SW vs B5 boarding action

[Ender]

Stormie duplicates Jaina's trick: Time delayed Thermal detenator in an airlock

No way to seal the breach, so that entire section depresurizes.

[Darth Servo]

Ender, I thought the idea was to take the station in tact.

[starfury]

stormies simply blast the station's defenders, those E-11 would be murder on the station, along with their armour.

[Darth Garden Gnome]

Look, you start vacuming the entire section of the ship. No troops nearby, not one. Then when they are dead from the vacuum

Explain to me why these stormies are dead when they CAN operate in a vacuum? It would only take a few minutes for a shuttle to come in and rescue them, and they would still be able to defend themselves in the meantime.

and send another wave of troops with extra O2 tanks after they land, and let them make in roads into the station you kill the gravity.

You know when you blow out a part of ship into the vacuum there's no gravity there either Chances are they'd ignore the whole "give stormies extra O2" option all together, if they figured they'd start exposing parts of the ship to the vacuum.

Then finally when they send the space troopers you restart (if you can do it quickly enough) the gravity, and watch as big troopers in clunky armor go marching around a station being ambushed left and right.

First off, a suit of "power armor" if you will, should not be slow and clunky. The Super Battle Droids (for example, although probably a bit smaller than spacetroopers) had excellent mobility, plus the suit does have repulorlift generator. Second, what makes you think the PPGs are going to have a better chance at damaging heavy spacetrooper armor when it's not likley they can harm stormies? And third spacetrooper armor carries a repeating blaster (of unknown power, suspect light repeater, ala T-21), a grenade laucher, mini-protorp laucher, and laser cutters.

Also, an ISD carries 9,700 troops. Although I'd guess they couldn't all be fitted with a space suit, they'd still be plenty of action for a space station whos population (using Ossus' statment) doesn't exceed 3,000 people. Using multiple points of entry, the enitre crew would be hiding in the middle of the ship by the time they were done exposing the rest of it (futiley) on Imperial troops.

B5 station loses badly.

[Typhonis 1]

*LMAO*that nuice big open area in the center of the station would be perfect...for an ATAT assault

[Crown]

Well Garibaldi isn't stupid, if he realizes that he is anout to be borded by a superior force first thing he'll do is close of the area of invasion, second thing I would see him doing is vacuuming it, and if he was given the choice third thing he would do is after they have borded and he sees they aren't equiped for Zero-G fighting is to cut the gravity, equip his men for 0G, and have some fun.

I actually like your first two points, as they would certainly slow the Stormies down but ah, if I may ask; how does one exactly 'cut the gravity' on a station that is rotating in order to simulate gravity? I mean it's not going to be instanteneous, or else one would assume that quite a few of those quater million beings will end up as galactic soup. In the end all it would do is give his men a slight advantage, until Stormie commander radios back; send in the Spacetroopers! These guys are equiped to fight in zero g, and in hard vaccum.

[Vympel]

In "Time Squared", Garibaldi had something that looke like a GPMG and apparently had a high rate of fire, but such weapons obviously aren't common on B5. They didn't deploy any against EarthForce boarders in "Severed Dreams".

Time Squared? Wasn't it Babylon Squared?

[Ted C]

According to "By Any Means Necessary," the station has less than two thousand personnel and a few hundred dock workers on board.

That seems pretty small for a station with a population of "a quarter of a million humans and aliens".

[Sir Sirius]

According to "By Any Means Necessary," the station has less than two thousand personnel and a few hundred dock workers on board.

That seems pretty small for a station with a population of "a quarter of a million humans and aliens".

Some of the work required in maintaining the station could be handled by civilians. The 250.000 people aboard do need jobs and don't realworld military installations use civilian contractors for some jobs, like waste management?

[Ted C]

According to "By Any Means Necessary," the station has less than two thousand personnel and a few hundred dock workers on board.

That seems pretty small for a station with a population of "a quarter of a million humans and aliens".

Some of the work required in maintaining the station could be handled by civilians. The 250.000 people aboard do need jobs and don't realworld military installations use civilian contractors for some jobs, like waste management?

But wouldn't the dock workers count as civilians? How many policemen does a typical population of 250,000 require? What if it's a major international port?

I don't doubt that B5's defenders are badly outnumbered in this scenario, but I'm curious as to just how badly they're outnumbered.

[DocMoriartty]

Draal isn't likely to have much of an impact, considering that they moment he gets involved he'll get the bad end of a turbolaser barrage.

Arent you assuming that the Imps survive the first shot from Draal? The great machine is buried tens of miles below the surface and generates enough power to allow time travel.

Also don't forget that the Great Machine allows one to mentally travel the galaxy. I don't know how much damage he can do but I doubt the Imps will enjoy Draal standing on the bridge glowering at them.

