Babylon 5 what-if (Severed Dreams)

[andrewgpaul]

ghetto edit - another foolish tactic was sending in the pods in open space - they'd have been better protected by holding them in the capiutal ships until they got closer.

[Netko]

Government drone ineptitude would be a more satisfactory explanation if not for the fact that, as pointed out earlier, this half-assed defense actually did work out for them in the show. That's just bad writing.

To be fair, the only time I can recall a warship firing on the station with intent to destroy it was the Centauri one, which splitting its fire to get the Narn cruiser too. The rest of the time, they seemed to want to capture it, which would entail not simply putting a hole in it so that it'd spin itself apart.

I'm not so sure about that Centauri cruiser. Considering the location of the damage they did manage to inflict, I'd say they likely also didn't want to blow B5 to bits - at the time it held one of their top ranking politicians (who was indirectly in command even), as well as a significant number of their citizens. It seems far more likely that they attempted to disable B5's military capabilities, but leave the station, on the whole, in one piece.

Which can somewhat explain the lack of passive defences in a brutal way - the station has human shields against pretty much all possible aggressors. Nobody wants to blow out of the sky a station housing a large number of both their citizens and the citizens of all the major races.

[NeoGoomba]

Were those GOD platforms shown around Earth a standard Earthforce defense mechanism, or were they some super-expensive Earth-only defense system?

Because two or three of them around B5 would have made one hell of a difference in almost any possible scenario not involving First Ones.

[Darth Wong]

Were those GOD platforms shown around Earth a standard Earthforce defense mechanism, or were they some super-expensive Earth-only defense system?

Because two or three of them around B5 would have made one hell of a difference in almost any possible scenario not involving First Ones.

Even much less powerful platforms would have made a big difference, by allowing B5 to engage enemy targets before they were in range to fire on the station itself. The show's history is full of enemy fighters, even pirates skimming low over the surface of the station, having gotten that close with little difficulty because of its porous defenses. And given the established fragility of the station, one could easily make the argument that it could have been destroyed by pirates.

Mind you, B5's battle scenes were pretty damned lame in the early seasons. How many times can they recycle the same close-up shots of the same guns firing, always in the same direction?

[montypython]

Even much less powerful platforms would have made a big difference, by allowing B5 to engage enemy targets before they were in range to fire on the station itself. The show's history is full of enemy fighters, even pirates skimming low over the surface of the station, having gotten that close with little difficulty because of its porous defenses. And given the established fragility of the station, one could easily make the argument that it could have been destroyed by pirates.

Mind you, B5's battle scenes were pretty damned lame in the early seasons. How many times can they recycle the same close-up shots of the same guns firing, always in the same direction?

Defense sats make sense for just about any scenario, at a minimum it provides early warning of incoming hostiles. I'm surprised it isn't used more commonly in stories.

[NeoGoomba]

Even much less powerful platforms would have made a big difference, by allowing B5 to engage enemy targets before they were in range to fire on the station itself. The show's history is full of enemy fighters, even pirates skimming low over the surface of the station, having gotten that close with little difficulty because of its porous defenses. And given the established fragility of the station, one could easily make the argument that it could have been destroyed by pirates.

Mind you, B5's battle scenes were pretty damned lame in the early seasons. How many times can they recycle the same close-up shots of the same guns firing, always in the same direction?

With the apparently slow moving weaponry as shown in the Centauri attack, I guess even a moderately-armed satellite with basic thrusters would be an aggrivating target for any captial ship without fighter escort.

[Chris OFarrell]

Added to that, Chris, there was more than one breaching pod. It's possible the others did make it, but we never saw footage of them - or maybe they all docked in the same place. Alternatively, like Anguirius suggests, the rest got blown up.

There's no evidence of more then one Breaching pod. We only see one in the initial shot of the EA fleet as it moves in and frankly they are big and distinctive enough that in the countless panning shots we SHOULD have seen more of them.

