The Shadow Fleet Analysis | Babylon 5 Ships
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- Опубликовано: 10 фев 2025
- In this video, we will be reviewing the weapons, ships, and strategies used in the Shadow fleet. We will be analyzing the Shadow Medium Fighter, Shadow Destroyer or Shadow Scout ship, Dreadnought, Cruiser, and Death Cloud. What kind of weapons and defenses do they have and why are they stronger than each other.
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I remember watching B5 when my daughter was little. She just happened to walk over when the shadow vessels were on screen making their mind scream sound. It gave her nightmares. Truly one of the most frightening ship designs in all of sci-fi.
Just like the Shadows themself...still love the design for both them and their ships.
B5 was pretty much Lord of the rings in space with a Noir feel (primarily Casablanca), in the shows creators own words. The Shadow/Vorlon from my understanding were representations of Ainur, and as such their ships were biological looking in nature. Minbari, representing the elves also had a organic designs.
I was rewatching the show during a really bad fever that was causing hallucinations. That was perhaps not the wisest choice when we started seeing shadow vessels on screen. That was an experience and a half as those things are scary on the best of days.
Very Lovecraft. Also, so many ships in Babylon 5 seemed aquatic.
Shadow vessels also make the terrifying sound that you never forget
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9.64K subscribers "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. When it flies past, it's like you hear a scream in your mind." - Warren Keffer describing a Shadow Vessel in great detail to fellow pilot Mitch Harvey (from "Babylon 5" Season 2, Episode 22 "The Fall of Night")
Unfortunately it's called Hubris which is just complacency ultimately. I guess if our species were empowered for millions of years we might be tempted to take the back seat. I would have been fascinated to see a Shadow piloting one of their cruisers. Obviously for plot purposes that was not on. No more than the Vorlons piloting their ships. I guess its just my nature but the Shadows deeply appealed & the Vorlons did not. I know who I am but as to what I want?
And what was Harvey's response? 'You go looking for that thing, you're looking for Death'.
If you're a Freespace fan, how much were that franchise's 'uber aliens': the Shivans were inspired by the Shadows?
I'll never forget their first appearance, shimmering into visibility, efficiently firing its weapon of destruction and disappearing again. It engendered a wide-eyed "what the hell was that" moment and it was a while before we found out. Wonderful writing by JMS.
The power of the Shadow vessels and the shadow's philosophy of war is that they use their enemy's strength against them... cooping any special advantage that the opponent might have. Examples prove the point:
1. The Vortex Disruptor is originally intended to fight the Volons who were the first developers of the jump-drive technology. But, the Vorlons subscribe to the philosophy of Strength through Discipline. They gave their jump drive technology to their disciple races, such as the Mimbari, and eventually it became the standard that almost all of the galaxy ended up using. Thus, the teach discipline system of the Vorlons which was one of the strengths of the Vorlon philosophy turned a specialized weapon that only worked against one race into a weapon that worked against all of them.
2. Similarly, the Shadows use living beings as the central processing core of their ships. These beings are specifically NOT Shadows or one of their client races... rather they are (in every known case) captured ENEMIES. This is not just to protect their own people from such a horrible fate of being merged with the Shadow Vessel, nor to turn a liability such as a prisoner into an asset, but rather to co-op the strength of the other race. We see this in their use of human telepaths as cores of their ships to combat the weakness of using living beings as cores of their ship to telepathic interference. Their thought: if the enemy has a telepathic weapon... we'll steal it from them and turn it into our own weapon.
3. We see this again in the emergence of telepaths among the younger races, They emerged amongst humans and many other races as a result of genetic tampering by the Vorlons to create just such a weapon for those younger races to use against the Shadows when next they emerged. But the Shadows developed a plague that killed telepaths. We know it worked on human telepaths but I suspect, just like the telepath-related drug Dust, it would have inv=fected ANY telepath that was the result of Vorlon genetic interference. Here the Shadows are fighting mostly on the philosophical plane... if all of these races were telepaths naturally, Evolving the trait independently, then no one plague could ever take them all down. But by engineering them unnaturally the Vorlons created an unnatural similarity between the telepaths of otherwise unrelated races... and thus a weakness.
4. Even the death-cloud is all about the idea that the opponent can't see or won't target the control-center, it's only week point. Turning what could have otherwise been devestating firepower from the planetary defenses of a defender into a non-issue.
