ISA vs. The Empire

[Solid Snake]

Would the ISA or the Earth Alliance hold the Empire back any better then the UFP would? Can the First Ones kick the Borg's ass? How fast is B5 hyperspace? I know it varies with what type of drive you are using, but...?

[starfury]

Would the ISA or the Earth Alliance hold the Empire back any better then the UFP would? Can the First Ones kick the Borg's ass? How fast is B5 hyperspace? I know it varies with what type of drive you are using, but...?

The ISA/EA would do even worse then the UFP, they lack federation shields and agility and also do not have the heavy weapons of SF photon torpedos, the entire ISA is needed to just match the UFP's industrial power.

the only advantages of the ISA/EA is their superior FTL and more rational leaderships and military, they may try for alliance instead of a war.

Even FO's ships do not have the firepower to kill borg ships fast enough, they need their superweapons.

b5 Hyperspace is around 200,000 c, check out Babtech, from SWTC's sci-fi technical pages

I am a fiver myself, yet as much as I despise ST, they still have better ships then b5, not better designed though

[Master of Ossus]

They would do no better in terms of protecting their planets and key installations. Their firepower and other combat technologies are FAR weaker than those of the Empire.

It is possible that they would be able to move a few ships into hyperspace and just leave them there until the Empire got tired of looking for them. Those ships might last longer than UFP ones, but that is hardly better than what the UFP would do.

In general, B5 technology is not as advanced as the other major sci-fis. It actually makes it a more interesting story, in many ways, not to have super-advanced technology. But even most ST races could defeat the ISA, as their firepower and shields are superior.

Even the First Ones would not stand a chance against the Imperial forces.

[Ender]

Here's something to chew on:

The max output of a Shadow Molecular Slicer (as per babtechonthenet's calcs) is 2.867 GT

The shielding on an ISD is 160 TT.

Make it any clearer?

There is one way, and only one way for a First Ones race to win, and that is by the Shadow's using Morden to subvert Imperial Admirals into going Warlord.

And even that is dependent on ISB, the Inquisitorium, or Intell not catching him, aned the Shadow fleets not being detected as they preform their "favors"

[Solid Snake]

Damn.
Well, B5 still rocks. 1000 times better then trek will ever be.

[Master of Ossus]

Damn.
Well, B5 still rocks. 1000 times better then trek will ever be.

I know. I think that B5 is better than any ST series, including TOS. Not everyone will agree with me about that, but that is my opinion.

Thing is that the series' quality is independent of its technology levels. B5 would lose to almost any of the other sci-fis, but its story and its characters make it one of the best sci-fi series ever.

We all know that the Minbari, Shadows, Vorlon, EA, and even the Narn and Centauri are cooler than the Borg, but coolness does not win wars. Firepower, speed, and numbers do.

[Typhonis 1]

Depending on When the Imperials show up Clark and ythe EA may ask to become part of em since they have so much in common...Clark could also do it in a B5 Warhammer 40000 crosover as well....

[Stormbringer]

Depending on When the Imperials show up Clark and ythe EA may ask to become part of em since they have so much in common...Clark could also do it in a B5 Warhammer 40000 crosover as well....

Clark would never join anyone. It's a ridiculous notion, he was in it for his own power and nothing else. He lied, cheated, and murdered to get to where he his. What on Earth would he give that up willingly? He might ally with other powers but certainly never give up any of his own power.

And B5 forces would be crushed by the Empire. They lack the firepower and they don't have any speed advantage. They empire also has more troops and a much more cohesive command structure. They'll win easily.

[jegs2]

B5 had some descent shows, but they seemed to turn too much into soap operas later on for my taste......but to each his own.

[Enlightenment]

The ISA has an economic base akin to that of Argentina and has all the (relative) military effectiveness of Syria. To make matters worse for the ISA, EA would probably defect to the Empire as soon as the Imperial Smackdown started as both groups share basically the same ideology. All told, a handfull of SSDs would be more than enough to completely decimate the ISA with only minimal losses.

