Running out of White Stars (spoilers)

Chris O'Farrel · Feb 9, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
Getting a little tired of JMS's/shows weird numbers.

1. First it's a thousand whitestars in a short story, now it's only a hundred... quite the difference. Especially since the figure refers to after the major wars.

2. 20,000 ships at the line from ITB novel, then it's 20,000 of 'their best'.

3. 250,000 die in the 2 year slaughter. Yet 50,000 of that were kills from Neroon. And EA has 30 billion (at least) people. Which is derived from Garibaldis comment about teeps being outnumbered 10,000 to 1 and Bester stating their are several million telepaths. Yet only 250,000 die? Even if the military was 0.01% of the population, it is in the millions range. And this is wartime where everybody and anybody was joining the military to fight 'extinction', I mean who wouldn't join the military... you're dead either way, may as well go down fighting. Makes no sense.

4. JMS also states there being 10,000 shadow ships, 10,000 Vorlon ships and 8,000 army of light ships at Corrianas 6. This was after the massive battle. Yet only a hundred whitestars??? How were they so prominent in the shots if they were so few?

5. ISN says there are only like a dozen human colonies, yet I can get a count of some 40 colonies.

6. 2x2MT bombs take out a 'super-sharlin' in a spectacular explosion yet a shadow missile with at least 2GT's in explosive power and god knows how much kinetic 'drill' power (it got to the core of a planet in seconds) did a little explosion. A magnitude more powerful at the very least yet has a less fierce explosion even though they're both thermo-nuclear.

7. One minute Sharlins can be taken out with nukes that are lame by todays standards, the next- "they cannot harm our ships".

8. 40 bombs, several asteriods, 3 explosions. Either they put several bombs together on the same asteriods, or they were rather pathetic in their effect. This is 3D space, the chances of a ship going past an asteriod in the size of a solar system are like a few trillion to one. So they obviously had an idea where the shadows/vorlons were going to pop out. Confusing.

Just a few numbers that have always bugged me for one reason or the other, just seems like a lot of contradicting figures.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

::Snickers::

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**DONOTDELETE** · Feb 9, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Dark Lord wrote:

*sigh*<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Imitating spoo? A truly devious move.
I must counter it with no mercy.

*SIGH*

It seems that we disagree on some matters, and manage to misread each others' posts on the rest. Allow me to clarify which ones I disagree about... and which ones I believe you have misunderstood.

Firstly about canon: I do not give a damn about canon. My concern is logic. As nothing once aired can be taken back, it is natural that it can be contradicted and corrected in future episodes.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>The Minbari did not attack civilians.

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Yes, they did, because civilians were armed and therefore became warriar caste, to be killed. <shameless snip> Or are you telling me all the civilians on the colonies just sat back and let their military get slaughtered?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Essentially that *is* what I am telling you. They had no ships. Once their ships and planetary defenses were crushed, their space ports destroyed, the Minbari left. Humans on colonies simply had to sit back... and watch their race enter the twilight of evolution.

This was what Minbari strategists had intended. The colonies went through various stages of fear, panic and social instability... and did much to demoralize others.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>It was a fight to the DEATH, and people are thinking we would just sit there and let them wipe us out? BS.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

They had no ships. How do you fight if you have no ships? Jump to the orbit? How do you fight with a slow cargo vessel? Use a shotgun? Try to yell really loud into space?

All suitable vessels were either destroyed by the Minbari or confiscated into Earth Force. In the end, they had no way to fight. The war was light-years away, their homeworld was going to be destroyed (and possibly they too, if they would not flee, hide or seek refuge from alien worlds). They were powerless to help. This fully explains why the wound in Human memories was that deep.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>And they did not bypass colonies, they bypassed ONE colony, mars.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

They bypassed most colonies in this sense: they destroyed military capability, planetary defense and all ships which posed a threat. They left the jump gates intact and proceeded towards other colonies, and eventually Earth.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Why in the hell would it take 2 YEARS for the Minbari to just defeat our space force?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

They agreed, prepared, lauched smaller attacks to evaluate the enemy, gathered intelligence and adapted their fleet/tactics. Their attack gathered power as they moved towards Earth and met more resistance.

They rarely act rashly. Humans start wars, Minbari finish them.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>How would Neroon, trained to kill humans say he killed 50,000 personally if they did not fight on colonies?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Easily. If he lead one fifth of the fleet. Given that we have no info about the Minbari using weapons of mass destruction, this would be most likely. Neroon's expertise into Human weaknesses included both their command structure, technology and biology.

