Before Shaw Danon, life carried on as it had for centuries. Mankind sought the secrets to immortality, and the five Factions promised to deliver those secrets. But then everything drastically changed, as circumstances of Shaw Danon's destiny came to fruition. Shaw Danon's transformation into the catalyst of change began when he was just a child. The most powerful and evil of Espers, the Sinister Orb, used its power to seize control of a wayward soul, leading him to massacre an entire village. The young Shaw Danon was one of the only survivors of this tragedy. He later gained control of the Sinister Orb for his own purposes.