The Evolution of Earth Alliance Ships | Babylon 5

[@alanmike6883]

One of the things I love about Babylon 5 was that not everyone was on technology parity with everyone else. That all species had their strengths and weaknesses

[@PandorasFolly]

In the Canon* RPG and technical readouts its revealed that Earthforce just switched over to PPGs about 30ish years before the series. Before that Earthforce used a hyper advanced 15mm assault rifle. It was actually well respected by the other factions militaries as it had enormous stopping power and most factions armor was built to stop energy weapons. Ever since I read that I longed to see Garabaldi yoink out a freaking handcanon

[@DoremiFasolatido1979]

Which isn't really accurate to what would happen, but I guess it makes better TV

[@TheTrueAdept]

@@PandorasFolly no, the standard GRUPOS arm is a 6.8mm BilPro rifle that is extremely effective. What you're talking about is the _anti-material RAILGUN_ that can go through light armored vehicles like hot butter at 1.6km. Also, only the _Centauri_ and humans have an actual field artillery park. Everyone else doesn't. The Minbari only have _one_ piece and it was rarely used.

[@PandorasFolly]

@@TheTrueAdept thanks Aaron! I was thinking of the railgun!

[@silvercat18]

I always loved the space combat in B5. When the ships really went at it with lasers they cut whole chunks off of eachother. Big thumbs up to the Narn ship for actually cutting a limb off the shadow Battle Crab before getting trashed - just goes to show that building your ship around a really, really big set of guns can sometimes pay off, for a few minutes at least.

[@bigwitt187]

I think it took 6 beams, meaning 3 ships, to manage that. We do see one destroying a Battle Crab when its beams are combined with beams from 2 White Stars.

[@kurtjk01]

@@bigwitt187 That's probably the best "payback!" moment from the whole series.

[@TheDude50447]

One thing seen in one of the movies was that Hyperions and Novas were fielding enough firepower to destroy minbari vessels. They just never got into range before being blasted.

[@looseycanon]

Not really. Earth Alliance actually outranged the Mimbari. The problem was, that those weapons couldn't be locked on to Mimbari ships (bit of a plot hole there, as silouthes were picked up), as seen in Points of departure, where Babylon 5 faces off with the Trigatti.

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@looseycanon This is not true at all, the Minbari weapons FAR out ranged the EA weapons. Getting a rough silhouette of a ship is a lot different from establishing a weapons lock. Remember that in space over the ranges they are fighting at (tens to hundreds of thousands of kilometres), half a degree can mean the difference between a hit and a wide miss.

[@TheTrueAdept]

@@Ishlacorrin this. Minbari stealth-tech basically nullified any sensor that is not hyperspacial in nature (the only confirmed sensor that the 'Young Races' had is the Earth Alliance's Hyperspace Echo Location system, which was derived from Shadow tech). When I say the Earth Alliance threw everything and the kitchen sink at the problem, I _meant_ it. Also, the Excaliber's 'neutron laser' range that was stated in the movie _Crusade_ was at _maxiumum dispersion_ and firing into a Shadow Death Cloud. Sheridan wanted to use the neutron lasers to get a good look at the innards of a Shadow Cloud that the Drahk managed to swipe.

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@TheTrueAdept I'm aware. We see in the show and movies that battles often started at just shy of a hundred thousand kilometres and closed from there. Human on Human battles tended to be much closer, but I think that was limited by targeting tech more than anything.

[@TheTrueAdept]

@@Ishlacorrin no, it's due to human armor and E-Web than anything.

[@lovipoekimo176]

I absolutely loved the Hyperion/Midwinter classes but the Omegas looked so fricking cool with their spinning sections and the red beam weapons in the front

[@MrNintoku]

The fact that they would use them at close range meant the writers understood laser physics so well.

[@ReddwarfIV]

@Peoples Republic of Ninj That's more down to the hard sci-fi physics of the setting, where you need special technology to do soft sci-fi stuff. The Starfury itself is a weird design. Incredibly maneuverable, but with all those little engines it can't have had very good acceleration, and would've been a nightmare to service. Compare it to the Viper from BSG. High acceleration, low maneuverability... at least until it can point its main engines in a different direction. The Starfury has an advantage there in that it won't change its cross sectional area when it wants to change direction, but with those engine pylons it has a larger CSA to begin with. I wonder what a fighter that was between those two would be like, with middling thrust and middling maneuverability. Would it be the best of both worlds or a master of none?

[@matts1166]

There was a story about the Omega class when they were doing production work for the series. Someone that actually knew about physics stated that with that spinning hull section, in order to turn left, the ship would need to fire thrusters along the TOP of the back of the ship instead of along the back-right, as the rotating section would have a boomerang like effect on physics. The producer's eyes glazed over as he didn't understand, and just said to make it look cool enough for people to believe it.

