Babylon 5 A Fighting Chance --- A Babylon 5 AU

[WAR]

So does that give you an idea or two for your next work after this one is done and put to bed?

 

[Harlock]

Probably be the Drakh war as the next B5 project after this AU
Or WWIII

 

[Seawolf]

Probably be the Drakh war as the next B5 project after this AU
Or WWIII

I wouldn't mind seeing this AU continue actually since its really interesting!

 

[Vlad_Dracul89]

Worse actually. With previous Babylon iterations they were able to salvage much of the lost station bits and was able to use that in the next iteration. But after the loss of B4...they had to rebuild it completely from scratch.

That's the biggest problem I had with B4. Glowing thieving bastards, due to their dumb rules of engagement, just couldn't order their own station to ship into past, they had to steal it with our own dudes inside too.

Couldn't they simply put order 'We want shiny Human-made station for...collecting reasons'.
Yeah, they could say Ulkesh the Infinite needs that for his giant robot space museum.

Just pay for it 100% yourself, you angelic a-holes.

 

[Seawolf]

Is it wrong that I am seeing a variant of the Nova class with a Gravity Positive section being developed in this AU? I mean, all things considered given how far ahead we are, its quite likely that would happen. Granted this would probably only be able to apply to New Builds but think about it, new Builds with Omega or Minbari Armor combined with their ranks of guns, a gravity positive section, and energy mine launchers would be near unstoppable.

 

[Harlock]

I wouldn't mind seeing this AU continue actually since its really interesting!

I'll probably write a few chapters of each and see what I think I can do the best job writing. We are talking years worth of work so its something I need to consider

Is it wrong that I am seeing a variant of the Nova class with a Gravity Positive section being developed in this AU? I mean, all things considered given how far ahead we are, its quite likely that would happen. Granted this would probably only be able to apply to New Builds but think about it, new Builds with Omega or Minbari Armor combined with their ranks of guns, a gravity positive section, and energy mine launchers would be near unstoppable.

There is an Omega variant which has Nova guns, a Command Cruiser I think it is classed as. Not sure if it is truly canon but I've seen some pictures around.

I suppose its a question of role, an Omega is mostly a stand off ship with long range precision weapons and a strong airwing while a Nova is a close to midrange brawler. You could mix and match but in this AU at least you don't have to because you have the Warlock

 

[Seawolf]

I suppose its a question of role, an Omega is mostly a stand off ship with long range precision weapons and a strong airwing while a Nova is a close to midrange brawler. You could mix and match but in this AU at least you don't have to because you have the Warlock

True, the Warlock is a much better heavy hitter than a Nova, I would not be surprised though if the Nova class in this AU actually has their design updated. I mean something like that new Dreadnought design I posted earlier in the thread with a Gravity Positive Section and equipped with that many Neutron Guns would be rather terrifying to face. Hell, a Nova class Dreadnought with the armor of the Sharlins and Neutron Guns for armament would be terrifying to face.

 

[Harlock]

not impossible, the design is certainly very easy to assemble

I guess it depends on if it is good enough, I was watching a vid on what it took to modernise WWI battleships to serve in WWII. It was done and in several cases the ship was pretty decent, but would it be better to build just a new ship designed from the ground up to use this tech?

I don't know honestly But I can say a Nova with gravity drives, Minbari armour and massed Neutron guns nicely describes the Minbari fleet's new design

 

[Seawolf]

I guess it depends on if it is good enough, I was watching a vid on what it took to modernise WWI battleships to serve in WWII. It was done and in several cases the ship was pretty decent, but would it be better to build just a new ship designed from the ground up to use this tech?

Depends on the situation and the country to be completely honest with Rebuilds. In the case of British QEs and the American Standards, I would say that it was completely worth the cost and resources to upgrade those ships. Sometimes if you don't have a choice because your planned replacements got canned due to the WNT, which is what happened with the QEs and probably to an extent with the Standards. Forced to keep them in service, they modernized them and they turned out to be alright ships, the reason for this was due to the building holiday.

For the Italians? They would have been better off building more Littorios then upgrading their Dreadnoughts.

However for the Novas, this would likely be even easier since its quite plausible that Earth Force ships are modular to an extent. So all you would really have to do is just design new modules to put the hull together with. It would explain why Earth's shipbuilding capability is so insane, they use prefabricated modules and then put them together. Further supporting this idea is the fact that the Novas and Omegas share basically the exact same hull, with the only difference being a gravity section. Which indicates at least some modularity in the hull design. Granted, here you would be better off using the Nova class as a basis for this warship.

