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Something of a labor of love...

KoshFan

KoshFan

Regular
I'm a history geek. I also love to write, and to invent worlds. This occasionally leads me down the path of inventing worlds just so I can write their history... and to other efforts as well.

I wrote this a few years ago. Today, as I was working my way through the Narn-Centauri War and waiting for some phone calls that don't appear to be coming, I thought that perhaps I should dust it off and put it up here.

Basically what I've done is write a brief, historian-style overview of galactic history as we were shown on B5. Well -- maybe not that brief. But there it is. I took the approach of some 24th or 25th century historian looking back on events, primarily concerned with "the great powers" -- this is traditionalist history, so not terribly feminist or Marxist. I might be somewhat laughed at for writing real history this way these days, but I enjoy the style.

It might be totally unreadable to you all, it might be full of holes and mistakes, and it's definitely pointless, but I offer it for your entertainment and critique. It's my interpretation of events and I sort of invented a few of the early details, but I think it's all rooted in the show pretty solidly.

Now to see if it will all fit.

EDIT: Hah, I'll need to divide it in two. Maxed out the board's capacity.

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For generations, the Centauri had been the dominant race—as long as they did not trespass on the Minbari or Vorlon spheres of influence. The one significant Minbari/Centauri conflict was brief and bloody for the Republic; the Warrior Caste ran the Centauri out of Minbari space with unsurpassed ease. Some marked that defeat as the Centauri zenith; never again would Centauri Prime wield such power.

By the year 2200 (Earth Standard Chronology) the situation had altered. The Centauri Empire was in definite retreat. The Minbari and the Vorlons were still highly isolationist, but the Minbari were somewhat less so, and had begun to play a balancing role against the Centauri, who could no longer harass smaller races too close to Minbar with impunity. And other small races were eager to move into the power vacuum the Centauri were leaving and the Minbari evidently refused to fill. The Narns, using stolen and adapted Centauri technology, were flush from the victory of regaining freedom and space travel, and were determined to press ahead with an expansionist policy to a) ensure they were never conquered again and b) annoy/take vengeance upon the Centauri. The Drazi also began to flex their muscles, and the Dilgar were beginning their expansion as well. In 2210, it appeared that these smaller races collectively were taking up the old Centauri place, but a decade later the situation was forever altered.

The Dilgar exploded outwards and fell upon the independent worlds with pure brutality, evidently putting long-term plans into effect. The Drazi fought, and were almost conquered. The Fokula fought and were all but exterminated, never venturing off their homeworld again once the war was done. The Narns bargained, schemed, played both sides for their own interests, and generally avoided commitment one way or another (a course of action that may have come back to haunt them in their own desperate hour some years later). The Centauri looked on with amusement shading to alarm, but lacked the strength or the resolve to do anything beyond protect their own shrinking borders. The Minbari kept their sector of space quiet and debated intervention, indecisively. Many smaller races fought the Dilgar as well, but individually. Without any great power to lead, the Dilgar were essentially unchecked for nearly ten years.

Humans had only had access to the jumpgate network for thirty or forty years (courtesy of the Centauri) before they took sides in the Dilgar War. Many older races viewed their intervention as decidedly brash; the Dilgar were more advanced, and moreover they posed little to no threat to the new race, which was some distance from the centers of the conflict. So Earth’s intervention was somewhat unexpected and rather risky. But the Earth Alliance was not without resources; Humanity had a highly versatile and self-manufactured combat ship in the StarFury, which was built entirely with Earth technology and relied on no alien tech beyond jumpgates to operate. Borrowing from Human history, EarthForce essentially adapted naval aircraft carrier warfare for space. The cheap but formidable StarFuries were remarkably successful, and carrier groups soon halted even full-scale Dilgar attacks.

With a few victories under their belt to prove their worth, the Humans called many races together on their new colony on Proxima. The Proxima Conference forged the first really effective alliance against the Dilgar. The Narns, who were in attendance, promised nothing beyond token support. The Drazi, on the other hand, rejoiced in having firm allies at last. When close to a dozen smaller raced banded together behind Earth’s leadership, the Dilgar were suddenly outnumbered and for the first time faced their foes united. They were driven back to their one doomed system and left there.

