less than one second of firing.

Its stated in B5Wars, if you don't want to accept this source as official, then its your own perogative. But it nevertheless holds official status. JMS has given the game his recomendation and i have given you many examples.

What's stated in B5Wars, is that the Energy Diffusers of the ships cannot bleed off energy into space. On top of this, the ship's speed is reduced, the ship cannot fire weapons, and cannot launch fighters. The CPU's of the Shadow ships are the main computer of the ship (Hence the name CPU's, which stands for Central Processing Unit). When a telepath locks on, it disrupts the CPU's ability to control the ship. Its similar to what happens when a ISD is hit by a Ion Cannon, its electrical systems are shorted out and are temporarily disabled, but the only difference is that Shadow ships use living beings, and therefore telepaths can... fuck with their minds.

Where did you get that from? The Narn preserve detailed records of Shadow ships in their holy book. The Narn homeworld was occupied by the Shadows only fairly recently, and only then did they wipe out all of the Narn telepaths. That was not a time when they fought other First Ones, with the possible exceptions of the Vorlons.

Again, these ships during the last Shadow War were piloted by younger races, and therefore vulnerable to telepathic interference. Why do you think the Vorlons created Telepaths on a hundred worlds? To fight the Shadows, they tweaked the genetic code of hundreds of races to be used as canon fodder for the Great Wars.

When the Shadows piloted their own ships (circa the Kirishiac War, which IIRC was a million years ago, but i don't have the book on hand to double check, it could've been 10,000 years ago as that was when the First Ones last moved openly among the stars), they had none of these weaknesses. Shadows are P15+ telepaths, and even the strongest telepath that the EA has (a P12) wouldn't be able to jam the ship, the telepath would come out of the encounter mind raped by the Shadow piloting the ship.

The Kirishiac are the youngest of all the First Ones, and extremely warlike at that. They controled most of the galaxy at the height of their power, and when they ran out of space to expand, invaded Walker space, and then Shadow space. This was when the Triad were able to convince all of the other First Ones to drive the Kirishiac back. ALL First Ones, including the Vorlons, and Shadows (both of whom fought on the same size) were involved in this war. The Kirishiac were driven back, and the Walkers wanted to teach them a lesson so they'd never want to invade their space again... You know what they did? They deployed a small fleet of ships and drove one of the Kirishiac's planets into hyperspace, and when the inhabitants began to freeze in hyperspace, they put it back in a better orbit. The Kirishiac surrendered the next day. This is the era when the Shadows last piloted their ships, when the Wars against the Younger races come about, they simplied their ships so they could put any other sentient race into them, therefore increasing the number of ships they could field massively...