Running out of White Stars (spoilers)

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 21, 2002

So it's entirely possible that the entire earth/minbari war could have been faught by just 5 minbari warriors. All of those warcruisers were superfelous.
All the warrior caste had to do was clone neroon a few times. A small squad of him could take on all of humanity.

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 21, 2002

Lol Breen, I like the idea of multiple Neroons. He was a great character. Yeah, Neroon was basically second in command. I have no idea how he could kill so many, and the Minbari as a whole could kill so few. Like I said, it makes no sense.

Gonna use AOG crew figures since they're canon -

Hyperions have a crew of 256 and can support 6 fighters, from the shots we see, it is quite clear that hyperions make up the majority of the fleet. So ignoring misc. ships to gain a rough estimate, that would mean roughly 3,000 hyperions and 17,000 fighters. It is quite clear there are not that many fighters but I'm trying to go low end (more accurate figure would be an on-screen ratio). So that would mean 768,000 people on the line.

Since starfuries aren't atmospheric capable, and have no orbital bases... the ships need to support them. Especially since they have such limited fuel, oxygen, power. Don't starfuries only have like an hour of oxygen or something silly like that? May be confusing it with the sierra game, which was said to be canon by JMS IIRC. *shrugs*

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Marc Cosgrove

"From chaos, order came. As was inevitable." -Summoning light

Natron · Jan 21, 2002

The number of ships on the line most likely included fighters. If you watch the scene in ItB with all the EA ships surrounding Earth, there are a heck of a lot more small ships (fighter size) than large ones (capital ships). Not to mention fighters could be built a lot faster than capital ships.

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"We live for the one, we die for the one."

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 21, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Natron:
The number of ships on the line most likely included fighters. If you watch the scene in ItB with all the EA ships surrounding Earth, there are a heck of a lot more small ships (fighter size) than large ones (capital ships). Not to mention fighters could be built a lot faster than capital ships.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Actually, it is more like a 150 capital ships, dozen starfuries, and a handful of misc. ships (a nova here, couple transports there). But since the fighters can be blocked from view (as well as cap ships) it is easier to go the logical course and check how many fighters the fleet could support at most.

Fighters also get destroyed much faster than capital ships, I mean MUCH faster. A Nial alone could take out a large squad of starfuries... not to mention the cap ships helping. So I doubt there were some 17,000 starfuries at the line.

But... who am I? My opinion isn't worth it's weight in Zero-G.

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Marc Cosgrove

"From chaos, order came. As was inevitable." -Summoning light

Natron · Jan 22, 2002

I highly doubt there were 256 people on each hyperions at the battle of the line. They probably had skeleton crews. Enough to fly the ships and fire weapons, maybe a few maintenance people, but that's about it.

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"We live for the one, we die for the one."

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Natron:
I highly doubt there were 256 people on each hyperions at the battle of the line. They probably had skeleton crews. Enough to fly the ships and fire weapons, maybe a few maintenance people, but that's about it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And I highly doubt they'd be having manning troubles when there are 10,000,000 people right beneath you willing to die fighting.

But I think I'll just blame it on some conspiracy by communists to bring down American TV and be done with it.

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Marc Cosgrove

"From chaos, order came. As was inevitable." -Summoning light

danny_in_space · Jan 22, 2002

On the telepath subject:

They never limited the convo to human telepaths, they just said telepaths in general. So theres no real way to get an accurate number on telepaths.

There could be a race, were most of the people are teeps and that would sway the ratio.

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**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

Gotta take the source in context, when Bester refered to his telepaths, it was with concerns of human teeps. If you have seen season 4 then you'll know of the threat to teeps (human).

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Marc Cosgrove

"From chaos, order came. As was inevitable." -Summoning light

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

Wait...wasn't this thread originally about White Stars?

[This message has been edited by breen (edited January 21, 2002).]

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

(Long)

Am i the only one that realizes that those 250,000 dead were ship CREWS ?

At the start of "In the beginning" we are told that the humans have just begun to seriously expand (which is why they have yet to encounter the minbary). They don't have a huge space navy.

Just consider this, we know Earth Gov sent 30 destroyers to MARS to stop sheridan's fleet in "End Game". And we also know there were 1000 crew on each ship.
Have we seen anything bigger and more powerful then one of those destroyers by the time of the Earth civil war (OmegaX excluded)? Nope. So this is the best Earth Gov has to offer to oppose Sheridan.
We might consider these destroyers the equivalent of "Battleships" during World War II.