The Earth Alliance was still making do on third-rate technology, but with several firmly established colonies and a good reputation, Humanity prospered in the following years. So did the Proxima Conference attendees, who formally declared their alliance and formed the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. But arrogance proved Humanity’s downfall. By 2240, much of Earth’s credit for facing down the Dilgar had been expended, and even the League races were distancing themselves from Earth. The rapid acquisition and development of colonies marked Humans as “the new Narns.” (The Narn Regime was by this time already planning eventual war with the Centauri.) And when the Humans trod on Minbari toes in a terrible way, disaster struck.

A seriously botched first-counter attempt led to the death of the beloved Minbari leader Dukhat, and in the heat of the moment the surviving Grey Councilors declared a war of blood revenge. At first the Minbari advance was slow, as the Worker and Religious Castes wanted to take part in the actual fighting and had to assemble their forces—the Warrior Caste served as Minbar’s standing military, but never controlled the whole of the race’s power. Once the rearmament was completed, however, the older race descended on the Earth Alliance like the hammer of a furious battle-god. Within two years the EA was crippled militarily. Civilian populations were not directly targeted, but plenty of collateral damage had been done, and with EarthForce rapidly becoming a thing of the past, the race was at Minbari mercy. Every Human colony from Orion to Io had a Minbari cruiser looming over it like a giant Sword of Damocles; it was a natural assumption that as soon as Earth itself was blockaded, the Minbari would strike all at once and wipe out the entire species. It was no wonder that Geneva began offering to surrender several times before the last-ditch Battle of the Line.

As it was, many among the Minbari had begun to have second thoughts. The Warrior Caste had been prepared to annihilate Human colonies from Day One, and many of the early and bloody assaults went unrestrained, leading to serious loss of Human life. However, after the early days the Religious Caste had requested that the Warriors postpone the total extermination of Humanity to another day, although even the Religious Minbari were still more than happy to wipe EarthForce out of space. By the time of the Battle of the Line, however, almost all the Minbari had grown weary of the slaughter—even many of the Warriors, who had begun to appreciate Humanity’s valor while at the same time growing disgusted with the slaughter, for valor was not enough to make up for the tremendous technology gap.

The Battle of the Line was no different. All military historians today agree that the Battle of the Line eliminated EarthForce as a functional military organization. The claim made by many Humans in the years following—that the Battle of the Line deterred further Minbari attacks—is a wishful fabrication, for the Minbari knew extremely well that they had complete command of the situation, despite the loss of their flagship, the Black Star, to EarthForce nukes. It has since become clear that many in the Minbari leadership were looking for any excuse to end the fighting, perhaps even some in the Warrior Caste. Many scholars postulate that the Minbari contented themselves with having Humanity at their mercy. This does not really explain the stunning surprise of their surrender within 24 hours of the final blow of their total military victory, and the true story may never be known—but sources close to the Grey Council of those days suggest that Minbari religious reasons prevented them from finishing off an entire species. Whatever the reason, the war was over.

Until 2258, therefore, the galaxy rested in uneasy peace. The violent and unexpected Earth-Minbari War had left everyone a little shell-shocked. Even the Narns postponed their long-term vengeance plans. With their champion Humanity down for the count and somewhat suspicious anyway, the League worlds were particularly quiet. The Centauri continued their slow retreat. Everyone seemed to be waiting for the Minbari to step into the gap and rise to dominance, as many long had feared.

But in 2256 EarthForce unveiled their new capital ships, the Omega-class destroyers, which almost at a stroke put EarthForce back on the map. The deployment of John “Starkiller” Sheridan, the destroyer of the Black Star, as commander of one of the first Omegas was a huge signal to other races that Earth was back, and not about to kowtow to the Minbari. And with Minbar as co-sponsor of the Babylon 5 station, it had become apparent that the Minbari were not about to run wild. With Earth returned to power and the Minbari active but not aggressive, all eyes turned to Babylon 5 as a new arena for interstellar disputes, in particular the long-brewing Narn-Centauri conflict. The first shots of that war would be fired over Ragesh 3 in early 2258.