For such a aggressive race, the Shadows are more about agility and turning the opponent's strength against himself... Karate not Sumo.
Vorlons didn't develop jump drive technology. The movie Thirdspace explicitly states that the Vorlons found a jumpgate that was created by a race even more ancient and advanced than the Vorlons.
@@lillianmarie7160 second that, no one knows who built the gates or discovered hyperspace. I really really miss B5.
@@lillianmarie7160 : I got the impression from Thirdspace that it was a different technology discovered after the Vorlons were already quite capable.
@@absalomdraconis . . . And that it was the next stage in the development of the Vorlons' jump gate technology (which the Vorlons already had to have, or they wouldn't have been able to get around the Galaxy like proper First Ones).
The use of the telepaths and the jump disruptor is just a standard case of adapting to the enemy and that is normal in any warfare (or at least it should be if one intends to win xD) - as for using captured beings - well it would fit their mindset of dominating others and using them as pawns. Using telepaths to counter the vorlons was an easy and quick fix - somewhat a shortcut to solve the problem. And yes from what was shown in the show they prefer ambush and hit & run tactics in warfare.
About the Shadow scout, It's armed with a Quantum Bolt Cannon and Mini shadow death ray. It actually uses the death ray onscreen, in the episode "Shadow Dancing". It happens so fast, many people miss it. The shadow Scout destroys a ship called a 'Sunhawk" in a split second.
Uhh no. neither of those are shadow weapons. They have a molecular slicer beam for the larger crabs. Composition unknown. The scout uses a shadow pulse beam, composition unknown.
@@silverthorngoodtree5533 According to the official documentation, it's: 1 Shadow Death-Ray, 1 Heavy Quantum Bolt cannon on the 'Vampire' 'scout cruiser'. Despite being described as 'slicing' weapons and having the ability to 'slice a planetoid into pieces', ALL Shadow beam weapons are called simply "Shadow Death-Ray" in the official documentation from when the show was aired. In case you were wondering, the 'Quantum Bolt Canon' is also what the fighter are armed with.
I love the Shadows, they got a Dark, Scary thing going for them that few Space enemies got.
They weren't "Space Enemies" they were Vorlons competitors...who of course talked shite about them.
The Shadow ships are Bio-Organic...and thus can mature given time. An ancient Shadow vessel...from the Valen's War era...are scary beyond scary. Their weaponry gets nastier...to the point it can start cutting even Ancient ships.
Shadow Cruisers have "fighter bombs" of a clump of 6 that launch to a point then "explode" into 6 fighters. There are "Carrier" variants that carry 2 bombs.
"Modern" Shadow Cruisers have also been simplified for a younger race to pilot...though we see that this is detrimental to the pilot.
Also the Omega Upsilon's had some shadow technology included...though the crews of these vessels...except for a few key command personel... their postings are permanent as they are wired into the vessels. The pilots of the Shadow augmented EA fighters are also never allowed to leave the....and scream constantly. (Being integrated to Shadow Technology is not pleasant to most individuals....with the only exception being Techno-mages since their tech is derived from the Shadows and not direct.)
And just an FYI. In Crusade...another Shadow vessel was encountered...tentatively called a "Light Cruiser" and in the closing scene...a US Coin ftom the 1840s is shown drifting amidst the wreckage...indicating that the Shadows have not been completely dormant.
Where do you got all this information?
@@marckrieger3277Nerd power.
A couple of goofs for UB. Dreadnought carried 1 Vortex Disruptor and 18 fighters (launching in bombs of 6)
My goofs....(Found some old data sheets about a year ago)
Carriers carried 24 fighters and a lighter Molecular slicer beam. (As they were controlled by pilot these ships were very rare)
Destroyers carried a light Molecular slicer and a pair of the fighter polarity cannons.
The long awaited Shadow Fleet analysis. Presentation definitely updated and improved over past entries.
The First Shadow War was a massive galactic conflict which happened approximately 1000 years before the Third Age of Mankind. During this war, the Shadows were held in check only by the combined efforts of the First Ones and several of the Younger Races, the Minbari most notably.
Ironically, the First Shadow War occurred nine thousand years after the Last Great War against the Shadows.
They should upscale/ digitally remaster B5 and add extra space battle scenes!