[@MechanicaMenace]

​@@ReddwarfIVI'm not sure about the Starfury being so awful to service. They only have 4 easily accessible motors, all identical and not actually that small, that also do RCS. Vipers have the main motor but then a multitude of small RCS thrusters buried into the fuselage. Also the Viper was mainly initially designed to fight other humans. Until the first Cylon war the colonies were constantly fighting eachother. They only became sort of unified 52 years before we see their destruction and that was still tenuous and the possibility of fighting between them never went away. In B5 there was ≈180 years of peace amongst humans between the EA being formed and the Earth Alliance Civil War. 100 years of that after we made first contact with the Centauri and found out most of the other species we have to worry about can pull more Gs than us, and one of them can pull more Gs *and* will happily pass out in a manoeuvre and trust the autopilot to finish the attack. With how we see the Starfuries regularly flipping around in way other races fighters just don't, well it's never stated in the show but I'm guessing humans have better equilibrium than the average other race so we designed them to play to those strengths. It would explain why some more advanced races seem to hold them in such high regards. The human fighters can just do stuff they can't. Funnily though the Mk3 Starfury looks like it's heading towards that halfway point between them and a Viper. But all we really see of them is their ability to enter atmosphere.

[@Jarangel87]

It's a shame tech limitations at the time didnt allow for the full capabilities of these ships as thought by their creators to appear on screen, because if anything B5 as some of the most detail rich designs for their ships, human ones at least.

[@kamenwaticlients]

If the remake happens it would be great if they went into that detail kind of like the Expanse.

[@Jarangel87]

@@kamenwaticlients Totally, I want to see the Omega class that uses the inertia of the rotating section to launch its fighters, has magnetic mine launchers, all the good stuff!

[@kamenwaticlients]

@@Jarangel87 That would be really cool. Also short term constant 1G acceleration would make all the ships before the Omega Class make more sense.

[@matts1166]

@@Jarangel87 Don't forget about the missile payload along the sides of the hull.

[@mrow7598]

@@kamenwaticlients Michael Straczynski has said there is a reboot in the works with CW but its been delayed as CW changed owners.

[@tba113]

From the series itself, you get the impression that raw firepower was only rarely a weakness for Earth Alliance warships. Their relatively pedestrian sensor technologies, on the other hand, meant that while EA ships might have had good guns, they struggled to actually target enemy ships running any serious stealth or jamming systems. Given how huge space is, that inability to aim accurately put them at a huge disadvantage despite their impressive firepower. Pretty much the only time anyone using EA equipment complained about a lack of punch was when Starfuries were staring down the Thirdspace swarmers - but in fairness, those monsters could shrug off multiple direct hits from White Star beam cannons, so pretty much _everyone_ was outgunned in that encounter. Earth Alliance ships' armor protection and maneuverability also tended to be decent, but rarely anything special - hence their reliance on highly articulated turrets so they could always have at least some guns tracking the target, and interception systems to shoot down incoming enemy ordnance rather than outmaneuver it or tank the hit. One aspect I would suggest that also hurt the EA Navy's battle performance is that the general lack of artificial gravity meant any damage control efforts were that much less effective. Humans can learn to do plenty of things in microgravity, of course, but an awful lot of tasks are just easier when conditions are a bit closer to Earth-normal.

[@labrat810]

Not to mention, injuries (even minor) in microG can become incapacitating or fatal in minutes. (Thanks, The Expanse)

[@philly83]

Recently started rewatching the series. Always love seeing these videos

[@bigwitt187]

Each time I find the transition from Season 1 to 2 harder to get through. Nothing against Bruce Boxleitner, but Michael O'Hare was perfect for the role. I don't begrudge him leaving considering what he was going through, but damn, do I hate his absence.

[@derpizzadieb]

@@bigwitt187 I'm the opposite, i always wait for Bruce to take over

[@bigwitt187]

@@derpizzadieb Heretic!

[@lucaskobain]

Damn, the Warlock is ageing nicely. Hope the reboot comes together and they show it or some version of it.

[@Concreteowl]

It too was based on Shadow tech. As was the weird top secret ship that attacked Captain Gideon leaving him stranded in space.

[@rockybeats8682]

You had a ship called the Tigerclaw. Reminded me of the Wind Commander ship the Tigers Claw.

[@james8449100]

I do love Babylon 5. It's a one off quote from an episode in season 4 on the voice of the resistance. 'earth force carrier groups' such a sham we never got to see one

[@roguerifter9724]

Other race's Carriers got mentioned in other battles but again it wasn't made clear what ships they were referring to. At one point in the final big battle of season 3 Sheridan orders the allied fleet's (which didn't include any Earth vessels) Carrier groups to come about and engage in response to Drazi ships being surrounded by the Shadows.

