One Star Destroyer In Babylon 5

[Demiurgas]

Sidious has decided that by using a single Star Destroyer, he can destroy the entire Babylon 5 Galaxy. He wants to really bad, because he has just seen the worst episode of Babylon 5 he has ever seen! Can he?

[Batman]

No. At no point has Wars displayed galaxy-destroying firepower. He CAN, however, pretty much effortlessly destroy the known FACTIONS in the B5 galaxy given that most of them would lose to Trek's AQ powers (EA doesn't even have artificial gravity prior to the inception of the ISA) and Vorlons/Shadows vessels aren't orders of magnitude more powerful than YR capships.
Assuming the ISD has enough onboard supplies and/or an intact supply train.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

Destroy the galaxy? Hm. Perhaps if something quantum could be made to happen to the Galactic Central Black Hole, if it could be induced into whatever the hell a Quasar really is or at least an active galactic nucleushttp://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/objec ... ntext.html...alternatively and very much more sensibly, I could just assume you mean the various civilisations of the galaxy, their homeworlds and colonies, which is a far smaller and more feasible target set.

Actually doing something like sparking (for want of a better term) an AGN is waytohellandgone beyond the Empire's known or reasonably theorisable capabilities, it seems beyond possibility for the Culture for that matter, we're talking Kardashev Four level, Xeelee/Time Lord stuff. Eliminating the biological carrying capacity of a few thousand planets is much more practical.

Even at that, logistically, no. Too many planets, too many bombardments required, too little hypermatter to go round. Accepting the usual upper estimate for an Imperator/Imperial class' power systems, 1E25 W, (strict scaling off DS1's main reactor could elevate this to 2.25E25 W), burning the atmosphere off a planet is a 1E27 J task, one hundred seconds of maximum power sustained fire.

An Imperator is usually stated to have six years' fuel at cruising stations, but usually gets calc'd out at around or less than ten thousand seconds at full power. Include the energy drain of hyperjumps from target to target, that's less than a hundred ecosystem kills. Ordnance may increase this number, of course.

That's much less than the target list. It's enough for wholesale panic and catastrophe, possibly enough to spark a collapse of civilisation by hitting major trade hubs and mainworlds, but it would at best be a soft kill.


In terms of countermeasures, what the locals could do to stop this- outright McGuffins aside, there are two semi- reasonable possibilities I can think of, and one outright terrifying.

The semi- reasonable possibilities are, first, screwing around with jump technology- the Bonehead Manoeuvre or jump point bombing. Jump point bombing might be useful. Each attacking ship might only get to do it once, you could run through a lot of Sharlins that way (and as a B5Wars and Call To Arms Dilgar and Centauri player, to that I say; woohoo), but even if it couldn't do much to the ship I'm not convinced the shielding would be able to keep out the jump effect and stop it killing the crew.

The second semi- reasonable possibility is biochemical warfare. Delivery might be awkward, but say, pretend to turn traitor, agree to lead them to your enemies, let them think they're playing divide and conquer, and go and meet them in a shuttle crammed in every spare orifice with every highly potent chemical weapon and weaponised disease every species you know can scrape together. Something like that. Take advantage of any contact to spread infection, keep experimenting until something works, the crew are much more vulnerable than the ship.

Which leads to the most serious counter- activity; telepaths. The head count of force users in Star Wars is proportionally extremely low, it's unlikely a line destroyer would have anyone on board who would recognise the Force, or a Psi Cop beating on him, if every blood vessel in his brain exploded simultaneously. (Well, after that you wouldn't, would you...) The incomers are not going to win a mind war, and the locals can give them one.

[Solauren]

A single Star Destroyer lacks the supplies to level an entire galaxy. Mind you, it does have the potiental.

Mind you, if you could build a 'purpose built' Star Destroyer with self-resupply capacity (i.e getting more hypermatter and so forth), then yes, a Star Destroyer is more then enough to deal with the Babylon 5 Galaxy.

[Demiurgas]

Interesting Solauren.

Would anyone else expand on the Special Purpose Star Destroyer comment?

[Demiurgas]

Interesting Solauren.

Would anyone else expand on the Special Purpose Star Destroyer comment?

[Batman]

One has to remember that the B5 universe (where inhabited planets are concerned) is pretty small-scale even compared to Trek. Earth Alliance, which was a pretty big player among the Younger Races, had only a double digit number of inhabited systems. Also, I seriously doubt you need to actually BDZ a planet in B5 to completely take it out of the picture given the far lower tech level. A Star Destroyer might actually have the endurance to take out the B5 powers. Also figure the ranges involved are pretty much nonexistant by Wars standards. B5 is less than 50 lightyears (at most, ranges stated on the show are actually lower) from Earth and a WhiteStar takes most of a day (if not more, memory's fuzzy on that one) to make that trip so it appears what little settled planets there already are are spread out even less than UFP is. Which is nothing by Wars standards so the ISD shouldn't need all that much fuel on the stardrive portion of the mission.

