And it wouldn't have worked for Sakai to be the one who awoke the shadows and "died" at Z'ha'dum because *they were already awake* in the first season. People who try to lay the one line atop the other tend to forget this. We also get Garibaldi's mention of crawling out of the Martian desert in the very first episode...which tied into the whole Messages From Earth thread, putting the shadows at work for at least 2-3 years.
