Vorlon Prime

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Vorlon Prime
vorlon_prime.jpg
Flag of Vorlon Prime
Motto: Who are you?
None.
Region Babylon 5
Capital Unknown
Official Language(s) Vorlon, English, Adrenato, Many others
Leader Emperor/High Command
Population 50,000 Vorlons, over 5 billion others.
Currency Unknown 
Stats: NSEconomy Pipian XML

Introduction

The Empire of Vorlon Prime is a massive, safe nation, renowned for its complete lack of prisons. It is a future-tech largely non-human nation which embraces the concept of telepathy.

Population

The population of Vorlon Prime is as follows:

  1. Around 50,000 Vorlons
  2. Around 300,000,000 Minbari
  3. Around 100,000 Humans
  4. Unknown numbers of other races, including Archos, Ru Ha'rus and Centauri¹
  5. Over 3 billion partially self aware organic constructs, including starships, engineering systems, habitats and military ground units.


¹ The majority of races from Babylon 5 are represented to some degree, as are some of their evolutionary precursors.

Cultural Data

The Vorlons consider themselves dedicated to order, and believe in formality and ritual in their daily lives. Specific times are refered to by formalised ritual names, such as The Hour of Scampering and The Hour of Longing. It is also the belief of the Vorlons that concensus should be reached in any matter before action is taken, which results in a highly effective means of establishing compromises existing within the Vorlon society, which nevertheless takes considerable time to reach decisions.

Biology

When in the company of aliens, Vorlons wear complex and intimidating environment encounter suits that completely conceal their physical form. Vorlons maintained this was because their ambassadors needed a specific environment. However, it eventually became clear that they could function in other environments - such as oxygen/nitrogen - just as well as their native environments. (N.B. This has never been seen outside the Empire)

In their natural state, Vorlons are a semi-crystalline physical entity which radiates light, and is capable of unaided flight or levitation. They are known to be telepathic, and have been known to impersonate divine messengers. This is made easier if the subject is of a race which has been genetically modified by the Vorlons in the past.

Vorlons are able to disconnect pieces of their conciousnesses containing personalitiy and duplicate memories and either implant them temporarily in other beings, including alien telepaths, or create offspring by combining such pieces. The current Vorlon Emperor, in a matter of comprimise on who precisely should have the title and so weild autocratic power, is technically the offspring of all living Vorlons, and has a gesalt personalitiy - Hence, all members of the species are fairly represented in an autocracy, as the Emperor contains the opinions and memories of all other Vorlons. Other Vorlons will typically carry with them pieces of the personalities of several others at any one time, which leads to an apparently unmatched concept of racial unity, as from a literal perspective, all Vorlons are one-another.

It is unclear precisely how the Vorlons reached their current physical state, as they deliberately obscure details about their early history.

Beliefs

The Vorlons believe it is their duty to 'teach' the so-called younger races their philosophy, in order to benefit them. They are one of two races from their era to remain doing so, the other being the Shadows of Z'Ha'Dum. As a race, the primary theme of Vorlon Theological teaching is that in order to seek understanding of the universe, and properly determine one's goals in life, one must understand one's own self first. This constrasts with the theology of the Shadows who believe that the younger races will advance only through evolution and conflict, and endeavour to sow the seeds of such chaos in order to benefit their victims.

Internal Politics

As with most of this document, this information is not generally pubically available in-character;

The Vorlons self divide into groups, known (translated to the closest English equivalent) as Tendancies, according to their personal beliefs, akin to political parties, philosophical outlooks, or even religions. They can be considered akin to Jungian Archetypes within the Vorlon Collective Unconciousness (Something very real in Vorlons, due to the prevalance of telepathic technologies) consequently, though individuals may identify as being dominated by one such Tendancy, it would be unthinkable to most Vorlons to deny that they are to a greater or lesser degree, part of the other Tendancies.

Factions:

  1. Militaristic Factions ("Kesh" "Uler")

"Respect? From Whom?"

The Militaristic Factions of the Vorlons are the currently dominant forces in internal Vorlon Politics. Their main beleifs are that it is the duty of the Vorlons to exterminate forces they define as evil, such as the Shadows. The major flaw of this faction's belief system is that they can easily be accused of bearing no feeling of responsibility towards 'younger races' and seem to regard all non-Vorlon individuals as unimportant.

