Hmm - now that you mention it, the Great Machine caretaker does seem like a more symbiotic version of the Shadow ship's setup. And the planet does seem to use the same sort of big-ass slicing laser to take out the renegade ship that Shadow ships use... Coincidence, or did the original builders of the Machine get their tech from the Shadows, either directly or through reverse engineering?

I'd rather like it if it was based off Shadow designs, just because it bugged me that later episodes would treat Shadow tech as *inherently* corrupting, while Vorlon technology is treated as being totally safe to incorporate into new ISA designs...