[@bigwitt187]

@@roguerifter9724 Is it nitpicking? Yes. Am I going to do it anyway? Also yes. Sheridan ordered the carrier groups to engage after being told the Shadows were trying to outflank. When the Drazi were surrounded, he ordered the Enfili to help them.

[@kennethmelnychuk9737]

Agreed, it was such a great series that the star trek writers ripped it off when they produced DS9

[@lexington476]

4:40 that says Tiger Claw on the side of the ship 🙂. Are we going to get some Wing Commander ship reviews? That would be really cool. Wing Commander was the game of my misspent youth 🙂

[@SandsOfArrakis]

Yep Wing Commander together with the X-Wing/TIE Fighter series were a big part of my youth as well.

[@unknown9126]

Seems like you're right about the EA always reacting vs how we try to predict how future wars are going to be when developing weapons/vehicles/aircraft. Could also be a savings measure too for the EA Either way, great video.

[@Paltse]

Ah, every spaceship has very similar living conditions as an underwater submarine of any era. There is a hostile environment right outside the thin barrier between one and it.

[@Cameron0214]

God I love B5 stuff. Also one thing you could have mentioned about the Warlock class destroyer was that it was the first time in history where a human ship went 1v1 a minbari ship and won. After Ivonova left B5 she became captain of one of the first Warlocks and her ship soundly defeated a rogue Minbari capital ship which shocked everyone. Other than that, good stuff, liked and subscribed : )

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

Thanks 😊

[@foca2002]

If the movie was correct they can one shot a Centauri ship with those cannons. And the Omega class was no joke too.

[@Seeber420]

Seeing these vids always makes me wonder if I still have my B5 miniature game books in my closet somewhere, I loved going through the ships when I was younger.

[@matts1166]

I liked when they added rules to include Battlestar Galactica ships in games of B5. Cross genre battles are fun.

[@LostInTheFarmersMarket]

I'm glad you are covering this. I found your channel from a short you did about the Dilgar and hoo boy the full videos are worth the watch.

[@descendinguniverse]

even though we saw Warlock only for a few seconds, it managed to prove itself for sure

[@Orion2525]

Fun fact. The B5 art creators of the Omega class destoyer admitted to borrowing from the Leonov from the movie 2010

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

Wow. I never knew that. Very similar design.

[@hi-q2261]

Yes but after the Shadow War the humans developed the Warlock class, which was a game changer. UB please do an episode of the SGU Destiny vs Babylon 5 Destroyer Class - Excalibur

[@iona2225]

That's a very uneven fight due to the element that Stargate ships have shields, none of the Babylon 5 ships save the 3rd Space aliens who would probably give the Destiny a good run for their money.

[@brianwhedon8442]

The Warlock wasn't developed after the Shadow war - it was being built BEFORE and DURING the war. It was built with the help of the Drakh and that is why it has Shadowtech in it. That is why the EAS Titans was so quick to come off the line after the Earth Civil War, which occurs and ends less than 9 months after the Shadow War ends.

[@matts1166]

@@iona2225 I think Vorlon ships also had shields. What I'd like to have seen was a Victory Class Destroyer that was actually finished. The ones showed in Crusade/Excalibur weren't finished and were supposed to have been covered in the organic skin that was on the White Stars.

[@Orieni]

As the person who wrote the histories of the EA and EarthForce for B5Wars, that isn’t how I would characterize the origin of the Poseidon.

[@shanenolan8252]

Thanks buddy, enjoy you holiday weekend.

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

You too :)

[@BlackOmegaVirus]

my favorite series and my new favorite channel. I even tattooed B5 - with the sword

[@terrancechilds3049]

Now that is a good video to watch

[@dariustiapula]

Flying bricks. My favorite ship designs.

[@Ryan-lk4pu]

You'd like federation ships in elite dangerous

[@lordvonlord]

Loved the Warlock class.

[@tigdamch.6321]

Interesting breakdown.

[@argentaegis]

Disagree about the EA's learning curve. They're always improving their ships, and have just had the luck to come out of all their recent wars with technological uplift. A lot of the IPX and other explorer intrigue in B5 is driven by the need to reverse engineer technology. Off the top of my head I can remember two major combat systems refits on B5 itself in just the 5 years of the series. I think the time line between Hyperion and Warlock is about 100 years, comparable to IRL pace of naval advancement of major naval powers or better.

[@brianwhedon8442]

This is correct. This video does not list dates, but the Hyperion and Olympus have been viable Earthforce designs for about 100 years. There are constantly being updated over time. There are at least 12 generations (variants) of each design.

