Earth Minbari war

[prometheous]

This has probably been done to death but any idea about minbari losses during the Minbari war???

It's just when you start to think about it geekily then:

1) If Sheridan had been the only one to destroy a minbari cruiser then the war would have been over in weeks not years (Try to imagine the battle of Britain had the RAF only been able to shoot down one German fighter)

2) Space aint that big when you consider Hperspace

3) If the minbari were trying-as Gen Lefcourt said In the Beginning- to engage and destroy Earthforce before taking out civilian targets then why not attack earth at the outset, the one target you know Earthforce has to defend. If they were such a walkover this would have been the ideal tactic

4) Earthforce Generals probably arent stupid. From the Prometheous incident they would know that the Hyperion and nova destroyers could inflict terminal damage to minbari forces given the first shot and close range

5) From Sheridan's ambush they would have re-learnt the old lesson about mining positions, in this case with H-bombs

With this in mind would it not be reasonable to guess that the reason it took the minbari 2.5 years to beat us is because Earthforce adopted tactics designed to overcome at least some of their technical shortcomings and to give the minbari a bloody nose and drive them off - even with a heavier butcher bill. If we assumed that Earth lost 3 times as many ships and men then this would put minbari losses between 70-90,000...Any advances???

[SLerman]

1) If Sheridan had been the only one to destroy a minbari cruiser then the war would have been over in weeks not years (Try to imagine the battle of Britain had the RAF only been able to shoot down one German fighter)

Sheridan wasn't the only one to destroy a Minbari cruiser, he was just the only one to actually win a battle. There would have been quite a few battles where Earth destroyed one or more Minbari ships, but still had most and/or all of their ships flattened by the end of the battle.

3) If the minbari were trying-as Gen Lefcourt said In the Beginning- to engage and destroy Earthforce before taking out civilian targets then why not attack earth at the outset, the one target you know Earthforce has to defend. If they were such a walkover this would have been the ideal tactic

The Minbari were confident, but not stupid. They knew that attacking Earth directly, especially early in the war, would have cost a fair number of Minbari lives. Considering the Prometheus and her support ships did heavy damage to the Gray Council's cruiser, trying to take on all of Earthforce in one battle would have resulted in a pretty large number of Minbari ships being destroyed. Sure, the Minbari could have wiped out Earth at any time, but they wanted to minimize their own losses.

[Garibaldi's Hair]

And let's not forget that at the time of the war, they had never had any dealing with the humans, so had no idea how good their military forces and hardware were going to be in battle until they started to take them out.

[prometheous]

Surely the first battle would have given the minbari an idea of Earth capabilities. Some things still dont make sense though. Minbari losses must have been heavy. If earth had 16 colonies in two dozen star systems that still only makes for 16 real battles if the Minbari were being systematic about it, if the minbari fleet could chew up Earthships with one direct hit none of these battles would last long unless Earth found a way to make the minbari pay heavily for their advances. It still follows that Earthforce must have been able to drive off the Minbari several times from at least some of these colonies, and that any ground forces sent by the attackers must have been contained or destroyed.

I may be biased, Ive never liked the minbari in the show and kinda never understood the sympathetic light in which this race are shown. If they were so enlightened and so much the protector against the Shadows how come they found the idea of Genocide so easy to take?? Plus they never really hade a right to get upset about Sheridan's tactics, Their much vaunted warrior caste was going to finish off an opponent who was no longer capable of fighting...

[Harrdy]

If they were so enlightened and so much the protector against the Shadows how come they found the idea of Genocide so easy to take??

Well, the Vorlons themselves where not much better, where they?

I wildly guess that JMS wanted to show how putting an idea as the whole reason to live and strife for makes you "in-human" (while the idea of calling aliens "in-human" is entertaining me just now... *g*). The key episode is when the Shadows and the Vorlons are confronted with their own "questions", and don't know the answer themselfes. They have become "hollow", obsessed by "the enemy" (and his codex) they forgot their own ideals.

Regarding the Minbari, I reconed that the Vorlon "order" idea tends to make systems very rigid, to the point where something is "unthinkable" because nobody does it. So the idea of using a distress signal was so enraging because it is outside of their "codex", they go: "You are not SUPPOSED to do that". How much influence from the Vorlons where in that matter and how much was typically Minbari I cannot see...

PeAcE

[prometheous]

too true... still it would be nice once to see Earthforce not totally outgunned in a fight (Minbari,whitestars) By all accounts they did well against the Drakh fleet and the deathcloud but it wouldve been nice to see what damage the warlocks could've done...

...I think a good point about the Minbari is that they really cant exist outside of a strict ordered leadership. That's probably natural to them and I guess it's why they were such willing servents of the Vorlons...

...I wonder if Captain Jankowski survived long enough to face a court of enquiry or did the Minbari go after him like Ahab to the Whale...

