Babylon 5 A Fighting Chance --- A Babylon 5 AU

[Vlad_Dracul89]

In any case, I'd be a voter of any 'Terra First Party' after war with Minbari. Again, it's still puzzling to me how many Humans in the show are okay with being friends with fundamentalist theocratic maniacs who were mere moments before Exterminatus of Earth, and then just said 'No, we are not doing that for no explanation whatsoever, lol.'

Military Spending Patterns in History – EH.net

eh.net

Very at least, military production afterwards should be pushed for 20% of Earth economy, until Humanity possesses biggest galactic navy in both numbers and firepower. What if these religious maniacs will suddenly turn mad again?
If Minbari wouldn't stay to be boogeyman enough, propaganda should work on 'worse threats from the dark space'.

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Very at least, military production afterwards should be pushed for 20% of Earth economy, until Humanity possesses biggest galactic navy in both numbers and firepower.

So what if you spend that heavily. Everything you build is still just going to play 'target' for Minbari Neutron lasers and their Stealth tech makes you impotent. THAT is one of the big reasons it didn't happen that way in they show. Earth found themselves laughably outclassed.

EDIT: IF you're addressing the aftermath of this AU than there's no point to do that UNLESS you're specifically trying to frighten everyone around you into submission, or you want to spark an arms race.

 

[edgeworthy]

In any case, I'd be a voter of any 'Terra First Party' after war with Minbari. Again, it's still puzzling to me how many Humans in the show are okay with being friends with fundamentalist theocratic maniacs who were mere moments before Exterminatus of Earth, and then just said 'No, we are not doing that for no explanation whatsoever, lol.'

Military Spending Patterns in History – EH.net

eh.net

Very at least, military production afterwards should be pushed for 20% of Earth economy, until Humanity possesses biggest galactic navy in both numbers and firepower. What if these religious maniacs will suddenly turn mad again?
If Minbari wouldn't stay to be boogeyman enough, propaganda should work on 'worse threats from the dark space'.

So what if you spend that heavily. Everything you build is still just going to play 'target' for Minbari Neutron lasers and their Stealth tech makes you impotent. THAT is one of the big reasons it didn't happen that way in they show. Earth found themselves laughably outclassed.

EDIT: IF you're addressing the aftermath of this AU than there's no point to do that UNLESS you're specifically trying to frighten everyone around you into submission, or you want to spark an arms race.

And to be honest no modern state can really maintain more than about 6% of GDP on Military spending.
(Not the same thing as the percentage of Government Revenue)
Any more than that, outside of wartime, risks serious economic issues.
(And electoral repercussions from disgruntled voters complaining about the tax burden.)

The Soviet Union's official defence budget was 6% of GDP. In reality it was more like 14%.

 

[Vlad_Dracul89]

You can always compensate for military spending by cutting the non-essential services, such as support of university education unrelated to armament efforts (such as philosophy or music, yikes) or services for poor people, who can be instead conscripted for work in the military and colonization of space, offering them no other choice. EA may well establish additional civilian agencies in support of fortification and colonization of Human systems, in control of high command.

I say if navy stopped aliens from bombarding your house, you could be much more easily convinced that more guns are more important than funding of public hospitals...

 

[BF110C4]

You can always compensate for military spending by cutting the non-essential services, such as support of university education unrelated to armament efforts (such as philosophy or music, yikes) or services for poor people, who can be instead conscripted for work in the military and colonization of space, offering them no other choice. EA may well establish additional civilian agencies in support of fortification and colonization of Human systems, in control of high command.

I say if navy stopped aliens from bombarding your house, you could be much more easily convinced that more guns are more important than funding of public hospitals...

That said after a decade or more of the aliens being absolutely indiferent to you, your territory and resources and yet so much more powerful that you cannot even play at them being scared of your renewed military might the population will grow tired really fast of the high taxes and low returns, the mandatory military service that after finishing leaves you in a market with more military trained spacers than civilian ships to hire them and more than a little alarmism about now that the Mimbari are forgotten as a threat who are the next enemies of mankind.

That's not a recipe for anything good to happen.

 

[Vlad_Dracul89]

I think you can manage with alien scare for next twenty years, at least, (until new postwar generation will grow up) during which I strongly suspect more ominous incidents in long range expeditions, bolstered by victory. Centauri will also rearm to make Republic great again. Narns will surely break some stuff too.

That being said, once you start with armament, you can't really stop immediately. Bases can not be closed overnight, warships can not be scrapped in matter of days and military production provides a lot of jobs.

 

[Doomsought]

ou can always compensate for military spending by cutting the non-essential services, such as support of university education unrelated to armament efforts (such as philosophy or music, yikes) or services for poor people, who can be instead conscripted for work in the military and colonization of space, offering them no other choice. EA may well establish additional civilian agencies in support of fortification and colonization of Human systems, in control of high command.

You can also do things to make that military budget work harder, like using your combat engineers corps to do public works to keep them in good training, or using military forces for disaster relief.

 

[BF110C4]

You can also do things to make that military budget work harder, like using your combat engineers corps to do public works to keep them in good training, or using military forces for disaster relief.

Not good idea long term, military is in general terms less effective than a contractor who is not inflating his costs, and gearing soldiers towards building and mantaining public infrastructure and services forces you to train them to civilian standards (in both senses of the word, making them effective at construction but less capable of doing it under fire) basically duplicating other agencies that would use the budget far more efficiently.

On the other hand soldiers are actually very effective in the S&R business, their command structure, vehicles designed to be independent of roads and the ability to move large amounts of supplies make them very effective for natural disasters, but again not quite worth it for anything less, leaving their intervention as good PR but little else.