[@HeadlessChickenTO]

Ever thought to breakdown design principles of Star Trek ships by era?

[@patrickradcliffe3837]

Excaliber: Angry ship noises.

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

😅

[@brianwhedon8442]

The Excalibur was technically not a Earthforce ship. It was being built for the ISA by Edgars Industries, a free Mars company

[@NicolaiVE]

you forgot the Excalibur, designed in co-op with the rangers, using minbari and a bit of Vorlon tech. A Marathon class destroyer was also build based on, but not with shadow tech.

[@atam3977]

Nova and Omega class are the one of the best designed spaceships in tv shows not only B5.

[@Scylon1]

From what I understood watching the show, the reason EA ships couldn't fight Minbari ships wasn't a lack of firepower, that was something they had a lot of. It was minbari ships had advanced stealth tech and they couldn't target them. You would think they would have developed some kind of manual laser targeting system or something.

[@Ishlacorrin]

You have to remember that we're talking space battles here. With the exception of the fighter craft, most battles were starting at ranges up to hundreds of thousands of kilometres away. At that range, manual targeting is next to useless. Fractions of a degree can mean the difference between a hit or a miss, without targeting systems the chance of hitting would be next to zero.

[@TheTrueAdept]

Here's the thing, _they tried_ to regain their range capabilities. They. All. Failed. When I say they had thrown everything and the kitchen sink at the problem, I _meant_ it. Even throwing a sensor-dye at the Minbari didn't produce good results, and the less said about their attempt at making a visual-only sensor system, the better (it failed _two thirds_ of the time). It wasn't until the Earth Alliance got Shadow Tech that they discovered a way to bypass the stealth system, and created the Hyperspace Echo Location system (or HEL) via studying Shadow sensors.

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@TheTrueAdept People seem to underestimate just how much work would go into developing new sensor tech to bypass an advanced tech stealth system. I blame Trek and their ability to go from useless to overpowered against such things in the space of a few minutes. The bad and inconsistent writings of the 90s Sci-Fi era have left us with a lot of misconceptions about such things.

[@robertivey7644]

It’s advanced electronic warfare not stealth tech the Jammer Minbari used killed the targeting systems of the EA ships.

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@robertivey7644 No it's definitely Stealth Tech, they did not target anyone, they hid themselves. To clear up your misunderstanding: Stealth Tech is used to hide your own presence. Electronic Warfare Tech is used to effect the enemies detection abilities.

[@barrybend7189]

I would love a video on the fleet of ships seen in the anime Martian Successor Nadesico. Also work on scale for the ships of the movie of the series.

[@charlie2640]

I do like the ships however the rotating section presents a major problem from the point of view of the conservation of angular momentum.

[@matts1166]

A designer and a production manager on the show had that discussion. In order to turn left, the Omega would need to fire thrusters along the top of its rear, not along the right like you'd think. Acts a bit like a boomerang.

[@charlie2640]

@@matts1166 This part I understand. It's basic physics. The thing is that in order to turn you need to apply much more thrust to overcome the angular momentum. Much more than just that to turn a ship without the rotating element. Also turning would but large stresses on the area around the rotating element. On top of this if you take dammage to the rotating element then it would be unbalanced and shake the whole ship. I'm find with the rotating part but think it would be reasonable to stop the rotation if you are going into battle.

[@ionfreak83]

If a diplomatic station like Babylon 5 and a squad of Starfury could destroy a Primus, an Omega destroyer which is a pure warship with more powerful weapons and carries a two full squad of fighters can destroy a Primus

[@jeffhyche9839]

This video was interesting but really underestimated the fire power of the Omega. While a single Omega wasn't capable of taking on a Sharlin cruiser, three of them could deal significant damage to one. Truth is the Omega was one of the most powerful warships fielded by the younger races. It was more than capable of taking on anything the Narn or the Centari could field, not to mention anything less than a Minbari cruiser.

[@Ishlacorrin]

The Primus is an ancient design that was flawed to begin with, fighter and small craft fire can disable one because of it's experimental shield/drive tech. Even after centuries or refits, it's still just a bad design. Think of it like a WW2 Battleship with modern weapons, it packs a punch, but cannot take one to save itself. Now the Vorchan Class, that is a good design. Fast and effective with weapons that can defeat most enemies in only a few shots.

