Gigashadow

The Gigashadow is a fictional character in the sci-fi television series Lexx. He is the last fully grown denizen of the long-lost Insect Civilization.

The Back Story

Thousands of years in the past, back to the after events of the Brunnen-G war against the Insect Civilization, one last surviving insect managed to escape the chaos (given the Insect Civilization's renowned resilience and deviousness) and found refuge deep inside a neighboring planetoid (also known in the near future, to be The Cluster). It was from there that the insect managed to survive by passing its own essence to an unfortunate member of a mining expedition. Then the insect spread its influence throughout the galaxy, passing from one host to another. Eventually, having achieved absolute dominance, the insect consciousness ordained itself as His Divine Shadow, an imperialist theocratic leader and supreme commander.

The Story

As His Divine Shadow continued expanding his empire, he returned to his previous "home" where his true physical form lay dormant. Then on that wasteland, he built his capital city, and directed his revenge at humanity in one long, bloody coup. After many more thousands of years, His Divine Shadow gained revenge against the Brunnen-G by deploying the Foreshadow and thus almost eliminating the Brunnen-G civilization completely (season 1, I Worship His Shadow). After these events, and the events following up to the completion of the Lexx, a process known only as the "Rebirth" was at hand. In this Rebirth, every citizen in the League of 20,000 planets was killed en masse. Then, their protein and associated nutrients were used to nourish the Gigashadow body directly.

With the Lexx stolen, His Divine Shadow now dead, and his essence upgraded to Divine Predecessor status, His Divine Shadow attempted to re-unite his essence to his true body. But this did not work entirely well, as his own Clerics betrayed him at the very end.

The Gigashadow used protoblood in order to revive one of the dead loyal Clerics, however the first to be awoken was one who betrayed him, and in the end, His Divine Shadow was forced to possess him, fighting for control over the body. The Cleric seeking to be killed by Kai, got sucked all the way up to the Gigashadow's brain and completed the processes of combining the Gigashadow with His Divine Shadow.

The crew of the Lexx attempted to destroy the Gigashadow with the powerful planet-rendering blast waves, but failed. Kai, still inside the Gigashadow, could not reach the brain to destroy it using the infant Cluster Lizard, Squish, who had adopted Kai as a surrogate mother. However, before being picked up by the Lexx, he threw the Lizard back into the Gigashadow.

The Gigashadow chased the Lexx all the way to the gravitational vortex which leads to the Dark Zone. Just before the Gigashadow reached the Lexx and crew, who managed to go through, the Cluster Lizard reached the brain, killing it and causing the Gigashadow to collide with the vortex, cancelling both out due to their size.

In the second series, Kai, who is possessed by the essence of the shadow, returned to the Light Universe, to possess one of the dormant children that were on the underside of the Gigashadow that survived. The Lexx managed to destroy this child before it could escape along with the planet it was on, but not before the urge to kill all human life was passed onto Mantrid.

Gigashadow

When the insect manifested itself, breaking free from the asteroid which had harbored it for so long, it resembled nothing so much as a gigantic isopod, curling its immense armored bulk into a ball and "rolling" through space, albeit at greater speeds than the Lexx could attain.

While the Lexx is a large vessel at approximately three miles in length, it was completely dwarfed by the Gigashadow, suggesting the insect would have been as much as a hundred miles long at full extension. It also proved impervious to the Lexx' planet-shattering weapon. It does not, however, prove impervious to the space warping effect of the Vortex. This scene also explained the origins of the Divine Order emblem... it is a symbolic representation of the vortex.