Or perhaps there was an Earth Force space station which resisted and was destroyed? Space stations have large populations and are commanded by Earth Force. They are military. The Babylon stations were an exception.

<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.

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Assertion with NO evidence. Clearly contradicted by the movie. What battlegroup? Neroon said HE killed 50,000 humans.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Contradicted only by exceptions.

And which casualties did Neroon consider to have killed? Those who he killed personally... or those killed under his orders? You do not know. Hence your assertion is equally unfounded. The only way to find out would be to ask JMS, but this hardly warrants his attention.

Or we can agree to disagree.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>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...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Space is large. Minbari do not start wars, but when drawn into a war, they prepare fully and strike carefully.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>10,000 planet based fighters? Have you been smoking something? Starfuries cannot be planet-based... why?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Did you not see Starfuries flying in Mars atmosphere? Or those taking off from a planet at dawn (dawn only occurs on planets) to face a row of Minbari cruisers in upper atmosphere?

Perhaps you should have looked more carefully. There are space-based Starfuries. And there are planetary Starfuries. And there are many other kinds of space-capable fighters which can be based on planets. Take the Raider fighters. Or the Minbari ones.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Well I should think it was simple, but obviously not. Starfuries also need SUPPORT, they are short ranged.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Defending a planet is a short-range assignment.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>And you are not giving ANY canon proof to back up your claims. It doesn't even add up to 20,000 ships.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

As I said, I do not bother with canon. I try to use logic, admitting that any story will have contradictions. How and whether each of us explains these contradictions is our own preference.

I did not demand that you accept my explanation, I just pointed out the way I explain it.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>17'000 nothing spared, economy adjusted for war. The Minbari overcame them without suffering any significant damage.

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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.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And each Minbari fighter took out a dozen Earth fighters. It adds up perfectly, and leaves room for flexing, given the dynamics of rock/paper/scissors.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>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.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

On screen: deducting the forect by looking at a tree. The maximum amount of moving objects presentable on a television screen is 50. Fifty, otherwise we would have to start seeing pixels.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>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.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I assume that JMS can err and contradict himself, that the characters of his stories may contradict themselves, brag and lie.

Neroon could have been bragging with his 50'000 casualties. Garibaldi may have been bragging with his 1000 ships. We just know it was a large conflict, and there were enough White Stars to be reckoned with.

The rest is ours to choose. I chose to follow White Star numeration, where 150 is the largest number mentioned. You chose to follow Garibaldi's remarks about the Earthdome fly-over. Who is right? Is either of us right, and how to prove? Do we have to be right, or are we simply discussing matters?

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>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.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Who said that they don't count fighters. It would depend on the person. Fighters from a completely unarmed base can destroy a capital ship. They are a force to be considered. Even the fighters of a Shadow vessel can be counted -- it depends on the size of the vessel.

As for Shadows and Vorlons, who knows. I cannot prove you that their fighters were counted, I simply assume that. How do you prove me that their fighters were not counted? Given that you can't, you can assume what you consider best.

<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.

--------

You're just pulling these numbers from nowehere however. Which are contradicted by other number statements.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I am deducting the numbers with logical consideration. All of our numbers, both yours and mine are contradictory. Yet I believe mine are realistic and fit together. Yours may fit too, on a different scale. JMS has no commitment to statistical accuracy. He has dramatic license and presented what he thought through what the characters said.

<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.

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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.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Where I said "more" you mamaged to read "most". These words have different meanings. More: relatively more than in a usual fleet of that size. Most: more than fifty percent of that fleet. There were relatively more capital ships (naturally most ships were still fighters).

Besides, who says they had to be equal? Perhaps Sheridan was overly confident, Delenn overestimated her influence, Garibaldi trsuted his agents and Lennier subtracted instead of dividing?

Or perhaps they went to Coriana knowing that they were too few, too weak to win. That their only chance was drawing attention and negotiating, assisted by Lorien.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>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.

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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.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Coriana and Centauri Prime were equally easy targets for the Vorlons. They could have overwhelmed and destroyed both with an unprotected planetkiller.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>They did not expect the younger races since the listening post was destroyed.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Destroying the listening post was needed to sneak in and be heard. Otherwise the situation could have not been created.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Can you at least provide some canon sources?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Not really. I must apologize, but I would not bother with that. I feel there is no way and no need to convince you.

