Jump Gates

[captainsmirk]

The main accounts I have read about the E-M war (which is admittedly a fictional conflict, and thus can really be interpreted as you want really...) suggest that the Minbari didn't generally attack civilian targets initially they just knocked out the military stuff and then moved on (which is how they advanced so quickly and why Earth wasn't left with a whole series of uninhabited colony worlds to repopulate...), presumably as this was not an 'honourable' method of warfare (just leaving to Nazi style death camps or some such later once the genocide part was put into action...).

Once they had been introduced to guerrilla warfare (something I imagine is completely alien to the Minbari, when you have a whole section of your society dedicated to fighting having elements of the other sections or disguising soldiers as such would probably have come as a surprise, or at least be looked down upon under the Warrior Caste's fairly dubious code of honour) they may have changed their tactics a little I guess.


Nick

 

[skavendan]

Gee who cares

Need to be pretty desperate situation to be willing to sacrifice future usability of hyper space. Drakhs wouldn't have need for that. They would rather slip back into shadows and to safety. Better safe in hidden place able to use hyper space than safe in one place without ability to travel anywhere in space except sub-light speed.

Simple thing: You can't destroy jump gates if you want to use hyperspace in future. The bloody network is simply too fraqile.

1 You shouldn't realy argue a point if you dont care.

2 So the drakh sit back in safety in cruaide do they? Granted the serious is rather poor but still they do some rather active at the start of it and no much on the siting back.

3 I disagree your points haven't changed at all it's just you can not destroy gates BECAUSE we dont like it... Even though empires can replace gates.

 

[skavendan]

The main accounts I have read about the E-M war (which is admittedly a fictional conflict, and thus can really be interpreted as you want really...) suggest that the Minbari didn't generally attack civilian targets initially they just knocked out the military stuff and then moved on (which is how they advanced so quickly and why Earth wasn't left with a whole series of uninhabited colony worlds to repopulate...), presumably as this was not an 'honourable' method of warfare (just leaving to Nazi style death camps or some such later once the genocide part was put into action...).

Once they had been introduced to guerrilla warfare (something I imagine is completely alien to the Minbari, when you have a whole section of your society dedicated to fighting having elements of the other sections or disguising soldiers as such would probably have come as a surprise, or at least be looked down upon under the Warrior Caste's fairly dubious code of honour) they may have changed their tactics a little I guess.


Nick

I dont think the Minbari would particularly take the conquering worlds exterminating perhapes but not enslavement. At the first sign of Guerrilla warfare the warrior cast would go meh shall be kill them all?

 

[Lorcan Nagle]

It should be pointed out the EA did consider opening Jump points inside active jump gates during the war - which is where Sheridan got the idea to do it in Matters of Honour. IIRC they discarded the tactic as it was too impractical to pull off effectively.

 

[tneva82]

2 So the drakh sit back in safety in cruaide do they? Granted the serious is rather poor but still they do some rather active at the start of it and no much on the siting back.

No but they would rather slip into hidety in extreme situation rather than reduce them(and everybody else) into SUB LIGHT speeds for rest of time(unless you want to risk traveling in hyper space blindly=chance of getting where you want is literally non-existant).

The Drakhs are just as dependant on beacons as rest. They go around destroying them, they will end up without hyperspace and be reduced to traveling between stars in sublight speed...Have fun traveling to nearest star when it will take years, decades, hundreds of years...

You assume Drakhs are idiots. I think they are smart enough to realise that hyperspace is too useful for them to throw away.

 

[skavendan]

I presume nothing I mearly used the Drakh as an example.

but that brings a good point to mind.

IF gates are linked to beacons and the destruction of a gate results in the destruction of a beacon. Then do they link the "new gates" to existing beacons or do they make the beacon as well?

 

[captainsmirk]

I dont think the Minbari would particularly take the conquering worlds exterminating perhapes but not enslavement. At the first sign of Guerrilla warfare the warrior cast would go meh shall be kill them all?

Well Londo's description of the war in ItB and some of the shots in there suggest the possibility and I mentioned the Minbari obviously didn't get around to wiping out whole world's populations otherwise the EA would have had a much harder time rebuilding than they apparently did.

As far I could tell from the series I think the humans are actually unaware of whole intended genocide thing simply being annoyed that they got their asses kicked and lots of people got killed...


Nick

 

[GhostRecon]

In the initial briefing delivered to EarthForce after the catastrophic first contact in the movie "In the Beginning" the commanders announce:

1) The Minbari arn't answering calls to surrender, making that no longer an option. A fight to the finish.