[@briankriens5645]

Fun fact. Ivonova was the captain of the Warlock during her shakedown cruise, or something like that :)

[@alexslgato1735]

Actually the Advanced Shadow Omega was not improved upon not because they couldn't produce Shadow technology, but the shadow technology facsimile they used on the Omegas by learning from the ships studied at Mars and Io was extremely unstable and dangerous to the crew (to the point of generating toxic dust and even eating the crew) and was prone to power surges, which, combined with the fact that most shadow technology is feared by most races because or the Shadow War, led to the Earth Alliance to stop their development - however, not all knowledge and Shadow technology was lost upon this, as all the Warlocks have a Shadow Technology component of unknown function deep in their cores - only Susan Ivanova was capable of disabling that core on her Warlock, and that was because she got the help from the remains of Kosh's Vorlon ship.

[@hoorayforsocks]

Does anyone know if there was an alternative design for the Excalibur? I vaguely remember reading the Babylon 5 magazine years ago and they had this very cool ship design it looked something similar to the warlock class only bigger and and half way through the hull they had this cylinder rotating like the omega class have except vertically. Can’t find a picture of it anywhere. Tell me I’m not mad?

[@matts1166]

I know the Victory class was originally supposed to have an organic skin on it similar to a White Star, but wasn't installed before the ships got taken out.

[@JonBowe]

Didn't the Warlocks have some Shadow technology built in to it? I am sure I read/heard this in the past, about it being in the initial build.

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

The initial version did but it was removed becuase it was causing issues, if I remember correctly..

[@ionelroza]

that was the Omega-X destroyers

[@RobertWilke]

Yes there was shadow tech on the warlock class. Ivanovna was given the Captaincy of one of these. She figured out that the tech was there and had it removed. Once exposed I gather it was taken out and removed from the others of the line.

[@danielseelye6005]

There was a specific "black box" installed in the Warlocks that was a holdover from the Shadow tech used for the Omega-X but those were removed and I think there was ISA tech (Minbari-based) installed instead.

[@BagoPorkRinds]

@@RobertWilke It was never removed because it was dormant but entrenched into all the subsystems that it could be lurking anywhere. But Ivanova was given the Vorlon shuttle held in B5 that was used by Ambassador Ulkesh who replaced Ambassador Kosh. With help from Lyta Alexander, she telepathically convinced it to take over as the ship's control systems and to monitor if any Shadow tech became active.

[@shadvan9494]

I think the one thing you missed was the Excalibur / Victory class of ships. they were developed by a joint venture of Earth Aliance and Minbar. and were intended to launch the B5: Crusade follow on series. a sort of star trek like series where they searched the galaxy of the cure for the drahk plaque.

[@mrow7598]

Those were Ranger ships not EA.

[@davesobani9565]

I always though the Omega was designed to challenge the Minbari Sharlin class.

[@charlesw5919]

It was designed with the Shalin in mind, but due to technological limitations, it's still not up to par.

[@worldtraveler930]

Please review the Centauri fleet next!

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

Yes. It's on my list of factions to review.. :)

[@coreystacy3923]

Very well done

[@user-nu6ji7rx3b]

You forgot about the Excalibur, the pinnacle of Earth tech at over a mile long and armoured with Vorlon offensive weaponry....

[@BrokenCurtain]

"Tigerclaw"? Is that ship's name a reference to Wing Commander?

[@manwiththeredface7821]

1. Interesting how the Earth Alliance used to rely on Centauri jumpgates (which were rented to the EA), yet for all their ambitious nature the Centauri just watched as the EA developed their own gates. Until then the Centauri had the EA by the balls by having the ability to cut off any Earth colony from the rest of the Alliance. One would think there must have been constant secret sabotages by the Centauri in the R&D phase of the EA-made jumpgates. 2. The Omega will always be my favourite sci-fi ship ever (with BSG's Galactica as close second). Gotta love the shameless utilitarianism it represents and with which it can still kick others' asses. She's not pretty but she's ours and she's tough.

[@pitmatix1457]

What's interesting about all the jump gates is the effect looks the same with all the younger races and the Vorlons but the other first ones all had very distinct ways of appearing in realspace. Makes sense when you think how the Vorlons were all about teaching younger races (either overtly or covertly).

[@PavewayJDAM]

I rather like the idea of the Hyperion being the budget friendly design that was used post dilgar war, to fill the ranks, only to find out during the mimbari war, was found wanting. The Omega class as initially conceived was a carrier, with cobra bays similar to B5 dropping/throwing starfuries out of the sides of the rotational section. This would explain Omegas seen in the background of In the Beginning. Post war, with diplomacy will solve our problems, Earth Alliance shifted tactics, as you say from power to exploration and acquiring tech from dead worlds. Explorer Class. What warship would facilitate support in such a concept of operation? A long range, small craft (fighter and shuttle) extensive support craft with self defense and offense abilities. Its no wonder a prototype light carrier gets turned into a destroyer to exert dominance in newly discovered and claimed EA territories. The Omegas retain the 72 missile tubes, have longer range beam weapons and extensive small craft and passenger (ie ground unit or science teams) space. The Nova is a Battleship. The Omega is a Amphibious Landing Ship. The Hyperion is a Frigate. The Poseidon is a Nimitz. It just so happens for peace time policing duties, and small scale wars the Omega is the best choice, hence it's dominance. And grouped together is a deadly threat.