[Enlightenment]

B5 had some descent shows, but they seemed to turn too much into soap operas later on for my taste......

Indeed. The latter two seasons were little more than 44 examples of JMS patting himself on the back for being oh so clever. When the purpose of a story becomes to support the size of the creator's ego, there's definitely something wrong somewhere.

[Shadow WarChief]

there's definitely something wrong somewhere.

yeah, you're taste in television.

Sure it had it's bad episodes, but what series doesn't. B5 is gold and always shall be.

And as for the debate. The ISA gets spanked and spanked hard. But hey, who knows, since they actually use strategy (unlike some other TV Sci-Fi organization), so they might, I stress this is a small might considering power disparity, be able to take out an ISD or two.

Yes the ISA is screwed, But i think they are slightly less screwed than the federation.

[Master of Ossus]

When did the ISA use strategy? They seemed to kind of fly around randomly while opening fire on the nearest target. That and they mined things with very small (by Imperial standards) explosive devices.

[Enlightenment]

When did the ISA use strategy?

(Mining asteroid fields is tactics, not strategy.)

The only ISA 'strategy' was to suffer heavy losses, run around aimlessly and hope for a deus ex machina. But hey, I guess this is the best one can expect when the <cough> greatest leaders in that universe make Janeway look competent.

The Empire might lose one or two ISDs to Sheridan's Nukes of Infinite Yield, but the only way anything could go seriously wrong is if the Empire winds up fighting against the Drakh Hordes of Infinite Size. Not even the Empire could cope with a power that isn't subject to any limits on its growth.

[Skelron]

Depending on When the Imperials show up Clark and ythe EA may ask to become part of em since they have so much in common...Clark could also do it in a B5 Warhammer 40000 crosover as well....

Clark would never join anyone. It's a ridiculous notion, he was in it for his own power and nothing else. He lied, cheated, and murdered to get to where he his. What on Earth would he give that up willingly? He might ally with other powers but certainly never give up any of his own power.
.

Ahh but he was wise enough to work with the Shadow's this would be in his favour when faced with the IoM except, well he worked with Xeno's and tried to adapt their technolgy to human based ones, sure the IoM does the same, but in controlled enviroments, put simply Clarks a goner when it comes to the 40K verse. but so's Sheridan, HE dates a Half Breed, and heads up an alliance of Aliens. no the IoM would come in, wipe out existing governments, snap up the strongest of the Human Telepath's, Bester might find he has a Job with the Inquistion, if he can be converted to the worship of the Emporer, (And no trying to trick them, they'll know.)

The weaker Telepath's will be sent to Earth, or to a way station to serve as the soul food of the emporer, and a new Governer appointed on earth, and, once the Aliens are removed from the universe life will continue for humanity as it always has, with the addition of course of the Cult of the Emporer, and the banning of all other religions, but then again the IoM can point to it's God, and show his Works.

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Would the ISA or the Earth Alliance hold the Empire back any better then the UFP would? Can the First Ones kick the Borg's ass? How fast is B5 hyperspace? I know it varies with what type of drive you are using, but...?

The ISA or the Earth Alliance would be wiped out by the Empire in less than a week . . . tops. They only have a very, very small handful of worlds, and their ships couldn't even begin to absorb Imperial weapons before becoming clouds of plasma.

[seanrobertson]

Here's something to chew on:

The max output of a Shadow Molecular Slicer (as per babtechonthenet's calcs) is 2.867 GT

No offense, but...

Huh? None of us ever suggested anything of the sort to Brian,
and I know he didn't come up with such a figure.

A Shadow spider might be able to generate blasts of a few
dozen megatons/sec. Most of the time they can get the job done
with hundreds of TW.

The shielding on an ISD is 160 TT.

? I dunno about that, either. That would mean roughly 1,000 Acclamator HTL shots would be required to drop an ISD's shield. I doubt
*that*: that'd be firing 3 200 gigaton/shot turbolasers continuously
for 4.4 minutes. We've never seen anything *near* that kind of
firing rate, and from the wattage qualifications Curtis gave us in _ICS_,
it's possible that a dozen or so simultaneous HTL hits would drop
a shield vector. Give or take a few (probably give...but thousands more?
Nah).

