In terms of Strategy/Strategic planning, how "good"

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2003-01-04 03:50am

John Sheridan from B5.

He won quite a few battles in the show, both on a small and on a larger scale. How "good" is he in terms of both objective results (as seen onscreen on B5) and in comparision to the strategists in ST and SWs. How well would he do if he were subbed into famous battles in ST/SWs and how well would others (from ST/SWs) do in his place in the B5 universe?

If it helps any, from what I can remember he won all of his battles, in both the show and in the movies. He even managed to "win" in Call to Arms, though the plauge turnned it into a Phyrric Victory.

Post by **Coyote** » 2003-01-04 04:14am

Pretty good. He also has a grasp of populaist politics that is rare in a leader; but his ability/willingness to comprehend and use Power Politics is either lacking or naive.

For combat leadership, I'd put him in the class of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel: he used a small force, with little logistics and almost no political backing and used it to carry out a handful of successful raids and pinprick assaults that caused damage and disorganization far beyond the actual effects of the attacks.

Politically, he's a silver-tongued Churchill or Kennedy as far as the masses go. His Power Politics comprehenion is infantile though. He couldn't see Garibaldi's brainwashing and never did fully see/comprehend Psi Corp's corruptive effects. He never could best Kosh. But then, who could?

Bear in mind I really dig B5, so I am not totally without bias.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-01-04 04:29am

I never saw that Sheridan ever had much in the way of options, so I don't know if you could call him a strategist; he tended to do the only thing possible in most situations, because there was usually only one option. This means he didn't fuck up when the opportunity arose, and by sci-fi standards, that sadly puts him above the pack. But IMHO, his skills were more in the area of demagoguery than anything else.

I suppose he gets bonus points for his ability to sneak-attack with nukes (against the Minbari and the Shadows), but as far as combat tactics go, he struck me as overrated. This is a guy who flew his own fighter on missions, which seems like a reckless cowboy personality type. And what about ACTA? He takes his big ships into the cloud looking for the control node; shouldn't he have sent fighters in there first, to find the node and then radio its location? Isn't that what scouting is? Why send in your precious heavy hitters when you're not even sure where to go? Expose them to damage and leave them sitting at close range in the target zone for long periods of time ... why?

And I still think he should have detonated nukes to neutralize the bio-swarm. EMP and surface-level flash injuries would be less destructive than infection of the entire population with a supervirus.

FaxModem1 · Post by **FaxModem1** » 2003-01-04 04:39am

Darth Wong wrote:

But IMHO, his skills were more in the area of demagoguery than anything else.

What does demagoguery mean?

Post by **Vympel** » 2003-01-04 04:53am

FaxModem1 wrote: What does demagoguery mean?

Populism, influencing the masses/mob etc.

Look up the word demagogue.

BlkbrryTheGreat · Post by **BlkbrryTheGreat** » 2003-01-04 05:11am

I never saw that Sheridan ever had much in the way of options, so I don't know if you could call him a strategist; he tended to do the only thing possible in most situations, because there was usually only one option. This means he didn't fuck up when the opportunity arose, and by sci-fi standards, that sadly puts him above the pack.

There are only a few instances I can think of where he only had one "obvious" option to use. The rest seemed to be pretty innovative by my standards. He also seemed to be quite effective in his large scale battles vs the Shadows and the Vorlons. Also, he didn't piss away his reasources when morality seemed to demand it (I think a Picard or Sisco would have sent at least part, if not half, of the fleet to Centauri Prime to keep try to save it).

But IMHO, his skills were more in the area of demagoguery than anything else.

Ok......... and why do you think its demagoguery? From what I've observed he just appealed to people's rationality and morality whenever he made his case.

I suppose he gets bonus points for his ability to sneak-attack with nukes (against the Minbari and the Shadows), but as far as combat tactics go, he struck me as overrated. This is a guy who flew his own fighter on missions, which seems like a reckless cowboy personality type.
And what about ACTA? He takes his big ships into the cloud looking for the control node; shouldn't he have sent fighters in there first, to find the node and then radio its location? Isn't that what scouting is? Why send in your precious heavy hitters when you're not even sure where to go? Expose them to damage and leave them sitting at close range in the target zone for long periods of time ... why?

I think that standard Earth Force fighers and warships didn't have sensors good enough to search effectivly for the control node, within the Shadow Cloud. He probably had no choice but to send in the heavy hitters with the better sensors.

And I still think he should have detonated nukes to neutralize the bio-swarm. EMP and surface-level flash injuries would be less destructive than infection of the entire population with a supervirus.

Did he even know what was being released in time to prevent it? The Drak virus ships were probably moving pretty fast, so by the time he realized what was going on, the virus was probably pretty well distributed over the face of the Earth.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2003-01-04 10:34pm

Sheridan is overrated. JMS built him up as some kind of genius but his actions didn't match his billing.

Sheridan had an extremely hard time undertstanding very basic concepts like retaining the initiative, properly deploying intelligence assets, and that unnecesarily exposing oneself to hostile fire is unwise. Most damingly, however, his ill-advised trip to Kazad'dum..'scuse me...Za'ha'dum on a mission of personal vengeance destabalized the balance between the FOs and prompted them to start depopulating planets. As a military commander he was a rank incompetant compared to the likes of Nelson, Zhukov, or fictional peers such as Thrawn.

As a politician he was little better. Lacking any real intelligence or skill he rode other peoples' coat tails (specifically those of Kosh & Bonehead) until he rose on the third day and the superstitious twits of the B5 universe decided that he was some kind of god.