What if the Grey Council died?(Babylon 5 RAR)

[FaxModem1]

Okay, in In the Beginning, the first contact between the Minbari and the Earth Alliance gets off on a rather bad foot, with the Humans mistaking the Minbari's 'honorable open hand gesture' of pointing gunports at them as a hostile gesture. Neither side could translate each other. The Minbari scanners on the Earth vessels rendered the Earth ships unable to jump away. This led the unstable captain to fire at the Grey Council convoy, killing Dukhat, and then immediately jump away. This lead the Grey Council to retaliate in a genocidal war against the Humans.

Here's the scene from the movie:


BUT, what would happen if, instead of retreating, Captain Jankowski, being a bit over-reactive, decided to neutralize the threat permanently, and wiped out the Grey Council fleet, so as to make sure that there was no evidence that they were there? Would war still start? Would the Minbari even be able to find who killed their leaders? What happens from that point? How is the rest of the universe affected?

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

The grey council can, presumably, be replaced, by whatever demented anachronistic process the boneheads use, that is almost certainly as utterly inappropriate for a technological species as their already existing caste system. (I don't much like Minbari, arrogant bastards so self absorbed they never even consider anyone else might think differently- except on the tabletop. Next only to the Dilgar Targrath strike cruiser, the Shantavi and Veshatan were two of my favourite things.)

Delenn was on that ship as well, though. The head of the Rangers (the One who is) cannot be so easily replaced. Her part in the history that is to come- and it is a very large part- cannot be so easily replaced. Screw the council, she is the loss that hurts.

Now, the question here becomes how awake the Shadows are, because the earth force contact squadron has just pulled off an epic decapitation strike; as the representatives of disorder, there must surely be opportunists in their ranks? Does Morden's recruitment pre-date the start of the Earth Minbari War? By the time word filters back through the rest of the interstellar community to the bone- crested bald ones, Earth will have had a little preparation time, and rather more Minbari wreckage to study and draw conclusions from. Probably not enough to make a strategic difference- not without help.

Enough to make a tactical difference, though. The war would be longer and harder and cost more Minbari lives, certainly, but for Earth to survive, they need a lot more help than that. Which now that I think about it I don't think they'd get. How friendly would you be to a neighbour that had just committed genocide? The younger races are going to look at the Minbari as a race of mad dogs- which, arguably, they actually are anyway-

so the question becomes a matter of pawns. Do the shadows gain more by setting things in motion early, exploiting the chaos in the ranks of light? Or by letting the Vorlons' strongest followers make themselves out to be blood- crazed, vengeance obsessed psychopaths? Do the Vorlons care, either way- enough to restrain the Minbari? Historically, they didn't.

So the Minbari bleed more, and the humans bleed a lot more. There follows a decade of guerilla warfare as they try to hunt down the fringe colonies, the far flung survival outposts, the refugees- hunting and killing the last of the human race, probably trampling on most of the minor races' toes in the process, those that have them.

The minor races are led, beguiled and rabble- roused into the position that if this Minbari murder campaign is what vorlon order is to be, they want none of it. There is dissent. There are incidents. Minbari ships start disappearing in the night- occasionally accompanied by terrible psychic waves of fear and pain. The rangers, no one in high office is there to hear their warnings.

Shadow victory becomes very much more probable.

[Ahriman238]

BUT, what would happen if instead of retreating, Captain Jankowski, being a bit over-reactive, decided to neutralize the threat permanently, and wiped out the Grey Council fleet, so as to make sure that there was no evidence that they were there? they also killed the only people who tried to stop the Minbari from wiping out humanity?

Fixed that for you. Yes, the war would still start, a new Council would be appointed or politic their way up however that's done in the absence of a Council to appoint it's own members. In the meantime, the Warrior Caste would go even more nuts. Then there's no secret meeting to try and smooth things over, no Delenn waving the sacred triangle in Sinclair's face and stopping short of destroying Earth. With Earth gone and humanity either dead or subjugated by the Minbari, there's no Babylon Project. No attempt to create an equitable interstellar community, no solid alliances when the Shdaows start making their moves. In short, everyone, everywhere is screwed.

[FaxModem1]

Here's the thing not being considered, would the war even still start? The Grey Council moved in secret, and as long as Earth doesn't tell, no one knows who just wiped out the Grey Council. It would become a mystery, like Sigma 957. The Minbari could wage a war of vengeance on everybody for the deaths of their leaders, or on their own because they view that it was someone in their own people who decided to assassinate the Grey Council.