Opening Babylon 5 was a signal event for three reasons. One, the station, combined with the deployment Omegas, marked the resurgence of Earth as a great power. No one else could have conceived of, established, and maintained such a place, especially after the destruction of the first four efforts. Two, it marked the end of the “Minbari threat,” which in hindsight appears a mere phantasm but for a good ten years had seemed truly real, and was in reality the first sign of what would eventually flower into the most powerful and productive partnership of races ever known. Three, it marked the return of the Vorlons. Analysts and pundits noted the presence of Ambassador Kosh with great curiosity and some trepidation. Although Kosh appeared to associate with no one closely except, on occasion, Ambassador Delenn of the Minbari, his/her/its simple presence as the only Vorlon known to be outside Vorlon space, and at least in theory the only conduit outsiders could use to communicate with that awesomely powerful and deeply mysterious race, was a new thing indeed—and drew much attention to Babylon 5. Some felt that the Vorlon’s arrival was the only thing that gave the station a chance to function as intended, or even for that matter survive. Considering the Vorlon Empire’s swift and awe-inspiring reaction to the near-fatal poisoning of Ambassador Kosh, no one was quite prepared to put Babylon 5 at risk if it meant bringing down the Vorlons on their heads.

Both the great isolationist races were taking steps to end their long silences. The Earth-Minbari War had been the end of one such isolation. What might the Vorlons do, if roused?
 
Part II -- good grief, this thing is more immense than I realized...

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With the Centauri waning, the Minbari restrained, and the Vorlons emergent, the situation was in flux. Babylon 5, with its odd ability to attract crises, was soon to be at the heart of the storm.

When the Narns attacked an agricultural colony of the Centauri on Ragesh 3 with a small assault force, the Centauri swiftly caved in—but the intervention of Commander Jeffery Sinclair, EarthForce governor of Babylon 5, allowed the Centauri to reclaim the colony. The Narns were not overly concerned. Their primary objective—test Centauri strength and resolve—had been adequately achieved, and the Centauri had been found to be weak indeed. More forces soon pushed forward, in less high-profile moves. The Ragesh 3 attack had earned the Narns the enmity of Londo Mollari, Centauri Ambassador to Babylon 5, and when he was offered the aid of mysterious forces to teach the Narns a lesson, he jumped at the chance. A Narn outpost in Quadrant 37 was quietly—and, from the Centauri perspective, effortlessly and bloodlessly—dispatched. This act emboldened other Centauri who soon enlisted Mollari and his hidden “associates” for increased resistance to Narn pressure.

In his diary, as recounted in Emperor Vir Cotto’s memoirs, Mollari subsequently confessed that he and Lord Refa masterminded the opening shots of the Narn-Centauri War. They did so as a ploy to cement their power on Centauri Prime in the wake of Emperor Turhan’s death. The war, and its outgrowths, would forever alter the power dynamics of the galaxy.

The Centauri approached the war with considerable caution. It was always understood that the war had begun by the Refa/Mollari faction, seeking dominance. As such the war was not wildly popular at home; moreover, the faction’s control would likely last only as long as the victories continued. As such the Centauri generals, under Refa’s direction, prosecuted the war with a mix of great care and utter ruthlessness. Despite holding the technological edge they moved slowly, thoroughly, and steadily, eroding the Narn Regime’s defenses bit by bit and leaving nothing to chance.

In contrast the Narns were given to daring but risky assaults, and had a tendency to make dramatic gestures. In one notable instance a G’Quon-class heavy cruiser, with several hundred highly trained personnel aboard, sacrificed itself for a civilian transport. It was a noble and highly lauded act, which the Narns exploited as best they could for propaganda purposes—but in the long run, the heavy cruiser, intact, would have made much more of a difference in the war effort than the civilian survivors. Similar actions—usually quite gallant but often a little foolish—were the hallmark of Narn efforts throughout the war. Even Warleader G’Sten, whose caution in battle and meticulous preparations for combat made his battle group the most effective the Narns had, was not immune to it. His plan for the attack on Gorash 7 was bold but relied entirely on surprise, an advantage he lost distressingly early; moreover, he absented himself for several crucial days to personally brief his nephew G’Kar on the attack plan. Although G’Kar, as a third-circle member of the Ka’Ri, was entitled to the information, it was a job best left to a courier.