Make it any clearer?

There is one way, and only one way for a First Ones race to win, and that is by the Shadow's using Morden to subvert Imperial Admirals into going Warlord.

Heh Even that wouldn't work. The Emperor could easily sway them
back. He's far more powerful than any single puppet used by
the Shadows or Vorlons, certainly including Mr. Morden.

And even that is dependent on ISB, the Inquisitorium, or Intell not catching him, aned the Shadow fleets not being detected as they preform their "favors"

Yep.

I say the ISA stands even LESS of a chance than the Federation.
The entire Earth Alliance would stand about as much chance as a small
Federation fleet--that is, none whatsoever.

Of course, those 2 megaton and 500 megaton bombs are still
fresh in my mind.

[Isil`Zha]

Yup, a 500 MT blast that Vorlon fighters flew right through the middle of without even being thrown around at all.

[seanrobertson]

Yup, a 500 MT blast that Vorlon fighters flew right through the middle of without even being thrown around at all.

Not *this* myth again...

NO Vorlon ship was close to one of those blasts--not that emerged
from it intact. There were ships that went by one of those blasts,
but I've never seen anyone--with respects, this includes you,
Adam Warlock, and a host of others--even attempt to
analyze the scene vidcap by vidcap. I know you have the technology
to do so. So...do it, man!

Besides, I've been over and over this before at Spacebattles.com.
Every time I posted something along the following lines, no one
else objected. I wonder why?

A Vorlon fighter is 22m long according to Tim Earl's fighter size
chart. This seems reasonably corroborated by onscreen evidence.
Therefore, the Vorlon fighter MIGHT have a frontal area of about
175 square meters. This is the most possible area that the
energy from the bomb comes into contact with.

The fighters were obviously not within a few of their own lengths when the bombs went off--not the ones that kept going toward the right of the screen. Therefore, they were at LEAST in the many dozens to a hundred meter range away from the blast. The ones you claim "survived" are probably more like a kilometer away or more, given that the flash didn't even *envelop* them. (Not even close, in fact, yet an earlier bomb's flash
totally obscured our view of a Shadow spider.)

At 100m, assuming the most generous position for the fighter possible
(i.e., not facing forward or rearward to the blast), the mighty Vorlon
fighter would have to cope with a mighty 696 kilotons!

Wow...that's a far cry from 500 megatons, isn't it? 500 megatons
is equal to about 2.09 million terajoules. 696 kilotons is 2,910 terajoules.

Since the fighters you're thinking of were more like 1,000 meters
away, they faced only a "whopping" 6.9 kilotons, 29 terajoules.

IOW, the fighters' relative toughness you're suggesting is off by a factor of almost 100,000.

Do the Vorlons even have 100,000 fighters? That's an awful big difference...

[Isil`Zha]

Yup, a 500 MT blast that Vorlon fighters flew right through the middle of without even being thrown around at all.

Not *this* myth again...

NO Vorlon ship was close to one of those blasts--not that emerged
from it intact. There were ships that went by one of those blasts,
but I've never seen anyone--with respects, this includes you,
Adam Warlock, and a host of others--even attempt to
analyze the scene vidcap by vidcap. I know you have the technology
to do so. So...do it, man!

Besides, I've been over and over this before at Spacebattles.com.
Every time I posted something along the following lines, no one
else objected. I wonder why?

A Vorlon fighter is 22m long according to Tim Earl's fighter size
chart. This seems reasonably corroborated by onscreen evidence.
Therefore, the Vorlon fighter MIGHT have a frontal area of about
175 square meters. This is the most possible area that the
energy from the bomb comes into contact with.

The fighters were obviously not within a few of their own lengths when the bombs went off--not the ones that kept going toward the right of the screen. Therefore, they were at LEAST in the many dozens to a hundred meter range away from the blast. The ones you claim "survived" are probably more like a kilometer away or more, given that the flash didn't even *envelop* them. (Not even close, in fact, yet an earlier bomb's flash
totally obscured our view of a Shadow spider.)