My numbers match up for me, and your numbers match up for you. Both seem to have enjoyed the story enough to speculate about it.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>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.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I have done calculations on other issues and found some illogical. But this scene I find to be quite tolerable.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>No, he choose the bombs that had STEALTH. So the bombs would actually get in range.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And how much stealth do you exactly need? On an asteroid with varying surface temperatures and a slight background radiation?

You need very little steath, and fusion bombs of 2247 may not be radioactive. Remember that the element used for fusion bombs today is Tritium (heavy hydrogen). It is detonated by a conventionsl Uranium/Plutonium bomb. Fusion bombs of the future might have no radioactive detonator.

Perhaps the fusion bombs of 2247 are not radioactive at all. All you would need to hide: electronics for a receiver, a non-nuclear detonator and a canister of hydrogen. In low-power standby mode.

<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.

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Erm, no. In ACTA it is stated that the missiles are ACTIVE, yet they're the same puny explosions we see in ITF.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It is not the same planetkiller. Who knows what the Drakh did to make it work, besides adding a rigid structure? Remember that the *Shadow* planetkiller had no structure and tended to freeze ships which entered it. Clearly a different thing.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>And why is it clearly not a nuclear explosion? Directed warheads would shoot the visible light to the point it is directed.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

It is hard to imagine a directed nuclear warhead. The heat would vaporize any container, the cloud of heated gas would radiate in every direction.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>HOw exactly would a SINGLE missile only 2GT's at least be able to destroy a PLANET killer?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You just said that they were all armed. So you can't talk of SINGLE missiles. If any missile would detonate on collision, it would destroy several others around it. The planetkiller would be pretty easy to decimate.

Its strength is having thousands or more missiles -- none of which will help you destroy others. Instead they would destroy you, and the cold cloud around would shut down your ship.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>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.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You are assuming that they would enter the core by forcing their way through solid matter. The Shadows would not bother with that.

If they can walk through walls and their ships can easily fade into hyperspace, why not their missiles? I would build them this way: they would slip through the planet without resistance, and detonate at their target.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>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.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Firstly, a board game is not canon when contradicted by the series. This is the case. Secondly a two-gigaton explosion is a bright and round flash, vaporizing the ship and debris completely. It is a little sun.

The explosions we saw were not nuclear. If you want to imagine they were, you will have to suspend disbelief and ignore the debris. Which you can do, if you want.

Sorry for the long post, I just needed to nitpick a little.

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited February 09, 2002).]

**DONOTDELETE** · Feb 9, 2002

I don`t know where the number of 1,000 whitestars came from, maybe a book set at a latter date) but it seems unlikly that it would have been that high at the time of the shadow war. When Deleen shows Scheridan the whitestar fleet for the first time we only see a few dozen ships not hundreds. This would make the number of 100-150 a better fit. As well as 80 left after the shadow war. 80 left 4 years after that seems a bit off. If Deleen could get so many built in secret imagine how many could be bulit now that their out in the open. After all we see so many whitestars (in the distance) at mimbar in LOTR. The idea that they no longer had the vorlon tech the used goes against the fact that they have blusestars in SIL that use the same tech (well maybe not jump engiens).

Dont know how the earth/mimbari got into the thread. Some one at some point said that there were only 50 ship in earth`s system. Good grief that would not even be enough to keep the raiders and smuglers out. Considering that earth just had another intersteller war a generation earlier you think earth would have built up a sizeable fleet by the time of earth/mimbari war. And earth did want to expand its sphere of influence, you cant do that only using econonmic and politcal force. I would guess there would have been about 1,000 EF capitol ships when the war started. My estimet is not based on anything cannnon. I am guessing at least 100 ships as the bare minimum to cover the earth system. Most of the others would be on the boards of human space and patroling earth shipping routes. I avraged out the number of crew per ship based on data www.b5tech.com (Huperion=200, Nova=250, Olympus=87) and got (200+250+87)/3=179 crew per ship. 179 crew X 1,000 ships = 179,000 humans. Still leaves room for casualties from colonies and bases and the line. When Sinclair talks about 20,000 ships being lost he was obviously counting the fighters as ships, since about 99% of all the earth craft we saw in the battle of the line were fighters. Were could have all those fighters been based? How about the moon. The moon would be a great place to have starfurry bases.

