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So after the minbari war...?

Hey guys,

just had a thought, the minbari wiped out most of the EA fleet during the war, so one presumes that only a handful of big ships, Nova's and Hyperions's, along with a few smaller ships survived the war. With only this skeleton force how did they defend their territory?
I personally think that other races would have taken advantage of this easy situation, espacially the narn, and taken some of the EA territory as there own, but nothing is even mentioned about skirmishes after the war.
So what do you guys think?
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Comments

  • MundaneMundane Elite Ranger
    Since the Minbari retreated...which in a way makes the Earth win....it is possible that the others were afraid to attack someone stopping the Minbari.
  • not to mention after they saw how earth fought with tooth and nail none of them probably wanted to face that
  • And the Narns esspecially had made a nice little profit off the humans for the weaponry.
  • JackNJackN <font color=#99FF99>Lightwave Alien</font>
    and the other side of the coin...

    The Minbari having made the decision to stop fighting and surrender for their very personal reasons. (Minbari souls in human hosts). They would be hard pressed to see other races come in and kill Minbari bretheren (humans) and take over their holdings... ;)
  • MundaneMundane Elite Ranger
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by JackN [/i]
    [B]and the other side of the coin...

    The Minbari having made the decision to stop fighting and surrender for their very personal reasons. (Minbari souls in human hosts). They would be hard pressed to see other races come in and kill Minbari bretheren (humans) and take over their holdings... ;) [/B][/QUOTE]

    True..but remember that only Delenn and a few others knew about this...
  • I would also think, that while the ea did get a kicking, its forces would not have been totaly destroyed, they also would be in full war mode, so any invasion would face a force already used to non-stop warfare against a vastly superior force, ripping up league ships would hardly be a challange I would think
  • SpiritOneSpiritOne Magneto ABQ NM
    Since at the time of the B5 pilot, its still a mystery to the entire universe as to why while on the eve of obliterating humans from existance did the Mimbari surrender, my guess is fear. If the Mimbari ended a holy war, I seriously doubt anyone would challenge them.

    Also, since the grey council knew about human and mimbari souls being mixed, it is reasonable to think that they deployed a portion of their own fleet to protect earth assests. Afterall, besides humans, what other race would be dumb enough to attack a mimbari.
  • Vertigo1Vertigo1 Official Fuzzy Dice of FirstOnes.com
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by JackN [/i]
    [B]and the other side of the coin...

    The Minbari having made the decision to stop fighting and surrender for their very personal reasons. (Minbari souls in human hosts). They would be hard pressed to see other races come in and kill Minbari bretheren (humans) and take over their holdings... ;) [/B][/QUOTE]

    Not to mention that they held off the Minbari for YEARS....a race that damn near everyone is afraid of. I think that kinda says "don't fuck with us" more than anything else. ;)
  • ya thats why I hate the official story of no victories.. you dont hold ANYBODY off for years without victories.. even the damn iraqys had victories over the us.. and that war was 21 days lol

    The minbari would have suffered massive losses if the ea fought the war with any intellegence..

    nuking their landing sites.. rigging near orbit nukes, I wouldnt be suprised if starfury pilots. loaded down with bombs(or nukes) Would ram sharlins, we saw a nova ramming a sharlin, on the ground their forces would have been chewed up alive with artillary, "defensive" nuking and all those nice and high tech weapons.

    Of course the ea would have lost 5x the number probably in space, and major in the open ground battles, but as soon as you get to urban warfar, or jungle warfar, where its man to man, that would have dropped down real fast


    I have never understood how that story was told.. if I was fighting the minbari.. and I just heard what happened to the black star, EVERY ea ship would have its missiles replaced with nukes, every starfury would have nuclear rockets and the rule of the day would be simply to flood any space where jumpoints open with nuke after nuke after nuke, I would fire nukes into hyperspace.. thousands of them, in the general direction of any kown minbari fleet, hell I would send drones, loaded with nukes into hyperspace to come out in minbari space and ram into planets.

    And I would so use bio and genetic weapons, its no use being "noble" if your dead
  • [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by DamoclesX [/i]
    [B]ya thats why I hate the official story of no victories.. you dont hold ANYBODY off for years without victories.. even the damn iraqys had victories over the us.. and that war was 21 days lol

    The minbari would have suffered massive losses if the ea fought the war with any intellegence..

    nuking their landing sites.. rigging near orbit nukes, I wouldnt be suprised if starfury pilots. loaded down with bombs(or nukes) Would ram sharlins, we saw a nova ramming a sharlin, on the ground their forces would have been chewed up alive with artillary, "defensive" nuking and all those nice and high tech weapons.

