The Shadow War, when it finally happened, was over far faster than anyone could have anticipated, the two warring factions brought face to face and forced to accept that the younger races were not going to pick sides, that they no longer needed or wanted outside help.

Nevertheless, the cost was great, devastatingly so. The Vorlons, determined to win at any cost, had wiped out whole planets that had, in their eyes, been contaminated by the Shadows’ influence. The Shadows had struck at Vorlon bases, destroying them with extreme prejudice, along with the planets that housed them.

During the final battle, many of the ships of the combined fleet were also obliterated, some of them deliberately placing themselves between the enemy, and the White Star from which Sheridan and Delenn were directing their forces. Billions died, civilians in greater numbers than the warriors who had opted to join the battle, but in the end, more would be saved, not merely now, but in the millennia to come.

Perhaps, if the universe was willing, no races in times to come would ever gain such power as the Vorlons and Shadows had wielded in their endless contest to prove themselves right and their rivals wrong.

The ancient rivalry was finally over, the last of the Old Ones, Shadows and Vorlons included, were leaving, going beyond the Rim to find… whatever was out there. And perhaps in a thousand years, instead of another war between light and dark, between two opposing viewpoints, there would instead be peace, the races that existed now, and those that might develop space flight in the coming years, learning to live together in harmony and cooperation, for the greater good.

This, the alliance that had been built, uniting many races in a common cause, was only the beginning.


The End