Nukes not effective in space except at close range? If one of those 500 megatonners went off 50 mi away from you in space your still screwed. Even without the presure wave you still got EMP, raditaion, heat, and still quite a bit of boomb.

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[This message has been edited by Xzyl (edited February 09, 2002).]

**DONOTDELETE** · Feb 9, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Nukes not effective in space except at close range? If one of those 500 megatonners went off 50 mi away from you in space your still screwed. Even without the presure wave you still got EMP, raditaion, heat, and still quite a bit of boomb.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The problem with space and nuclear weapons: starship captains may have their trigger fingers itchy already at 100'000 miles. A laser can travel that distance in 1/3 seconds, but naturally the beam would no longer be perfectly focused, coherent and parallel. Particle beams (for example neutrons accelerated to 2/3 C) could also be effective at that range.

The blast of a 50-megaton nuke would hardly damage anything at 100 miles. Given that explosion effects decrease sharply with distance, 200 miles would be safe for 500 megatons. If the bomb is not concealed, one would have great trouble delivering it.

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited February 09, 2002).]

**DONOTDELETE** · Feb 9, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Lennier:
The problem with space and nuclear weapons: starship captains may have their trigger fingers itchy already at 100'000 miles. A laser can travel that distance in 1/3 seconds, but naturally the beam would no longer be perfectly focused, coherent and parallel. Particle beams (for example neutrons accelerated to 2/3 C) could also be effective at that range.

The blast of a 50-megaton nuke would hardly damage anything at 100 miles. Given that explosion effects decrease sharply with distance, 200 miles would be safe for 500 megatons. If the bomb is not concealed, one would have great trouble delivering it.

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited February 09, 2002).]<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Use a large railgun to deliver the warhead. A modified version of the centari mass driver or perhaps it could be used as is to deliver the warhead at a fast enough velocity that the enemy`s weapons can`t shoot it down easily.

At a 100,000 mi being off by a 1% of degree would result in a very large miss. Also, your tragetting information will be off by a 1/3 of a sec for passive sensors and 2/3 of a sec for active sensors. Since even the capaitol ships could be moving at a couple of miles per second, the odds of hitting a capitol ship with a beam weapon at 100,000 mi are almost non-exisitant. Durring the SDI program it was determined the maximum practical range of beam weapons would only be 10,000 mi.

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[This message has been edited by Xzyl (edited February 09, 2002).]

**DONOTDELETE** · Feb 9, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Durring the SDI program it was determined the maximum practical range of beam weapons would only be 10,000 mi.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The strategic defense initiative was yesterday. Earth technology of Babylon 5 would be 250 years into the future. Centauri technology would be 1000 years into the future. Minbari technology would be further.

Hence I assumed that their sensors could reliably target a capital ship at 100'000 miles. Due to its great inertia, a capital ship would not accelerate rapidly (at least those without gravity engines).

Computer-predicted targeting would make hitting it possible. You would have the weapon fire at the point of most probable interception, with some randomness built into the algorithm. Lags in sensor response could be compensated by a sufficiently smart targeting system.

After 1000 nice little (or nice large) laser pulses, there would already be some hits. After the first hits, the targeting algorithm would go evolutionary, working its way with "try and err" towards better efficiency.

But indeed, 100'000 miles might be a little far-fetched. At least for the Humans. The Shadows would find a way to do it with ease.

[This message has been edited by Lennier (edited February 09, 2002).]

A_M_Swallow · Feb 9, 2002

The other thing to take into account is the operating range of a telepath. In Season 4 Lyta gave a P5 a range of about 25 yards (meters). That is less than the distance from the window to the front of the Whitestar.

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Andrew Swallow

KoshN · Feb 9, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
I believe the quote is something like "I personally killed 50,000 of your kind in the war, do you seriously believe you can hope to beat me?"
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Neroon suffered from too large an ego for a long time.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
And no, Neroon was not grey council.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

No, not at the time. He was second in command on a Sharlin.

1. It was boasting, and probably was an inflated figure.

2. How this relates to combat with the pike, I don't know. Sure, he could have ordered the deaths of thousands. It doesn't mean he personally killed thousands. There's a big difference between pushing a button on a ship, and personally sliding the knife into the opponent (as in War-Demon's avatar), or personally killing the opponent with your pike.