[@lordsherifftakari4127]

the Poseidon class of Supercarriers were built specifically to carry the new Thunderbolt Starfighter which could not be carried aboard Omega class Ships. the Vengeance Class carriers were already obsolescent and not worth upgrading due to cost. because the Thunderbolt was significantly superior to the Starfury, and further bolstered EA Fleet protocol of a larger than typical starfighter compliment, they needed a larger more modern ship to carry them in numbers into battle. like many dedicated Carriers before it, the Poseidon was never intended to stand in the line of battle like the Omegas, Hyperions and other EA Warships. it was supposed to hang back beyond the range of hostile fire and send in it's swarms of Thunderbolts to do their worst upon the opposing fleet. it was also the first Earth Ship to be fitted with the new, but untested Artificial Gravity system alongside the traditional spinning module in back for field assessment and operational testing. the forward section had Gravity oriented along the decks in the tower above the launch port. this advancement would later be incorporated fully into the Warlock Class. a Poseidon with a Squadron of Omega Destroyers could launch a formidable array of fighters to gain local space superiority and press home an attack since the Supercarrier can carry more than double the number of fighters than an Omega as well as those fighters being better.

[@inuboy867]

You should make a dedicated B5 playlist for all B5 videos.

[@bluedragon5676]

You missed out the later stage ship of the humans which looked a lot like biotech ships.

[@sam2023blah]

do forget the co-op with the mimbari for the Excalibur class

[@vortega472]

Very cool, love the majority of the ships in this universe.

[@tomastomasi975]

Why not build the Omegas rotation section the same way as bab5s? As for weapons, EA had the ability on the Nova and Hyperion to damage Minbari Sharlins, our problem was getting the ships in range, Minbari stealth is bullshit. The Warlock looks cool though.

[@leemiah3583]

I love the warlock class it looks powerful and a very human design 👍

[@kennethmelnychuk9737]

I wonder how a Warlock would compete against a Victory class destroyer, which is not mentioned un this video(?)

[@chuckasualty]

any idea on how fast hyperspace travel is? I've seen videos comparing speeds of different Sci-Fi universes such as Star Trek vs. Star Wars vs. Halo etc. but none on B5 hyperspace travel

[@TheJhouston]

It's not "speed" exactly. Hyperspace in Babylon 5 is a lot like Slipspace in Halo, or The Warp in Warhammer 40K. Spacetime in Hyperspace is much more compressed than Spacetime in our dimension. When you enter Hyperspace, travel a certain distance, and then Exit Hyperspace, you have traveled exponentially further in our dimension (eg. 1 mile in Hyperspace might be 5 miles in Realspace). The limitations on speed would depend on the maximum speed of the vessel and how fast the species/crew can safely navigate Hyperspace.

[@Ishlacorrin]

​@@TheJhouston More than that, space and time seems to flow differently in Hyperspace. It was noted in the show that certain journeys took longer despite being shorter real space differences. From memory the ones mentioned was B5 to Earth and B5 to Centauri Prime, it was faster to get to Centauri Prime than it was to get to Earth even though it was almost twice the distance in real space. As for speed in general, well it was mentioned that a Whitestar could cross the milky way galaxy in about 6 weeks from memory. It was also called the fastest younger race ship, so most other ships would be 2-5 times slower. From what I have come to understand from the show, other lore sources and JMS himself, the deeper you go into hyperspace in B5, the faster you travel in real space for your distance moved. As with your example, low into hyper might be 1 = 5, while medium into hyper might equal 1 = 50 and deep could be 1 = 500. JMS seemed to imply that it was an exponential increase the deeper you go 'off the beacon'.

[@sciencefliestothemoon2305]

Regarding the Nova class, isnt there a statement mentioning if the Nova got in close, even the Minbari knew they were in a fight.

[@Ishlacorrin]

The first shots of the earth-minbari war were fired by a Nova at near point blank range (for space anyway). It did significant damage to the Sharlin in question. The thing about B5 in general is that weapons tech is very high powered, so much so that many battles are decided in only a few solid hits.

[@Brakiri]

This is true. The Sharlin is actually very poorly armoured. They rely heavily on their stealth tech. While the neutron cannons on the Sharlins are really powerful, Omegas have 13-15m of armor. They can take 2 or 3 hits and still be operable.