[FaxModem1]

GHETTO EDIT: Heck, even if they are able to take something from the remains of the ships, they may even blame it on the Soul Hunters, and go to war with them.

[Imperial Overlord]

Here's the thing not being considered, would the war even still start? The Grey Council moved in secret, and as long as Earth doesn't tell, no one knows who just wiped out the Grey Council. It would become a mystery, like Sigma 957. The Minbari could wage a war of vengeance on everybody for the deaths of their leaders, or on their own because they view that it was someone in their own people who decided to assassinate the Grey Council.

Earth didn't keep it a secret. Even if no one off that ship new from the Minbari side knew (not plausible), Earth was talking to the Centauri about it. It gets out.

[Ahriman238]

Here's the thing not being considered, would the war even still start? The Grey Council moved in secret, and as long as Earth doesn't tell, no one knows who just wiped out the Grey Council. It would become a mystery, like Sigma 957. The Minbari could wage a war of vengeance on everybody for the deaths of their leaders, or on their own because they view that it was someone in their own people who decided to assassinate the Grey Council.

Eh, possibly. But enough things need to go right for Jankowski for that to work. Beginning with his task force actually managing to destroy the Valen'tha when all they managed the first time was a quick cut and run, and future Earthforce ships didn't do nearly so well. And he has to do it fast enough that they can't get off a transmission, which is that extra bit dicier. And he'd have to pray there were no fighters, escape pods or black box recording devices left over and hiding a midst the wreckage, as seems so often to be the case in B5.

Oh, and even if none of these betraying bits of evidence come to light, the Centauri government was informed of the expedition. Earthdome better pray the Centauri don't fold when a horned figure shows up to discuss the Minbari's gratitude for information, and their wrath for information withheld.

[Borgholio]

Why are we assuming the Earth fleet would even be able to wipe out the Minbari? They had several war cruisers and support vessels. Once the surprise of the Human attack wore off, if they stayed to fight, the Minbari would have wiped the floor with them. A sucker punch to the Grey Council command ship is not a guarantee that the entire vessel would (or even could) be destroyed.

[Thanas]

^This so much. Earth was unable to take out Minbari Vessels aside from suicide tactics or minefields. I don't see how a small outclassed Earth Warship can take on the flagship.

[Lord Revan]

that said the minbari superiority was largely due them being able to target Earthforce ships at a greater range due the stealth systems, something that wouldn't matter in this fight as much as both fleets were in range, that said minbari weapons seem to carve up earthforce ships quite effectivly.

[Thanas]

Range did not matter much, even at close range we see in In the Beginning, Minbari cruisers cut them up with return fire causing little damage.

[Borgholio]

Range did not matter much, even at close range we see in In the Beginning, Minbari cruisers cut them up with return fire causing little damage.

If I recall, in the first fleet battle of the war, the Minbari deliberately allowed the Earth forces to close to weapons range AND SHOOT FIRST, to demonstrate that the Minbari were in no real danger. The battle was over 12 seconds after the Human ships opened fire. So yeah, even at close range, the Minbari had the advantage.

[Bedlam]

I'd agree that there's no way that the Earth ship can take out the while Mimbari fleet, it got in a lucky surprise strike and that was that, if it stayed around it was dead. Even if by some myrical is did some serious damage it has no way of stopping the enemy fleet legging it.

I'd say the result would be the human race being wiped out or at the very least severely depopulated and earth glassed.

I do remember a very good fanfic from my university days (about 15 years ago) called 'Through a Dark mirror' which was running through the whole five series after a similar scenario the whole human holdings consisted of 2-3 colonies and bases and a similar number of capital ships (Including the Babylon commanded by Sheridon) a few other colonies had been annexed and enslaved by the Narns with their human population at least still alive (Although if the Minbari had pushed they would have given then up). All the same characters turned up but often in different roles (Garibaldi was Bester's assistant if I remember correctly).

The point of divergence there was the battle of earth when Delen picked a human ship to capture Sinclairs ship was knocked out of the way and she picked another who's pilot then attacked the grey council (The vorlons saved Sinclair and brainwashed him to later be sent back in time to keep the general time line on track).

I don't know if it still exists the link I have is http://www.b5-dark-mirror.demon.co.uk/ but its broken and has been for a few years at least.

[Starglider]

(The vorlons saved Sinclair and brainwashed him to later be sent back in time to keep the general time line on track).

