The Shadows were thought to have been the oldest of the ancient races. Every few thousand years, the Shadows come out of hibernation and begin wars with other races and make the other races fight with each other. Their reasons for doing this are not to conquer other races, as was previously thought, but to create war in order to promote growth and evolution for the younger races. The Vorlons want the same things, but their techniques are not the same as the Shadows. The Vorlons enlisted the support of other worlds like the Minbari to help fight against the Shadows.