[@TheTrueAdept]

@@Brakiri no, they're surprisingly well armored, they had to when they can take two or three hits from a _Shadow Battlecrab molecular slicer_ (aka lol, you don't have armor) before dying. It's just that, when compared to the other Young Races, the humans love enormous amounts of overkill. There is one Nova variant with something on the order of 72 railguns in twin mounts. It ate power like a pig (meaning it couldn't fire them all at once) but the damage output this thing can pump out is astonishing. It should be noted that after the war, the Minbari warrior caste ordered the workers to _create the Minbari version of the Nova_ at once, and they did with enough neutron lasers to be its own disco rave.

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@Brakiri Omega Class from the EA have 8-10 metre thick armour according to most sources. The Sharlin has 10 metre thick Poly-Crystalline armour. It's the same thickness but actually refracts/absorbs most of the energy directed at it. The Victory Class used the same type built with human hands and it could ignore 80% of energy directed at it. In addition to this advanced armour, the Sharlin has a Gravitic Defence Shield Grid to further increase it's ability to withstand damage. It was not that the Minbari ship was weak that it took damage from a Nova, it's that it was unprepared for an attack and the Nova was massively over-gunned. I should also note that while the Sharlin did take 'significant damage' enough to kill crew members, it was not crippled or damaged beyond it's ability to fight effectively.

[@allnamesaretakenful]

Weird that they developed Railguns later. Is it that the writers didn't realize that Railguns are a solid choice before coming up against shields? The same thing happened in the Star Wars Universe. Railguns got phased out because shields got stronger.

[@Ishlacorrin]

Even weirder now that we know rail guns and equivalent weapons would be effective against almost any shield. Kinetic energy is one of the hardest types of energy to deal with.

[@zekramnordran9526]

IIRC mass drivers and the like were banned in the B5 universe

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@zekramnordran9526 Only as planetary bombardment weapons. In Ship to Ship combat they are fine.

[@brianwhedon8442]

It is not that they developed railguns later, it is that pre Centauri contact, railguns were limited by human technology so humanity focused more on laser and plasma weapons. Once Earth started traveling out into the stars, they used Centauri technology to power the weapons and projectile weapons (and missiles) came back into favor due to their long ranges

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@brianwhedon8442 I think you are right, kind of hard to use a rail gun effectively when your sensors cannot give you a target lock at a decent range.

[@Wolfgare-mc4pr]

What about the Excalibur ? How did he fit in this evolution ?

[@PathsUnwritten]

I thought Excalibur was an ISA ship, a follow-up to the White Stars, not an EA ship.

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

That's the reason why I didn't include it into the list.

[@Wolfgare-mc4pr]

@@UtopianBroadcast1 Ok, sorry for my mistake. But one more question, how his the Excalibur vs the Warlock ? Or maybe making a video of ISA ship vs EA ship ?

[@DarkAshenfall]

To my knowledge, the Earth Alliance did not have the means to create artificial gravity, period. It was given to them by the Minbari sometime after the war. Now that I am looking, I cannot find mention, but it was a point mentioned in the show.

[@chrism7395]

They could create the semblance of gravity by spinning up sections but true artificial gravity only became available after the EA joined the Alliance and the Minbari gave them the tech. The first EA military vessel to incorporate this technology was the Warlock class.

[@brianwhedon8442]

What you are referring to are the terms of Earth joining the ISA, it's in the Season 4 finale. The Warlock was being built with Drakh help and with the end of the Shadow War, all help from the Drakh ceased. The Warlocks were mostly completed but were missing the gravitic tech. As soon as the Minbari gave out the tech to the ISA worlds, the first 2 prototype Warlocks were ready for space trials. This is why Ivanova so quickly took command of the EAS Titans in December 2261, just weeks after the Earth Civil War ended.

[@chrism7395]

@@brianwhedon8442 I didn't know that, thanks for the heads up (I just thought it was JMS having to quickly trapdoor Ivanova out after Claudia left). Is that from one of the books?

[@brianwhedon8442]

@@chrism7395 It was a JMS trapdoor for the TV series that he later made into canon short stories, the one focusing on Ivanova as captain of the Warlock EAS Titans is called "Hidden Agendas". There is another short story about Marcus and Ivanova that goes into more why she left the Station. The info about the Warlocks being built with Drakh help comes from the unfilmed Crusade scripts and notes, but Hidden Agendas is where you learn there is Shadowtech inside Warlocks

[@Yungfury14]

Fun fact that Nasa loved the design of the star fury that they wanted to build it since the design was perfect for space flight n combat

[@fantasyfleet]

Do the Narns next.

[@UtopianBroadcast1]

Sure

[@Phil-D83]

Omega class could harm the mimbari, but only arrived after the war. The omega-x with shadow tech would give the mimbari utter hell.