They should. Remastered and released on blu-ray.
remake is in the works, if all goes well, but sounds like could be 50/50 but MJS sounds excited last time i checked his twitter
@@greensoplenty6809 it'll be woke nonsense
@@callumbush1 my brother in christ, have you seen the original? It has always been extremely political and progressive, that's partially why we love it
@@sylph4252 political and progressive isnt the same as woke. But i worry about the same thing.
😎👍Very cool indeed and very nicely greatly fabulously well done and very nicely well informatively explained and executed in every detail way shape and format provided on the Shadow Fleet of Babylon 5, A job very nicely wonderfully well done indeed Sir!👌.
Fun fact: Z'Ha'Dum wasn't actually their home planet. They've set up camp there only because of Lorien.
It actually was their home planet, They didn't LEAVE or rather always returned after they were driven out because of Lorien. 😎
@@yeahjustme3680 If I remember correctly; everyone thought it was their homeworld, but Lorien stated, that the Shadows always return here because they think they somehow show him respect by doing so. So it sounds more like Z'Ha'Dum had more to do with the First One, than the Shadows.
Even the Babylon Project says: "It is unknown if Z'ha'dum was the homeworld of the Shadows as a species, but for most of their long history they considered it their home.". So they most likely didn't originate from there.
By “Babylon Project” you mean the Fandom wiki? clean your cookies.
@@Heatx79 What?
@@robertpanek5944 Fandom Wiki can do some things with Cookies is all.
That and it's not really a canon source just a collection of generally well reasoned articles.
To quote the Emperor "their arrogance blinded them". They didn't properly deploy, exploit, counting fear, you can only scare someone for so long. Fear and chaos was their undoing.
No. The Shadows plan was going nicely. Sheridan derailed it a bit, but thats not a new phenomenon either for them.
No, what did them in was the great machine's intervention, sinclair/Valen and the fact that John J. "Nuke em all" Sheridan came back from jumping down into a fckn deep pit AND dropping a 500 megaton nuclear device on his head.
His return and the rallying of the younger races threw the shadows off their game completely, because no, you cant compete with a dude who "Died but got better." With fear and divison.
@@trazyntheinfinite9895 If I recall correctly.... it was 2 of those bombs, not just one.
wasn't it *three* nuclear devices?
@@trazyntheinfinite9895 advice from necron? I don't think so. Much like Sauron, they allowed hubris and belief in their inherent superiority, that they failed to see what was right under their nose.
@@trazyntheinfinite9895 can you clarify what the great machine did? Beyond helping find one of the first ones? And get the transmission clark sent? The great machine did nothing when the shadow fleet arrived. In fact the shadows seemed to neutralize the machine!
Also one of the best slow burn threats ever done in sci-fi
So true..
Great summary video! The shadows arc are what hooked me into B5. If the series is rebooted, I can't wait to see what modern digital fx will do for this fleet.
I respect that the production went for such alien design. You can't even tell where's the front and where's the back, or what the appendages do, if they even do anything. That's how you design a real alien : something that vaguely looks like it could make sense, but completely escapes human comprehension. 10/10 in my book.
Forgive me if I am wrong, but I thought Z'ha'dum was Lorien's world? I'm sure I remember an episode where he said to Sheridan that they keep coming back to Z'ha'dum because they think they are honouring him, wouldnt that suggest its his world not theirs? can anyone correct me if I'm wrong somewhere? I know its said throughout Babylon 5 its where the Shadows are from, but it would suggest from that episode, that Z'ha'dum is not their actual birth world.
The Shadow vessels were quite formidable against the younger races; not so much against the first ones. The Vorlons saw them as a disgusting failed technology, since they needed to have another being bonded to the ship to act as the ships CPU or it could not operate. Vorlon ships were fully sentient and self aware. If you get a chance read some of the B5 books, the Techno Mage series has a lot of info about shadow technology and it's inner workings. The Vorlon philosophy of order and discipline being the path to advancement is the realistic one. Nothing can come out of chaos but more chaos. Where all the Shadow vessels could do was scream a battle cry; the Vorlon ships sang of the beauty of the spheres, and the joy of perfect obedience!