[Solauren]

Interesting Solauren.

Would anyone else expand on the Special Purpose Star Destroyer comment?

What I was thinking was a Star Destroyer with World Devestator capabilities.

If you don't know what a World Devestator is, it's a mobile Warship/factory combination, cable of self-replication (think massive Von Neumen units). And they can build anything in the Imperial inventory, given enough time + resources. Unleash 1 of them on a planet, and eventually, the planet will be 'consumed' by the World Devestator and the ships it builds (more World Devestators at first). And the resulting fleet will be fully fueled and armed.

So, basically, I'm thinking a Star Destroyer model (the type was never specified), that's a hybrid with a World Devestator could not only do it, but could do it without help. It would beat the tar out of the various races ships + stations, and then process them for fuel + spare parts.

[Anguirus]

^ You're just talking about a WD then, no need to "hybridize" it. They don't lack firepower themselves.

I think the telepath comment is an interesting one. Screw the younger race telepaths, a single Vorlon is well over what Earth calls a "P12" and there are an awful lot of them.

It's also worth considering that there are hints (for what it's worth) that at least the Vorlons have a lot more firepower and technology than they demonstrate with their attack fleets and even their planet-killers. At the end of the series, the Vorlons go away, but automated defense systems protect their home system. These defense systems are programmed to let humanity settle on the Vorlon homeworld, but only a million years hence when Sol (for some never-articulated reason) dies. AFAIK, no race ever cracks these defenses for those million years, despite an extreme incentive to try by pretty much all the younger races, and despite technological advances within this time (the humans who eventually went to the Vorlon homeworld were practically Vorlons themselves).

So if a Star Destroyer shows up to annihilate everyone, I feel like the Vorlons ("Lords of Order" according to Justin) might take some rather extreme measures. Keep in mind that there's no quantifying any of this, just vague descriptors.

On the telepathy side of things, there is also the mysterious Guardian of Z'ha'dum, who can mind-rape you from halfway across the galaxy if you catch its attention and ignores petty protections such as armored hull and kilometers worth of planet between it and its targets.

And furthermore, the being once known as Jason Ironheart may still feel protective of humanity and be able to perceive a Star Destroyer ruining the shit of the entire populated galaxy. Again, I'm not sure there are any numbers but at the very least, once he transcends, he is able to turn ordinary telepaths into telekinetic superweapons, broadcast messages into people's minds (and since he started out as a powerful telepath, that basically means mind control), and either travel FTL or make himself "disappear." (I suppose it's possible he's just altering everyone's perceptions, but Lorien is a seemingly similar "transcendent being" who can definitely zoom out of the galaxy anytime he pleases.)

[lordofchange13]

do you mean galaxy as in all the planets and star or just the govermants? if it the later then one stardestroyer would kill every species shown in the show wery easly

[lordofchange13]

a lot of people are saying hypermatter has alimit to the amount of power it can produce. but they never shor ships needing to refuel hypermatter. also its descrybed as tachyons that when exposed to the constraints of the lower dimensions of realspace produced near-limitless energy. and hyperdrives are supposed to build up on ships when entering and exiting hyperspace. so in saying that i realy dout the amount of hypermatter you have will be problem
(people keep asking for sources so eath star novel, and The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia)

[OsirisLord]

An Imperial Class Star Destroyer is 1,606 meters long. A Minbari Sharlin class is about 1,660 meters long. Yeah Star Destroyers are big, but in terms of scale it's comparable to some of the larger ships in the B5 universe. The only advantage a Star Destroyer has is shields, which might give it an advantage in a fair square off, but logistically it's simply a matter of time before it gets finished off.

[Stark]

And the superior firepower, superior speed, that sort of thing?

LOL at some idiot chalking off about hypermatter.

[CaptHawkeye]

The ship is bigger or equivalent size, ergo, it is automatically superior? That's like saying the 100 year old HMS Lion could beat a modern day Arleigh Burke.

[lordofchange13]

An Imperial Class Star Destroyer is 1,606 meters long. A Minbari Sharlin class is about 1,660 meters long. Yeah Star Destroyers are big, but in terms of scale it's comparable to some of the larger ships in the B5 universe. The only advantage a Star Destroyer has is shields, which might give it an advantage in a fair square off, but logistically it's simply a matter of time before it gets finished off.

what about the nutronium alloy armor? its 300,000 times the strength of steel.

