Babylon 5 A Fighting Chance --- A Babylon 5 AU
- Thread starter Harlock
- Start date
mwkillkenny84
Well-known member
Because where a Warrior fight for glory and honor, the Soldier fight to make sure the other one dies for hir country.
Very true.
100Fathoms
Serial Lurker
Delenen better get the rangers off the dime, and get that " peace with honor " negotiating done post haste. Before she meets Sinclair over mimbar. 
BF110C4
Well-known member
Maybe later, Sheridan is still far too green to command a force large enough to face what Neroon has commanded before. Especially now that he is Brammer's only proven fleet commander so he will be in the front of the border battles for the next year or so while Sheridan will be striking undefended positions well in the rear.
trekchu
For the FEDCOM! For the Archon-Prince!
That won't last forever. Depending on how many ships the Minbari can move from elsewhere, eventually they'll run into a serious attempt to defend one of their targets. I can't see the Minbary stripping their other borders completely.
No need with the mothball fleets available. They can be brought to operational status. The problem
will be crews to man them.
trekchu
For the FEDCOM! For the Archon-Prince!
Which is why they'll likely try and reduce other fleets.
Silverbullet
Active member
I feel this next part of the war isn’t going to be as curbstompy as believed. The remaining Minbari have mostly wised up to their situation, they’ve called up their friends who have had a long time of peace and safety to build up. The Minbari are also fighting on their turf now so they’re going to be fighting with fanatical tenacity. I’m not saying they have a chance of winning, but this is gonna be a brawl.
Chris O'Farrell
Member
It does seem canon that members of the Religious and Worker cast, at least some members of them, are given at least limited training in how to use warships. Lennier being a prime example of that insomuch as he could work the weapons systems of the Whitestar well enough but absoloutly needed Sheriden above him to give him quite precise orders. And he stated that things like 'skin dancing' around larger ships were things he would need years of training to accomplish himself (luckily the Whitestars autopilot was smarter than he was).
Of course some of that is down to the rigidity of Minbari training. Neroon sounds like exactly the kind of guy to put in charge of streamlining training. And there is still a decent reserve of Warrior Cast members to work with, just warriors trained for ground combat rather than naval combat. But they can be tapped, especially for the smaller, faster and more mobile ships IF you can find good Captains for them.
So its sort of six of one, half a dozen of the other. They probably do have a core reserve of people with the basic technical skills to crew warships, but they are critically short on the officers they need to command and lead them. Neroon and Brammer cannot be everywhere after all. And I don't think either truly understands how the EA is about to start fighting. Going for the Minbaris rigid industrial support structure and knocking it down, keeping the Minbari off balance and playing hard into their inability to quickly adapt to structural change. They SHOULD be expecting commerce raiding as its a tactic Earth used with the Dilgar quite openly and with all the ships captured, they should make the assumption that their databases, maps and strategic data has also been captured ... but I bet they won't put two and two together until Starkiller does a drive by of a Minbari orbital shipyard and in one strafing run does more damage to the Minbari fleet then even Jungle Joe did in pitched battles...
Earthforce, on the other hand, still has a relatively massive corps of skilled captains in service, coming back into service and training for service. If not for the fact that Fergerson died at the Line, I would have expected Hamato to be, now that the immediate threat is negated, rotated back into the critical role of training command. But now he's back in the CIC position (the politicians must love that) and on the front line. But you can be sure someone is busy working up the plans to match the industrial ramp up, so that you have fresh crews ready with a handful of key officers, with these green ships then in turn being blended into formations with veteran ships.
Of course some of that is down to the rigidity of Minbari training. Neroon sounds like exactly the kind of guy to put in charge of streamlining training. And there is still a decent reserve of Warrior Cast members to work with, just warriors trained for ground combat rather than naval combat. But they can be tapped, especially for the smaller, faster and more mobile ships IF you can find good Captains for them.
So its sort of six of one, half a dozen of the other. They probably do have a core reserve of people with the basic technical skills to crew warships, but they are critically short on the officers they need to command and lead them. Neroon and Brammer cannot be everywhere after all. And I don't think either truly understands how the EA is about to start fighting. Going for the Minbaris rigid industrial support structure and knocking it down, keeping the Minbari off balance and playing hard into their inability to quickly adapt to structural change. They SHOULD be expecting commerce raiding as its a tactic Earth used with the Dilgar quite openly and with all the ships captured, they should make the assumption that their databases, maps and strategic data has also been captured ... but I bet they won't put two and two together until Starkiller does a drive by of a Minbari orbital shipyard and in one strafing run does more damage to the Minbari fleet then even Jungle Joe did in pitched battles...
Earthforce, on the other hand, still has a relatively massive corps of skilled captains in service, coming back into service and training for service. If not for the fact that Fergerson died at the Line, I would have expected Hamato to be, now that the immediate threat is negated, rotated back into the critical role of training command. But now he's back in the CIC position (the politicians must love that) and on the front line. But you can be sure someone is busy working up the plans to match the industrial ramp up, so that you have fresh crews ready with a handful of key officers, with these green ships then in turn being blended into formations with veteran ships.
Harlock
I should have expected that really
I was never fully sure of the numbers or the breakdown but there did appear to be a good mix of combat trained Worker and Relgious caste hanging around. For instance the three ships Delenn used to drive off Clark's guys and save B5 were Worker caste, in the following episode we get to meet them and they are wearing Worker uniforms. We also see a few white robed Religious types piloting ships, mostly the first few Whitestars before the Rangers became a bigger deal.
