A Little Shadow Ship History

During the last Shadow uprising one-thousand years ago (circa 1260 AD), several Battlecruisers were placed in storage on far-flung worlds; insuring that not all their vessels would be destroyed in the coming conflict with the First Ones.  In 2253, a Shadow Battlecruiser was discovered 300 feet below the Martian surface on Syria Planum.

After months of false leads on the artifacts buried beneath the sands of Mars, the sonic probes of an IPX, Interplanetary Expeditions Team, struck what they thought was paydirt. After repeated messages to Earth Central on the find and getting no replies, they were suddenly ordered to pack up and move to their secondary base two miles away. Psi Corps personnel moved in to ready the site for the Shadows to reclaim their vessel. Another Battlecruiser arrived carrying a new Core. The birthing scream is both psychic and vocal, and can be heard from over two miles away. The scientists were separated, and those that were not neutralized were transferred to far-away worlds.

Another Battlecruiser was found in the Sol system in 2260. This time it was buried in the ice on Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter. The Psi Corps and IPX did not want to give this vessel up. Deciding to take it for their own uses, so that they could be more like the Shadows, they installed their own unprepared Core. The resultant insane ship destroyed the Ganymede research station and was itself killed by the White Star. You can learn more about this period of time by activating the jumpgate and jumping to XENOBIOLOGICA


Technical Information
These powerful vessels can measure at their longest point anywhere between 800 meters to 3 kilometers. It has been documented that the Shadow beam weapon can literally slice a planetoid into shards. To date, the only thing that has ever been able to stand up to Shadow  weapons fire has been a Vorlon Dreadnought.

Shadow ships can also fire some type of pulse weapon that can collapse a vessels jump point into Hyperspace. Once locked onto a target, a Shadowvessel will follow that target until it has destroyed it.

Shadows vesselsdo not form a Jump Point into Hyperspace;  instead,  they"slide"  into Hyperspace.  Shadow's also use this technology to cloak their vessels. This cloak putsthem somewhere between "real space" & "first level Hyperspace".Once cloaked, nothing can harm the Shadow vessel in or out of Hyperspace.  Until the ship fully enters either one of the two dimensions,it will beinvulnerable.  This cloak,however, doesn'tseem to function inatmosphere. Current documentationindicates that these vesselsalso carry
some 20 to 30 fighters.

Although Shadow Cruisers have excellent stealth capabilities, their propulsion system disrupts the local hypserspace around their position and leaves a trailof unique neutrino emissions that can be detected by modern sensor systems. Although their technologycan block such emissions, the Shadows care littleabout being detected.  Any inquisitive ships are swiftly & leathally dealt with.

Activate the jumpgate to XENOBIOLOGICA

Shadow vessels are a completely biological organism, and their central control mechanism is a biological entity.   The Shadow warship's only  "apparent"weaknessis the fact that it's central processor is a biological entity. Atelepath can usehis/her gift to interfere with a Shadow vessel's operating system.  This weakness was the key to defeating the Shadows in the last great war.  Knowing this, the Shadows  began using human telepaths in their operating system.  The human telepaths were modified with bionic implants &  used as weapon componentsin Shadow vessels.  It is unknown how many telepathswereor have been addedinto Shadow ships at this time.


The Takki appears to be the standard issued Shadow warship; however, several  modifications have been made to it as a result of the association with Lorien.

Visit Takki

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BABYLON 5, THE SHADOWS, AND ALL OTHER REFERENCES TO THE SHOW ARE COPYRIGHT OF WARNER BROS. TELEVISION.  A WARNER COMMUNICATIONS CO.  THIS PAGE IS NOT ASSOCIATED IN ANY WAY WITH WARNER BROS.  ALL INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE WAS GATHERED FROM THE LURKER'S GUIDE TO BABYLON 5 & Voltayre's ENCYCLOPEDIA XENOBIOLOGICA.

Page Last updated on February 22, 2003