AU: Extinction

[Darzoni]

My brother and I kicked this around a few months back. It was originally to be a large campaign detailing a very different outcome to the Earth-Minbari War, and the reprecussions of that. I submit to you this, then:

What if the Minbari had picked the wrong Starfury pilot (Ignoring temporal paradox), and had obliterated Earth's population?

Humans, as a functional government and galactic power, cease to exist. The Vorlons' plan lies in ruins. Without the uniting factor of humaity, the Army of Light ceases to be. All the obvious problems.

But the Minbari didn't get all the humans. Colonies were skipped, and you'd never find all the little hide-aways in asteroid fields. Then there are the Explorer-class survey ships roaming around. When they get back from their expeditions, they may be the only ships with the resources to rebuild some semblance of infrastructure.

Then there are the Shadows and Vorlons. Would the defeated and bitter humans take the place of the Centauri as the Shadow's puppets? Or would the Vorlons quietly attempt to reorder and rebuild human society?

I don't have my material with me to continue speculating, but feel free to discuss, ladies and gentlemen.

 

[captainsmirk]

Interesting idea, can just imagine fleets of shadow-pimped human ships attacking Drakh-like from hidden bases trying to get revenge on the Minbari (and just about anyone else as well...)

Or maybe just a slightly more willing source of telepathic pilots for Shadow ships...


Nick

 

[Darzoni]

Yeah, could lead to the Second Earth-Minbari War, more devastating than the last... and escalates into the Great War.

 

[emperorpenguin]

just to throw my spanner in the works......

I've never been persuaded by the "genocide" angle of the Minbari war. Over two years of fighting we lost 250,000 people. That's nothing. Nearly that many are perhaps dead in the Iraqi war.
20,000 were lost on the Line. Each ship lost would have been another 500ish, plus ground battles.

The Minbari conquered about 20 of our colonies and didn't harm the civilians.
Where exactly did Earth get the evidence or idea that the war was genocidal?

 

[Chernobyl]

it sounds like an interesting hypothetical for a B5RPG campaign, but I think without earth's infrastructure it would be hard to get a viable fleet construction program going. remember the minbari were basically targeting military infrastructure on the way to earth.

Chern

 

[Darzoni]

just to throw my spanner in the works......

I've never been persuaded by the "genocide" angle of the Minbari war. Over two years of fighting we lost 250,000 people. That's nothing. Nearly that many are perhaps dead in the Iraqi war.
20,000 were lost on the Line. Each ship lost would have been another 500ish, plus ground battles.

The Minbari conquered about 20 of our colonies and didn't harm the civilians.
Where exactly did Earth get the evidence or idea that the war was genocidal?

Well, maybe it wasn't. But Earth would have fallen, and the ground fighting would have been devastating, bitter, and protracted. It's quite likely that the military forces would have fought to the bitter end on the ground.

I don't think a total estimated 450,000 deaths is reasonable for the scale of the war. Granted, that's nearly a half million deaths, but it still seems low. There were ground engagements, by Garibaldi and other GROPOS' accounts in the series, and they might account for the 250,000 you list. Reasonably, if we estimate Earth's population at around 10 billion people, and figure in approximately that many people living off-world, your volunteer military would be much greater (if you figure peacetime recruitment as a flat percentage of the population, then factor in the propaganda and despair generated by the war, it's a massive number of volunteers). Remember that towards the end, the EA was throwing greenhorns and raw recruits at the Minbari because they didn't have many people with experience /left/.

The loss of a homeworld is a terrible blow to morale (just ask the Narn). Mars /might/ rise as the new capitol, but if the Minbari occupied Earth, they certainly would target the military in the rest of the Sol System, and certainly would not let Mars rise to power. As a functional galactic power, the Earth Alliance would be kaput.

The Minbari didn't even 'conquer' anything, as far as I can recall. They skipped several colonies and outposts on their way to Earth (notably ignoring Mars).

No, I imagine the remnants of humanity would seek out alien allies and alien technology, and eventually find the Shadows.

 

[emperorpenguin]

sorry I should have started my own thread, not meaning to derail yours! It just suddenly made me think "that never made sense!" :?

on topic: I think Mars would have either been targetted afterwards OR been seen as collaborators by refugee humans.

 

[Darzoni]

sorry I should have started my own thread, not meaning to derail yours! It just suddenly made me think "that never made sense!" :?

on topic: I think Mars would have either been targetted afterwards OR been seen as collaborators by refugee humans.

... Or both.