Not counting the Great Machine though I have to say the SD will win. It carries thousands more troops on it than Babylon5 has security personel. Give Babylon 5 time to prepare though at it could be bad. Babylon 5 does have the capabilities to house an entire division of troops as was seen when the Marines used it to stage through once.

A division of Earthforce marines vs a legion of stormtroopers fighting room to room through Babylon5 would make for one hell of an awesome battle to watch.

[Keevan_Colton]

Draal isn't likely to have much of an impact, considering that they moment he gets involved he'll get the bad end of a turbolaser barrage.

Arent you assuming that the Imps survive the first shot from Draal? The great machine is buried tens of miles below the surface and generates enough power to allow time travel.

Also don't forget that the Great Machine allows one to mentally travel the galaxy. I don't know how much damage he can do but I doubt the Imps will enjoy Draal standing on the bridge glowering at them.

Not counting the Great Machine though I have to say the SD will win. It carries thousands more troops on it than Babylon5 has security personel. Give Babylon 5 time to prepare though at it could be bad. Babylon 5 does have the capabilities to house an entire division of troops as was seen when the Marines used it to stage through once.

A division of Earthforce marines vs a legion of stormtroopers fighting room to room through Babylon5 would make for one hell of an awesome battle to watch.

Drall & Planet V. The Death Star.....
"I think the great machine is broken...."
"How can you tell?"
"Well, see that asteriod field over there...."
"Yeah I....oh."

As for the debate in hand, I give it to the stormies.

[DocMoriartty]

Draal isn't likely to have much of an impact, considering that they moment he gets involved he'll get the bad end of a turbolaser barrage.

Arent you assuming that the Imps survive the first shot from Draal? The great machine is buried tens of miles below the surface and generates enough power to allow time travel.

Also don't forget that the Great Machine allows one to mentally travel the galaxy. I don't know how much damage he can do but I doubt the Imps will enjoy Draal standing on the bridge glowering at them.

Not counting the Great Machine though I have to say the SD will win. It carries thousands more troops on it than Babylon5 has security personel. Give Babylon 5 time to prepare though at it could be bad. Babylon 5 does have the capabilities to house an entire division of troops as was seen when the Marines used it to stage through once.

A division of Earthforce marines vs a legion of stormtroopers fighting room to room through Babylon5 would make for one hell of an awesome battle to watch.

Drall & Planet V. The Death Star.....
"I think the great machine is broken...."
"How can you tell?"
"Well, see that asteriod field over there...."
"Yeah I....oh."

As for the debate in hand, I give it to the stormies.

We could go the other way too.

Draal and Great Machine vs the Death Star.

"We are coming out of hyperspace though there appears to be a strange residual field ahead of us."

"Analysis?"

"None sir we passed through it quickly and the readings went off the scale for a moment. Everything is fine now."

"Ok, charge the superlaser and find me that annoying chunk of rock on it."

"Uhh sir, we have scanned and there is no planet, no sun, in fact we cannot find any stars or planets anywhere!?!"

"What the hell?"

"It appears that we are now sitting mere moments before the big bang."

"Damn, nothing at all to shoot at here."


Remember Draal and the Great Machine can create temporal openings that allow time travel. One was kept open for days and threw Babylon 4 across the galaxy and back over 1000 years. If the Death Star is not careful it may find itself very alone in the Universe.

[Keevan_Colton]

As I recall though, they said that it was taking all of the great machines power to enlarge the rift enough to send Bab 4 back in time.....

[Ghost Rider]

If that's true...not gonna do much to the DS aside from a commander noticing a power up and deciding to elimanate the threat.

[Darth Wong]

Ah, so the ability to throw a 5-mile long station back 1000 years automatically proves the ability to detect an incoming vessel at hyperspace speeds before it arrives and prepare to send a 900-km wide starship back 15 billion years, right?

In other words, the ability to do X automatically equates to the ability to do 350 trillion times X, not to mention detection of objects in hyperspace and convincing the Death Star's helmsman to fly carelessly into a giant glowing rift in space. Good example of Fiver logic

[Ted C]

Remember Draal and the Great Machine can create temporal openings that allow time travel. One was kept open for days and threw Babylon 4 across the galaxy and back over 1000 years. If the Death Star is not careful it may find itself very alone in the Universe.

I think you're reading way too much into that incident. The temporal disturbance in Sector 13 already existed; Draal was just able to exert some influence over it with the machine. I don't think he has the ability to arbitrarily create time tunnels at will.

[DocMoriartty]

Not at all. But arguing how these two items interact is going to be rather hard to do. As far as we know The Great Machine can only shoot in the same direction as Babylon 5 is in the sky. We have never seen it fire from any other portion of the ship.