    Of course the ea would have lost 5x the number probably in space, and major in the open ground battles, but as soon as you get to urban warfar, or jungle warfar, where its man to man, that would have dropped down real fast


    I have never understood how that story was told.. if I was fighting the minbari.. and I just heard what happened to the black star, EVERY ea ship would have its missiles replaced with nukes, every starfury would have nuclear rockets and the rule of the day would be simply to flood any space where jumpoints open with nuke after nuke after nuke, I would fire nukes into hyperspace.. thousands of them, in the general direction of any kown minbari fleet, hell I would send drones, loaded with nukes into hyperspace to come out in minbari space and ram into planets.

    And I would so use bio and genetic weapons, its no use being "noble" if your dead [/B][/QUOTE]

    Remind me to never screw with DamoclesX.
  • BekennBekenn Sinclair's Duck
    Thing is... he's not wrong. In a war of survival, that is exactly what even nobility requires.

    The first, inviolate rule of civilization is that you [i]must protect your civilians[/i]. Even at the cost of enemy civilians (though I would personally try to avoid inflicting enemy civilian casualties as much as possible).
  • While Damocles brings up some good points, I'd think twice about shooting nukes into hyperspace... too much potential for disaster.
  • David of MacDavid of Mac Elite Ranger Ca
    The only reason the nukes worked with the Black Star was that they weren't expecting them. Fire them in missiles, and they'll just be shot out of the sky. And, more than likely, after Sheridan's trick, the Minbari began actively scanning for mines none stop.
  • you ever read on what happens with a small nuke goes off? Imagin 50 100 megaton nukes going off, your sensors would be totaly blinded, emp effects electronics, of any kind, it wouldnt matter if they saw them, they coul dnever hit them, and minbari ships, while impressive shooting down fighters, are not loaded with anti fighter beams, even at the battle of the line, when they had a TON of ships it took a while to knock down the ea fighters, and fighters are a LOT bigger and a lot slower then missiles, a sharlin wouldnt have a hope in hell of knocking out 500 missiles, each with 6 warheads, rigged only to detonate when in range.

    I agree about hyperspace and thats the point really lol, see, a massive problem in hyperspace, while bad, wouldnt effect the ea, they are on the defensive, but if they fck hyperspace up badly enough that the minbari cant get to them, all the better.. deal with the problem once the war is over.
  • JackNJackN <font color=#99FF99>Lightwave Alien</font>
    Methinks DamoclesX is John Sheridan incognito...

    ;) :p :D
  • BekennBekenn Sinclair's Duck
    Actually... what is there in hyperspace that would really be affected by a nuke? For that matter, what about a vacuum?

    The horrors of nuclear weapons (aside from the big boom factor) are mostly related to their effects upon an ecosystem, a climate. Such things do not exist in a vacuum.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    Not to mention that space is full of radiation of various kinds already.
  • In a vaccum a nuke would be a big spherical shockwave, howfar, and how much damage would depend, it wouldnt be NEARLY as deadly as on a planet, a VERY large part of the damage of a nuke is the shockwave and firestorm, neither would be generated in space, but it still would cause damage, the worst would be the radiation and emp pulses, but up close the force of the blast would still be a major issue, and I would think also heat trasfer to the target would be rather impressive up close

    thast why I said lots of them, I think battlestar galactica had the best impression of a nuke going off in space so far, mind you in the beginning had a good one too.

    Space is full of radiation, but its not at the level a nuke would put off, at least not in the... "normal" space where these battles take place, get close toa black hole or a pulsar and you are probably several mags above what a nuke would give off.

    Granted I dont know even if an emp would effect minbari tech. but we do know that a nuke going off.. still a fair distance from a minbari cruiser causes a LOT of damage, and two takes it out.

    As for hyperspace... well.. I got this theory.... try it and fine out then you will know lol:)
  • BekennBekenn Sinclair's Duck
    I figure that in open space the radiation should dissipate fairly quickly, what with having nothing around to become irradiated.
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    Interesting question...however...the Minbari did surrender to the humans. This to me would indicate that the Minbari fleet would therefore protect Earth from any opportunists.

    Plus, don't forget that the Minbari bypassed some of the inner colonies to hit Earth sooner - there could well have been fleets that were unable to reach Earth in time to help in the defense.
  • Vertigo1Vertigo1 Official Fuzzy Dice of FirstOnes.com
    Space isn't a pure vaccum though. However, gas pressure is so very low that anything that would create a shockwave would have a VERY limited one in space, depending on its location. Inside a nebula, it would definitely have some sort of a shockwave. Plus, getting fragged by EMP in a nebula would definitely not be a good thing.