At 100m, assuming the most generous position for the fighter possible
(i.e., not facing forward or rearward to the blast), the mighty Vorlon
fighter would have to cope with a mighty 696 kilotons!

Wow...that's a far cry from 500 megatons, isn't it? 500 megatons
is equal to about 2.09 million terajoules. 696 kilotons is 2,910 terajoules.

Since the fighters you're thinking of were more like 1,000 meters
away, they faced only a "whopping" 6.9 kilotons, 29 terajoules.

IOW, the fighters' relative toughness you're suggesting is off by a factor of almost 100,000.

Do the Vorlons even have 100,000 fighters? That's an awful big difference...

Interesting, you talk of evidence, then you yourself provide none, and then claim to judge an exact distance from a 2 dimentional image.. at any rate, I need to find the video again as I don't have it anymore, I'm only on my break from work, so later tonight I will be back with screens.

[seanrobertson]

Interesting, you talk of evidence, then you yourself provide none and then claim to judge an exact distance from a 2 dimentional image..

Straw Man. I said nothing of exact distance. And this 2-D thing is an appeal to ignorance...it CAN be bloody well measured. To claim otherwise is to say that a guy in a spacesuit, right in front of the camera, is bigger
than B5 simply because the station is far in the background.

And *I* don't have the equipment to make vidcaps,
though I'd be happy to e-mail you and anyone else the actual clip.

Now, to the actual issue at hand:

Look at it this way. The fighters you're talking about were NOT
enveloped by the nuke's blast, yes? We saw ONE fighter enter
a portion of the blast but it didn't emerge.

Now, think back: the first time a nuke was used, it engulfed
a Shadow spider, yes? (Yep. You'll be hard-pressed to prove
it was something else. Hell, start a poll comparing Babtech's
analysis to your own take on it, should your understanding
still differ.)

Should the blasts be significantly different looking? One totally
obscures a kilometer-wide cruiser. Do you expect the other to
not obscure a fighter inside that range?

Answer: no, it would obscure the fighter; therefore, the fighter
is *beyond* a kilometer away from the blast's center. Simple
as that.

at any rate, I need to find the video again as I don't have it anymore, I'm only on my break from work, so later tonight I will be back with screens.

I've got the video. After I mentioned that this had been thrown
in my face repeatedly at Spacebattles.com, Brian e-mailed it
to me. I imagine we'll need to put it up on the site, as well, along
with comprehensive scaling, such that we can simply point to it
and not go round and round in the same dizziness.

I find it interesting, however, that you didn't do anything but nitpick
my scaling. How close do YOU think the fighters were, Isil? Evidently much closer than I do. A few meters from the center of the blast? Come on. They'd have to be *ridiculously* close to the blast to sustain anywhere NEAR
a megaton of energy. And they couldn't be that close, since
they--

all together now--

were NOT obscured by the blast whatsoever.

Just cop to it: you're misrepresenting what the fighters can take.
It's an argument that's trotted out any time a hard-core B5 supporter
thinks an audience is ignorant of what actually happened.

[Master of Ossus]

Need I remind you how the Black Star died? And according to the dialogue, some other Sharlins died with it!

[adam warlock]

having managed to get hold of a digital cam a while i back i took the liberty then of testing it by trying to capture some snaps of those elusive vorlon fighters in the "into the fire" 2nd 500mt bomb scene.

though the quality is still not that good, so its still advisable to have the actual video on hand.. unless you have seen the scene as numerous as i have..

anyway here are the caps..

http://www.geocities.com/baguadiz/vfbomb.htm

what i did on most of these captures is altered them to circles to indicate what the objects are (red circle = 500mt nuke mined asteroid moving up, blue circle = vorlon fighter 1 moving from left to right, green circle = vorlon fighter 2 moving in same direction), and lines to indicate size differences, and differences between distance travelled (on screen plane) due to perspective.

note: the greenish white enlongated blobs in the background are in fact vorlon fighters.. all moving from left to right.. i just focused on the ones i encircled since they were the ones "closest to the asteroid" before and when the nuke exploded.

ill add some more comments to accompany those captures later.