 

[Harlock]

To broadly reckon where the two sides stand techwise...

Earth has gravitic propulsion and habitats, its Centauri based but that doesn't matter much. They have reverse engineered some Minbari tech but it is a slow process. Most ships will still be using Centauri or League based tech.

In terms of offensive tech that means lasers and pulse weapons as standard with missiles and energy mines as heavy additions. Earth seems to prefer using its energy mines as direct fire which makes sense, they are anti-proton based weapons.
Heavy particle cannons are the big new tech, one shot kill vs pretty much anything.

Defensive tech would be enhanced interceptors based on newer tech. Most ships will still have regular metal armour with the exception of the Warlock which has the first batch of crystalline armour but only over vital spots.

Minbari tech hasn't changed but they have adopted the Neshaten class gunship which is smaller than a Sharlin but extremely well armed and protected as a direct response to Earth ships. They still have the best long range guns in the form of Neutron cannons and the best short range gun in the antimatter converter. Plus antimatter missiles.

Defensively Minbari armour is very good, best of the younger races and optimised for fighting shadows. No secret that Minbari ships were the only units to tank Shadow attacks, for a few minutes anyhow Don't buy the fanon that crystal armour shatters under kinetic impact, it doesn't.

Earth still has its industrial advantage but Minbar is also mobilised and has impressive infrastructure of its own. The new Minbari ships are incredibly dangerous and this time commanded by trained officers. On the other hand with Clark in charge Earth isn't going to be playing fair either. Bad day to live on those border planets.

 

[WAR]

Don't the Hyack have the best long range and most powerful gun in the B5 verse outside of the First Ones?

 

[Harlock]

Hyach spinal lasers are indeed very powerful, about twice as powerful as a Minbari gun, but with them being spinal mounts they are harder to aim and slower to fire. Certainly the most powerful in terms of punch, but there are disadvantages which may hold it back

 

[mwkillkenny84]

Nova

Ah yes, the Nova Class, basically guns that someone strapped a starship on.

 

[Seawolf]

Hyach spinal lasers are indeed very powerful, about twice as powerful as a Minbari gun, but with them being spinal mounts they are harder to aim and slower to fire. Certainly the most powerful in terms of punch, but there are disadvantages which may hold it back

That could be fixed if you attach a turret lifted off say a Boeing YAL-1 just massively scaled up too it. That could solve the problem with difficulty to aim.

Also is it wrong that I picture the new Tempest class Heavy Cruiser as being about a klick long and that I picture the Hecate class Battlecruiser as being of similar length but it takes the forward half of a Hyperion class Heavy Cruiser and mates it to the back end of a Nova class Dreadnought, granted with the latter part having been majorly redesigned for it, with the ability to carry a squadron of Starfuries, armor brought down to Hecate thickness and such?

 

[paulobrito]

A Spinal mount is equivalent to you need to move the ship to point it. Basically, it runs all the length of said ship. Can't be addressed by any turret, the ship is the turret.

 

[Seawolf]

A Spinal mount is equivalent to you need to move the ship to point it. Basically, it runs all the length of said ship. Can't be addressed by any turret, the ship is the turret.

The YAL-1 also had a spinal laser mount, which makes sense since it was a gigantic megawatt grade COIL laser mounted on a 747, but the mirrors required for focusing the beam was mounted in a ball turret giving the YAL-1 a rather respectable off-bore capability. You can read about it here on Atomic Rockets, one of the best sites for writing Sci-Fi stuff.

 

[paulobrito]

And what kind of mirror can manage the level of output of a Yach spinal laser? A magnetic-gravitic one? Because no material one can do.

 

[Harlock]

That is apparently how the Omega lasers work, most of it runs down the centre of the ship and is bounced up to those turrets, but with the Hyach weapon it seems to be too powerful to be easily bounced. At least not by lenses or mirrors.

For the Tempest, pretty close honestly

 

[paulobrito]

In the Honorverse they use gravitic lenses to direct the bomb pumped X-ray lasers.

 

[Harlock]

In the Honorverse they use gravitic lenses to direct the bomb pumped X-ray lasers.

Probably how the Minbari do it so they can sweep 360 degrees with fixed mounts (Firing arcs permitting)