I wouldn't be surprised if they just grow the crystal directly onto the hulls of their ships.
Seems like it would be the most practical way. Plus wasn't that how they grafted organic tech onto white stars and the Excaliburs?
I wouldn't be surprised if they just grow the crystal directly onto the hulls of their ships.
I don't remember a conversation about that except that the Excalibur was built by Garibaldi et al.Seems like it would be the most practical way. Plus wasn't that how they grafted organic tech onto white stars and the Excaliburs?
Might well be so . You can see on the CG model textures that the hull is lots and lots of hexagonal panels, maybe a crystal grown and cut horizontally?I wouldn't be surprised if they just grow the crystal directly onto the hulls of their ships.
I don't remember a conversation about that except that the Excalibur was built by Garibaldi et al.
Clark became president when Earthforce One, carrying President Luis Santiago, was destroyed at the Io Transfer point on January 1, 2259.[2] He was complicit with the assassination, in order to take office. He believed Earth to be in danger of being overrun by extraterrestrial races, and so the Nightwatch, a fascist, paramilitary organization, was created to find out people suspected to be alien infiltrators or sympathizers.
At about the same time, it was revealed that Clark's forces had found a Shadow vessel buried on Ganymede. Clark was having the ship studied in order to learn its secrets.
Though Clark's dictatorial regime ended, some of his collaborators survived the fall of the dictatorship and the subsequent Senate investigations, some even retaining positions within EarthGov or the media, as was the case with Clark's speech-writer turned political commentator Henry Ellis, Mr. Welles of the Nightwatch Division and General Thompson of the Earthforce Bio-weapons Division.
Yes and no. Santiago was someone that understood that the main threat to humanity is Minbar, but also understood that diplomacy should be the first weapon, so to speak.Yeah, true, never got good vibes of Santiago. At best, he seemed to me like one of those generic politicians who speak the lot, but never promise and actually do anything worthwhile, completely focused to survive his term, and that's it.
Not saying he deserved to be killed (because I suspect then you would have to kill 90% of Earth Senate too), but not many tears were shed. Fact, that his name was later mentioned only because of assasination itself, says a lot.
I can’t even blame Clark for ignoring diplomacy. The Minbari War showed just how little that stuff was worth. What’s the point of cultivating ties and friendships and even alliances if all your so called “friends” leave you in the lurch when crunch time calls?Here's the thing, Clark probably got keepered towards the end, much like Londo did when he became Emperor. The thing was, Clark didn't know -or probably couldn't, given that what Londo used to knock his keeper out is fluffed to be wood alcohol grade at the minimum and he was seriously chugging it to get that keeper drunk as a skunk- the limitations of the keeper until his now-famous 'scorched earth' letter.
It should be noted that Santiago was also a-ok with some of the shit that the black ops were doing (as they were started during his presidency), especially when it came to poking around with alien tech that humanity didn't have a chance in hell to understand. The thing was that Santiago was using the old adage of 'if you want peace, prepare for war'. Clark, largely, dispensed with the idea of diplomacy and suffered from it.
That's not entirely true, given what happened during and after the war, specifically the fact that a significant portion of the Drazi military was going to meet up with Earth Alliance units but vanished in hyperspace (either due to a Minbari ambush or a Vorlon 'intervention'). At the tail end of the war, the Vree (the guys who love using antimatter and use saucers for warships) helped the Earth Alliance with the cleanup. This is on top of the fact that many LONAW soldiers became part of Alien Volunteer units.I can’t even blame Clark for ignoring diplomacy. The Minbari War showed just how little that stuff was worth. What’s the point of cultivating ties and friendships and even alliances if all your so called “friends” leave you in the lurch when crunch time calls?
It should be noted that humans are always falling within a bell curve in terms of ideology, at least before the dawn of memetic science and the internet (and even then, it just flattens that bell curve).
Another thing is that the LONAW, during the Minbari War, had a literal gun at their heads after the Drazi tried to send help with a significant portion of their fleet. The Minbari literally parked War Cruisers in orbit of their worlds saying 'we've got a gun to your heads, do you want to join the humans?'. Yeah, that happened in the extended lore.
Humans, in this case, couldn't fault the LONAW for not overtly helping out after the Drazi got a significant portion of their fleet murderized, and the Minbari took credit for that from what I've dug up...
From my understanding, the LONAW is basically a mix of pre-unification Germany and pre-Civil War US, deeply fractured and divided. Then there is the fact that the Minbari has a reputation of being genocide happy when someone gets their ire... as well as the insanely enormous amount of goodwill of being the race that led the various other races of the time to end the previous Shadow War.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 people who saved them from the Dilgar. Even the Centuari had to look appealing after that. And once Earth got their feet back under them? I could see the LONAW and EA signing various agreements to the effect of 'we are all going to share tech and resources so that if the Minbari get all genocide happy again we will at least have some ways to defend ourselves.' Honestly surprised at how respected the Minbari were in the show given that sort of history, even decades later.
Not sure if the Minbari pulled that level of gunboat diplomacy in this AU, simply because they needed their ships to actually fight. In canon, they only lost one ship (that we know of) in the entire war. So they could spare a squadron or two to intimidate the League.
Considering that only the Yolu and various Minbari protectorate races are old enough to care about that, said goodwill doesn’t amount to much. Other than the Yolu, the various League races are simply too young to have been space faring at that time.as well as the insanely enormous amount of goodwill of being the race that led the various other races of the time to end the previous Shadow War.
You wouldn't believe how much goodwill defeating the Shadows gave the Minbari, largely because that particular war still all but exterminated quite a few races. Many of them became part of the Minbari Protectorate. That's just how brutal the last Shadow War was. Then there was the fact that they whacked at least one race that made the Centauri better company and the fact that they gave the Centauri a horrific scare when their privateers decided to go completely pirate...Considering that only the Yolu and various Minbari protectorate races are old enough to care about that, said goodwill doesn’t amount to much. Other than the Yolu, the various League races are simply too young to have been space faring at that time.
You wouldn't believe how much goodwill defeating the Shadows gave the Minbari, largely because that particular war still all but exterminated quite a few races.
... wow, I can't believe what I'm seeing. The thing was that the Minbari had a lot of goodwill despite the 1k years and a mighty reputation. In addition, we're talking about aliens here, but you conveniently forget that I said that the goodwill vanished during the Earth-Minbari War (and it sank even lower during the Last Shadow War as the Warrior Caste decided to undertake a civil fucking war just as the Shadows came out) after they came in and gunboat diplomacy'd them. In addition, the LONAW is made up of races that also don't trust each other all that well, the only real thing uniting them was the Centauri.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 claiming some great respect for the Normans has helped British/French relations in regards to new trade agreements after the British left the EU.
At the point of the Earth/Minbari war, the Minbari are little more than legends. And the stories change between them being heroic leaders of all people good and true against the ancient demons, and being those scary people who exterminate their foes without mercy. When they show up again? The second set of legends certainly seems more accurate. I'm not sure why anyone in the League would buy the 'no we really are the good guys, honestly, we beat the Shadows guys' after they threatened to exterminate every home world in the League. If nothing else, that should have been a massive wakeup call for them as a group (as if the Dilgar War wasn't enough) to get them to rebuild a powerful military alliance that could stand up to the bigger powers in the galaxy.