I was going to say, this is a major time paradox and to handwave it you'd have to have the Vorlons build a fake B4 and send that back as well; and there's no indication that they have time travel, or even the ability to sense changes to the timeline or determine the 'correct' one. Sinclair / Valen formed the grey council, founded the rangers and him + B4 were instrumental in winning the first shadow war. Remove that and the war goes a lot worse, the Mimbari take much more of a beating and are less advanced / civilised. Perhaps the Epsilon 3 aliens would have found some other way of helping, but if so history would almost certainly change enough that the circumstances of the human / Mimbari encounter would be completely different.

[Bedlam]

(The vorlons saved Sinclair and brainwashed him to later be sent back in time to keep the general time line on track).

I was going to say, this is a major time paradox and to handwave it you'd have to have the Vorlons build a fake B4 and send that back as well; and there's no indication that they have time travel, or even the ability to sense changes to the timeline or determine the 'correct' one. Sinclair / Valen formed the grey council, founded the rangers and him + B4 were instrumental in winning the first shadow war. Remove that and the war goes a lot worse, the Mimbari take much more of a beating and are less advanced / civilised. Perhaps the Epsilon 3 aliens would have found some other way of helping, but if so history would almost certainly change enough that the circumstances of the human / Mimbari encounter would be completely different.

I don't remember how it was done but B4 was brought into it, it might have been built by the humans earlier. Once again the great machine was used to send it.

I think it was a circular paradox, basically the Vorlons know they need Sinclair as he was there for the last war so they kidnap him from the battle, program him based on what they remember and arrange for him to be sent back. More or less what happens in the series but rather more brutal.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

In the first two seconds of that clip you can see that it was not a single- ship encounter on either side; both parties had small task forces present. I know the whole firepower thing has been argued round and round the mulberry bush ("two megatons! two!") and I really don't want to go there, but apart from plot- shields and main characters' rides, when do we ever see a B5 ship take a solid pounding?

The general impression I got from the show was that weapons had long since outrun defence- passive defences like armour are thin insurance at best, they may hold the ship together long enough to react but not much more; active defences, Earthforce interceptors and much more so Minbari stealth, are effective; but the only sure and certain defence is offence, to get them before they get you. Even the enormous disparity between Shadows and Narn still left the Narn getting enough return fire off to leave one of the Shadow ships drifting and needing to be rescued.

If the Minbari reacted incompetently and incoherently- couldn't believe what was happening and went into shock, which is more or less how Jankowski got away in the first place- at point blank, the Novas and Hyperions visible could do a fair amount of damage, if they start making with the megatonnage they might be able to score a win. The chances of doing so before the Minbari inflict significant casualties- or get some kind of message off- is very small, yes, but the chances of victory are not negligible. Enough to be whif- worthy, anyway.

The time travel thing- at that point, problem, the Great Machine is being run by an old friend and mentor of Delenn's; was it not Drall in the machine at the point when Bab-4 was sent back? No Delenn, no B5, no Drall, no time travel. No babylon project at all, for that matter.

[andrewgpaul]

Wasn't one of the reasons for the war Delenn's response to her mentor's death? If she's wiped out along with the rest of them, would the warriors still have launched such a devastating reprisal, or would they have settled for Earth surrendering?

[Batman]

First off, thanks to ECR for making the post that my connection problems ate, we're talking a marginally sizeable Earthforce fleet (minimum two Hyperions and several Novas plus support) vs 2 Minbari Sharlins and support, and Earthforce's main problem wasn't they couldn't hurt the Minbari if and when they managed to hit them (as the incident under discussion shows), it was that they couldn't hit them (which begs the question of why they're not using optical/optronic targeting systems because this being space, for once the planet getting in the way is a nonissue and the Minbari ships being rather on the large side and plainly visible in exterior shots).
Yes, I too think the Earthforce side could have won this, if only with heavy losses. While the Minbari did react pretty quicky, they also did so pretty inefficiently (to the point that if memory serves not as single Earthforce capital ship was lost before they ran away) so yes, I think there was a lot of confusion on the Minbari side that might have allowed the Earthers to kill them outright given their numerical superiority in capital ships if they had stayed to fight.

[Connor MacLeod]

If the EA ships have nukes and Jankowski is crazy enough to want to obliterate them, we might assume he launches on them. The Minbari didn't even immediately fire back (except for some Fighters, IIRC) so its debatable they'd be prepared to intercept missiles even if they had time. EA weaponry was doing enough damage to the Minbari (They're not THAT much better when the enemy can target them. Its just that beam weaponry outranges everything EA has and their sensors deny any long range - Beyond Visual Range - targeting.)