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KoshN
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Vorlon Empire

Crusade (reruns) starting 03/26/2002 at 1PM EST on the Sci-Fi Channel

http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers/

KoshN · Feb 9, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
Getting a little tired of JMS's/shows weird numbers.

2. 20,000 ships at the line from ITB novel, then it's 20,000 of 'their best'.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

That's nothing. It seems that there was very little checking between the novelizations and the actual movies. I even questioned if the writer of the A Call to Arms novelization was working from a finished script. If you want to see errors, check that one out. It's loaded with 'em.

e.g. Pg. 228 middle:
The beams from all four primary guns met... (This a firing of the main guns, btw.)

Combine this with the four fins on each ship from page 23.

Had this guy even seen what the Victory class looked like?

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KoshN
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Vorlon Empire

Crusade (reruns) starting 03/26/2002 at 1PM EST on the Sci-Fi Channel

http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers/

KoshN · Feb 10, 2002

Just wanted to say, I didn't reply because I lost track of this thread and only now spotted it again. First time since 1/21.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
Originally posted by KoshN:
It was always 100 Whitestars, actually 101 (the prototype, and 100 copies). I have no idea where you got the 1000 number.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
Erm... yeah... I got it from a short story written by *drum roll*.... JMS. A quote from Garibaldi talking about how the thousand whitestars were used as pressure on the EA.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Which one? See, this is where I would have given the story title and page number.

Delenn stated the 100 number. I doubt many more were constructed after that, certainly not 900 more.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
Originally posted by KoshN:
What the heck are you talking about, kills from Neroon?
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
Neroon tells Marcus that he had killed 50,000 of 'his' kind in the war. SInce Minbari do not lie except to save face for another, I find it highly unlikely it was at fault.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Answered in a following post.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
Garibaldi states mundanes outnumber teeps 10,000 to 1. Population figures are very easy to come by, he has the mind that is paranoid about telepaths. Byron also shows that Garibaldi always prepares for a conversation, knows where it is going, gets his facts and arguments ready. The talk with G'kar about weapons proves this. It was also in the presence of Edgars who has spent millions in finding a way to beat telepaths, and has research and supplies ready to place a leash on teeps. Numbers are quite important in this, yet he did not correct Garibaldi. Obvsiouly it is roughly correct. Bester is just slightly knowledgable about his teeps *sarcasm band plays in background*. So no, I'm gonna go with what the show gives me.

I'm talking about how 250,000 just does not make sense. Losses like that have been taken in months with just world wars (which technically did not have the whole world fighting). This is the whole world in a literal sense plus all the colonies fighting just to LIVE. I tend to think we'd take heavier losses.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

You're assuming that Garibaldi's and Bester's numbers are accurate.

Bester's 3,000,000 teeps
Garibaldi's 10,000 to 1 ratio of Mundanes to Teeps

Is it possible that either of them is off in their numbers? Could be, but probably not by much. So that leads to 0.0008% deaths. Must have been just ship casualties, but still it does seem low. Then again, the 250,000 number comes from Londo, right? Could Londo's numbers have been off? Probably. It was probably a "clerical error."

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by KoshN:
We're closer to them, the whitestars. Our observation position is in amongst Sheridan's fleet.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
8,000 was AFTER the huge battle, how many losse would have been taken in that time with such a big fleet clashing? Which means it would have been bigger in the fight.... so the whitestars would be dots. Yet they were everywhere, in just about every shot. And not every shot is from sheridens position, obviously.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Answer: Dramatic license. It would be extremely difficult to show 28 thousand ships in a few minutes of CGI. When we start out at Corianna 6, we're in the middle of Sheridan's fleet, where most of the Whitestars are. With all those fast moving cuts, I'm not about to go back to the Laserdisc and examine every frame of the battle and try to get a count. Nobody should be looking that close, and be pondering whether Whitestars were over-represented in the battle. I mean, I nitpick things and even I'm not going to go that far.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by KoshN:
One's inside the planet where the effects are shielded from us, and one's in outer space where we can see it.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
Eh??? Did we forget about the end of the war? With a Sharlin intercepting the missile?
Quoted by a ranger to be in the thousands of megatons, as in 2GT's+. Yet the explosion was less furious than a bomb with a magnitude less destructive force. And that's with a MISSILE actually hitting and exploding from inside. A HUGE difference to a nuke some miles away.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Who said it went off with it's full tonnage? Maybe it has to meet certain sensory conditions (pressure, temperature, depth, etc.) before if delivers it's full explosive power. It is after all, intended to explode inside a planet, in the molten core. I'm actually surprised it just didn't just perforate the guarding ships, like a bullet through target paper. Maybe the missiles can be reprogrammed to deliver different yields. Maybe it only had the outer casing/delivery system of a PK missile, but inside it was a more conventional missile. They could have anti-ship missiles to defend against ships who get inside the PK. Remember, with this one, the Shadows were still there. All of it's features were probably working, unlike the A Call to Arms PK when only the Drakh were there.

