Recent content by Midnighter13

One idea I had for a B5 crossover was that the Centuari found the 12 Colonies of Kobol instead of Earth. As a result, the first cylon war kicks off as the Centuari are getting involved politically with the colonies. Thus, the first war ends not with a ceasefire, but with the cylons grabbing...

The Israelis actually wanted the Egyptians to take Gaza, the Egyptians refused. The biggest reason the Palestinian issue exists in the first place is because the nations of the Arab League (Egypt included) went out of their way to create a permanent population of stateless refugees. It was a...

Egypt in 1973. They launched a surprise attack against Israel (along with Syria) with the goal of retaking the Sini peninsula. After the first few days of the war where the IAF proven unable to repeat their victories of the six day war, the IDF was forced to give ground in the Sini and started a...

I guess I'm confused why you think Abbas coming to power earlier would make a peace deal more likely? Yes, Arafat launched the second intifada after the Oslo accords to shore up his local power base, but I don't think a newly empowered Abbas would have had the political strength to survive...

I reread this a few days ago, and have been thinking about it ever since, specifically the issue of the work camps on Earth. So, in this version of the Federation, Section 31 has essentially been ruling the place from the shadows the entire time. Fine. A secret cryogenic prison on Pluto? Makes...

The history of Jews in Ukraine, and Jewish/Ukrainian relations is complex to say the least. On one had, yes, Ukraine has (or had) a thriving Jewish community before the Nazis and following the collapse of the USSR. That said? The Ukrainians were pretty antisemetic during WWII as the Nazis...

I don't think Israel should accept Arab refugees from their immediate neighbors because A. those countries are more than capable of housing their own displaced population, B. Israel is already dealing with the Palestinians who were rendered stateless by the actions of the Arab League and it's...

I don't think a specific number is the issue. I think Israel (and most other countries) should accept refugees who are in imminent danger, and sort out long-term issues later. If there are security issues within the refugee populations that can make things more difficult.

You're right, I wouldn't believe it. Even if the Shadow War hadn't destroyed most records from that time, it was a thousand years ago. That's a long time for any polity to remember a debt. For point of reference, a thousand years ago was the Battle of Hastings, and no one is going around...

Honestly? After that mess I'm surprised the LONAW wasn't more anti-Minbari than anti-Centuari. Sure, the Centuari were imperialist thugs who colonized, occupied, and exploited their worlds for centuries, but the Minbari were right there threatening to genocide them all if they tried to help the...

Honestly, the best way to 'spend on the military' without actually spending money on the military (and harming the economy in the process) would be to build shipyards to military spec, and then use them to churn out colony ships and merchant ships during peacetime. Give your people easy access...

They were popular enough and had enough support to run an effective insurgency. That's all they needed. My point is that inter-Christian wars are not at all a thing of the past, nor are inter-Islamic wars. Both religions are prone to violent conflict with those who do not match their beliefs...

What are you talking about? The last Protestant/Catholic war ended in the late 1990s. The Irish Troubles were explicitly based on those religious divisions. There were several other conflicts in Eastern Europe after WWII that involved the same issues. The IRA was hardly a Christian...

I think you are conflating racism, especially among Arabs and Persians, with the religious dictates of Islam. Much like Christianity, Islam in theory holds every believer as equal under god. In fact, I would argue that Islam as a religion is actually less hierarchical (in doctrine anyway) than...

I stopped wearing my kippah in public after a white nationalist shot up a synagogue in Pittsburg. I learned about the shooting in Poway while I was on vacation in San Diego only a few miles away when my girlfriend's parents called her frantically to learn if we had been visiting that synagogue...