My theory there is someone must be training these guys, there must be a branch of their respective Castes that requires a combat discipline. Probably less intense than a warrior and focused on different narrow aspects of war, but apparently sufficient to get a fleet out there including capital ships.
Granted at this point a major chunk of them also got erased But as they are looking at changing vocations for warriors I'd expect similar in other Castes. Branmer would be rather keen on this as his overarching goal has always been to gear up for the Shadow war, that means sidelining the more prideful warriors and setting up the economy and infrastructure for a true total war.
Earth is probably making that job very easy for him, but the longer it goes on the worse it will be now they are on their home turf.
The Protectorates will be a Wild Card, while they have been nanny'd a lot one particular member world was said to be extremely militant and warlike. They are also a fairly unknown quantity to everyone, even the Centauri know little of them, so I wouldn't be expecting an easy fight.
But I also have a Star Wars fic I want to do and this story was always scheduled for 20 chapters so we'll see
My theory there is someone must be training these guys, there must be a branch of their respective Castes that requires a combat discipline. Probably less intense than a warrior and focused on different narrow aspects of war, but apparently sufficient to get a fleet out there including capital ships.
Granted at this point a major chunk of them also got erased
But as they are looking at changing vocations for warriors I'd expect similar in other Castes. Branmer would be rather keen on this as his overarching goal has always been to gear up for the Shadow war, that means sidelining the more prideful warriors and setting up the economy and infrastructure for a true total war.Earth is probably making that job very easy for him, but the longer it goes on the worse it will be now they are on their home turf.
The Protectorates will be a Wild Card, while they have been nanny'd a lot one particular member world was said to be extremely militant and warlike. They are also a fairly unknown quantity to everyone, even the Centauri know little of them, so I wouldn't be expecting an easy fight.
But I also have a Star Wars fic I want to do and this story was always scheduled for 20 chapters so we'll see
My gut feeling is that the EA is going to see some interesting gains initially, but a 2 Nova attack force is NOT going to be able to get any serious damage against infrastructure and ship building. There's just TOO much that the Minbari are likely to have in the way of 'fixed' defenses, and I know that Branmer is simply not going to leave his essential warfighting assets unprotected.
Frankly, what really surprised me was that he didn't just use the Earth attack as a head-fake to destroy every other piece of EA production outside of Earth. He had a large enough, swift enough force to do it.
We know Branmer understands total war. He's preparing for the biggest war the galaxy has seen in at least a millennia. His problem now, is simply how to keep the Minbari in good enough shape to execute that war to the fullest...and while he's at it, gain a level of understanding/cooperation/unification of purpose with the other major powers in the field.
All that aside, I think the EA is in for one hell of a painful push towards Minbar. If everyone is REALLY lucky, Sinclair gets captured early on in the invasion of Minbari space so that the Gray Council has reason to cease fighting that is imminently clear.
Frankly, what really surprised me was that he didn't just use the Earth attack as a head-fake to destroy every other piece of EA production outside of Earth. He had a large enough, swift enough force to do it.
We know Branmer understands total war. He's preparing for the biggest war the galaxy has seen in at least a millennia. His problem now, is simply how to keep the Minbari in good enough shape to execute that war to the fullest...and while he's at it, gain a level of understanding/cooperation/unification of purpose with the other major powers in the field.
All that aside, I think the EA is in for one hell of a painful push towards Minbar. If everyone is REALLY lucky, Sinclair gets captured early on in the invasion of Minbari space so that the Gray Council has reason to cease fighting that is imminently clear.
BF110C4
Well-known member
Mostly because 3/4 of Earth Force's infrastructure is concentrated in either Earth, Mars or Proxima which protected each other and the remaining 1/4 of the logistical chain is far too dispersed to be the focus of a time and ships limited raid.
As for the raid? Historically those raids most of the time are far too weak to deal a serious blow to the enemy, but each and every one will have a serious cost of opportunity for the Mimbari. If Sheridan destroys a merchant ship moving materials for the shipyards he will delay construction of a Sharlin a day or so, which is not too bad, but not too good. But after a few such hunts the Worker caste will have to assign escorts and establish a convoy system, which is going to delay all factories in the region.
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Chances are the first advances into Minbari territory are going to be cautious, even with all the data Earthforce has been able to get its hands on. No matter how you look at it, Earth's military strength has been badly mauled, so the most logical approach for an experienced force like that would be to do probing attacks first (aside from the obvious choice of commerce raiding the everloving hell out of the Minbari, too) to get a feeling for how the Minbari defend their installations, but with regards to their defensive tactics and their defense material. Hamato will probably scout a whole lot of systems simultaneously to keep the Minbari guessing, and in all likelyhood then will chose a mid-sized target. That has the advantage of still doing some hurting damage, but most likely will not have a level of fixed defenses that even if not fully scouted won't cripple an attacking force.
Still, after hitting enough targets, the Minbari will be seeing the flying bricks everywhere.
Just a scout being seen in a system with a potential target will provoke quite the reaction.
Branmer, and Naroon will have to draw the raiders out with a target they can't pass up,
perhaps one of mothball yards.
Just a scout being seen in a system with a potential target will provoke quite the reaction.
Branmer, and Naroon will have to draw the raiders out with a target they can't pass up,
perhaps one of mothball yards.
I'm pretty sure that's what he'll try to do once he has gotten a hold on the chaos that the nigh complete destruction of the standing forces has wrought on the Minbari, strategically. If there's one person who can do it, it's probably Branmer.
walkir
Member
...and this Valen may have isues with them to take back in time with him. Assuming that happens in the first place.