Remember, the Drakh were still fumbling around in 2266 with the Shadow gate at K0643 and Xha'dam. CP Book 1, Pg. 256 - They were getting the Centuari to trigger the gate for them, so Drakh wouldn't get killed. They didn't have a handle on how the stuff worked.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by KoshN:
Bravado on Delenn's part. Her ships are being harmed. Several Sharlins were rammed and destroyed. Clearly the battle is lopsided, but her ships are being harmed. Maybe nobody at The Line had any nukes left.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
As in a lie. Yet Minbari do not lie, the very least she meant the EA weapons could not harm them. Which is different to kamikaze runs.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Must you be so literal??? Maybe the EA people get some lucky hits, and some Starfuries ram through a fin of a Sharlin. Still, from Delenn's perspective with respect to the overall Minbari fleet, the losses aren't significant.

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KoshN
-------------
Vorlon Empire

Crusade (reruns) starting 03/26/2002 at 1PM EST on the Sci-Fi Channel
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[This message has been edited by KoshN (edited February 09, 2002).]

KoshN · Feb 10, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>:
Are those not the same thing. There are 20,000 ships on the line, but they are considered the greatest for that reason. They stood in the face of extinction and I think that would be reason enough to consider them of "their best".
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
Well, considering some of the ships were transports that were just going to ram... I can't see how they were 'their best' ship wise.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The best of what they had left at the time.

The best people, those fighting against hopeless odds and not giving up.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>
250,000? Human's are driven nearly to extinction, and only 250,000 die? 250,000 probably died at the Battle of the Line, and even then there were already millions, if not billions, of humans already dead. The 1 out of 1000 humans being telepaths makes sense.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
Nope, that was the whole war IIRC, I believe Dr franklin stated it. And since a lot of human ships have a crew of some 50 people.... it tends to make less sense. Nope, not billions dead, you'd think so with such a slaughter over 2 YEARS, with the whole human race pitching in. But no, apparently 250,000 represents what a mankind slaughter would look like. Germans did more damage than Minbari, such an advanced race with virtually no losses, yet can't beat Germans who aren't even trying to wipe out mankind.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I found it harder to believe that it would take three years. Given the Minbari's overwhelming superiority, I thought Earth's military would have been obliterated in a few weeks.

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KoshN
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Vorlon Empire

Crusade (reruns) starting 03/26/2002 at 1PM EST on the Sci-Fi Channel

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KoshN · Feb 10, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
1. The drakh in ACTA has several thousand ships as per the novel (canon). EA kicked Drakh butt, leads to an obvious conclusion.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

The ACtA novel is NOT canon. It's full of errors.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Dark Lord:
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.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Got the name and ISBN of this graphic novel? I've never seen it. Does it jibe with the B5 episode?

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KoshN
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Vorlon Empire

Crusade (reruns) starting 03/26/2002 at 1PM EST on the Sci-Fi Channel
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[This message has been edited by KoshN (edited February 09, 2002).]

[This message has been edited by KoshN (edited February 09, 2002).]

A_M_Swallow · Feb 10, 2002

1000 Whitestars - this was Garibaldi bullshitting. An off the cuff remark designed to impress Lochley. If he had been giving evidence Garibaldi would have been more accurate. And used a number about a tenth the size. Lots of real people act in this way - avoid being fooled by them.

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Andrew Swallow

Mack · Feb 10, 2002

I'm not conversant enough with all the source material to debate numbers directly, but one thing that struck me in this thread is that too much reliance is placed on numbers with lots of zeros. You don't often find nice, round numbers in nature, but with the exception of Spock, most people do a fair amount of rounding. Just take the population extrapolation for instance. Bester says 3,000,000 teeps. Even if he was playing it straight with that number, that could mean as little as 2,500,000 when rounding to the nearest million. Human nature, particularly in a personality such as Bester's, introduces hubris, too. The number could have really just been slightly over 2,000,000. Now the ratio 10,000 to 1 can contain just as significant an error. If it is an order of magnitude ratio, the actual number could be as little as 5,000. Just looking at that, the population could be 2,500,000 x 5,000 or 12.5 billion, only 42% of the cited figure. In math, your answer can have no more accuracy than the least accurate component. Cumulative error gets quickly significant.