So the DS could instant win by arriving on the far side of the planet.

Basically this has too many unknowns to argue. I merely made up one extreme example to prove that point.

Ah, so the ability to throw a 5-mile long station back 1000 years automatically proves the ability to detect an incoming vessel at hyperspace speeds before it arrives and prepare to send a 900-km wide starship back 15 billion years, right?

In other words, the ability to do X automatically equates to the ability to do 350 trillion times X, not to mention detection of objects in hyperspace and convincing the Death Star's helmsman to fly carelessly into a giant glowing rift in space. Good example of Fiver logic

[DocMoriartty]

I don't think so. The disturbance was merely residual energy from when Bab4 was first stolen in the past.

It is really to vague to argue though since Bab5 avoids alot of Treks's pitfalls by not trying to overexplain why things can be done. We merely watch them happen and have to assume the tech is there without a Geordi or Data wannabe spouting off technocrap to explain it.

Remember Draal and the Great Machine can create temporal openings that allow time travel. One was kept open for days and threw Babylon 4 across the galaxy and back over 1000 years. If the Death Star is not careful it may find itself very alone in the Universe.

I think you're reading way too much into that incident. The temporal disturbance in Sector 13 already existed; Draal was just able to exert some influence over it with the machine. I don't think he has the ability to arbitrarily create time tunnels at will.

[Ghost Rider]

You took an example and extrapolated it into infinity.

Not a good way to argue for anything.

[DocMoriartty]

Yep, beyond that we could list out everything that we know about the Great Machine.

1. Ancient
2. Can allow a persons mind to explore the galaxy.
3. Can destroy large powerful starships quickly and without resistance.
4. Can create rifts in time.
5. Must be controlled by a living being.
6. Buried somewhere miles beneath the planets surface.

There are also some things we can infer.

1. Must be able to see the future OR control the minds of people over long distances. (How else could Bab5 just happen to be built in orbit above it)

2. Powerful enough to destroy or at least heavily damage a Shadow fleet. (Why else would the Shadows jam communications with it.)

3. Maintained by very cool aliens all named Zarthos who are very intelligent and can build devices that shield a person from the effects of time travel.

You took an example and extrapolated it into infinity.

Not a good way to argue for anything.

[Keevan_Colton]

I don't think so. The disturbance was merely residual energy from when Bab4 was first stolen in the past.

It is really to vague to argue though since Bab5 avoids alot of Treks's pitfalls by not trying to overexplain why things can be done. We merely watch them happen and have to assume the tech is there without a Geordi or Data wannabe spouting off technocrap to explain it.

Remember Draal and the Great Machine can create temporal openings that allow time travel. One was kept open for days and threw Babylon 4 across the galaxy and back over 1000 years. If the Death Star is not careful it may find itself very alone in the Universe.

To quote
"We are doing this because we have always done this and will always do this..."

The valen thing involves a grandfather paradox....it is dellen (who is his great-lots-descendant) who saves his life at the line and enables him to go back.....can we see a little problem already?

Anyway...

The area was screwy for the same reason....they never ever said Draal made the rift, he just expanded it and tried to 'steer' it....

[DocMoriartty]

Like I said, intentionally vague to keep from sounding stupid or tripping over itself.

Much better than Trek which gets every unit of measure wrong and makes its experts sound like retards.

[Captain Kruger]

Arent you assuming that the Imps survive the first shot from Draal?

Absolutely. The Great Machine's big beam weapon was only seen in action once, during the Season 1 episode where they wiped out those 3 ships coming back to claim Epsilon 3. Considering that B5 and Hyperion were fighting a semi-successful holding action against these ships, they obvious weren't anywhere near First One-caliber. Even if they were, the point is moot. We saw Shadow ships getting ripped to hell by 600-megaton bombs in Season 4. The Old Republic troop transports dish out over 300 TIMES that much energy per shot with each of its 6 heavy turbolasers. Those transports are only a fraction as powerful as Star Destroyers. In other words, the Empire could pick off Shadow warships even easier than X-wings, considering the size difference.

Saying that the Great Machine's observed capabilities could spell doom for Imperial ships is an incredibly vast overstatement.

The great machine is buried tens of miles below the surface and generates enough power to allow time travel.

So what? Does that mean Alexander Hartegen from "The Time Machine" could blow up Star Destroyers? There is absolutely no scientific quantification whatsoever for how much power it would take to generate time travel, so this is completely irrelevant.

Also don't forget that the Great Machine allows one to mentally travel the galaxy. I don't know how much damage he can do but I doubt the Imps will enjoy Draal standing on the bridge glowering at them.

Ooooh…Imp commanders will be so very scared at the holographic Minbari giving them a scolding look…just moments before he dies in a planetary bombardment.