We saw ONE fighter enter
a portion of the blast but it didn't emerge.

the scene shown on video, as indicated by my (albeit poor quality) captures indicate otherwise..

no, it would obscure the fighter; therefore, the fighter
is *beyond* a kilometer away from the blast's center. Simple
as that.

those fighters i encircled are *beyond* a kilometer from the blasts centre?..

how?..keep in mind that tim earls sized them to be 22m in length..

bottom right picture of figure cap.2 shows sizes of fighters in the background (encircled in purple) which passed behind the asteroid as it moved up..
top left picture of figure cap.3 (which closes up on the bottom vorlon fighter digital set to min exposure) also shows fighters in the background that just moved past the asteroid.

I've got the video. After I mentioned that this had been thrown
in my face repeatedly at Spacebattles.com, Brian e-mailed it
to me. I imagine we'll need to put it up on the site.

it would be better if you get captures focusing on the fighters i encircled just before and after the explosion.
i know babtech has the means to do so, and with better quality too.

all together now--

were NOT obscured by the blast whatsoever.

i suggest you watch it again.. those two fighters were certainly obscured, as shown the sets of caps cap.3 to cap. 8.

[seanrobertson]

having managed to get hold of a digital cam a while i back i took the liberty then of testing it by trying to capture some snaps of those elusive vorlon fighters in the "into the fire" 2nd 500mt bomb scene.

though the quality is still not that good, so its still advisable to have the actual video on hand.. unless you have seen the scene as numerous as i have..

anyway here are the caps..

http://www.geocities.com/baguadiz/vfbomb.htm

what i did on most of these captures is altered them to circles to indicate what the objects are (red circle = 500mt nuke mined asteroid moving up, blue circle = vorlon fighter 1 moving from left to right, green circle = vorlon fighter 2 moving in same direction), and lines to indicate size differences, and differences between distance travelled (on screen plane) due to perspective.

In some images you circle the asteroid red (cap 1, the third and fourth pictures). In others (cap 2, fourth picture), the red circle is around
a fighter in the background. What's up with that?

note: the greenish white enlongated blobs in the background are in fact vorlon fighters.. all moving from left to right.. i just focused on the ones i encircled since they were the ones "closest to the asteroid" before and when the nuke exploded.

The only ones that count toward the "Vorlon Fighter Myth," IOW.

ill add some more comments to accompany those captures later.

I hope so...honestly, I can't tell much of anything from those pictures.

||We saw ONE fighter enter
a portion of the blast but it didn't emerge.||

the scene shown on video, as indicated by my (albeit poor quality) captures indicate otherwise..

Okay. So:

1--What bearing does this have on ISA vs. Empire? Despite Isil'Zha's
red herring, Vorlon fighters are NOT part of the Interstellar Alliance.

2--You've got two fighters near the blast. Just how close are they? As I said, the first blast totally enveloped a Shadow spider. These two fighters are, at best, at the fringes of the blast--your green-encircled fighter
actually being to the "right" of the blast and not enveloped at
all (I noticed you didn't draw a circle around it in vidcap series
5, though it's just as visible as is in 6).

Thus, my conclusion still stands: a blast that can swallow
a kilometer-wide ship hole will certainly obscure fighters
at the outer reaches of that range. Perhaps not totally obscure,
but then...that's not what we're most concerned with, is it?
That is a nitpick with my argument and relevance to the thread
in general, at best.

3--I agree: the quality of those vidgrabs is holding you back.
It would've probably been best to manipulate the image, such
that the Vorlon fighter and blast aren't so close to the same color.

//no, it would obscure the fighter; therefore, the fighter
is *beyond* a kilometer away from the blast's center. Simple
as that.//

those fighters i encircled are *beyond* a kilometer from the blasts centre?..

how?..keep in mind that tim earls sized them to be 22m in length..

