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I think Harlock just couldn't take away the glory of the Line from humanity in his writing. Which, you have to admit, is a compelling reason.
While not critical here it will have a pay off when the EA and Dilgar form unified fleets for the counter attack
Someone who is more familiar with B5 humanity (haven't seen the show in literally a decade) enlighten me, but how long can the EA keep this up?
The losses they took must be straining them severely, with manpower and economy alike being very strained.
potentially years. They managed two and a half years in canon against the Minbari and that was a losing war with diminishing territory and resources. In this instance with a still active trade network and worlds fairly safe from attack looks fairly positive.
Though of course going on the offensive will drain more resources and stretch logistics. Plus the Minbari are likely to be fierce in their resistance so casualties will be high.
The decider will be if the Minbari can also mobilise. They are slow to start but once they get going they can start flooding space with ships too. It takes longer to build a Minbari ship so there is a ramp up time, but their industry is well established if very old.
Earth would need to knock out the Minbari before they get to a total war footing. Otherwise it's going to be a very bloody grind with neither side having a clear advantage. Earth may rush through new superior ships, but the Minbari can do that too.
Certainly still a lot of uncertainty despite the EA holding together.
It's not really gonig to matter for the war here. It would take too long to integrate into existing designs, and having artificial gravity changes a lot of design assumptions of ships as well. It's still a huge plus for the EA, but for down-the-road.I see, thank you.
So what about that deal with the Centauri? If that goes through, the existence of artificial gravity in the EA tech base is certainly going to be a paradigm shift in design, both for ships and for the Station itself, assuming she gets built.
I admit I did bluff a bit with Jha'durI did want that little voice saying 'She'll save the day at the last second' in sort of a mirror of Ari helping Sinclair, but that would have been a bit too easy
I did intend it to be a mainly human affair to echo the original Battle so I can say it was plain old human courage and resourcefulness that carried the day. And some sacrifice.
Though Deathwalker's action is there for a reason, it shows she's ready to go into harms way for Earth which is going to help her reputation a lot, and it demonstrates she understands and can effectively use human forces. It also shows those EA ships are prepared to listen to her, albeit grudgingly.
While not critical here it will have a pay off when the EA and Dilgar form unified fleets for the counter attack
potentially years. They managed two and a half years in canon against the Minbari and that was a losing war with diminishing territory and resources. In this instance with a still active trade network and worlds fairly safe from attack looks fairly positive.
Though of course going on the offensive will drain more resources and stretch logistics. Plus the Minbari are likely to be fierce in their resistance so casualties will be high.
The decider will be if the Minbari can also mobilise. They are slow to start but once they get going they can start flooding space with ships too. It takes longer to build a Minbari ship so there is a ramp up time, but their industry is well established if very old.
Cock tease. Seriously I was looking forward to another Battle of Balos with 'Deathwalkers Best ... Day ... Ever!' as she brilliantly leads the EA fleet. Quite probably my most loved bits in TDW were when she against all military logic and in defiance of common sense, came up with an off-the-wall battle plan that she pulled off magnificently.
Well ... second most loved bits. I have to say that "Gods ... I've killed us all" followed by "Begin code Abraxs..." are #1
I honestly think there was plenty of scope for both (and we've seen PLENTY of pure human grit and courage in this fic and the battle anyway) but fair enough.
But, I'd consider it a very long bow to say that this has earned her more than a bare minimum of acceptance, she's still the greatest mass murderer in history. I'd expect a LOT of Earthforce captians are going to have to take long, hot showers and scrub their skin raw because of the fact that they had no choice but to follow her to save the day.
Or, as Stannis loves saying, 'A good act does not wash out the bad, nor a bad act the good'.
Still insomuch as Jha'dur won't be involved on the front lines after this point and you're talking more about people like Ari serving as the interface, it works as a 'Well if we can even grudgingly work with fucking Deathwalker for a battle, we can surely work with someone like him, wot?'
I'd also note that in the OTL they had minimal support from the LONAW. Thanks to the *shudders* Dilgar, at least the Drazi and Narn have moved into co-belligerent stance and the rest of the League at least is keeping the economy going (I'm going to guess that trade in the OTL crashed to very little even before the League was cut off from Earth by the Minbari). The Centauri while not fighting, now have the stealth technology countermeasures and have Earth fighting successfully against the Minbari to show that while they are powerful, even Earth can fight them ... and the Centuari are much closer in technology to the Minbari than Earth. So at the very least they will not have fear of the Minbari stopping them from staying economically engaged...
If the Minbari are already having to scrape the Religious and Worker casts for trained personnel, things are not looking good for them in the long term, industry aside. Its one thing to have the ability to build ships, but crewing and manning them is something else. Earthforce can replace its losses in personnel and are already on a full war footing for pumping out crew, the Minbari ... their society REALLY doesn't deal with rapid change needing agility and setting aside tradition to just get things done.
Not to mention the whole negative birthrate thing.
Of course, Earth would probably be looking to disrupt the hell out of that as soon as possible. Although the MInbari being able to fly much further off the beacons and patrol them to make deep raiding incredibly hard. But even during the Shadow War the Minbari never seemed to go onto anything like a full war footing, this despite their ancient enemies rampaging across space even BEFORE the Council broke! The Whitestar fleet was less than 200 ships in total and had to be built in secret with Vorlon help to bypass the Warrior cast giving zero fucks...
The Minbari have lost a fuckload of ships now - including a good chunk of their mothballed reserve ships.
If they had brains, they'd seize the Rangers attempts to broker peace with both hands and come with some -any- face saving reason to accept that they have caused massive damage to Earths military and scared the crap out of them with a deep strike on their homeworld that almost got pulled off, call it even!
Of course, as Michael Garabaldi pointed out, the Minbari seem genetically incapable of backing down from a fight...
I do have to question Branmers logic on attacking Earth, his stated objective was to force Earth into accepting a face saving treaty with the Minbari.
And there lies the problem doesn't it? Attacking someones homeworld inevitably causes a grudge. So on the one hand - you succeed, congratulations decades from now when they are certain they can beat you? Earth-Minbari war part 2.
Or as in this story. Well good luck, you came literal moments away from killing tens of millions of people... but failed to do any true damage.
I'd be kind of shocked if Earth accepted a deal that wasn't extremely generous, the Dilgar war was a matter of morality and politics. This war on the other hand is intensely personal and as we saw in the show, the humans aren't going to be letting this go any time soon.
And because it needs mentioning (i cried), Joe Tennant was a war hero and Nemesis was a popular enough ship that it got a TV show. That he saves Earth using a suicide attack is going to resonate, especially considering it was very much a "snatching victory from the jaws of defeat" kind of moment when the reserve squadron jumped in.