This is not entirely true, however, members of these factions typically solely concern themselves with societies as a whole, and show no regard for thier individual members.

  1. Liberal Factions ("Kosh" "Vorl")

"What is need compared to the Path?"

While still retaining the same core values as the Militaristic Factions, the Liberal Factions represent a less hardline approach to the place of the Vorlons in the universe. The Liberal Faction, while agreeing in principle with the destruction of dangerous ideologies such as the chaotic ideology of the Shadows, believe that the primary role of the Vorlons is as teachers and shepherds. They consider the Militarists to have fallen prey to excessive ruthlessness in their application of Vorlon Ideals. The oldest formalised Tendancy ("Vorl") one of the smallest and paradoxically most respected, considers it the responsibilities of the Vorlons to establish order as an example to others.

  1. Other Factions ("Fiac" "Morh" "Olos" "Kail")

The other main Tendancies represent a number of other viewpoints, and can be associated with castes (although movement between castes is unrestricted, and most Vorlons occasionally shift their interests) preforming roles such as engineering, data analysis (the Morh faction, whose function this is, was previously considered scientists, but the Vorlons considered themselves to have discovered everything worth knowing until recently. It is developing a more scientific outlook again) and interaction with other 'Older' races, a group currently undergoing something of a resurgance.

The "Kail" faction is responsible for much Vorlon influence on what they define as 'Younger' races, but is neither Militarist or Liberal.

Foreign Relations

Vorlon opinons on foreign nations are at best patronising, and at worst extremely hostile.

  1. Z'Ha'Dum: The traditional enemies of the Vorlons are generally looked upon with a mixture of hate, resentment, grudging respect and despair.
  2. The Resurgent Dream: Looked upon as the most promising nation encountered in recent years, the Vorlons view the diversity of this nation as a positive sign. The matter of assigning a permanant ambassador to this nation has been debated, but the influence of the Isolationist Faction has stalled a decision.
  3. Formerly United Indiastan: Regarded as a recent failure of the Vorlons, operation in United Indiastan did however succeed in harming the war efforts of the Shadows.
  4. Weyr: The Vorlons consider this nation doomed.
  5. The Island of Rose: An explorer vessel from this nation recently violated Vorlon Prime's territory, and was eliminated by a vessel of the Isolationist Faction. No further concensus has been formed.
  6. Calpe: Seen very positively, as this nation largely Minbari, traditional allies of the Vorlons, and a secret military agreement between the two nations exists.

Timeline

Early History 
In their early history, the Vorlons were a semi-humanoid race of methane breathers. They were found as an 'infant race' by The First Ones, and guided in their development.
Spacefaring Age 
The early space-faring age of the Vorlons was unremarkable, barring their first contact with the race that would later become the shadows. Most of the other races that existed in the same time (and fractal reality space) have since either died off entirely, or have since ascended in the same manner as the Vorlons and gone beyond the rim of the galaxy.
"Apotheosis" 
Between nine hundred thousand and a million years ago, the Vorlons, by means of assorted mechanisms, changed their physical forms into the inorganic substrate they exist as now. Many living Vorlons have lived continously since that time, including Alkesh and Ulkesh.
Early Shadow Wars 
At first, after the other First Ones left, there was a balance between the Vorlons and the Shadows, and both sides respected rules of engagement. However, with isolation and time, one side decided that their way was the right way. The Vorlons of course, claim that this was the Shadows, and the Shadows, of course, claim it was the Vorlons.
Last Great War
For thousands upon thousands of years the Shadows and the Vorlons, aided by several other races of similar age, fought one another, the Shadows striking, and both sides stirring up other races such as the Drakh, and the Minbari, to fight for them rather than striking at one another directly. However, unlike the previous wars, the last time, the Vorlons lost
Recent History
Loss in the last great war was a major shock to the Vorlon collective psycology. It created the Isolationist Faction, and resulted in a long movement, still ongoing, strengthening the Liberal Faction as well as seeking to return to tradtional values and principles.

Notes

The Vorlon concept and backstory is stolen shamelessly from Babylon 5 and its use on NS constitues in no way a legal claim to any part of the above.