Corwin sounded *very* surprised when he said 'We've got a breaching pod coming in!" ; it wasn't like he said "One of the breaching pods made it through Zeta Squadron!" or anything.

Frankly having only one pod makes even more sense with the slapdash battle plan the EA ships came up with. Its not impossible they had more pods, but there is zero evidence of it.

I'm also increasingly convinced that the Battle Group were 'elite forces' only so much as they were considered ultra political reliable, not necessarily the *best* people the Earth Alliance had.

[Anguirus]

We only see one in the initial shot of the EA fleet as it moves in

There's only one in the initial shot, but then after the act break there is a second shot of the aggressor fleet and I distinctly recall seeing two or three.

[Uraniun235]

Mind you, B5's battle scenes were pretty damned lame in the early seasons. How many times can they recycle the same close-up shots of the same guns firing, always in the same direction?

There was one first season episode where I could swear the "defense guns firing at raiders" footage looked damn similar to the "defense guns firing at Cylon fighter" footage from Battlestar Galactica.

[Chris OFarrell]

We only see one in the initial shot of the EA fleet as it moves in

There's only one in the initial shot, but then after the act break there is a second shot of the aggressor fleet and I distinctly recall seeing two or three.

Good thing I picked up the season 2, 3 and 4 DVD boxsets for Christmas

You can see the Pod in the initial shot rather clearly as it runs down the camera. There ARE two other ships in the background both in this shot and the next, much longer and thinner but I can't tell what they are. They are moving slower then the fighters around them and all four capital ships are in frame, so they can't be a distant ship.

From the shape and direction of travel I'm 90% sure they are not breaching pods, at least breaching pods of the same design.

Its possible they could be some kind of assault shuttle or assualt boat or something that were slated to go through the front door I guess, but were shot down, but that would just be speculation at this point. Still, it couldn't hurt to consider the possibility and it fits in with the scenario.


And off topic, yet B5 was guilty of reusing the battle footage again and again.

In Severed Dreams, they reused those quad cannon interceptors firing footage from Season 1 -also reused it in Fall of Night- and the other defense guns firing was also reused from 'Fall of Night'.

[Anguirus]

There was one first season episode where I could swear the "defense guns firing at raiders" footage looked damn similar to the "defense guns firing at Cylon fighter" footage from Battlestar Galactica.

I noticed that too! I wonder if it's deliberate.

Re: breaching pods, I'll have to check my DVD and get back to you.

[Darth Wong]

And off topic, yet B5 was guilty of reusing the battle footage again and again.

In Severed Dreams, they reused those quad cannon interceptors firing footage from Season 1 -also reused it in Fall of Night- and the other defense guns firing was also reused from 'Fall of Night'.

That kind of corner-cutting was more understandable back when they made the original Battlestar Galactica; it was all models and primitive robotic controls, and it was very difficult for them to do anything fancier than re-using these cheesy "zoom in on the guns shooting" shots. But in a CGI show, it's just incomprehensible why they would do it. They have the models in the goddamned computer; at the very least, they could simply re-do the shots from different perspectives so it's not obviously the same shot.

[Uraniun235]

Back then, render time was apparently a serious constraint. Here's an excerpt from the Lurker's Guide:

From coproducer George Johnsen, about the effects glitch:
The show was seriously under the gun for delivery when those shots were done. If I remember correctly, a couple of these shots came in on the same day we were to deliver, and there was no time to re-render them and still make the satellite.

[Vendetta]

Also budget. Babylon 5's episode budget was pretty miniscule compared to other SF TV shows. (half that of DS9's for example).

Computer time costs money. Reusing a shot doesn't.

[Gil Hamilton]

Also budget. Babylon 5's episode budget was pretty miniscule compared to other SF TV shows. (half that of DS9's for example).

Computer time costs money. Reusing a shot doesn't.