We never see a shadow dreadnought and the shadows set them selves up to loose it is know the only weekness they have is telepathy and the shadow ships we see are made week enough for the younger races to win if the shadows wanted the vorlons gone they could of done it a very long time ago because the shadows had hyperspace travel before the vorlons even mastered normal space travel we only ever see the standard shadow ship we never got to see the shadows big dreadnought this would of made the vorlons run
chaos is a ladder it tends to open more doors that would otherwise remain closed if left unexplored - vorlon way is cold and methodical - but it can be limiting to progress - just look at them for millions of years their civilisation became stagnant and rigid - they theymselves thought they have reached the pinacle of what can be achieved and as a result the mostly dormant shadows were still powerfull enough to kick their @ss to a point where Vorlons had to use their puppet races to fight for them in order to overpower the shadows in the first place xD In a manner of speaking the vorlons had to use shadow aporach aka ascension through war - to come out on top (at least 10k years before when the Mimbari took part in that shadow war).
both of them can be ascribet as such " Vorlon - slow methodical (do it by the rules aproach), rigid. Shadows: chaotic, breaking the rules and barries (taking shortcuts and riskis) to be flexible towards progress by cuthroat competition at all times.
Can we take a moment to note that the shadow vessels use life itself as fuel? Just touching it drains all life from you and powers the ship. Their ground combat mechs - or living beings, or whatever they are, also keep powered up by draining the life out of others.
Yeah, people give the Shadows a lot of crap, but they were real pioneers of zero-emission vehicles.
Funny i was rewatching the earth alliance fleet breakdown last night
I have always thought that the "scream" emitted by the Shadow vessels was psionic in nature (remember, in space no one can hear you scream), used to target telepaths or other psionically aware enemies.
My fav faction and ships in scifi. I like how they launch a ball that explodes into fighters.
Their lack of fire-and-forget weapons is a weakness, but the superior tech they enjoy over lesser species hides this fact.
Their slicer beams *are* fire and forget. They fire them and then forget about their destroyed enemy 😀
You don't really need fire-and-forget when your targeting systems almost never miss.
If their phasing ability came from their ship engines then how did the two individuals phase in when Mr. Morden was held in B5 security ?
The ships may not have engines... Shadow beings can 'bend' light or use dimensional phasing at will. Finding the correct light spectrum may lead to detection for a split second.
The Shadow race exists out of phase slightly, enough to be unseen by most optical sensors. They can still interact with physical matter when they choose and phase fully into 'normal' space if they choose as well. Their ships have a different ability to phase in and out of hyperspace.
Utopian broadcast, can you do a comet empire fleet analysis.
Sure :) . Probably will come out in December..
@@UtopianBroadcast1 thx
You can speculate that shadows prefer ambush and hit and run tactics they very rarely come out for out in the open clashes - unless ambushed and forced to do so - thus their fleet reflect that they are fast heavy hitters they are not exactly meant to stand and duke it out - they prefer to go in a suprise attack faze in - blast the enemy to hell and squrrry out in a hurry onto next target preferably before the enemy even realises what is happening (that may be a remnant of their insectoid past - a good comparison would be a spider in how they behave - they prefer to lurk waiting for a good opportunity to attack and then go back to their lair (like a trap door spider for eg).
That is why they dont use carriers for fighters - fighters have limited offensive capability and cant usually operate on their own on far excursions - plus shadows would need a lot of pilots - be their own or from subsurvient races - and since they are all about power and understand violence they would prefer not to give out too many powerfull weapons or attack platforms to their subordinates - they might aftet all get an idea to overthrow them - especially since the shadows mindset is cuthroat competition at it's finest.
Don't forget to update the playlist please.
I'll never forget the screaming...so much screaming!
Definitely NOT an alien you want to make 'first contact' with.
BABYLON 5 NEEDS TO COME BACK MORE LIKE "ROAD HOME" PLEASE
Thanks for the analysis videos, nice work. One Question: Did the big cruisers have shadows inside controlling them, or did the captured "cpu" control it? if so how did they make sure the "cpu" didn't rebel if it had a strong mind?
Technically speaking, don’t Shadow vessels not actually jump in to hyperspace, rather phase in and out?
Would love to see the Shadow fleet fight the Necron fleet.
I think I can explain the bit about the fighters. Now it has been a bit since I last watched Babylon 5 so this is all conjecture rather than fact in the show.
