The Vorlon Empire

Described by Vir Cotto
SPOILER WARNING through the Fourth Season.

"Well, as answers go--short, to the point, utterly useless--and exactly what I've come to expect from a Vorlon."
--Captain John Sheridan

The Vorlons are a very mysterious race that had high technology for millions of years before any of the "younger" races even evolved into sentience. In fact, like the Shadows, they are part of that category called "First Ones". They are immensely powerful and take little interest in our affairs.
Or so they SAY. In reality, I sometimes wonder if they had not been highly influencing some of these races, particularly the Minbari and the Humans, back in their developing stages towards sentience. They seem, strangely, to have left my own race (the Centauri, duh) alone. But I'll get back to why I think that in a moment.
You see, the Vorlons always go around in encounter suits, like the one seen above that Ambassador Kosh Naranek is wearing, so we can't see what they look like. In fact, we're not even sure how much the encounter suit is actually NEEDED to protect them from our enviroment--and how much is just camouflage to hide their true appearance. They are extremely secretive and for the longest time we had no IDEA what they truly looked like.
Then one day, Captain Sheridan was falling to his death (just another day, for him) and Ambassador Kosh was the only one who could get there fast enough to save him. But to do so, he had to get out of his encounter suit.
Now it seems that although they disagree on exactly WHAT they saw, it seems that each person there--Lennier, G'Kar, Sheridan--saw a "being of light" that resembled one of the major figures from each of their religions. But for some reason, my boss Ambassador Londo Mollari of the Centauri Republic, who was also there, saw NOTHING. He did not even see him at ALL!
(Their TRUE form, which was finally revealed when a...piece of Kosh that had been inside Captain Sheridan came out and fought the OTHER Kosh, (DON'T ask), looks like a nebulous blob of glowing energy without any actual shape.)
Which brings me to my theory. That somehow, the oh-so-lofty Vorlons that SAY they have no interest in us younger races must have done something to them when they were developing, to implant images of themselves in their heads as examples of what the most pure, wonderful, ultimate GOOD is. A sort of racial memory, you see.
What a lie.
Why do I keep coming down so hard on the Vorlons? Well, you see, towards the end of the Shadow wars, the Vorlons decided to start going after the Shadows DIRECTLY instead of just expecting the Minbari and Humans, for example, to do it for them. So far, so good, they SHOULD get off their lazy encounter-suited butts already.
But here's the problem. Since the Shadows have a way of...seeding, I guess is the best word, planets all over the place with dormant Shadow technology that can be woken up afterwards, so that they will not be completely wiped out, the Vorlons suddenly decided that they needed to DESTROY any planet which had ever been TOUCHED by the Shadows. And here's the kicker--they DID NOT make sure that any innocent PEOPLE on the planet had time to leave first. No, they just showed up out of nowhere and blew them to, I believe the Human expression is, "Kingdom Come".
Now, this is of course a very very nasty thing to do, they killed BILLIONS of people in just a few weeks. But I have a PERSONAL gripe against the Vorlons, for, you see, due to Emperor Cartagia's STUPID decision to base some Shadow ships on the island of Celini, CENTAURI PRIME was one of the planets in great danger from the Vorlons! These so-called "angels" almost destroyed my own homeworld!
The Vorlons have a lot more in common with the Shadows than they'd like to admit. They also use organic technology, although they don't permanently meld the pilot into it, they also have an instinctive aversion to telepaths, and like the Shadows, they have a catch-phrase question. Except that instead of asking "What do you want?" the Vorlons ask "Who are you?"
It's easy to like the race that looks like beautiful glowing lights and hate the one that looks like giant creepy black insects, but the Vorlons proved themselves as moral equals to the Shadows at the end. They were never "good". They just wanted to CONTROL the younger races, same as the Shadows did, but in a different way.
It was never a battle of Good vs. Evil. It was about Order vs. Chaos. And at the end, both races had forgotten how to answer their OWN questions--"Who are YOU? What do YOU want?" Captain Sheridan demanded of their emissaries. They had nothing to say.
The Shadows wanted to influence us through wars and bribery, the Vorlons wanted us to simply STAY PUT and DO AS YOU'RE TOLD. As the Minbari attaché Lennier said once, "Understanding is not required. Only obedience."
A Vorlon sentiment if I ever heard one.
Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for lunch.


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