So why send only 30 of them? Because, this represents a LARGE part of the fleet!!
Because the human fleet consists of HUNDREDS, not thousands of combat vessels!

It would take 250 Destroyers to fill the 250,000 that died in the war. That's probably 200 destroyers more then earth even HAD at the time of the Earth-Minbary war. The rest were probably Hyperion class and lesser ships. Did earth even have these omega class destroyers back then?

Why does every one assumes that navies have thousands of capital ships?
I could understand the minbary having a huge number of Cruisers since they are an old race, but does this relatively huge number even approach 1000 Cruisers? They still have to feed the crews, maintain and fuel the ships.

The younger races navies (hell even the first ones) number in hundreds of "big" ships, not thousands. Have we ever even SEEN thousands of shadow, or vorlon ships at once? Have we even seen more then 50 at a time, except for Coriana 6?

As for the 20,000 ships being at the battle of the line, well this probably refers to ALL ships present there.
Minbary and human. Counting anything that had an engine on it, from the biggest cruiser, to the smallest fighter.

And really, if you knew your planet was doomed (earth), wouldn't you scramble every last bucket that could fly just so you could ram it into a fighter/cruiser to buy just a little more time for colony ships to escape?
Remember, nobody that fought at the line expected to survive, they were just buying TIME for earth colony/evacuation ships to espace. They probably sent everything they had at the Minbary fleet.
And there's probably atleast a dozen star furies/nials per capital ship.
Add all those plus the Minbary fleet and you can very realistically get 20,000.

And one last thing, since when is it thought that minbary were destroying colonies? Outposts maybe, military bases maybe, but colonies they did not attack. Infact it's made a point of that the minbary bypassed the main human colnies in the rush to Earth.

Even if they DID destroy colonies, how many people are there? Even on MARS, the main earth colony, they live in domes, domes that wouldn't hold more then 100,000 each from the look of them. Do we really think there are bilions living in those domes on MARS? More like a million at best, on the whole planet.
Earth had less then 100 years to colonise their near space, i wouldn't expect their outer colonies to hold more then a few thousand people. I'm not talking about the main colonies with hundreds of thousands, these the minbary fleet bypassed, i'm talking about the fronteer outposts.

What i don't understand though, is why did it take two years to get to earth? Was it a problem locating it? Surely some human would have talked. Or did the human navy realy put up that good of a fight, considering they could barely hurt minbary cruisers.

(Shrug), Oh well, just wanted to point out that some are greatly exaggerating the size of the navies in Babylon 5. A fleet of one hundred white stars is a huge fleet by todays standards if you consider each white star an equivalent to today's Destroyer or Cruiser.

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"I walk, i shop, i sneeze. I'll be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out ... and i don't sleep on a bed of bones."

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

A few points:

Mars has a population of 2 million.

The Earth Alliance lost 240 destroyers in the Drakh invasion.

That guy who thought he was King Arthur said that 20,000 of "Our best" were involved in the battle.

There were 35 Omega-class destroyers at Mars. This was considered the biggest gathering of earth warships since the Line.

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[This message has been edited by breen (edited January 21, 2002).]

Natron · Jan 22, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> Did earth even have these omega class destroyers back then? <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Nope. They had Nova Class Dreadnaughts, which look like Omegas without the rotating sections.

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"We live for the one, we die for the one."

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by TriggerHappy:
Am i the only one that realizes that those 250,000 dead were ship CREWS ?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Erm... no... they attacked planets as well.Layed waste to all the outer colonies, at least military wise, this was gone over in the movie.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>At the start of "In the beginning" we are told that the humans have just begun to seriously expand (which is why they have yet to encounter the minbary). They don't have a huge space navy.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That is a fairly large leap of logic.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Just consider this, we know Earth Gov sent 30 destroyers to MARS to stop sheridan's fleet in "End Game". And we also know there were 1000 crew on each ship.
Have we seen anything bigger and more powerful then one of those destroyers by the time of the Earth civil war (OmegaX excluded)? Nope. So this is the best Earth Gov has to offer to oppose Sheridan.
We might consider these destroyers the equivalent of "Battleships" during World War II.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