[Stark]

What the christ are you talking about?

[CaptHawkeye]

We have almost no gauge on how durable Wars' armour is except that it's pretty fucking durable. So how useful is it to just go "zomg gazillion times strength of steel". What the fuck does that even mean?

[FedRebel]

An Imperial Class Star Destroyer is 1,606 meters long. A Minbari Sharlin class is about 1,660 meters long. Yeah Star Destroyers are big, but in terms of scale it's comparable to some of the larger ships in the B5 universe.

Which means what, exactly?

The Space Shuttle is larger than a Federation Shuttlecraft, by that logic...OMG! the Space Shuttle can pwn a Starfleet Type 9 Shuttle!

The Sharlin's have been seen with large interiors (huge corridors, etc.) by the way, so most of their size is empty space

The only advantage a Star Destroyer has is shields, which might give it an advantage in a fair square off, but logistically it's simply a matter of time before it gets finished off.

B5 races lack shield tech altogether and the Sharlin can't stomach an indirect hit by a two megaton nuke

An ISD can just sit around all day and let B5 fleets nibble on the shields, the B5 fleets would never get remotely close to the dissipation peak. Heavy Turbolasers can be used conservatively (planetary bombardment and killing 'planet-killers' only), a teraton range weapon is insane overkill against ships that go boom after a single digit megaton impact. Medium and Light ordinance will be sufficient to blast B5 fleets in short order

[Skylon]

I'd honestly say B5's best shot here rests with the Vorlon Planet Killer (however I don't know if we've seen evidence it can hit a target as precise as a capital ship).

[Uraniun235]

I don't think we've seen it actually fire - I think all we saw was footage of it charging up to fire.

It seems pretty ponderous though. I'm not at all sure it would be able to position itself and fire before it was destroyed.

[Anguirus]

I'd honestly say B5's best shot here rests with the Vorlon Planet Killer (however I don't know if we've seen evidence it can hit a target as precise as a capital ship).

It actually might have the firepower, true. Note that it is no Death Star, it leaves survivors, but they must be evacuated immediately as the ecosystem will not survive such an assault. But it is quite vulnerable to attack.

I disagree that it is B5's best shot however. The Vorlons and Shadows aren't just glove-slapping Sheridan a bit trying to hold onto the younger races' worship. They will bust out the big guns, and by that I mean not guns at all but huge amounts of mind-fuckery.

[Stark]

You mean 'alluded to but never seen and thus unquantifiable', right?

[Anguirus]

^ No, I don't.

The Psi Corps can brainwash people in days, and implant lesser compulsions in a lot less than that. Hope no one on this Star Destroyer decides to take shore leave on a human planet.

The telepathic defense system of Z'Ha'Dum instantly took over the minds of a trained warship crew. The same being/technology attempted to assault Susan Ivanova when she was using the Great Machine to scan for First Ones from sectors away.

Speaking of which, the Great Machine's capabilities are ill-defined but it is possessed of enough power to blow apart the planet it sits on when set to self-destruct.

As for the Vorlons, they are a whole race of super-telepaths.

The situation seems to me to be somewhat binary. Either Star Wars shielding technology blocks telepathy, or it doesn't.
If it does, then the Star Destroyer is the strongest thing in the setting and can dictate terms to the First Ones (again, assuming no shore leave incidents). If it does not (shields certainly don't block the Force, it's worth noting) then the ship's mission will end when it attempts to attack Z'Ha'Dum, or whenever they arouse the attention of the Vorlons.

[Connor MacLeod]

An ISD won't be even able to lay waste to more than a handful of planets before running out of hypermatter fuel, and that assumes they don't have to transit between planets or expend any effort in navigation.

One ISD may be considered a powerful force in the B5 universe, but without the logistics to support it there is very little it can do to affect things in any meaningful sense.

As for what could stop it? Depends on your sources. If you buy into some of the b5 Wars or B5 RPG or novel info the First Ones have some pretty bizarre shit they can do (and most Rabid Fivers have tried to turn those into game winners at some point) from a billion strong fleet to the "reality collapsing" spell of destruction (which is basically just a magic disintegration weapon). I imagine that if the First Ones united and amassed their forces they probably *could* stop the ISD eventually even if it did mean bringing out the Planet killer level stuff. (Or, if we derive one of those "crazy shit" things I mentioned from the B5 RPG, swarm fleets.)

[Cykeisme]

Hmm that's interesting, I haven't actually run into precise numbers on a Star Destroyer's onboard energy supply.
Were those published in one of the ICS?