Scenario 1: Red Planet
Uh... Hm. I need to wait until I get my ACTA materials in my paws before I can do all this.

 

[Darzoni]

By the way, I chose 'Extinction' as a title because I figure that the resultant Great War would result in the extermination of humanity by other races, as the humans begin deploying shadow-based variants of their early ships...

 

[Right Hand of God]

Weren't they only targetting military outposts on their way to Earth, the intention being to then turn around and wipe out the remains afterwards. A sort of Bonehead Blitzkrieg?

With the supperioty they had in ships why did it take two years to reach Earth? After two years of war they had onky lost 250,000 people? that's remarkably light casualties isn't it for a species facing extinction

 

[emperorpenguin]

Weren't they only targetting military outposts on their way to Earth, the intention being to then turn around and wipe out the remains afterwards. A sort of Bonehead Blitzkrieg?

That's what the generals said in "In The Beginning". The question is HOW would they know that? :shock: The EA had many spies at Minbari "Final Solution" meetings? It just never rang true for me

With the supperioty they had in ships why did it take two years to reach Earth? After two years of war they had onky lost 250,000 people? that's remarkably light casualties isn't it for a species facing extinction

Supposedly the EA kept deactivating hyperspace beacons to make it difficult for the Minbari to trace EA colonies and the route to Earth. Yep as I said 250,000 is really nothing for a species of at least 7 billion. When I first watched "And Now For A Word" I thought I'd heard "a quarter of a billion" which sopunded much more like genocide to me.

 

[Right Hand of God]

even a quarter of a billion isn't that much if you consider there are several colonies and an entire species. That's not even the population of China!

I think it has to go down as a continuity error really. Surely the minbari know where our solar system is and can jump there regardless of hyperspace beacons. That sounds like a really shakey plot device to me. The whole Londo explanation of it does not stand up to any sort of scrutiny

 

[Darzoni]

The point of fact is, we'll use the Earth-Minbari War book for our reference.

My estimation (and I'm probably being conservative) is that the military casualties of EarthForce were probably closer to 250,000,000. On the Wild Guess side, I could estimate that perhaps a third of the human population had enlisted, bringing the military numbers closer to somwhere around 6-8 BILLION people in the armed forces. I won't even estimate how many had to be lost in order for EarthForce to be throwing raw recruits at the Minbari.

The point is, the EA lost a mind-boggling number of military forces and assets, on a scale that our modern military and societies could not even conceive of. It would be the most devastating war in the history of mankind, bar none.

And that's when the Minbari decided to stop killing us.

Imagine the casualty figures if they had not. EarthForce pulled all the remnants of its forces it could for the Battle of the Line. We could probably estimate that had the Minbari not stopped, that the vast majority of EarthForce would have died or deserted. Assuming a total human population of 24 million, spread out 16 billion people over 20 colonies and the stretches of space in between. That ain't a lot.

So let's get to speculating using that scenario.

 

[Jhary]

just to throw my spanner in the works......

I've never been persuaded by the "genocide" angle of the Minbari war. Over two years of fighting we lost 250,000,000,000 people. That's nothing. Nearly that many are perhaps dead in the Iraqi war.
20,000 were lost on the Line. Each ship lost would have been another 500ish, plus ground battles.

The Minbari conquered about 20 of our colonies and didn´t harm the civilians.
Where exactly did Earth get the evidence or idea that the war was genocidal?

that was mention in the serial a little different lost of civillians where in masses.

 

[tneva82]

just to throw my spanner in the works......

I've never been persuaded by the "genocide" angle of the Minbari war. Over two years of fighting we lost 250,000 people. That's nothing. Nearly that many are perhaps dead in the Iraqi war.
20,000 were lost on the Line. Each ship lost would have been another 500ish, plus ground battles.

They were blowing up military first. Civilians would have been dealt with AFTER Earth military would have been dealt with. Then they would have swept each and every colony obliterating civilians.

They lost "only" 250k people because Minbari stopped before they finished off military and started to sweep the colonies.

 

[tneva82]

I think it has to go down as a continuity error really. Surely the minbari know where our solar system is

Let's see. Minbari's heard of humans only by passing. They didn't investigate them. They didn't know anything about them really. Only one who had been studying humans was Delenn...And since she quickly got past his initial anger would she have gone out of her way to help the genocide? Concidering how she behaved In the Beginning movie(after initial repraisal attack) I don't think so...Certainly wouldn't be handing out co-ordinates of Sol even if she knew that(which is doubtful).