[WorkerCaste]

Don't forget that the Minbari would have to defend as well as attack. As they moved on Earth positions, they would need to secure a defensive line behind that would prevent Earth ships from bypassing their marauding fleets and attacking Minbari positions, potentially civillian. And it couldn't just be a line-type defense. With hyperspace, they needed to defend a great volume of space behind them. The further the went, the greater the volume they must defend. That would slow them down just from a logisitcs perspective. I would imagine that there were a few times the got too thin and took losses when EF ships attacked. Not that they lost any great amount of territory or what-not -- just that losses would increase.

Also, the tales told during "The Long Dark" and "In the Beginning" spoke on ground battles. It seems like those would've been a little closer matched and potentially more expensive.

[prometheous]

It's a nice theory but consider the following, The Earth civil war, fought over the same territory with two opponents roughly matched in capabilities (If we assume the Omega class destroyer was the principle combatant on both sides) lasted - in Babylon 5 time- what? 3-4 months, if we put the Whitestars into the equation then Sheridan had the qualitative superiority over Clark that the Minbari had over the Hyperions...

Also the Centauri - Narn war lasted 6 months by Lord Refa's statements, and yes obviously the Shadows helped wipe out that last Narn fleet but consider that they let the Centauri do their own fighting for the most part against an opponent - again qualitativly equal...

Even the Shadow war lasted less than a year so how did a bunch of primitive apes last nearly 3 years against the vaunted Minbari?

And yeh the ground fighting would have cost the Minbari but only if they werent assured air and space superiority, if they wiped out the defending EF ships then it's a short step to blasting the planetary garrison from orbit unless the Minbari space forces were drawn off by an EF counter attack or the original defence leaving the Minbari ground forces to slug it out by themselves...

And if you wanted to defend 3D space you'd post local defences around your bases which could hold off attacks until local reserves could arrive, defence in depth like Montgomery at Alam Halfa...

...Sorry bout being such a geek about this but it's one thing JMS never really explained. I think the Minbari war would have been better as a mini series rather than as a tv movie

[WorkerCaste]

It's a nice theory but consider the following, The Earth civil war, fought over the same territory with two opponents roughly matched in capabilities (If we assume the Omega class destroyer was the principle combatant on both sides) lasted - in Babylon 5 time- what? 3-4 months, if we put the Whitestars into the equation then Sheridan had the qualitative superiority over Clark that the Minbari had over the Hyperions...

I still think there are differences. First, the only thing Sheridan had to defend behind him initially was B5. The alien races took care of that. The alien races also provided logistical support. As each colony was liberated, there was another defensive concern, but at each step his forces grew as Clark's forces shrank. As was demonstrated early on, even ships not ready to attack other EF ships were willing to defend the colonies that had been liberated. Also, Sheridan knew what Earth-controlled space looked like; what places he had to hit; and likely, through some EF officers who believed in what he was doing, but stayed inside Clark's forces, knew much of the disposition of the forces arrayed against him. The Minbari knew none of this when the war began. Also, Sheridan had a very good chance of claiming victory if he removed Clark from office, even if much of the "loyal" EF was still operating, whereas the Minbari were looking to eliminate all military forces and then start focusing on civillian.

Also the Centauri - Narn war lasted 6 months by Lord Refa's statements, and yes obviously the Shadows helped wipe out that last Narn fleet but consider that they let the Centauri do their own fighting for the most part against an opponent - again qualitativly equal...

I'd say that the Shadow involvement you mention was much more significant than your statement seems to imply. The final attack could not have happened without the assurance that the Centauri defenses would not be compromised and that what was probably the greatest single Narn fleet ever assembled was taken care of. Also, the Narns were coming off a century of subjugation and never seemed that numerous compared to other races. Again, the Centauri also knew a great deal about what they were up against since they had previously occupied the space in question and since Narn tech was based largely on Centauri.

Even the Shadow war lasted less than a year ...

But the Shadow war didn't get anywhere near a military victory. Sheridan got them to stop fighting and interfering. It's really not a valid comparison.

And yeh the ground fighting would have cost the Minbari but only if they werent assured air and space superiority, if they wiped out the defending EF ships then it's a short step to blasting the planetary garrison from orbit unless the Minbari space forces were drawn off by an EF counter attack or the original defence leaving the Minbari ground forces to slug it out by themselves...

But this isn't what we saw and heard. Sure, blasting them from orbit or ignoring them completely would be safer and quicker, but, for whatever reason, these aren't the tactics we saw the Minbari using. And even though I say "whatever reason", I would conclude from all we saw of the Minbari that orbital bombardment would be considered dishonorable, and since they were engaged in a war of annihilation just ignoring the ground troops wasn't really an option either.

And if you wanted to defend 3D space you'd post local defences around your bases which could hold off attacks until local reserves could arrive, defence in depth like Montgomery at Alam Halfa...