Considering that, IIRC, Londo was their contact with the Earth Alliance, and he actually tried warning them away from the Minbari, I doubt they would willingly tell them anything they knew unless the Minbari threatened. They may know that the Earthforce fleet was dispatching ships to meet with the Minbari, but they would not neccesarily know anything after unless someone talked (which is entirely possible. And evne then they may want to keep EA as trading partners, because it would be profitable (again unless forced to.) Besides, he Centauri of this time don't want to get involved in anyone's affairs except for trade.

But assuming they destroy the Minbari, there's no guarantee that they would get away scot free. In Season 5 we learned it was possible for the ISA to identify that the Minbari were attacking other races through analysis of the debris and identification of the weaponry. It is possible the Minbari could identify EA (or at leats someone possessing the sort of tech the EArth Alliance has) from the debris unless they totally vaporize the evidence (they might if they realize this danger.) If the Minbari can figure out someone with EA tech level destroyed the fleet, they're smart enough to put two and two together and figure out the EArth Alliance may have destroyed their leadership, and then the Warrior Caste will almost certainly push for their extermination (unless they somehow managed to pick up Sinclair and figure out he's Valen. The Vorlons might have enough initiative if their plan backfires to manipulate events to this end, although without Delenn there is the question of their influence.)

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

It's been at this point, 2245, only thirteen years since the end of the Dilgar War- in which Earthforce led the League of Non- Aligned Worlds to victory over the space cat-nazi Dilgar, who were conveniently supernova'd almost entirely to death by their home system's star; the earthers are clearly the coming thing, and likely to be a major player in the very nearly imminent latest round of the Shadow Wars. The Minbari have to know which side they're on, which camp they're likely to fall into.

Wiping out the Grey Council- are the warrior case, the Minbari as a whole, going to take 'oops, sorry, we want to be friends really' as an answer? What on earth can they do or say to convince an extremely angry alien race that they're not Shadow minions after all, despite behaving in about as hostile a manner as it's possible to be?

Delenn lost the plot, I'll grant you, in rage and grief- but nobody challenged her on it. Nobody said, hold on a minute here, isn't that going a bit far? There was no Mytilinean Debate, even; no contrary voice loud enough to be heard. They acted on the impulse of the shrieking madwoman, from which I at least draw the conclusion that it fitted in well enough with the reactions and the mindset of the rest of the Minbari people.

(A weird aside, on the topic of military anger- USS Enterprise, the real one, CV-6, had a jaw- droppingly impressive war record. Apparently, according to some crew recollections, that was the secret. She was an angry ship, out for blood, highly motivated by a collective spirit of revenge. That made extraordinary things possible.)

In fact in the unmodified timeline, Earth effectively was driven into the ranks of the Shadows and their minions, largely as a result of the Earth- Minbari War. Only the renegades- the esential fraction, our heroes, and a relatively small handful of EA deserters- fought on the side of light.

Another odd sidelight on the subject of Minbari stealth; what's it for? The Vorlons and Shadows both have little difficulty penetrating it- it's useless against direct intervention; it only matters when they're fighting the other younger races, proxy versus proxy, minion versus minion.

Without Delenn, does anyone- Branmer of the Trigati, maybe, who had been religious caste before becoming a reluctant but extremely effective warrior- decide the humans are being interestingly stubborn, and try the magic triangle thing? Under what conditions does the slaughter stop, does anyone else care enough to do the spiritual probe? (Does history start to unwind, in the absence of the babylon project?)- actually that might be their cue that the humans are too useful to exterminate, when they find their own history unravelling behind them.

Another thing about Earthforce, the Dilgar the fleet was built to fight, the fleet they went into the Earth- Minbari War with, basically had two separate lines of ship devlopment- assault ships (flying bricks, very Vogon) and strike cruisers. The Novas were designed to go toe to toe with Dilgar assault ships, beating them at their own game of mass firepower at close range. Hyperions- pre existing, not well optimised for the war as they're too slow and too poorly armed to catch and kill a Targrath, very much the other way around. (How the EA won the Dilgar war is a mystery to me. It must have been down to the logistics because it surely wasn't tactical superiority.)