It has been stated before that space combat will (at least eventually) have no need of fighters, because what would normally be the escorts or fast strikers of a fleet would be start to be outpaced by larger vessels. That is, if they’re crewed.
Here is my theory. The Shadows started off with fighters that were crewed individually, as this would be more cost effective and easy to put forth given their various conflicts having easily replaceable craft makes sense. But at some point the fighters can no longer keep up with their larger ships. Now this would be due to tech sure, but it has a lot more to do with the pilot. For humans at least, we can only handle so much G-Force before things start to go wrong. And so, if we automated the fighters suddenly there is a whole section of the engine’s capacity we can use without worry because there isn’t a pilot to be concerned about.
I imagine the Shadows followed a similar path. But rather than automate they kept the organic touch by making said fighters an extension of their mothership’s pilot.
Long story short: I the shadows started with crewed fighters, but biological limitations and advancements in tech led them to become unmanned so they could be more effective. As they wouldn’t have a living pilot to limit the speed of the craft. (Other stuff would limit it, but the biggest one keeping a craft from hitting its max potential speed and maneuverability in space is the pilot)
Utopian Broadcast, could you do some videos on the Daleks, please..? (The Dalek Fleet Analysis, The Daleks Vs and How The Daleks Became So Powerful).
and the others, i.e, Cybermen , Sontarans, Rutans etc... etc...
Sure. It's been awhile since I watched Doctor who so I will have to refresh my memory. I should have one released by the end of December or beginning of January.
The omega-x had shadow nanite amour, but i think they used fusion beam weapons and not shadow weapons.
This is true, they only used advanced 'normal' weapons and not shadow ones.
The exact name being: 6 Fusion Beam cannons, 12 Light Fusion Beams.
Which is still terrifying firepower when the Shadow Bio-Armour is added to the equation.
Interesting note, the weapons are based on Minbari ones and not Shadow ones.
They allways seems like drakh weapons to me. Made sense becuase we saw a drakh watcher beeing used to infiltrate the mars resitance.
These vessels weren't even their proper ones, which makes sense, none of them were piloted by shadows and this makes sense when you consider that they wanted other races to advance trough war, the lack of proper shielding was more than likely a method to offer the races a way to beat the ships (since the vorlon ships do posses a shield and i doubt the shadow couldn't make one) and advance, the humans were able to create the advanced omega class by attaching tendrils tp the standard ship for example, but overtime they would've learned how to build a proper replica or a similar ships like the vrak did, the shadows also believed that the sheer number of these vessels could've overwhelmed the vorlons and the few allies they had that could fight them, also suuported by the crak and the hand both of which had similar technologies to them.
As Michele said- The Primordial Ships didn't used Humanoid as CPU, as the Quote by Delenn said, they were Old when even the Ancients were young.In the Original canon Shadows were traveling in Hyperspace for 20 Million Years before the Vorlons develop that technology.Even the Walkers of Sigma beated the Vorlons into HyperSpace
@@TwiceStruck
Well Vorlons were relatively young race in the "first ones"-group. Walkers found thirdspace before hyperspace.
@@kimnice As Viewers we Respected the Vorlons through Kosh, but when you truly understood how the operate the were just pricks.The Walkers Amaze me, they discovered 3rd Space before venturing into deep space. So let me as you this, Do you think it was the Vorlons that sent da Asteroid towards the Walkers Information Depository and Blew it up.
I loved the battle-crabs.
A brilliant scfi series. The shadows and the vorlons need a new series, showing the wars tht they fought.. agsinst the first ones. We need to see how it all began..
I will second this response.......JMS, are you listening?
Shadow fleets kicks ass.
I love B5 and the Shadows are great enemies, but their ships aren't so distinctive that I could be said to have a favorite vessel in their fleet, unless you are VERY flexible with the term "vessel," in which case, I would say the Technomages are my favorite mobile Shadow tech. heh
I was in the middle of something but the title made me stop .thanks
They are the scariest race, i thought species 8472 were scary but they canbe reasoned with the shadows couldn't be reasoned
yep it is truly a cross between a spider and your worst nightmare
You missed a few shadow weapons. They have missiles that they rarely use. Probably restricked to greater distance attack. They used this weapon against the narn. Furthermore, the have a multiple missile weapon used to destroy planets.