    What suprised me was that the EA didn't bring out any neutron bombs. Assuming they worked, they could snag a war cruiser and use it to ambush the enemy, and poke around in it looking for weak spots at the same time.
  • Nuclear warheads would have to be delivered very close in to be effective. Any starship would, by neccessity, have impressive radiation shielding; there are all kinds of spikes in various forms of radiation in space, from solar flares to other events.

    In fact, radiation is of prime concern to planners for Mars missions; one solar flare and the crew is toast. Background levels remain high enough to cause cancer etc. so even the Earth vessels must have shielding to protect crew in long term deployments.

    If you imagine the sheer scale of space combat, missile weapons would require significant endurance and intelligence to track targets. No matter how many you launch, the spread will never be big enough to catch anything, for the same reason as the radiation will be ineffective.

    Imagine the old expanding universe description, with dots on a deflated balloon. Now blow up that balloon and see how the once dense dots become very spread out. These dots can be radiation or missiles; the reason why the Black Star was destroyed was for two reasons;
    1. Sheridan spaced bombs in the location where he KNEW the ship would have to be.
    2. It was close enough to recieve the brunt of the explosion; the asteroid field would have provided plenty of matter to enhance the damage from the fusion explosion.
  • BigglesBiggles <font color=#AAFFAA>The Man Without a Face</font>
    People, all your questions and complaints can be summed up in the two words jms always uses to these sorts of questions: "Dramatic effect."
  • Nevertheless... such discussions are fun, becoming a valid conceptual debate on the joys of space combat.
  • BekennBekenn Sinclair's Duck
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Biggles [/i]
    [B]People, all your questions and complaints can be summed up in the two words jms always uses to these sorts of questions: "Dramatic effect." [/B][/QUOTE]

    Not good enough. If I don't buy the situation, I don't buy the drama.
  • AlexAlex Earthforce Officer
    I think you are all missing the point.

    EAs biggest problem was the minbari stealth technology.
    Nuke missiles or drones are useless if they can't lock on to the target.

    Sharidan destroyed the Balck Star because he used the nuke as a remote-detonated mine.
    He lured the Black Star to the mine and pushed the button when he saw that it was close enough. It worked because he created a situation where de didn't need to lock on, not because it was a nuke.


    About Nukes in space:
    Shockwave doesn't happen. The few particles in space aren't nearly enough to carry a shockwave. In nebulas it would depend on the particle density at the given loaction, but considder this: If the density is high enough to carry a shockwave, ships that are not designed for atmosperic travel (and that's the majority of warships) would not be able to go ther in the first place.

    Radiation isn't a problem, since spaceships require strong radiation shielding anyway (see MeadDrinker's post)

    EMP doesn't happen. The EMP is the result of strong gamma-radiation inside earths atmosphere. In space a nuklear explosion doesn't create an EMP.

    The only thing that's left is the heat. Althouh this factor works in space, plasma guns would create the same, probably even higher heat.
    There's not much reason to use a nuke in space - unless of course you use it as mine to circumvent the minabari stealth technology. But this trick works only once. The Minbari woun't fall for that again.
  • BekennBekenn Sinclair's Duck
    [QUOTE][i]Originally posted by Alex [/i]
    [B]In space a nu[/b][i]c[/i][b]lear explosion doesn't create an EMP.[/B][/QUOTE]

    I contest this; do you have a source?

    Oh, yeah, and as funny as Brian Clevinger is, beware the effect his purpously misspelled url might have on your discourse!
  • AlexAlex Earthforce Officer
    The creation of the EMP is based on the Compton effect (named after Arthur Compton).
    It says that a photon can knock an electron out of an atom with low atomic number.
    This is happening all the time, but at a very low scale without any noticable effect.

    The massive photon burst from the gamma radiaton of a nuclear explosion however will knock an enormous ammount of electrons out of oxigen an nitrogen atoms in the atmosphere.
    This flood of free electrons interacts with earths magnetic field, creating a fluctuating electrical current, which in turn induces a strong magnetic field.

    The result of this in a Electromagnetic Pulse, or short EMP.


    The creation of the EMP relies on 2 things:
    1) the presence of an Atmosphere to provide the atoms that the electrons can be knocked off.

    2) The planets magnetic field for the electrons to ineract with.

    Neither of these conditions is met in space, so no EMP.
  • BekennBekenn Sinclair's Duck
    Thanks! You've given me something to think about.
  • Random ChaosRandom Chaos Actually Carefully-selected Order in disguise
    That makes sense Alex. However, that would still mean that an EMP would work anywhere near a planet - so it could be used as a planetary defense. After all the atmosphere extends out far past what we consider "space" due to a local area hydrogen cloud.
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