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In the Babylon 5 setting, it is shown that the Shadows can and do have people changed with bio-tech.

Mr Morden seemed to heal very quickly after getting burned on Z'ha'dum. Is this because of what the Shadows did and, if so, what else did they do to him?

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  • Isn't it "Mister Morden" not "Doctor Morden" ? And considering that Sheridan got to come back from being dead (!), Mr. Morden's recovery does seem a relatively minor accomplishment. And kudos to Ed Wasser for playing him so well, while I think of it.
    – StephenG - Help Ukraine
    Jan 30, 2018 at 3:38
  • He is a doctor (PhD in archaeology) though this is only mentioned in one of the novels, "The Shadow Within".
    – suchiuomizu
    Jan 30, 2018 at 3:51

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Shadow biotech is pretty strong stuff.

Morden does have an implant in his brain that allows the Shadows to speak directly to him. It is also suggested that this implant regulates his emotions to a degree. Full details on the implant are in this question about Morden's choices. It's possible, but unlikely given it's small size, that there are healing functions attached to it.

That said, nothing ever suggests he has ever been enhanced to a radical degree, except that cocky invincible smile.

Shadow biotech is capable of breaking down other biomass and reassembling it for whatever purposes they deem fit - this is witnessed in The Passing of the Technomages, the last book, Invoking Darkness. Healing and reconstructing biomass would be child's play at that point. Given the entirety of Morden's comment on the matter - "the flesh will serve" - it's likely the Shadows are putting him through an accelerated healing process, one that is not terribly pleasant.

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There's a number of different options here:

  1. Mr Morden is an enhanced human with major bioengineering and heals very fast.
  2. Mr Morden is just human but the Shadows use the same technology that they could have enhanced him with to patch him up really fast.
  3. Mr Morden is just human and the Shadows have dozens of him backed up in a cloning lab somewhere, they killed the one who got singed and woke up a new one. The Vorlons use cloning when they alter and enhance Lyta and they and the Shadows share an ancestral tech-base.
  4. Mr Morden is not technically human at all he's a bio-construct loosely based on human DNA to get the right look and any of the above apply.

We'll never know and as to what they could do in addition to rapid healing the answer is "a hell of a lot" and the specifics would depend heavily on their imagination and how human they wanted to keep Mr Morden.

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    In the TV series we see Mr.(Dr.) Morden in what can be kindly referred to as a state of "post nuke recovery", or, less kindly, Mr. Peeling Skin. So we can possibly discount number 3 (the clones).
    – StephenG - Help Ukraine
    Jan 31, 2018 at 1:45
  • @StephenG Yeah possibly, it's definitely a point against.
    – Ash
    Feb 2, 2018 at 13:40
  • @StephenG-OnStrike it could've been just normal stage of shadow clone production - they've just pulled him from the vat before the clone growing process was 100% finished because they were in a hurry..
    – Jan Spurny
    Jul 4 at 12:38

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