The Shadow Ships do not require " Jump Engines " . The Shadow SPECIES can intrinsically " phase " into hyperspace themselves , so all their Biotech , and "Uplifted " client Races have the same ability .
That explains a lot that I'd been unclear about. Why didn't the Shadows 'develop' hyperspace travel? Cause they didn't need to, it was ingrained in their DNA to be able to do it. That's both really badass and incredibly frightening when you think about it.
What did soul calibur and soul edge have in common with the shadows and vorlons?:
Soul calibur and the vorlons preserve order peace and obedients while soul edge and the shadows caused chaos Starting wars and used evolution to grow in the cutscene from puzzle quest galactrix that was explained evolution for example: evolution and destruction exists in perfect simitrey,there would be no advancement without war no growth without slaughter,as we evolve we test our limits,we find weakness,and we destroy it.
I don't know if you watched the new animated "Road Home" movie. It was okay, but I felt there were a lot of inconsistencies with the show. One of the big ones was the Shadows themselves. In the one alternate timeline, the Shadows are shown overtaking B5 and boarding the station. But the Shadows never directly attacked anyone - they always left that to their dark servants like the Drahk. Also, they didn't make the sounds they made in the show, which I always thought made them even more creepy. Then there's the issue of the Shadow vessels - they redesigned them, and I really didn't like the way they looked. The ones in the show were pretty perfect the way they were. And they didn't scream as they passed over. I was just a little disappointed with the way they did it.
Also, I didn't think there were any Shadow beings aboard any of their ships. Except for the modified humanoid that controls the ship, i always thought the Shadows themselves just stayed on Z'ha'dum running everything, except for the ones accompanying Morden and, presumably, other Shadow agents.
Definitely the crab ships. And that terrifying screeching they make, that's the stuff of nightmares. Who cheered when Kosh's fleet beat the living tar out of a Shadow fleet?
"Can't repair the tendrils..." and "Attached tendrils to Earth ships" OK, so what is the point of the tendrils??
They grow as the armour grows in the case of the Omega-X destroyers, or as the ship grows in the case of the Shadows themselves. Shadow ships are living beings in their own right, just like the Vorlon ships. The difference is the design mostly.
I wish you would talk of the pilot in more depth. In the show they used humans. But I didn't understand why. It doesn't seem like a good design. Also I would like to hear more of what happens to the human pilots.
The pilots of the Shadow ships had to be telepaths, this in turn showed a weakness when other telepaths (Eg Leith Alexander that were modified by the Vorlons), could interfere and ‘hold’ a Shadow in place while the younger races attacked it.
Homer pulls up in a car, sticks his head out the window and screams, "Neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerd."
Were the Shadow unable to operate their own ships, or did they use Telepaths to expand their Flight Size?
they only started to use telepaths to stop the jamming from other telepaths. originally they used ordinary humans or techno mages
I imagine some of them do, or their vassal races do. Much like the vorlons who use robots and advanced artificial intelligence to run most of their vessels
I think if that seasons production had not been rushed so the could resolve the earth alliance civil war because they thought they we're going to have the show canceled that the shadows could have been used even much better as an antagonist they're very intriguing and scary so I would have loved to have seen more Fleet battles and getting to see the ships actually use more than the weapons that they are depicted using because the ship that size has to have more than just one point a weapon
In the open Field the Vorlons were OP against the Shadows because they had much stronger Weapons and had great Numbers of Ships.
The Shadows had to play hide and seek and were only allowed to use Guerilla Tactics because of the lost Wars and the bigger Brother the Vorlons.
You are wrong, they did not originate at Zahadum, they came over to the homeworld of the first one, Lorien
How come the shadows don't fight among each other? It seems like they want the younger races to do as they say and not as they do.
One thing that is good so the shadows have not updated warship technologies I can see a newer battlecarrier death blade class has inc 4x thicker layer harden armour, stealth & jamming telepathic blocks, stronger energy sheilding etc having a few dozen higher weapons 5 backup power units just if one taken out enter service 2265😊 killer one higher agile three times better than battlecrab
What happens to vessels absorbed by shadows
More powerful then the vorlons do you Reckon?
In every head to head fight the Vorlons crust them
ruclips.net/video/WR2nXCjvs0s/видео.html
Shadows are older than the vorlons and they are supposed to be more powerful. But they got nerfed in later B5 episodes.