OVER 30 destoryers, this was AFTER the huge war where they got everything destroyed. Also half would be fighting for Sheriden, most guarding colonies, some just wouldn't fight. There were some 25 whitestars, Ivanova states they were outnumbered, refering to the Omega-X's. So that's another 30 there, and to the obvious retort... space is 3D.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>So why send only 30 of them? Because, this represents a LARGE part of the fleet!!
Because the human fleet consists of HUNDREDS, not thousands of combat vessels!<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Because only 30 were LOYAL, that's a big deal.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>It would take 250 Destroyers to fill the 250,000 that died in the war. That's probably 200 destroyers more then earth even HAD at the time of the Earth-Minbary war. The rest were probably Hyperion class and lesser ships. Did earth even have these omega class destroyers back then?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Strange, because 250 destroyers is the number blown up in the Drakh war. As stated at the beginning of warzone. 200 destoyers more? Eh... no. You could literally count more than a hundred hyperions on the line, the line! That's 2 years of slaughter, and they still have at the very least a hundred hyperions. And according to canon, logically have at least 3,000 hyperions. Omega's were not built till after the war.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Why does every one assumes that navies have thousands of capital ships?
I could understand the minbary having a huge number of Cruisers since they are an old race, but does this relatively huge number even approach 1000 Cruisers? They still have to feed the crews, maintain and fuel the ships.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

A few reasons -

1. The drakh in ACTA has several thousand ships as per the novel (canon). EA kicked Drakh butt, leads to an obvious conclusion.
2. 250 destroyers get destroyed (ironically) in ACTA, yet the reporter hardly winced at the thought. EA is still a major power.
3. Centauri with virtually NO funding or resources due to ISA demands managed to build OVER 3,000 advanced destroyers on a back-alley colony. All done in secret, and this was not noticed by the ISA who were keeping a close watch.
4. In the short story, JMS states the whitestar fleet consists of a thousand whitestars (although now... ????). This after a few major wars. Also done in secret.
5. ITB the book states EA has 20,000 ships at the line. This after the 2 year slaughter as I said.
6. Those hundreds of ships in ACTA thought it was a TRAINING mission! Now if they only had a few hundred ships, then the sheer illogical thinking in that could destroy universes. It'd be like America suddenly calling up 2 million soldiers for a training mission.

Could go on in some detail, but this is long enough as it is.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>The younger races navies (hell even the first ones) number in hundreds of "big" ships, not thousands. Have we ever even SEEN thousands of shadow, or vorlon ships at once? Have we even seen more then 50 at a time, except for Coriana 6?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No. Plain and simple. It is stated by JMS in a graphic novel that there were 10,000 shadow and 10,000 Vorlon ships at Corrianas 6. As well as 8,000 younger race ships. Hell Londo quotes there being thousands of shadow ships based on the island of seleni, Morden states this as a small base.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>As for the 20,000 ships being at the battle of the line, well this probably refers to ALL ships present there.
Minbary and human. Counting anything that had an engine on it, from the biggest cruiser, to the smallest fighter.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, it just refers to human. The fighters are very dependent on support from capships/bases, there is no base, only cap ships. And they can at most support 17,000 fighters. Leaving 3,000 cap ships.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>And really, if you knew your planet was doomed (earth), wouldn't you scramble every last bucket that could fly just so you could ram it into a fighter/cruiser to buy just a little more time for colony ships to escape?
Remember, nobody that fought at the line expected to survive, they were just buying TIME for earth colony/evacuation ships to espace. They probably sent everything they had at the Minbary fleet.
And there's probably atleast a dozen star furies/nials per capital ship.
Add all those plus the Minbary fleet and you can very realistically get 20,000.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Except only a couple shuttles are actually seen. So obviously, they were not as large a contributing factor as some make out.

No, 6 starfuries per hyperion. 6 hangers, 6 starfuries.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>And one last thing, since when is it thought that minbary were destroying colonies? Outposts maybe, military bases maybe, but colonies they did not attack. Infact it's made a point of that the minbary bypassed the main human colnies in the rush to Earth.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Since the general talks about the Minbari wiping out military presence on every colony. And since every colony has humans who would rather die fighting than on their knees (unless I am overestimating my fellow humans), that is a lot. They bypassed mars, thats one colony.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Even if they DID destroy colonies, how many people are there? Even on MARS, the main earth colony, they live in domes, domes that wouldn't hold more then 100,000 each from the look of them. Do we really think there are bilions living in those domes on MARS? More like a million at best, on the whole planet.
Earth had less then 100 years to colonise their near space, i wouldn't expect their outer colonies to hold more then a few thousand people. I'm not talking about the main colonies with hundreds of thousands, these the minbary fleet bypassed, i'm talking about the fronteer outposts.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Think of it this way, it is canon that there are 30 billion humans. It is canon ten billion are on Earth. It is canon that Mars has only 2 million living there. Do the math, and you should realise that 250,000 is out there.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>What i don't understand though, is why did it take two years to get to earth? Was it a problem locating it? Surely some human would have talked. Or did the human navy realy put up that good of a fight, considering they could barely hurt minbary cruisers.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Two years to kill 250,000 people... humans could do better than that before guns were invented.