Just a thought.

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"Tastes like chicken." -- Mack

KoshN · Feb 10, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Mack:
I'm not conversant enough with all the source material to debate numbers directly, but one thing that struck me in this thread is that too much reliance is placed on numbers with lots of zeros. You don't often find nice, round numbers in nature, but with the exception of Spock, most people do a fair amount of rounding. Just take the population extrapolation for instance. Bester says 3,000,000 teeps. Even if he was playing it straight with that number, that could mean as little as 2,500,000 when rounding to the nearest million. Human nature, particularly in a personality such as Bester's, introduces hubris, too.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Definitely!

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by Mack:
The number could have really just been slightly over 2,000,000. Now the ratio 10,000 to 1 can contain just as significant an error. If it is an order of magnitude ratio, the actual number could be as little as 5,000. Just looking at that, the population could be 2,500,000 x 5,000 or 12.5 billion, only 42% of the cited figure. In math, your answer can have no more accuracy than the least accurate component. Cumulative error gets quickly significant.

Just a thought.

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

And a good one, at that.

I got the sense that most of the figures were nothing more than ballpark estimates, and the actual product could vary widely.

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KoshN
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Vorlon Empire

Crusade (reruns) starting 03/26/2002 at 1PM EST on the Sci-Fi Channel

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**DONOTDELETE** · Feb 11, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Originally posted by breen:
A few points:

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

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

This was the guy running around downbelow with a sword, claiming to be the rightful king of all England, no? The one who spent what - ten years or so with exterme survivor's guilt, thinking that the whole war was his fault?
Sure, you can believe every single word he (or for that matter, anyone) says, and then wonder why equations you derive from freeze-framing the CGI effects in scene X of battle sequence Z don't match.
But really, what's the point? Babylon 5 wasn't about numbers, it was about people. And people can be mistaken. (We handled the Dilgar; we can handle these "Minbari"...) They can lie. (Aw shucks, looks like Earth Force One is having a little engine trouble...) And they do stuff that's just plain confusing. (And I just wanted to say, in case anybody was wondering, that absolutely nothing happened today in sector 83 by 9 by 12.) That's what made the show so great, at least for me anyway. That's why I like Lennier's model of the E-M war: it makes sense with the way the characters acted.
Now, if someone could just tell me what in Valen's name happened to the Liandra's last crew, I'll be set.

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What do you want? -Morden
A shrubbery! -Knight who says Ni!
And then what? -Morden
Another shrubbery!!! -Knight who says Ni!

A_M_Swallow · Feb 11, 2002

In "Mindwar" 1 : 1000 people has telepthic powrs.
1 : 10000 telepaths has telekintic powers. This is in 2258.

In 2117 the ratio was 1 : 10000 people was a telepath, see page 60 of "Dark Genesis".

2258 - 2117 = 141

I suspect that 150 years later the ratio will be 1 : 100 .

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Andrew Swallow

bakana · Feb 13, 2002

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> That guy who thought he was King Arthur said that 20,000 of "Our best" were involved in the battle.
<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

He was referring to the Battle of the Line.
And that number is Canon.
JMS used it in a couple other places too.
20,000 men went into that battle.
They believed it was their LAST Chance to prevent the Minbari from destroying the Human Race.
Every ship that could fly was sent up.

Only 200 of those 20,000 peopel survived.
That would make it the highest casualty rate of any major battle in several hundred years.

While there are a few battles in our history which featured almost 100% casualties, none of them involved nearly as many soldiers.

A few hundred at the Alamo.
Another few hundred at the Little Big Horn.
Things like that.
A battle involving 20,000 soldiers and a 1% survivor rate is a Huge loss.

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Do not ascribe your own motivations to others:
At best, it will break your heart.
At worst, it will get you dead."

**DONOTDELETE** · Feb 14, 2002

During Into The Fire Londo states from what I remember "There are hundreds of your ships on the island of selini". There was never thousands of ships there.

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