 

[captainsmirk]

I think that these casualty figures really have to be underestimated. Taking the Battle of the Line as an example there are supposed to have been about 25'000 people in the human fleet of which only about 200 survived. If we take EP's rough estimate of about 500 crew on board a major warship this gives us 50 such ships and that is ignoring any fighters and civilian ships which may have been pressed into service. However in the sequence of the battle shown in ItB there are at least that many such ships in just part of the line along with thousands of fighters and shuttles.

Plus was it ever stated that no civilians were killed? Knowing human reactions to similar events (taking into account also that the enemy is an alien species) and noting some of Londo's comments in ItB I would suspect that there were resistance movements and guerilla fighting on many of the occupied colonies.

Its sad to say but in a species as populace as humans must be by the 23rd Century 250'000 casualties even in a war which was a complete walk over for the enemy just isn't going to have such a dramatic psychological effect on the EA as it appears to have had.


Nick

 

[Darzoni]

Jeffery Sinclair was not Valen. And the Minbari continued their assault of Earth

And yeah, I plan to make branching-off points when I get my head cleared...

Scenario 1: Martian Skirmishes (September 4th - 22nd, 2247)

Having won the Battle of the Line, the Minbari warrior caste set about mopping up the human remnants, bombarding the major cities of Earth from orbit. Ground forces would be brought in months later to occupy the ruins of Earth.

But while the Minbari systematically crippled Earth's infrastructure, the remnants of the EarthForce fleet, who had not reached Sol in time for the Battle of the Line, rallied at Mars. Mars had been passed over by the Minbari in their haste to reach Earth, and was the most populous colony, making it a natural choice for EarthForce's last hurrah.

The Minbari did not let this build-up go unnoticed; their scouts and patrols registered the build of of ships, and there were numerous skirmishes between the EarthForce remnants and Federation forces, as each side was testing the other.

Historical Note: There were approximately ten skirmishes between the EarthForce remnants and the Minbari patrols. The majority of them ended with the Minbari withdrawing quickly for unknown reasons.

Scenario 2: The Fall of Mars (September 23rd, 2247)

The Gray Council had decided to allow the humans to rally their forces at Mars, so that a decisive blow could be dealt to the remains of Earth military power. The alyts of the scout patrols in Martian space had been given orders to withdraw where possible, to lure the enemy into a false sense of security. Primarily, the patrols had been to ascertain the quantity of nuclear devices left in the human arsenal, since the Starkiller was still at large as far as the Minbari could tell.

John Sheridan was indeed among the surviving EarthForce officers.
(Okay, at this point, I'm not sure if Sheridan was married to Anna yet... if he was, she could have died at the hands of the Minbari, and give him a powerful motive for wanting to kill Minbari...) The surviving officers had formed an ad-hoc government, and were attempting to devise a plan for survival. It was eventually decided that the best chance of survival was to flee to the Rim, where they could hide behind the shifting hyperspace tides and rebuild. And so the fleet prepared to depart.

Then the Minbari struck. (And I'm out of ideas at the moment...)

 

[Darzoni]

Hrm. Assuming the Shadows gave humans a leg-up... what differences in the 3rd Age fleet would there be?

Well, eighty-six that... let's have these vengeful humans pop up right about the time the Crusade Era is supposed to start, skipping the 3rd age entirely. So we're looking at what? 2270? That would be about two decades for the Shadows and Drakh to manipulate and twist them.

Shadow Hyperion: A Hyperion with a Molecular Slicer Beam and Self Repair?

Then the Great War starts... ten years later than it would have. That's ten more years the Shadows had to prepare...

 

[Da Boss]

I have written a varient on your plot - in that universe B4 is destoyed by the Shadows and so all plots eminating from that are lost.....including the Babylon 4 station! Earth contacts the Shadows early as the Earth - Minbari war rages and the Battle of the Line is about to commence when the Shadows jump in and destroy the Monbari war fleet, suffering heavy casulties due to the enhanced Minbari warships (Ruled by Warrior Caste). (as they destroyed Minbar a thousand years earlier - only stoping when directly confronted by the Vorlons)

Earth becomes increasingly Shadow orientated, PSI Corps are suppressed and force a min civil war before fleeing to the growing Army of Light which are gathering at a Vorlon protected Babylon station.

See my posts on Darkness rising for some Shadow EA warships although the Omega becomes a renegade PSI Corps / League ship.........

just wittering on really if you are really intersted I can email me you my thoughts - have fun!