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A creature stows away aboard a cryonic sleeper ship from a hundred years ago in the Babylon-5 episode, The Long Dark. The sole survivor awakens from hibernation to discover

that the other member of the crew was killed while he slept, being eaten by the creature.

If I remember correctly, the ship was on course to Z'ha'dum, the homeworld of the Shadows, so I assumed for years that the creature was a Shadow ally.

Does this creature ever show up in any Babylon-5 novelizations, other TV shows, or movies?

Shadow creature?

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They are indeed allies (or more likely servants) of the Shadows. They are called Soldiers of Darkness and are referenced in this context in the Book of G'Quan, the Narn holy book, which also depicts one of them:

enter image description here

They fought on the side of the Shadows in the first Shadow war. Amis, from this same episode, has a history with this particular creature (conversation starts at 21:27 on my DVD copy):

Garibaldi: I arrested a Lurker named Amis who was stationed on a deep space outpost during the war. 47 men landed on that moon, all of them were slaughtered, except one.
Franklin: Is there a point to this?
Sheridan: Amis thinks what wiped out his post came here on the Copernicus.
Franklin: No, we ran a thorough scan on that ship. If there was an alien on board, we would have found it.
Garibaldi: This is something we've never seen before, something completely outside our experience. I traced the ship's path. It passed within the gravitational well of the same moon Amis was stationed on.

Apart from Amis' linked history with this one Soldier of Darkness, there is no mention of this creature or any like it in the series or tie-in works again. I assume they were mostly wiped out in the Shadow War and only a handful exist in isolation, but I have no proof of this.

There's a little more detail about them on the Babylon 5 wiki, but not much: http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Soldier_of_Darkness

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    It's actually suggested that Amis met this exact same creature, making it the only one (outside the Book) we ever see.
    – Radhil
    Mar 21, 2017 at 14:23
  • Can you add an explanation of how we know the two are the same? (actually, that's also to @Radhil - is there a quote for that and if so would you be happy to edit it into the answer?)
    – tardigrade
    Mar 21, 2017 at 15:44
  • @Radhil you're right, can't he somehow sense the creature due to their previous encounter? If I get chance I'll update the answer later with this detail, unless someone else wants to jump in!
    – delinear
    Mar 21, 2017 at 16:01
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    @tardigrade - it's done.
    – Radhil
    Mar 21, 2017 at 20:13
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    It's been a while, but I do recall it being explicitly mentioned in that episode, that the creature has left Amis alive on purpose, as either food reserve of some sort, or for something else, and that that was the reason for Amis having a link to the creature, and being able to sense it. Maybe someone with the script could find quotes for that.
    – void_ptr
    Mar 21, 2017 at 20:38

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