B5: Why did Sheridan need to assemble his "army of light"?

[AndroAsc]

Was rewatching B5... and it suddenly dawned on me... why did Sheridan need to assembly his "army of light"? A lot of emphasis was on getting the League of Non-Aligned Worlds to signup with the Minbari/Rangers to fight the Shadows, but if we look at the military capabilities of the League (which is pathetic), they probably contributed nothing in the grand scheme of thing.

Most of the League ships were smaller frigates and none of the League worlds (save the Narns) had cruisers. It was obvious that with G'Kar support, a Mimbari/Ranger/Narn alliance could have been easily formed, which would probably be as effective as a Mimbari/Ranger/League alliance.

A ranking of the military strength of the various factions by Season 4:
1) Mimbari/Rangers faction being the most powerful in terms of technological and military power.
2) Centauri coming up second, having as many or perhaps more ships than the Mimbari but their technology were not as good as the Mimbari. Why then did Sheridan not approach the Centauri for help? At this point I believe Sheridan did not know of the Centauri's association with the Shadows, so the Centauri would make logical allies. The only reason I can think of is the Centauri's expanionist policy in Season 2-3 and their current poor relations with the League.
3) League worlds and Earthforce probably were equivalent in military power. Earthforce is obviously out of the question since B5 broke away, and the Narns made up the bulk of the League forces. So why the need for the other smaller worlds like the Drazi et. al.?

[Stofsk]

Individually the League isn't very powerful. It's when they're taken as a collective whole that they become powerful. Also the League represent the Younger Races in a way, and the Shadow War was more about ideology than anything else.

Also I don't know what show you're watching but the narn were gone by the time Sheridan pledged to stand against the forces of darkness. Since the centauri were busy bullying, attacking and even invading the League I don't think it would have looked good if Sheridan courted them for help (particularly since the Shadows had already infiltrated the centauri political scene). Earth was also out of the picture for obvious reasons. That pretty much left nobody other than the League to go to.

[Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba]

Besides, even the League harboured some heay hitters. Though I don't recall their official name, the Greys with the Flying Saucers seemed to hold their own during the battles we saw.

[Todeswind]

You are referring to the ones with the weird stone flying whatchamahoozit that is the "Walkers" if you are referring to the ones that look like roswell greys that is the Vree.

And you need to remember Sheridan was expecting to have to wage a protracted military conflict that was going to involve battling at least the shadows and as the show progressed increased to include the Vorlons, two species capable of wiping out planets with relative ease. The fact that Sheridan managed to talk them into just "going away" is more or less irrelevant, as is the fact that they ended up not needing the alliance of the light to do much on screen. Even with all the combined might of the "Army of the Light" they should not have won in a straight up conflict, which is why Sheridan opted for the hail mary solution.

[CaptainChewbacca]

The war didn't end because of the League's military superiority. It ended because the league was able to, with a unified voice, tell both the Shadows and the Vorlons to fuck off.

[mr friendly guy]

Some of the league weren't too bad militarily. The Drazi while botched in near the border with Centauri space, repeatedly held off the Centauri military machine in season 5. Granted I think they were remote controlled ships, but still it showed what the Drazi were capable of.

[AndroAsc]

Besides, even the League harboured some heay hitters. Though I don't recall their official name, the Greys with the Flying Saucers seemed to hold their own during the battles we saw.

The flying saucers has only taken out shadow *fighters*. None of the League ships (save the Narns) have demonstrated weapons capability that could hurt shadow cap ships.

[AndroAsc]

Individually the League isn't very powerful. It's when they're taken as a collective whole that they become powerful. Also the League represent the Younger Races in a way, and the Shadow War was more about ideology than anything else.

Also I don't know what show you're watching but the narn were gone by the time Sheridan pledged to stand against the forces of darkness. Since the centauri were busy bullying, attacking and even invading the League I don't think it would have looked good if Sheridan courted them for help (particularly since the Shadows had already infiltrated the centauri political scene). Earth was also out of the picture for obvious reasons. That pretty much left nobody other than the League to go to.

I do agree with your analysis, but my point is that the League ships were good to have but not absolutely critical (which was what the storyline seemed to imply).

In further analysis, I realized that the Vorlon fleet would have struck at Corianna 6 or Centauri Prime during the last battle. I know the Centauri has been bullying people in Season 2-3, but Londo and Sheridan were on talking terms. Would it not make more sense for Sheridan to negotiate with Londo, especially since in their conversation, Londo was particularly concern about the Vorlon approaching their homeworld? The negotiation could be something like "we'll bring our ships (Mimbari/Ranger) to defend Centauri Prime, in return you will stop your aggressive expansionist policy and return all seized territory". Even without the League's support, a Mimbari/Ranger/Centauri alliance would be much more powerful than a Mimbari/Ranger/League alliance. Don't forget that we're talking about Centauri Prime, the capital planet of a major power in the B5 universe which is likely to have heavy planetary defenses.

From a purely practical standpoint, getting the Centauri into the fight would have been much better since they were more powerful than the League and easier to negotiate with (just one race vs many).

