Shadows, The - Arachnidlike alien species on the sci-fi series BABYLON 5/SYN/1994-98. One thousand years ago, the Shadows (one of the earliest sentient beings in the Milky Way) began a conquest of the galaxy. Their plan was thwarted through the cooperative efforts of a variety of species including the Narn, the Minbari and the Vorlons. Defeated, the Shadows, retreated their home world of Z'ha'dum until the years 2257 when they began to reemerge as a threat to the galaxy. According to Markab Ambassador Fashar "The forces of darkness (The Shadows) do not move openly. They work through others. Use others. When the darkness was defeated long ago, they scattered, hid themselves away in secret places, and waited. Now, the dark hand is reaching out and recalling them from their sleep." According to G'Kar, the Narn Ambassador to Earth "G'Quon spoke of a great war long ago against an enemy so terrible, it nearly overwhelmed the stars themselves. G'Quon said that before that enemy was thrown down, it dwelled in a system at the rim of known space. I searched for days, going from one system to another. Then, on dark deserted worlds, where there should be no life, where no living thing has walked in over a thousand years, something is moving, gathering its forces, quietly, quietly...hoping to go unnoticed. We must warn the others. After a thousand years, the darkness has come again." The Shadows were masters of hyperspace but terrified of telepaths whose minds interfered with the inner workings of their bioengineer spacecrafts. The Shadows also had the ability to "phase" making them invisible. They communicated in high-frequency chattering. Just as the Shadows were about to start another war, the conflagration was averted when the Shadows decided to travel beyond the Rim in 2261 A.D. with the Vorlons and Lorien, the oldest galaxy being (a waaHid).  When Babylon 5 pilot, Lt. Warren Keffer first encountered a Shadow spaceship, he said: "It was jet black, a shade of black so deep your eye just kind of slides off it. And it shimmered when you looked at it. A spider, big as death and twice as ugly. And when it flies past, it's like you hear a scream in your mind."