And it defintely could have been worse. B5s CGI making capacity wasn't that great AND they had a tiny budget for such things. There are shows where it is a hell of a lot less excusable. Like the horrible Andromeda show, where they would reuse shots with recognizable features in the background and spontaneously jump to that same damn nebula,

[Netko]

Not to mention Trek, which had huge budgets compared to the mentioned shows, yet the final episode of DS9 is chock full of reused shots, and that was otherwise common practice on the show.

Frankly, I'm delighted that B5 did manage to have new effects almost all the time, considering their budget (IIRC it was once compared to roughly Andromeda's and look how much recycling went on there). The corner cutting (Severed Dreams also had simpler PPC shots for example) was vastly less noticeable then on similar shows.

[Netko]

Ghetto edit: Also, they didn't shy away from showing CGI, and pivotal episodes were chock full of it - something that Trek (shaky bridge with sparklers all over was invented, among other reasons, because of expensive CGI) and most other shows did very much shy away from as much as possible do to costs.

[Master of Ossus]

And off topic, yet B5 was guilty of reusing the battle footage again and again.

In Severed Dreams, they reused those quad cannon interceptors firing footage from Season 1 -also reused it in Fall of Night- and the other defense guns firing was also reused from 'Fall of Night'.

That kind of corner-cutting was more understandable back when they made the original Battlestar Galactica; it was all models and primitive robotic controls, and it was very difficult for them to do anything fancier than re-using these cheesy "zoom in on the guns shooting" shots. But in a CGI show, it's just incomprehensible why they would do it. They have the models in the goddamned computer; at the very least, they could simply re-do the shots from different perspectives so it's not obviously the same shot.

Apparently, back then it was prohibitively expensive for a low-budget show to make new CGI shots. Even nBSG reuses a lot of footage and "stock" clips of the fleet to save on costs.

I think their fighters were supposed to fit the role of defense satellites, but you're right in that it seems kind of unusual that hostile vessels would be able to get into visual range of the station, given that BVR engagements were reasonably common in B5, even in the early seasons (see: Coming of the Shadows). B5 was seriously under-armed in the early seasons, and only with the defense upgrade package was it even a legitimate threat to a mid-sized warship. You're right, though, in that as of Severed Dreams it's quite questionable as to why it didn't have defense satellites to at least assist in the defense.

[Vendetta]

B5's relatively low fighting capability might also have been down to Politics. By the fifth time, the project was unpopular and not terribly well funded. It could also have been diplomatically bad form to cannon up on a supposedly neutral diplomatic and commercial station.

[Anguirus]

B5 was seriously under-armed in the early seasons, and only with the defense upgrade package was it even a legitimate threat to a mid-sized warship

Um...the defense upgrade package made it capable of destroying the largest class of Centauri warship a few seconds after Sheridan gave the order. That's a "legitimate threat" to anything short of the Minbari or an elder race.

B5's firepower isn't lacking, but it's point-defense and ability to withstand hits are.

[Uraniun235]

B5's relatively low fighting capability might also have been down to Politics. By the fifth time, the project was unpopular and not terribly well funded. It could also have been diplomatically bad form to cannon up on a supposedly neutral diplomatic and commercial station.

Sheridan noted this when the upgrades were installed, asking if it were appropriate to gun up a place allegedly devoted to peace.

[consequences]

It's a stationary target, in a known location. Or did no one else notice how damned close the second Earth Force group was able to jump to the station, not to mention the Minbari coming out right on top of it? Or the Shadows for that matter?

For proper defensive depth, armed satellite clusters would be a fantastic thing to have, in addition to upgrading the station's built-in defenses so that it can't be effortlessly toasted by a single enemy ship jumping in close. But significant interceptor armament definitely needed to be built into the station to have any chance of doing its job effectively( unless of course, someone is going to argue that their already imperfect interception rate isn't going to suffer from the need to make deflection shots).

[Uraniun235]

The second wave of EarthForce ships came out of the jumpgate, same as the first wave.