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The Races within Babylon 5

© David Ye

In this special two-part article I will now examine all the races that are involved in the series and how they fit into the overall story. Because there are many details and races in Babylon 5, I will break this up into two parts. Part I will contain an introduction to the older races, and part II will contain the younger races.

There are basically two groups of races that exist within Babylon 5 and these are known as the First Ones (these are the older races, all of them are millions of years old), and the younger races. There are six different races within the first ones, and four of these have already left and have "Gone beyond the Rim." I can only speculate that this means beyond the rim of the galaxy.

But the remaining two stayed behind to look after the younger races - who were just begining to achieve sentience, including the humans. One of these was called the Vorlons, and they are what you call "Lords of order." They believe on evolution through order and obedience - that is, that the younger races must do as they are told by the Vorlons.

The Vorlons are a very secretive race and very few have seen what they look like. Many of those who did were never seen again. The other is commonly known by the younger races as the Shadows, although their real name is over 10,000 letters long. They believe in evolution through conflict and chaos. They believe that those races that survive the wars that the Shadows start will be stronger and smarter than before.

So these two old ones spread their messages and beliefs to the younger races so there is a balance between the two sides. Once upon a time, they had basically left each other alone, but somewhere along the line they had decided that their way was the right way. Consequently, both the Vorlons and the Shadows manipulated the younger worlds, trying to get them to take sides; to choose between order and chaos.

Now how they implemented their plans is interesting. The Shadows would start a war between all the younger races every thousand years or so. But the Vorlons would intervene and turn some of the younger races around into believing that the real enemy was the Shadows themselves and these younger races with the help of the Vorlons would defeat the Shadows but not completely destroy them, so in another thousand years it would start

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