We agree! Although it's bases, colonies, homeworld, etc., and eventually that takes a lot of ships. Also, the defenses have to be very local due to hyperspace travel.

...Sorry bout being such a geek about this...

Aren't we all!

[prometheous]

I guess we are

Still, Minbari honours a bit of a grey (no pun intended) area. After all why would they consider orbital bombardment where the opponent can't fight back any different from destroying crippled EF ships which couldn't fight back??? Besides honour really goes out the window when your trying to ethnically cleanse an entire species

[Harrdy]

Honor has IMHO not so much to do with what's right (in an objective way) but what is considered the right behaviour in a given situation. For example, taking your own life is not considered as honorable, but if you killed yourself to wash away a stain on your family it was consideres quite honorable in Japan. So it is like a play, where you should behave in a way. If there is something which is not in the ruleset (which defines what is honorable and what not) so you are on your own. Therefore honorable persons can be quite cruel or kind, depending on their personality, not their honor.

The second thing is that honor has nothing to do with "the other side". If you follow a code of honor than that doesn't say anything about how you treat the other side, if you consider them equals or bugs, saints or whatever. It just means that you behave in a special way, that might be considered honorable by the other side or despiceable. Flying with Kamikaze-Fighters was considered very honorable by Japanese, the other side didn't think that way.

(Japan is such a good example for honor because their whole social system was a play, there was a ritual for everything...)

PeAcE

[prometheous]

Except in the instance I mentioned we are talking about two identical situations, ie killing someone who can't fight back, be that because they are crippled in the fight or are on the ground unable to retaliate against spaceborne weapons. The problem with the minbari is they are so polarised, while (almost)every other race in the B5 universe is multilayered the minbari only ever come across as unbearably pious(religious) or unbelievably arrogant(warrior) the war brought these contradictions into sharp focus and layed the foundation for their own civil war years later (TBF not much of a war really)...

...I just think the Earth-Minbari war could do with a bit of proper fleshing out, if that happened you'd find there would be no way we could just get our arses kicked all the time, we'd have to give them some bloody noses at some point, else the war would have been shorter

[Harrdy]

I didn't like the Minbary either, they where to "static" for me, but I guess that is the way they should be. Static in their culture but deeply spiritual, Evolved but closed to new ideas (just think of all the fuss because of the transformation). Anyway, regarding the differences between shooting/killing a person in front of you and killing maybe thousend onboard a ship in space... I think it is easier to kill somebody if you don't see him. Humans look very similar to Minbary, so fighting face to face could trigger the honor-reflex, but maybe shooting a ship was just "cleaning up".

I think I remember that in the series there was some talk about on ground Minbari and Humans where quite balanced, maybe that was because they *saw* the opposite, and therefore didn't fight dirty. But then again, they couldn't wrap their mind around the dirty fighting humans in space, so I guess they did it their way nonetheless.

One other thing I vaguely remember was that the war against the humans with the purpose of eradicating all human live was an impulsive reaction. Maybe in ship to ship fight they where overcome by that impulse, but when they fought person to person there was enough time (dunno, never been in a fistfight, lucky me) to reflect upon what they where doing.

By the way, some time of that three year war could be information gathering. They didn't know about humans, their capabilities, their systems. They would have needed to scout, to tighten up and strenghten their military forces (the Minbari where so advanced that the Centauri didn't want to fight against them... so the military of Minbar could have been mothballed (maybe not, given that they had a military caste)) and to find a tactic to employ. They began - as far as I remember - taking one colony at a time, but as they saw how feeble the human military was they flew directly to earth. So I think there could have been 2 1/2 Years of preperation, and the real fighting started only in the last months.

Right now it occured to me that trying to explain the reasons why some fictional alien did what it did ist quite... strange. I think I will stay away from this topic in future, for sanity reasons 8o)

PeAcE

[WorkerCaste]

Still, Minbari honours a bit of a grey (no pun intended) area. After all why would they consider orbital bombardment where the opponent can't fight back any different from destroying crippled EF ships which couldn't fight back??? Besides honour really goes out the window when your trying to ethnically cleanse an entire species

I agree that it can be grey, but I do think there is a difference in the two scenarios you cite. The difference is in the initial conditions. The crippled EF ship is not the initial condition. It is an intermediate condition. The ship had previously fought on a ship-to-ship basis. In terms of duels, for example, it would be the difference between killing an unarmed foe and killing a foe you have disarmed. Also, IIRC, we did hear Delenn question the honor of defeating an inferior foe, so we know honor plays a factor in an unbalanced situation.

All that being said, the original point holds. We heard about and saw ground-based conflict -- not orbital bombardment.

[prometheous]

Silly topic I suppose, but it's a part of the B5 universe that was only ever really talked around - despite in the beginning - but hey was all good fiction, would love to see JMS try expaning on B5 despite the failure of crusade