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Marc Cosgrove

"From chaos, order came. As was inevitable." -Summoning light

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

All alliance races have less than 3,000 ships as of 2278. The alliance as a whole has more ships. The whitestars were considered a formidable threat to the centauri fleet.

An strange thought: What if more humans really did die in the war? What if earth propaganda lessened the number so the war would seem like less of a defeat. (Of course that's not true, since Delenn did not contradict the figure in "And now, for a word")

Londo said there were about 100 shadow ships on Celini. The "thousands" estimate was based on a prophecy-dream he had.

[This message has been edited by breen (edited January 21, 2002).]

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

So the average earth colony has a population over 400 times larger than that of Mars? Funny, I always thought that mars was a pretty big colony.

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by breen:
All alliance races have less than 3,000 ships as of 2278. The alliance as a whole has more ships. The whitestars were considered a formidable threat to the centauri fleet.

An strange thought: What if more humans really did die in the war? What if earth propaganda lessened the number so the war would seem like less of a defeat. (Of course that's not true, since Delenn did not contradict the figure in "And now, for a word")

Londo said there were about 100 shadow ships on Celini. The "thousands" estimate was based on a prophecy-dream he had.

[This message has been edited by breen (edited January 21, 2002).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, I assume you're refering to the trilogy. He states that the Centauri would outnumber any younger race, that would INCLUDE the other ships they have. They could easily number in the dozens of thousands based on population estimates. It was also stated that it was OVER 3,000, which seeing as they were still in production, could be a lot more. I believe they talked about how only the whitestars can hope to match their advanced destroyers. Not a matter of quantity but quality IIRC.

I sincerly doubt it. The media would crack open the rather obvious properganda in hours if not minutes after the announcement.

His prophecy was completely accurate, I do not recall him saying a hundred however.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>So the average earth colony has a population over 400 times larger than that of Mars? Funny, I always thought that mars was a pretty big colony.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not taking into account stations, transports, warships, mines, immigrants, traders etc. Also we may have simply not heard about all their colonies, there are a lot so it is likely. A lot of it could be explained by military though, as a Nova and a few support vessels can hold 25,000 GROPOS. So they obviously have invading ships with large amounts of troops .

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Marc Cosgrove

"From chaos, order came. As was inevitable." -Summoning light

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

Of course the media couldn't lie about that. I wasn't being entirely serious.

I don't remember exactly which episode the 100 ship figure comes from. Either "Into the Fire" or "Falling toward Apotheosis". But I am absolutely sure he said that.
I'm not so sure about there being thousands of ships. The dream may have been 100% accurate, but his interpretation may not have been. In the dream, he just saw a large number of ships in the sky. "Thousands" may just have meant "many".

[This message has been edited by breen (edited January 21, 2002).]

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

Earth-Minbari war:

The Minbari did not attack civilians, although they planned to (by destroying Earth). They destroyed the fleets and defense weaponry, but bypassed colonies, or abandoned them after destroying their military power.

Secondly, the Minbari avoided fighting on ground. They did not try to occupy. They fought in space, and space was all there was, between them and Earth. Therefore the 250'000 casualties were Earth Force pilots and crew members. A fifth of them could have easily been killed by the battlegroup commanded by Neroon.

There was no more -- simply because Earth Force ran out of ships. They kept building as fast as they could, and had a few hundred capital ships on the Line. Let us assume that Earth recalled every capital ship which could make it home (some could not):

500 capital ships
10 fighters per each = 5000 fighters
1500 smaller ships
10'000 planet-based fighters
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17'000 nothing spared, economy adjusted for war

The Minbari overcame them without suffering any significant damage. They were invisible to targeting systems, their weapons outranged and overpowered Human weapons, and their armor could sustain heavy damage.

As mentioned by Delenn, Humans were unable to harm the Minbari fleet in any significant manner. Oh yes, they destroyed some fighters. They also managed to ram with some larger vessels, but failed to fully destroy any cruisers. How many Minbari ships? Let us assume:

200 warcruisers
25 fighters per each = 5000 fighters
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5200 ships, without much building

Shadow War

In a certain sense, White Stars were capital ships. They were designed to have enough firepower to damage a Shadow Vessel. Damaging a Shadow Vessel means damaging any other vessel, including other Minbari ships and even Vorlon ships.