They were rather equal in power. Both sides had the capability to wipe out their opponent, but that was not the point. It was more like a disagreement between siblings, than a war.
@@robertpanek5944 The Shadows were more Powerful than the combine power of all the other First Ones. After All, it took all them combine to push the Shadows back, and when the Vorlons went messing around in 3rd Space bringing in the Harbingers, that combine power couldn't do jack against those demons, that was until Lorian convince The Shadows to get involved.After 25 years, hard to tell what's Canon and What's Not anymore.
@@TwiceStruck The word "power" is key here. See; whilst the Shadows are "the older brother" for all the other First Ones, I don't think their technological edge is all that meaningful. I don't think this is their "power". I'm pretty sure all the others can pretty much match Shadow tech at this point.
The difference lies in attitude. All the other First Ones are passive and docile, whilst the Shadows remain active and aggressive. They thrive through conflict, while others simply go mountain climbing or whatever. This is the power of the Shadows - being masters of conflict.
Where do you get the names of these weapons? None of this is in the series?
@Shadow weakness - IMHO adding aircraft carrier would be an error. Fighters are just too prone to destruction while giving little advantage in the Babylon 5 universe. Much better option would be an anti-fighter version of Crab - stack multiple rapid-fire beam weapons covering all directions. Speed, armor, hyperdrive can be off regular crab, but just improve targetting sensors and stack weapons just about as strong as needed to destroy fighters at a maximum range feasible. The thing would shred through the fighters of the young races, while they wouldn't know till its too late if the shadow fleet got the anti-fighter capability, or not.
10000? Or a thousand? when was babylon 4 sent back?
You`re missing one, but it is only seen once in an episode of Crusade.
Thank you very much. Nice. Follow ❤
No wonder I loved Mass Effect so much.
didnt the shadow also use other races like the draakh to do their fighting for them, even giving them pretty advanced ships - not good enought to be a real threat to them but good enough to be a real threat to the younger races even if they were fewer than the minbari or earth alliance or centauri or narn, and as delenn speaks there seems to be other "slave races" aswell working for the shadows - so these might have been there to bulk up and most of the dying and mfighting for the shadows if a war were comming
I always found the part about the drakh a bit stupid, they leave silently after their masters are defeated but then suddenly a much more pressing threat that the shadows before.
@@udirt they were perfectly happy eating the scraps of the shadows - but when the planet went KABOOM they needed a new home and they wanted revenge - and what better way to get their revenge than to pit the alliance against centari by attacking the more "warlike" memebers like the Narns and the Drazi that already had not to good relations to the centari because of the war
There is a swedish proverbs that says (translated to english) "when the cat is away the rats dance on the table" - the shadows and vorlons are gone and the Drahk has major technologies from their former masters (planetkiiller cloud, loads of ships, bioengineering mechanical plagues and a understanding of living technology) so they can set up thier little kingdom - but if they comes out into the light they will be krushed as allies of the shadows so better to be the power behind the throne...
Wasnt the last great battle just 1000yrs ago
i think you forget some thing shadow vezel is completly organic even more than Volrons, the shadow vezel does not have a capitan it fly on its own it can think for then own
but can they wire a three pin plug
👍👍👍❤❤❤
I would have to say Babylon 5, along with the Reimagined Battlestar Galactica, were the best sci-fi shows in the past 30 years. The Shadow race and their ships, in particular the dreadnought, are spider-like, which is enough to give almost anyone the screaming willies.
Just glossing over the death cload is a huge disservice to the shadowa
Another fun fact. ALL of the ancients, vorlons included, beefed up there tech so that on a tech level. The shadow ships are weakest against first one ships. First one ships can repel or absorb or deflect the molecular slicer beam. In addition Vorlons have massive regen capabilities and their electromagnetic weapons, aka lighting gun, will over load their tendrils. Same goes for all the other first ones, Triad, walkers, kirishiac and more. Vs. young races, they had only one defense. Mimbari stealth tech, witch was invented with the help of vorlons in the previous shadow war. Aka not getting hit> armor.
Also that dreadnaught or also known as a battlecruiser given its size, are VERY very old and take thousands of years to grow. Which is why there are so few of them.
I like the headcanon that Shadow Vessels simply grow over time, and dreadnaught/battlecruiser is just an absurdly ancient baseline vessel, one that seen countless battles and improved upon time and experience.