The EA emerged from the Dilgar war with a large collection of flying bricks of it's own, a lot of pre- existing cruisers being upgraded with modern weaponry (including Narn lasers) in search of relevance, a handful of large fleet carriers and a growing number of small ones, and a large number of different breeds of medium- small fast gunship. Not a greaat mix to face the battlewagon- centric Minbari fleet, even without a major EW disadvantage.

[Imperial Overlord]

The Dilgar were fighting the League and the Narn as well as Earth. Earthforce didn't need to be equal to the Dilgar, they merely had to be somewhat effective and numerous.

[Thanas]

I am going to have to disagree again on the earthforce fleet winning the fight. Jankowski issues an immediate retreat. We never see an Earthforce ship winning a one-on-one and we see with which ease a minbari fleet wipes out similar sized earth-forces.

[FaxModem1]

That really depends on how much of a sucker punch the Prometheus fleet gave the Grey Council convoy. Keep in mind, their weapons incapacitated the Minbari ships enough to jump away, so they might, in this scenario, have incapacitated them enough to prevent them from fighting aside from their fighters.

[Connor MacLeod]

The reason we never see the EA beat the Minbari in a conventional fight is because the Minbari's technology allows them to basically dictate the terms of the fight (EG long range engagements.) Their more accurate jump drives mean they can emerge where they choose more easily. Their gravitic drives (probably) give them a mobility advantage (or may just make it harder for EA to track them - I dont know if they have any sort of sensor that can detect gravitational fields like that.). Their beam weapons are longer ranged by far, and their stealth and sensor systems allow them to mess with EA sensors (and other systems) - all of which means the Minbari can pretty much slice up EA ships at range with impunity.

There was, incidentally, some circumstantial visual evidence that suggested the Minbari had some means of redirecting pulse fire from their ships (although whether it was fighter or starship grade we don't know.) On at least one occasion I remember pulse shots were deflected away from the hull without actually touching it (sort of like a ricochet off an invisible wall.)

Nonetheless, when the Minbari don't get things their way they tend to fare pretty poorly. Any close up engagements tend to be pretty bad unless they have overwhelming numbers (Nova ramming the War Cruiser - somehow the Minbari hadn't decimated THAT ship at long range.) There is of course the Jankowski attack itself (Not sure if that was close range or not, but they were unprepared for attack.), and of course there is Sheridan's little trap.

Heck we'd seen quite easily in ItB Minbari hulls seem to be fairly shit against most weapons. When Jankowski attacked the hits were inflicting tremendous internal damage (which is how Dukhat got killed. Even if we assume he is somehow on some hull on the outside of the ship, the armoring around that hallway would be utter shit. You'd think they'd protect their valued leaders better, or something.) We've seen Starfuries colliding with EA ships TWICE and causing non-trivial damage (such as through the fin). And there is of course the Black STar which is the more quantifiable of the scenes.

WRT the ItB scene we know there were at least two Warcruisers, vs at least one Nova and two Hyperions. Whether they incapacitated the Minbari ships is not known (the fighters certainly attacked, and I was possibly wrong in that the Minbari may have gotten off at least ONE cruiser-grade beam shot that did fuck all to the Earth ships) - but the main reason they could jump was that the scanning array was knocked out, which doesn't require intenral penetration (other scenes show some pretty nasty internal damage somewhere in the ship though.) If the ships WERE incapacitated though in some fashion, it might explain why they didn't immediately return fire (especially since their scanners should have picked up targeting sensors or the power spikes for gunfire - we know both can be detected - heck ItB itself demonstrates both.)

Three ships could carry enough nukes (even a handful apiece) that are launched (with fighter cover) and even if only one or two get in amongst the ships they could be crippled and/or destroyed, especially in conjunction with starship fire. Its not wholly inconceivable in the circumstances and given what information we do have. If anyone else hsa any evidence to suggest this is impossible, then by all means I would like to see it (and know the source. )

[Juubi Karakuchi]

Another odd sidelight on the subject of Minbari stealth; what's it for? The Vorlons and Shadows both have little difficulty penetrating it- it's useless against direct intervention; it only matters when they're fighting the other younger races, proxy versus proxy, minion versus minion.

Its purpose, or at least its effect, is to make accurate targeting impossible. All the enemy can see is a warship-shaped blob on the screen, with little or no indication of where vital systems are, and no way to target them in any case. Pinpoint targeting would only be possible optically (aka cameras and/or telescopes), and they would be limited by what they can see on the target's exterior, or intelligence regarding the interior. Otherwise all they can do is blaze away and hope they happen to hit something important.