The Narn ships compounded the problem. The best of them, the G’Quon cruisers, could dispatch the biggest Centauri battlecruisers in a toe-to-toe fight. However, the ships were crude and less comfortable than their more sophisticated Centauri counterparts. As such they were more likely to suffer mechanical breakdown, and over long deployments the performance of their crews suffered. They needed to pull the ships off the line every few months, but with slow but steady pressure on them they never had a chance. By the end of the war, even the finest Narn ships were suffering from attrition almost as much as from Centauri assaults. As a result the Centauri could make excellent use of their superior technology, and their grinding tactics were highly successful. The Narns, growing more desperate, asked even more from their ships and crews, and as such lost still more to equipment failure and growing fatigue. In late 2259 the Centauri enticed the best Narn battlegroups, under Warleader G’Sten, to a deadly ambush at Gorash 7. They also launched a simultaneous attack, using illegal mass drivers, on the Narn homeworld. Predictably the remainder of the Narn fleet rushed to the rescue, arrived in a predictably piecemeal and disorganized manner, and was largely wiped out in detail. Defenseless, the Narns had to surrender.

The Narns had repeatedly tried to enlist Minbar and Earth as allies; their best efforts hinged on the personal connection between Ambassador G’Kar on Babylon 5 with his Human and Minbari counterparts. In the end these sympathetic beings could only help with the refugee crisis. The Minbari—plagued by internal strife—had begun to withdraw again. And at the end of 2259, the Earth Alliance signed a nonaggression treaty with the Centauri, signaling their decidedly anti-Narn stance. With the Narns defeated, the Minbari once again voluntarily aloof, and the Humans essentially their allies, the Centauri had an almost entirely free hand. They refrained from using mass drivers again, however, because the solitary remaining great power—the Vorlons—had issued an almost unprecedented protest. Not even the boldest Centauri would risk Vorlon intervention, not even with Mollari’s shadowy backers ostensibly in their camp.

Vorlons aside, the Centauri had very little opposition in 2260 as they launched a series of low-intensity brushfire wars with their neighbors, fearing no evil. The League of Nonaligned Worlds protested, but lacked the will or the ability to stand alone—their former champions having been defeated or neutralized, and suspicions among them running high. But the Centauri were not having things entirely their own way. Their erstwhile allies had their own agendas.

Few knew—and fewer still could guess—in 2259 that the Narn-Centauri War was in fact a grand distraction. The “associates” of Londo Mollari, known as the Shadows, had re-emerged after a thousand years of withdrawal. After some years of operating quietly, they emerged out into the open and began skirmishing with many races—or allying with those races that feared the Centauri more. Some among the Minbari had been watching and waiting for the Shadows, however, and moved to respond. With assistance from the Vorlons and the command staff of Babylon 5, these and others began to assemble a new alliance.

In 2260, due to unconstitutional acts by EA President William Clark, Babylon 5 and other Human colonies declared their independence from the Earth Alliance. That act crystallized the confronting powers. The Minbari—at long last—weighed in on the side of Babylon 5. The station came to be seen as a rallying point for the League Worlds, especially after the Vorlons signaled their support by attacking the Shadows directly and handed them a surprise defeat. As such, the Minbari, the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, rogue elements of EarthForce, and survivors of the Narn Regime formed up against the Centauri, the remainder of the Earth Alliance, and the Shadows. The Vorlons offered the Babylon 5 alliance, called “the Army of Light,” some technical and moral support but little direct aid.

The Army of Light was commanded by Entil’zha Delenn, John Sheridan, and a few notable others, including the former Ambassador G’Kar, now de facto head of the Narn government-in-exile as the only surviving member of the Ka’Ri. With this inspired leadership, the Army of Light struck a series of surprising, if costly, blows to the Shadows. Then the Vorlons revealed their true agenda. Within a matter of weeks the balance of power had shifted irrevocably again. The Centauri withdrew from Narn and drove the Shadows from Centauri Prime, at the behest of Londo Mollari, who had grown deeply suspicious of the Shadows’ plans. Babylon 5 retained its independence and established itself as a force to be reckoned with. And the Shadows and Vorlons withdrew from the galaxy entirely.