The peculiarity of White Stars was that while powerful, they were also vulnerable. To successfully engage a Shadow Vessel, they would need a telepath to paralyze it. The Vorlons who aided in building them had obviously taken that into account.

Battle of Coriana 6

So, we have 150 White Stars. If given a clear shot, they are equivalent to 150 Minbari cruisers, but they have no fighter wings. A little, but quite powerful fleet. Add to that the defected Earth ships.

Add to that half of the Minbari fleet (as much as Delenn could negotiate into her use, mainly from the religious and worker caste). This would be as much as the Minbari had on the Line, around 200 cruisers, around 5000 fighters.

Add to that thousands of various ships from non-aligned worlds. Most of them with small fighter counts. You will easily get about 4000 ships, many of them medium-sized.

Therefore, at the battle of Coriana, the younger races had less ships than fought at the Line, about 10'000. But the power they possessed was much greater, there were more large ships and many medium-sized ships from non-aligned worlds.

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The Vorlons never prepared for a final battle. It was just a small task force, meant to protect the planetkiller, which it failed to do.

The Shadows never prepared for a final battle. It was just a small task force, enough to guard the planetkiller. Coincidentally, the planetkiller was quite capable of looking after itself. It could have destroyed the younger races' fleet without any assistance.

--------

Now to nuclear issues: any nuclear bomb is a very inefficient weapon in space. It has to be used at extremely close range, meaning either a missile or a mine.

1. The Black Star was destroyed from extremely close range. They nuclear bombs used were standard Earth Force nuclear bombs, well beyond today's bombs.

2. At the battle of Coriana, Sheridan could choose the best bombs available among all of the younger races. These could have been Minbari or Centauri or Gaim bombs, much harder to notice and more powerful.

Now to the Shadow missiles. They simply destroyed the ship. Clearly not a nuclear explosion. They were not armed. The Shadows would not be stupid enough to blow up their own planetkiller.

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited January 22, 2002).]

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

*sigh*

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Lennier:
The Minbari did not attack civilians, although they planned to (by destroying Earth). They destroyed the fleets and defense weaponry, but bypassed colonies, or abandoned them after destroying their military power.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes, they did, because civilians were armed and therefore became warriar caste, to be killed. Did we not see the civilians going off to fight? Did we not hear Londo speak of humans using any wepons they could? Or are you telling me all the civilians on the colonies just sat back and let their military get slaughtered? It was a fight to the DEATH, and people are thinking we would just sit there and let them wipe us out? BS. And they did not bypass colonies, they bypassed ONE colony, mars. Why in the hell would it take 2 YEARS for the Minbari to just defeat our space force? How would Neroon, trained to kill humans say he killed 50,000 personally if they did not fight on colonies?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Secondly, the Minbari avoided fighting on ground. They did not try to occupy. They fought in space, and space was all there was, between them and Earth. Therefore the 250'000 casualties were Earth Force pilots and crew members. A fifth of them could have easily been killed by the battlegroup commanded by Neroon.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Assertion with NO evidence. Clearly contradicted by the movie. What battlegroup? Neroon said HE killed 50,000 humans. Yes, it took two years for an undefeatable enemy who could take out dozens of our ships with ease 2 YEARS to beat our hundred so ships. Uhuh, yeah...

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>There was no more -- simply because Earth Force ran out of ships. They kept building as fast as they could, and had a few hundred capital ships on the Line. Let us assume that Earth recalled every capital ship which could make it home (some could not):

500 capital ships
10 fighters per each = 5000 fighters
1500 smaller ships
10'000 planet-based fighters<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

10,000 planet based fighters? Have you been smoking something? Starfuries cannot be planet-based... why? Well I should think it was simple, but obviously not. Starfuries also need SUPPORT, they are short ranged. And you are not giving ANY canon proof to back up your claims. It doesn't even add up to 20,000 ships.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>17'000 nothing spared, economy adjusted for war

The Minbari overcame them without suffering any significant damage. They were invisible to targeting systems, their weapons outranged and overpowered Human weapons, and their armor could sustain heavy damage.