Yeah. I pointed out as much in my post. But evidently, yes, they
are quite far away from the asteroid, since the first blast engulfed
a much larger ship.

You're looking at a similar-yield bomb, and much smaller ships.
They're at the very fringes of the blast. The blast shouldn't look
significantly different. Ergo, these smaller ships must be farther
away.

bottom right picture of figure cap.2 shows sizes of fighters in the background (encircled in purple) which passed behind the asteroid as it moved up..

And what happened to *that* fighter? You didn't circle it in any
later caps.

Hell, it looked red to me anyway...please choose your
colors more selectively.

top left picture of figure cap.3 (which closes up on the bottom vorlon fighter digital set to min exposure) also shows fighters in the background that just moved past the asteroid.

Moved past the asteroid, as in at least one of its own lengths away
from the blast.

How close does a fighter need be to absorb a megaton from that
bomb, anyway?

Oh, riiiiight:

From that perspective, the bomb would face the fighter's rear--not the ridiculously generous angle I'd suggested earlier. The fighter is maybe 6m tall and probably that wide, hence a 36 square meter frontal area. Slightly less, but let's just say 40 m^2.

At a mere ONE fighter length from the CENTER of the blast, the
fighter would absorb 3.3 megatons. At two lengths, 822 kilotons.
At three, 365 kilotons. At four, 206 kilotons. And so on, and so on.

At best, that's roughly 12,000 terajoules versus the bomb's full 2,090,000 MILLION terajoules.

Do you see why I think this incident is misleading NOW?

it would be better if you get captures focusing on the fighters i encircled just before and after the explosion.
i know babtech has the means to do so, and with better quality too.

We'll have to do that, you're right. I need to push for it. You've convinced me that the fighters were closer than I initially thought, but my main
concern was how much energy they absorbed; i.e., less than one megaton,
or 500 times less than some people seem to intimate if not come
out and directly say.

[Isil`Zha]

Need I remind you how the Black Star died? And according to the dialogue, some other Sharlins died with it!

Ah, Adam took care of the Vorlon fighter part for me, as for this:

As for the scene that's constantly run back to....

Yup, the 2 MT figure came from a drunken Londo telling a story to kids.. that is not the only reason that scene is unreliable, but also because there was only *one* sharlin there... now, should we believe the drunk telling a story who wasn't there (whom also forgot that there was more than 1), or Sheridan, who was there, but does not say exactly how powerful the bombs were or how many he used. That ItB scene contradicts sheridan's statements, whom was there, and is therefore unrealiable.

If you keep insisting on it however: Notice that when we see the initial flash of the bomb, at which point it releases all it's head, and most of it's destructive power (in space at least) that the Sharlin's hull does not even begin melt away at all. However, notice where the damage done is. (The Legend of the Rangers movie helps to support this theory more so) First, shortly before detonating the first tac-nuke notice that there is an energy spike as the sharlin prepares to fire it's weapon. Now, instead of detonating it then, Sheridan wait a few seconds, so that their weapons are charged up.. and then, by good timing (and just blind luck) he detonates it just as, or just before the Sharlin fires it's weapon, cause it to detonate, taking off the fin. (Notice the fin is blown off below the lower weapon ports) The support from B5:LotR comes from the captains statement about weapons being more volitile and should therefore be attacked first. As for the second nuke, you can clearly see either atmosphere or some sort of gas for the weapon system venting from the destroyed fin, which the second nuke would ignite, which would lead to internal explosions, destroying the Sharlin from within. (I'm going to search for screens now, you can clearly see that the Sharlin was not blown away by the nuke blast)


OH! One more thing:

As for the power those fighters took (after Adam so kindly provided screens showing fighters flying through the blast), we'll take that 100 m away, which would be quite concieveable from adam's screens:

the mighty Vorlon
fighter would have to cope with a mighty 696 kilotons

Not bad.. a *fighter* taking 696 kilotons and not even being thrown off course at all... it's more than SW fighters can take (1 kt weapons as I recall destroy X-Wings?).. a *lot* more.... thank you for doing the math for me