That left the three superpowers—Earth, Minbar, and Centauri Prime—wracked by severe internal strife. The pro-Centauri, pro-Shadow faction of the EA squared off against Babylon 5, Mars, and Orion 3. The Warrior and Religious Castes fought a civil war, the first on Minbar in a thousand years. The Centauri, under the Regent, attempted to resume their conquering ways despite Mollari’s moderating influence. Throughouth 2261 and 2262, these conflicts were gradually settled one way or another.

First to end was the Minbari internal conflict. While the Minbari do not often speak of it, the breaking of the Grey Council left the race fractured and confused. The Warriors took advantage of the unsettled times to try and seize dominance, and the Religious Caste fought back—but Entil’zha Delenn intervened, outfaced the Warriors, and reestablished the Grey Council in new form, with the long-overlooked Workers as the leading power. Although the Workers held five seats and thereby held an automatic majority, they deferred to Delenn in most things, and moreover the Workers were perhaps the most enthusiastic of all the Minbari for establishing strong ties with the Humans. This would have profound consequences.

The Earth Civil War was larger and bloodier. John Sheridan’s White Star fleet hammered its way through President Clark’s defenses, bound for Earth; Clark committed suicide as his enemies closed in, leaving Sheridan with no further grounds to fight. He resigned his commission to heal the breach in EarthForce, but he had a new job waiting for him.

Delenn had not been idle, even as she had brought League and Minbari forces to Sheridan’s aid; with the assistance of G’Kar and Mollari she had strengthened Babylon 5’s loose anti-Shadow alliance into a new organization, the Interstellar Alliance, and made the arrangement permanent.

The Minbari, with Delenn and the Workers at their head, were always the main driving force. Although the idea was basically the brainchild of the Babylon 5 inner circle, the Minbari provided the bulk of the material support. And in fact the new president of the IA—the ever-present Sheridan—could only consistently rely on the Minbari vote to back him in the IA’s infant years.

Initial Centauri support waned swiftly, in large part due to a power struggle going on within the Republic, largely unseen by outsiders. The Centauri once again tried to resume their warlike ways, but at first did so in secret; without Shadow backing they could hardly attempt to take on all their neighbors again, not openly. The truth worked its way out, however. This time the Narns and Drazi proved victorious. The IA watchdogs dropped the ball and Centauri Prime was devastated, just as the Narn homeworld had been three years before.

A mere seven years after Babylon 5 had been established, the galaxy had changed wildly. The Narns and Centauri had essentially destroyed each other, and never regained their dominance. The Vorlons and the Shadows had vanished. The Humans were still plagued by recurrent internal difficulties and rebellious colonies, but were largely flourishing—especially those in the outposts that cooperated with the IA more closely than Earth itself. And the Minbari had come to the fore at last—not as conquerors but as benefactors. The Interstellar Alliance was hardly a tool of Minbar, considering the rising influence of the Drazi, the Brakiri, and the Gaim, but the Minbari possessed considerable influence over the IA and its independent security force, the Rangers. With the IA headquartered on Minbar, with the Rangers based there, and with the dominant White Star ships built only there as well, the Minbari held astonishing power. Yet the Worker-dominated Grey Council never abused that power, and only on occasion ever used it, either. Even still, it was never doubted that the Minbari were the strongest force to be reckoned with, the source of the IA’s technological gifts, and above all the only power in existence that could rival the White Star Fleet. The Sharlin war cruisers, however, never once went into action contrary to the IA’s wishes.

By the death of John Sheridan in 2281, the IA had gotten on its feet. While Earth remained reluctant and Mars remained fiercely independent, the other Human colonies were moving towards a close relationship with Minbar, a partnership without peer or precedent. The team was flourishing. The Human/Minbari pairing that had had such wonderful results among the Rangers during the Shadow War—a melding of ancient wisdom with youthful exuberance and idealistic zeal—was now being played out on a galactic scale. The Interstellar Alliance, with the outer Human colonies and Minbar at its heart, was beginning its long career… and things would never, ever be the same.
 
In paragraphs 8 or 9 I would suggest a couple sentences about Earth attempting to close the gap in tech by buying it from other races (Centauri and Narn to be specific)
 
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