Best SCI-FI series EVER
So true
I have set up an alter employing an oil slick, black candles & a year old pizza to summon my Shadow Gods. I'm still waiting but hopeful they will conquer us all. Best wishes from an anti Vorlon Babylon 5 fan
@@babiskissanis2367 It was a joke Babis all the best mate
@@babiskissanis2367 Piss off does that work for you drone? I give you respect you attempt to belittle. Sad person
@@babiskissanis2367 I make a joke you are one.
@@babiskissanis2367 Your name oh pedantic one is convenient. Baby Kissmyass. Ohh another two spelling mistakes
@@babiskissanis2367 Are you a human or some type of pendantic terminator sent from the dark place where spelling errors require capital punishment. I made a joke to entertain. The joke was received in the light it was presented. Then I have this buzzing, drone called YOU trying to use a spelling mistake as if the whole world should revile myself. You claim I'm ignorant. I with zero respect suggest two courses of action Baba Kissmyass. 1. Develop a sense of humour. 2. If you wish to see the embodiment of ignorance look in a mirror. I suspect you will see the reflection of two blank eyes looking back at a petty little man. This matter is terminated leave it be little mouse
Find yourself a hairstyling accessory called a Hair Claw... get the one with the long teeth. Hold the clamp open and look at it from a certain angle... Now tell me that ain't a goddamn Shadow Destroyer! ;-]
Most hyped stories today are ripping of B5
You forgot to mention their vulnerability to telepaths.
That's a shame for the Narn Fleet!
The last war against the shadows was 1000 years ago, not 10000.
Sounds like a lovecraft race.
every light casts a shadow.
No race in B5 is known for their defenses. Shields (such as they exist in star trek) don't exist in B5. The primary defense in B5 (much like in real life) is to not get hit.
Don't know why anybody called them "battle crabs" given that the spines don't move and they definitely don't have claws. More like urchins. Also, not very impressive. The lack of point defense in particular was a problem, as shown at one point by a cruiser getting swarmed by Vorlon fighters. You'd think that after *millions* of years their ships would be better.
Shadows preferred greater numbers over more powerful ships because they needed to wage war across the galaxy and had to be at different places simulteanously. They would likely be able to make their ships stronger but against younger races that would be overkill and the Vorlons and Shadows generally avoided direct conflict if they could help it.
@@JH24821 - They lose a *lot* of ships to the Younger Races, much less the Vorlons. That's just pathetic.
@@daniels7907 That's actually what I really liked. Even the First Ones, whether Shadows or Vorlons, could still be hurt. They were far above the younger races, but not to the point of being untouchable.
@@JH24821 - Conversely, it indicates a universe where the laws of physics are so strict that all species will hit a plateau, no matter how many millions of years their civilization lasts.
@@daniels7907 That's a very good point. The Shadows and Vorlons could have evolved further but stagnated at some point (kinda ironic for the Shadows) because we know higher levels are certainly possible. (The Walkers seemed more advanced, there were Lorien's people, and of course the Third Space aliens) I agree with you that the Shadow vessels felt weaker, but they were still amazing ships in their own right.
"if you go to Z'Ha 'Dum you will die"..
😱💀
..kosh..
Dreadnought
Shadows didn’t come from Zahadum; they went to that planet to honor Lorien.
Or they DID come from there, and returned there to honor Lorien, despite the place being completely trashed. Hard to say.
They’re the Babylon 5 version of the Star Wars Yuuzhan Vong
I watched the original series which was outstanding SIFI. The shadows can't run their ships. They need someone with psychic abilities, which their race never developed, so they used other races that had that ability but they often were driven mad.
I have a challenge for you:
Type the Shadow's true name in a comment. Thats it.
Seems they only live to fight
Shadows wont hold up in a fight with species 8472.no way
I think throughout your videos you ignored something crucial, but neglected. Why are all advanced races using organic/living technologies?
You are forgetting the shadow vessels can merge together to form a bigger vessel.
"Their actual name is ten thousand letters long and is unpronounceable by any of the younger races" Unless you are Welsh, and then it's only a small challenge. 😁 sm
😅
cool channel
More like Za-HaHaHA-Doom!
"bio-organic armored hull" ...."bio-organic" ?