History
The Sheeda are a blue-skinned species originating from Earth roughly one billion years in the future. Earth now orbits a dying sun, and mismanagement of the planet by the Sheeda has reduced it to a wasteland. Sheeda are masters of both science and magic, existing in a variety of sizes. The smallest Sheeda can control the bodies of others by attaching to the back of their neck.
Using their technology, they travel back through time, come to a certain era, and lay waste to other civilizations, taking their resources and enslaving most of the populace. In an interview with Comicon.com, Grant Morrison stated the following:
"[These soldiers] are recruited into an apocalyptic battle with some ancient Enemies of Humanity, a race of beings called the Sheeda, who are familiar to us from folk tale and legend as 'the Unseelie Court', or the people of 'Faerie' among many other names. Periodically, these Sheeda arrive like locusts in their millions in huge floating 'Castles' they use to 'harvest' civilizations which have reached their peak. The Sheeda ransack these cultures and take away their treasures, their achievements, their learning to enrich their own burned-out culture".
"The name is from the Irish Sidhe, pronounced 'Shee', as in banshee. The Sidhe were the Fairy Folk, the strange ones from the hills who haunt the old legends of so many cultures. I had a wild idea about what these legends might REALLY be describing and realized I'd found the perfect villains for this story. I based my portrayal of the Sheeda civilization itself on a dark, inverted Goth image of Queen Elizabeth 1's England. They're very evil, decadent and corrupt but as I say we don't reveal their TRUE nature and who they really are until later in the series. In FRANKENSTEIN! issue 4 in fact, 'Frankenstein vs. Fairyland'".
The Sheeda are tied to Seven Imperishable Treasures, based on Celtic myth's Four Treasures, such as the Foundation Stone of Manhattan (Lia Fáil), the Hammer of Bors (Mjolnir), the Cauldron of Rebirth, the Gwydion (a homunculus made of 'living language', based on Merlin) and the sword Excalibur (possibly the counterpart of the sword of Nuada). Seven Soldiers of Victory #1 lists the seven treasures as Gwydion the Merlin, the Undry Cauldron (Dagda's Cauldron), Pegasus, Excalibur, a Father Box, the Hammer, and the Spear whose name is both love and vengeance (the progeny of Aurakles).
In the representation of Sheeda's language depicted in Shining Knight #4, Morrison used the Ogham alphabet.