[Wing Commander MAD]

Did Sheridan know or suspect Londo's association with Mr. Morden? If so that would make sense not approaching Londo/Centauri for an ally seeing as how Morden got hooks into the Centauri pretty early on. There was the whole episode where they had Morden in the brig regarding his relation to Sheridan's wife and Delenn and Kosh had to plead with Sheridan to let him go, so as not to tip off the Shadows that they knew of thier return. IIRC this was before they told him about the Shadow threat, and if they didn't tell him afterwords, he seems smart enough to probably figure it out later on his own after he has the missing pieces.

[NecronLord]

I'm pretty sure the Rangers and thus Sheridan, knew the Centauri had become Shadow Puppets, as the Centauri attacked the Rangers at their behest.

[AirshipFanboy]

We don't have enough information to say that the League's military was pathetic and that they contributed nothing to the fight against the Shadows. Just that their fleets are made of small ships or that we only see them blowing up fighters doesn't mean that they're useless.

That Londo was concerned that Refa was overextending the Centauri fleet by fighting most of the League at once indicates that together they're almost on par with the Centauri.

Also, we never really saw the totality of any of the Shadow War space battles... the fight in Shadow Dancing had a few scenes showing the League ships helping out, and for all we know they took down a few big spiders off screen.

And, keep in mind that when Sheridan and company were building the Army of Light they had no idea how many forces the Shadows had or even what the Shadows' goals were. The good guys were trying to get everyone they could into their alliance because they figured they were fighting Eldritch Aliens From Hell and needed every ship they could find. With the Centauri and Humans being Shadow semi-puppets and the Narn fleet decimated (except for one cruiser), the League was the only group left to supplement their fleet's Minbari core.

And as Wing Commander and NecronLord said, they implied pretty heavily that Sheridan knew about Londo's shadow connections. We never had a scene where Londo explicitly figures out that Morden's associates are the ones attacking the League worlds, the ones the Minbari call the Shadows, and the ones who nuked the Narn cruiser scouting out Zha'ha'Dum in early season 2 - but its clear he figured it all out some time.

And, late in season 3, when the alliance was being formed, Sheridan wouldn't have had to talk Londo into joining their little party... he would have had to talk Emperor Cartagia into joining... and Cartagia was a sadistic fruit loop quite out of touch with reality. A scene with Sheridan trying to manage negotiations with the mad Emperor might make an interesting topic for a fanfic, but it really wouldn't advance the plot very much and would probably just distract from the theme of whatever episode it was inserted in.

[Knife]

Sheridan made alliances that made each of the signers dependent on the others and on the Rangers. The Army of Light was as much about logistics, industrial capacity, and straight up political centralization as it was about pure warships.

[Stofsk]

Individually the League isn't very powerful. It's when they're taken as a collective whole that they become powerful. Also the League represent the Younger Races in a way, and the Shadow War was more about ideology than anything else.

Also I don't know what show you're watching but the narn were gone by the time Sheridan pledged to stand against the forces of darkness. Since the centauri were busy bullying, attacking and even invading the League I don't think it would have looked good if Sheridan courted them for help (particularly since the Shadows had already infiltrated the centauri political scene). Earth was also out of the picture for obvious reasons. That pretty much left nobody other than the League to go to.

I do agree with your analysis, but my point is that the League ships were good to have but not absolutely critical (which was what the storyline seemed to imply).

Well others have pointed out the flaws in your argument but I'd like to mention something about the League and the whole metaplot of B5. B5 is basically a story about growing up. The vorlons and shadows are both 'parents' and abusive ones at that, and every one of the younger races are 'children'. The climax of the shadow war was Sheridan telling both the vorlons and the shadows that the younger races didn't need them any more, that they've grown up basically. You can't have this type of storyline without having an alliance being made by the majority of the younger races, which is what the League represents. And most of the younger races were represented at Coriana 6 - humans from B5 and the rangers, minbari, narn (I am pretty sure that single cruiser made an appearance or maybe I am thinking of 'Shadow Dancing'), and of course all the League of Non-aligned Worlds was there. Incidentally I believe it was stated or implied that this was the biggest fleet ever assembled in history, at least as was known at the time.

Remember that B5 is basically the Space UN. The advisory council or whatever it was called basically acted like the UN security council, with its five permanent members. But the soul if you will is in the general assembly, which in B5 would be the League. The story of the show is about the younger races growing up and realising their place in the galaxy and forging their own destiny, so how it ended up makes perfect sense in that context.

[Night_stalker]

You could also argue that every extra ship from the League was one less Army of Light warship being targeted by a Shadow vessel.

Every little bit helps, after all.

[Ahriman238]

Some of the League members are very technologically advanced, only few in numbers. United, as rarely as that happens, the League could be a serious contender against the Centauri.

More to the point, with 2 major governments agianst them and the Vorlon's non-participation that eventually turned to outright hostility, Sheridan and the others were really in a "every possible ally and advantage" situation.

Besides, if they never contributed a single ship (and League ships were at every major battle) the League still supplied a large number of telepaths capable of disrupting operations aboard Shadow vessels. This alone would have been worth all the carping.