 

[Midnighter13]

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 to goods and living space across the EA, and quality of life should increase along with profits (for both the government and private sector). Better yet, the civilian lift capacity will mean more people living on various off world colonies, and more infrastructure being developed off Earth (diversification and redundancy of industry and population centers).

A larger merchant marine will also increase the EA's share of galactic trade without scaring the other powers into thinking the EA is building up for a military takeover of the galaxy (even though in this case, they are building the economy and infrastructure nessesary to do just that). I think I read a B5 fic years ago that did this.

Essentially the government can subsidize the ship construction industry so that in times of war they can shift over into a massive crash building program in short order.

 

[Vlad_Dracul89]

I also didn't get in the show why merchants ships were not organized into convoys protected by heavy cruisers or why they are not armed and basically every single merchant ship is easy lamb to slaughter for pirate ships, relying on fighters from static bases. Which is dumb.

Which likely is not a problem for Centauri, since every powerful House owns military hardware and likely protects their own trade lanes.

By the way, drinking Jovian Sunspot right now.

 

[Trace Coburn]

A convoy system is complicated, expensive, and commercially speaking, majorly inefficient (and thus, again, expensive, in that it bites deeply into profitability). You only go to the trouble of creating one if your merchant shipping is being subjected to large-scale commerce-raiding (as in, during a situation of declared wartime) where the losses from letting ships proceed independently and unescorted are less acceptable than all the hassles of herding cats (AKA merchant captains) into organised, easily-protected groups and creating and coordinating sufficient escort forces to do the job properly.
Pirate gangs? Like a Raider battle-wagon carrying a dozen Zephyrs? They are not an existential threat to your space-lines of communication. Yes, that battle-wagon will ruin the day of any individual freighter it targets, and its parent company will eat higher Lloyd's of London premiums for a while, but it's not something that merits the kind of time, effort, or investment from a national government entailed in a convoy scheme.
(I'd also imagine that the majority of 'piracy' seen inside the Centauri Republic would be combated by, and committed by, the very same House forces you mention, as an extension of the rivalries between those factions.)

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Also i4vreally doesn't help that most of the ships that would likely get used as escorts and patrol ships ie older and smaller ships got a severe case of Neutron Lasers to the face

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Well, in the case of expanding your merchant fleet, I'd also rapidly build up the smaller escort ships AND use them as test beds for military hardware...though you risk getting said hardware taken by a heavy raiding force IF they can disable said escort.

 

[Knowledgeispower]

Well, in the case of expanding your merchant fleet, I'd also rapidly build up the smaller escort ships AND use them as test beds for military hardware...though you risk getting said hardware taken by a heavy raiding force IF they can disable said escort.

Mind you in the world of Babylon 5 a escort that isn't tied to other ships or jump gates is decently large. ie heavy cruiser sized

 

[The Whispering Monk]

Not so. In this AU, the EA will have gravitic tech. So their smaller escort, like the Hermes, would be easily upgraded to make it a more efficient long term escort than a Heavy Cruiser. Though, in real world terms, a Light/Fast Cruiser is likely the best platform for Escort duties. Large enough for months of stores, fast enough to do the work and pursue raiders, and big enough not to be overly threatened by the average raider.

 

[Doomsought]

If you are using your shipyards for heavy colonization effort, troop transports have all the same requirements as a colony ship, except loosing some capacity to defenses. A carrier designed to function as as an interstellar equivalent to an amphibious assault ship would be your main peace-time capital ship to build.

 

[Harlock]

I do want to expand the EA fleet a little with grav tech ships. Beside canon ships like Warlocks, Apollo and Cronos classes I'll borrow some fan concepts like the Tempest (A Hyperion with Warlock aesthetics) and the Polaris (Light Cruiser) to fill out the balance.
Much as I love the doom bricks of the EA showing up, practically you'd be wanting smaller vessels for a lot of these missions. Bigger than a frigate but not a mile long slab

It is getting worked on, just a tough year. It'll get there in the end

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

I do want to expand the EA fleet a little with grav tech ships. Beside canon ships like Warlocks, Apollo and Cronos classes I'll borrow some fan concepts like the Tempest (A Hyperion with Warlock aesthetics) and the Polaris (Light Cruiser) to fill out the balance.
Much as I love the doom bricks of the EA showing up, practically you'd be wanting smaller vessels for a lot of these missions. Bigger than a frigate but not a mile long slab

Does that mean the Babylon station will have its own picket force? Beyond fighters I mean, if they build some smaller AG fielding gunboats to patrol for raiders and smugglers and the like?

Also take your time dude you've been working in this story forever. It's entirely worth the wait! You do impeccable work.

 

[Harlock]

Does that mean the Babylon station will have its own picket force? Beyond fighters I mean, if they build some smaller AG fielding gunboats to patrol for raiders and smugglers and the like?

Also take your time dude you've been working in this story forever. It's entirely worth the wait! You do impeccable work.

Initially just the station but when tensions climb its armament refit will include six GOD sats deployed around it and by season three when I expect Minbari war 2 there will be a task force using it as their base.

I figure B5 is mostly out of the way so it'll be a low priority compared to say the forts on the Minbari border, but it will have a respectable force when things get fun

 

[The Immortal Watch Dog]

Initially just the station but when tensions climb its armament refit will include six GOD sats deployed around it and by season three when I expect Minbari war 2 there will be a task force using it as their base.

I figure B5 is mostly out of the way so it'll be a low priority compared to say the forts on the Minbari border, but it will have a respectable force when things get fun

Minbari war two...Jeez that's going to be interesting to read and I wonder which Minbari fills the Hitler/Tojo roll.

Kosh must be going full Jerry Springer on Ulkesh for that.