As mentioned by Delenn, Humans were unable to harm the Minbari fleet in any significant manner. Oh yes, they destroyed some fighters. They also managed to ram with some larger vessels, but failed to fully destroy any cruisers. How many Minbari ships? Let us assume:

200 warcruisers
25 fighters per each = 5000 fighters<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Each warcruiser able to take out a dozen Earth cap ships in days at most. Really, c'mon, think about this. None of this adds up.

Even going by on-screen, your numbers are way off. There were hundreds of jump points, and we see beforeheand how many ships are grouped together for each point, there were some dozen.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>So, we have 150 White Stars. If given a clear shot, they are equivalent to 150 Minbari cruisers, but they have no fighter wings. A little, but quite powerful fleet. Add to that the defected Earth ships.

Add to that half of the Minbari fleet (as much as Delenn could negotiate into her use, mainly from the religious and worker caste). This would be as much as the Minbari had on the Line, around 200 cruisers, around 5000 fighters.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

We have a thousand according to a short story written by the same guy. Yet you take the 150 whitestars anyway? Just ignoring fleet size numbers.

There were NO where near that many fighters. And why would they count fighters, the shadows don't, since the fighters are ACTUALLY the cap ship itself. Just broken off. Be like counting a hundred humans, just because one human sneezed.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Add to that thousands of various ships from non-aligned worlds. Most of them with small fighter counts. You will easily get about 4000 ships, many of them medium-sized.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You're just pulling these numbers from nowehere however. Which are contradicted by other number statements.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Therefore, at the battle of Coriana, the younger races had less ships than fought at the Line, about 10'000. But the power they possessed was much greater, there were more large ships and many medium-sized ships from non-aligned worlds.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Proof? You just said most of em are fighters, while all the shadows were capships, so that means they wouldn't have lasted a few seconds. Even WITH telepaths the younger races needed 2 for every shadow ship.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>The Vorlons never prepared for a final battle. It was just a small task force, meant to protect the planetkiller, which it failed to do.

The Shadows never prepared for a final battle. It was just a small task force, enough to guard the planetkiller. Coincidentally, the planetkiller was quite capable of looking after itself. It could have destroyed the younger races' fleet without any assistance.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Where is all this coming from? It is canon that there are 10,000 Vorlon ships. This was sent to Corrianas 6 which has NO defences, and they also sent a fleet to Centauri prime which has very LARGE defences. So therefore, they would send the bigger taskforce to the tougher target. They did not expect the younger races since the listening post was destroyed.

Could have? Just where is this coming from? Can you at least provide some canon sources?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Now to nuclear issues: any nuclear bomb is a very inefficient weapon in space. It has to be used at extremely close range, meaning either a missile or a mine.

1. The Black Star was destroyed from extremely close range. They nuclear bombs used were standard Earth Force nuclear bombs, well beyond today's bombs.

2. At the battle of Coriana, Sheridan could choose the best bombs available among all of the younger races. These could have been Minbari or Centauri or Gaim bombs, much harder to notice and more powerful.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

So much so, that a car would have survived that bomb. Many have done calculations on that scene and it turns out to be very illogical.

No, he choose the bombs that had STEALTH. So the bombs would actually get in range.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Now to the Shadow missiles. They simply destroyed the ship. Clearly not a nuclear explosion. They were not armed. The Shadows would not be stupid enough to blow up their own planetkiller.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Erm, no. In ACTA it is stated that the missiles are ACTIVE, yet they're the same puny explosions we see in ITF. So they WERE armed in ITF. And why is it clearly not a nuclear explosion? Directed warheads would shoot the visible light to the point it is directed. Namely in front of it, as they're designed to destroy planet cores. HOw exactly would a SINGLE missile only 2GT's at least be able to destroy a PLANET killer? The structure would have to be amazingly dense to support itself or it'd collapse, plain and simple. And the armed missiles in ACTA did not have huge nuclear explosions like in ITB, and it took thousands of them to destroy the structure. This with the command structure in a chain reaction.

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Marc Cosgrove

"From chaos, order came. As was inevitable." -Summoning light

**DONOTDELETE** · Jan 22, 2002

Add-on: Those missiles had to be armed as the missiles can goto the core of planets in about 20 seconds, a ship could never hope to stop something that strong. It would have ripped right through the ships and wouldn't even have taken any notice. So obviously they were meant to explode. There is also other canon evidence, AOG talks about the missiles. It says they can attack ships, but they have to be in the cloud and that they will deliver their intended amount of power to that ship. So yes, they definately went off.

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Marc Cosgrove

"From chaos, order came. As was inevitable." -Summoning light

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