The X-files

Shadows
Episode: 1X05
First aired: 10/22/93
Written by: Glen Morgan and James Wong
Directed by: Michael Katleman

Mulder and Scully investigate the attack on Laura Kyte. Kyte was lamenting the suicide of her boss and attacked at an ATM. The two men were then attacked by an unseen force and Kyte survives unharmed.
Scully examines the two bodies and finds traces of residual electromagnetic charge and sees that the man's throats appeared to be crushed from the inside.

Scully and Mulder find Kyte who is unwilling to talk. When they leave Kyte's home, Mulder and Scully's car suddenly serve out of control and they crash, both unharmed. Mulder suggests a poltergeist.
Lauren confronts her boss's partner about the suicide now thinking that it was murder.

Soon after she is attacked in her home but the two attackers are killed by the same unseen force. Mulder crashes through the door to see one man suspended in the air as his throat is being crushed.

Mulder and Scully find that Kyte's boss had been killed by his partner because of some illegal business transaction that her boss was going to expose.

Bureau agents rush into the office building and Kyte confronts the partner. Mulder and Kyte enter his office and suddenly the door slams shut and the partner is slammed against the wall. Pictures and papers start to fly everywhere and a knife flies to the man's face then to the wall where it cuts open the fabric and reveals a computer disk with proof of the crime.

Important quotes:
Scully -- "They're he-ere"

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Shadows

THE fairest summer hath its sudden showers;
The clearest sky is never without clouds;
And in the painted meadow's host of flowers
Some lurking weed a poisonous death enshrouds.
Sweet days, that upon golden sunshine spring,
A gloomy night in mourning waits to stain;
The honey-bees are girt with sharpest sting,
And sweetest joys oft breed severest pain.
While like to autumn's storms, sudden and brief,
Mirth's parted lips oft close in silent grief,
Amid this checkered life's disastrous state,
Still Hope lives green amid the desolate;
As Nature, in her happy livery, waves
O'er ancient ruins, palaces, and graves.

John Clare (1793-1864)


An English poet John Clare was born in Helpstone, Northamptonshire. The son of a poor laborer, he was forced to go to work at an early age. He enjoyed some fame and financial success with the publication of Poems, Descriptive of Rural Life and Scenery in 1820.

Clare's later works were less well received and he became impoverished finally confined to an insane asylum in 1837 where he spent the last 23 years of his life. Since a majority of his work was composed about village life and rustic scenery he became known as the Northamptonshire Peasant Poet.

Among his works the last poems of his freedom stand out as mature and detached Shadows is both individual and unique; the last three lines give an idea of the struggle that Clare would soon lose.

Sources:

John Clare - The Shepherd's Calendar:
www.photoaspects.com/chesil/clare/

Public domain text taken from The Poets’ Corner:
http://www.geocities.com/~bblair/jcshadows.htm

CST Approved

In Babylon 5 the Shadows are an ancient species, older than the mysterious Vorlons. They and the Shadows are the last active First Ones, whose purpose in remaining in the galaxy and not going 'beyond the rim' was to guide the next generation of interstellar civilizations into peaceful coexistence.

They are large creatures, individually insect like. Their abdomens have six long, single-jointed legs, with sharp deadly barbs, while their thorax has two similar arms, with three long tine-like fingers, two of which are multi-jointed. Their heads are triangular and their thorax rises above their head giving them a sort of fringe. The appear almost like centaurs crossed with black widows. They have 16 eyes that are grouped in 4 clusters of 4 on their otherwise featureless face, the clusters are 4 eyes on a line which is angled up away from their vertical bisection. Each individual eye glows with a sort of inner orange glow, juxtaposed heavily with their black carapace. They are capable of making themselves invisible to human visible light wavelengths, though whether this is natural or artificial is unclear. They also give nearby telepaths extremely bad vibes, which is a serious condition for a telepath to be in.

The Shadows work in secret, they don't personally assassinate or manipulate politics, they convert others to their cause and have them act as proxies. This is where the character of Mr. Morden comes from on the show. They do the same thing with their own ships, they have telepaths from other civilizations imported to run their ships. The people being used are so intwined with running a star vessel that they are highly vulnerable to telepathic attack.

These vessels are black, two tiered semicircles with long spikes coming out of the top horizontally and on the bottom angled down, all of which are on the outside of the semi-circles. They move in the direction opposite the spikes. They are often referred to as Shadow Battlecrabs. The shadow ships are capable of launching small fighter craft and firing deadly beams of purple energy. They are also capable of phasing in and out of hyperspace, instead of using jumpgates or jump points.

They have a philosophy of rearing the next generation of civilizations which is a sort of trial by fire. They visciously attacked the younger races and made them attack each other, manipulated into war after war, for the simple reason that the most well evolved species in regard to space combat will be the result of their sculpting, much as they may have been in the distant past. This philosophy was incompatible with that of the Vorlons, the Vorlons favored order and stability. The Vorlons wish to impose order on the young races so that they will approach their eventual angelic space brethren state.

The result of this conflict of philosophies is war. The Shadows, breaking with the Vorlons, decide to wage war against the young races, mainly the Minbari who had the aid of the Vorlons and one time traveling semi-human. The Shadow war that occurred was devastating to the Minbari, but left the Shadows severely hampered, a great deal of their fleet had been destroyed. So they decided to sleep and rebuild for a thousand years, before doing the same thing again.

And it was for a thousand years that they slept, until the events of Babylon 5 began.

I.

I am happy today
Because I let the shadows alone

I see them
I did not name them

They aren't mine
Unless I name them
Then I add to them
They stick to me
Their owners disavow them
Their owners recoil in horror
from me, a huge talking shadow

Their owners disavow them

Poor shadows
They are so lonely

But it doesn't serve if I name them
Their owners think they are mine
Their owners think they are gone
Relief
Freedom
Evil named and cast out

Once I am alone, the shadows roil
They cry for home
They cry for their people
They are fearful
They gather into gangs
To face the terrible journey home
To their owners

When the shadow is offered
I don't reject it
I don't name it
I wait

It is in the room
Manifest
Between us

And mostly the owner
Speaks of something
Else

And the shadow sinks
Waits
Bides

I hear the shadows weeping
To be loved

II.

I hear the shadows weeping
To be loved

I thought if I named the shadows
They would be visible
Freed
Loved

I was wrong

I am so sorry, shadows
I am so sorry, owners

I was wrong

I send you all my love
and tears

I hear the shadows weeping
to be loved.

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