Telepaths on Babylon 5

No one knew where or how did telepaths came into existence, they had just appeared out of nowhere. Although the existence of human telepaths was proved only around the 2100s, there have been existensive evidence of telepaths among the alien races (namely the Centauri and Minbari) centuries before the discovery of human telepaths.

Apparantly the alien races have accepted them and has been using them in all areas of their societies (including military intelligence) for a long time. But that is the extent of the knowledge we know about alien telepaths since information about them is very rare and hard to come by. Most of the information we gain from watching the series come from human telepaths and the organisation that they belong to (well, most of them) - the Psi Corp. But where did they come from? - you ask. Well, telepaths were created by the Vorlons (one of the first ones) exclusively to combat the Shadows in their war against them. That was their sole purpose - to be weapons in the Vorlon's arsenal of weapons. The Vorlons had hoped to recruit the younger worlds in allying against the Shadows, so they created telepaths in over a hundred different worlds belonging to the younger races. So that is how they came into being.

On Earth the telepaths were all rounded up and forced to join a new organisation created so as to control them and limit their powers. The government had seen what telepaths were capable of - having the ability to scan the thoughts of others, manipulate the minds of others etc etc. This was a worrying thought indeed and was a real threat to society. Though some of the more extreme views of a telepath's capabilities were mere wild speculation constructed out of fear and panic. Telepaths had different ability levels and each telepath had different capabilities from the very powerful to the weak. The government had developed a system of catagorising each telepath according to his or her abilities. It is the 'P' rating, it has a scale from 0 to 12 or higher - 0 meaning weak to 12 very strong. Most telepaths are rated under P12 and so usually need line of sight to scan their targets and they have a very short range normally about 500 to 600 metres. But a P12 would not need line of sight to sense a target but would still need to have that in order to really affect its target.

A rating higher than P12 is possible but extremely rare, but one such does exist in the form of a P5 telepath named Lyta Alexander.

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