2) They believed the Minbari's intentions were to "wipe out" the Human's "Warrior caste." The General said something along the lines that they knew the Minbari had a caste system, with a Warrior Caste, and that they would be fighting along those lines, wiping out their opposing warrior caste before moving on to the rest. So EarthForce knew the Minbari had some sort of plan concerning humanity after they finished wiping out resistance. Further, it creates the clear implication that the Minbari generally didn't waste their time bombing the civilian population to death or submission, instead leaving them for later, or to "die on a vine" without support.

Further,

3) You hear accounts later of soldiers who were in the Earth-Minbari war, such as the Nightwatch soldiers, one of whom was an ex-EarthForce Special Forces soldier, who capture Delenn and a Minbari Captain and hold them hostage on B5. He tells an account of working behind Minbari lines, capturing one, and torturing the Minbari to death. This makes clear that the Minbari had some sort of ground presence somewhere, likely in Earth space, where EarthForce Special Forces and Ground units fought, and even continued to fight guerrilla actions.

As for the original subject itself...

I was under the impression that Hyperspace Beacons were separate from the Jump Gates. They were like, Nav buoys that were set up in pre-determined locations inside Hyperspace that triangulated their position based on the jumpgates themselves.

Sort of like... Jumpgates are lighthouses, Hyperspace Beacons navigation buoys in a channel. You use the lighthouse to determine where you put the buoy, and ships incoming use the buoy until they can use the lighthouse.

 

[skavendan]

I agree GhostRecon so there seperate and we can blow jump gates up

 

[Taran]

Using that explanation, how do the hyperspace nav bouys hold station?

 

[skavendan]

Thats a reasonable point I presume the empire that installed them figured a way out to make them hold a rough place bouncing back and forth.

 

[GhostRecon]

Using that explanation, how do the hyperspace nav bouys hold station?

I figure they know where to hold station based on triangulation/positioning from Jumpgates, much like GPS nav buoys.

The how is ambiguous. We never actually see a Nav Buoy, but they could be fairly large, containing their own reactor for station keeping, and thus only requiring only occasional maintenances and refueling.

Regardless, its almost certain every race spends a bit of their time servicing/repairing/taking care of Hyperspace Beacons, just like Jump Gates.

 

[Silvereye]

I got the impression that the beacon was a signal transmitted by the jump gate itself. The fact that the explosion disabled stuff on the Cortez could just mean that the signal lock on the gate was disrupted (much like a car radio in a tunnel) and the ship was unable to find it again.

The story-science does allow for the FTL Tachyon communication to happen, and to work in Hyperspace.

 

[skavendan]

I got the impression that the beacon was a signal transmitted by the jump gate itself. The fact that the explosion disabled stuff on the Cortez could just mean that the signal lock on the gate was disrupted (much like a car radio in a tunnel) and the ship was unable to find it again.

The story-science does allow for the FTL Tachyon communication to happen, and to work in Hyperspace.

Seems a tad unlikely as you have to lock onto your destination or be lost stright away surly they would beacons along the way at least pointing you in the right direction.

 

[nekomata fuyu]

I don't know if they had a canon source, but in I've Found Her (a B5 flight sim) beacons worked pretty much as beams between two jump gates. All a ship flying in hyperspace can tell is how close it is to the centre of the beam by looking at the beam strength - exactly on the beam is 100%, and the strength falls as you drift off the beam.

 

[Da Boss]

I don't know if they had a canon source, but in I've Found Her (a B5 flight sim) beacons worked pretty much as beams between two jump gates. All a ship flying in hyperspace can tell is how close it is to the centre of the beam by looking at the beam strength - exactly on the beam is 100%, and the strength falls as you drift off the beam.

sounds a good way of doing it and makes sense that the loss of one gate would effect the network

 

[lastbesthope]

Fits how I've always thought it worked, dovetails nicely with the explanation of tachyon comms Lennier gives us when he's trying to find the hidden Centauri base.

LBH

 

[FallingPhoenix]

The question that comes to my mind:

If all these jumpgates are so necessary, who built the first jumpgate and what good did it do them?

FP, probably asking a silly question...

 

[nekomata fuyu]

IIRC, the ancients all had different ways of getting into hyperspace, or at least generated different styles of jump points. Vorlons were the ancients which used the same style of jump point as the yonger races and their jump gates, so I can only assume that the Vorlons ultimately supplied jump point technology to the younger races.

My guess is that the ancients have developed their various technologies to the point where they're relatively safe without the beacons, but that the beacons are fitted to the jump gates for the benefit of the younger races. Probably so that they could use hyperspace safely but without the Vorlons having to give up too much technology.

 

[Da Boss]

Agreed - IIRC the Vorlons are the youngest of the First Ones and I think their experiments with alt hypersapce led to Thirdspace - Opps :lol: and then to the variant hypersapce drive in T Lost T?