[@SupCom78]

I love the Warlock Class it has advanced technology but still is and looks Human but Rumors say there is a bit Shadow teck implemented or is this no more the case someone know that ?

[@TheTrueAdept]

The first versions had Shadow Tech put into them, though they had a sensor system derived from Shadow tech that allowed them to bypass the Minbari stealth system (the Hyperspace Echo Location system). Between the Drahk could literally shut them off via the Shadow tech and the fact that the Shadow tech had a tendency to drive the crews insane... they were refitted with more conventional tech. Then there are the Nemesis and her ilk, which were outright human-Shadow hybrid ships, not the hodgepodge jobs that the regular Warlocks were.

[@brianwhedon8442]

All of the Warlocks have Shadowtech within them. Some of it, like the advanced sensors mentioned here, is Earth "bred" Shadowtech which does what it is told and nothing more. This is the sort of tech that was going to be explained about in Crusade. The ships reactors and weapons systems are a hybrid Drakh-Human design. The Drakh started helping EFNTD in the mid 2250s. The crystalline self repairing armor is a human invention based of IPX finds from a dead alien race (This is the same armor found on the ISA Excalibur). There is also hidden Shadowtech that spreads itself all over the ship and drives telepathic crew members insane. It's purpose is not fully known, but it is interpreted as a backdoor that the Drakh can access. Only Warlocks built after the curing of the Drakh Plague have no hidden Shadowtech in them. This info from a few canon sources that did not make it to the screen. JMS's short story called "Hidden Agendas" which is about Captain Ivanova bringing the EAS Titans to Babylon 5. The Passing of the Technomages, Legions of Fire, and the Psi-Corps novel trilogies. And the unfilmed Crusade episodes and scripts

[@brianwhedon8442]

@Aaron the Nemesis ships are basically what the Warlocks turn into if the hidden Shadowtech inside them wakes up

[@SupCom78]

The Omega is also a good design and i like that in case of the Warlock they don't rely only on Shadow or Drakh Tech they mostly use their own Tech/Ancient Alien Tech they found on their own adapted and improved them. Syle wise it is a close call between Omega and Warlock but the Warlock is the ship i would fly. Without Backdor Tech of cause. Sadly there was never another Crusader Season to tell more of the Story. The Story of Crusader was good i liked them BUT i admit i don't liked the Prototype Ships itself. But again it had some nice tech like the Fighter Start Devices or the big Vorlon gun but the time after you fired it you were practicaly a sitting duck more energy needed. i wonder who would win a Warlock or the Prototype Ship if both Captains and Crew would be on the same Level and know the Ships weaknesses and such. hope my comment makes sense hard to translate from german to english some meaning get lost.

[@TheTrueAdept]

@@SupCom78 While the Minbari would _HATE_ the humans' style of shipbuilding, they can't argue with the _results_ of said shipbuilding. Note that, after the Earth-Minbari War, the Warrior Caste told the Workers to _build and design_ their version of the Nova... ... and _they succeeded_ in doing so. Remember, Human ships were the _gold standard_ of spaceships after the Dilgar War. Though the Centauri were afraid of earlier Earth ships, just due to the fact that human ship design tends heavily towards 'stuff as much guns and armor as you can' end of things.

[@sunnymagnuson1809]

Who and where are these ships being built?

[@nemo99nemo83]

It's kind of a shame that we never saw the missile batteries of the Omegas and Novas in Action (due to budget/technic reasons).

[@melangellatc1718]

They needed a sweet Battlestar!!!

[@apawstate]

7:39 the Shadows were correct all along!

[@DreamMarko]

One thing that did bother me is that the EA was the only faction that seems to advance their technology in any way. But I do love B5 it's still my favorite SF series :)

[@matts1166]

IDK. I think there were reasons for that. The Minbari, outside the Vorlon, were the top-dogs in the Galaxy for 1,000 years. If no on can beat you, no need to improve. The Centauri were in stagnation, and were intentionally written to be "Space Romans", which actually did see technological regression in the last 300 years it was active. The Narn had few resources left and were basically making poor-man Centauri knock-off Gucci bags.

[@JH24821]

@@matts1166 Yeah, the EA was in an unique position among the other empires, they had the drive for exploration and expansion; the trauma of the Minbari war spurred them on to invest heavily in technology; and combined with the human ability to "think outside the box" it's not surprising they were able to advance rapidly.

[@Tallacus]

no Crusader ship?

[@ministermundain]

4:23 tiger claw

[@Arquon]

Mir fehlen hier zumindest der Sprung zur Exkalibur Klasse. Man könnte auch die Schiffe die später in der ISA auftauchen zuzählen da diese auch auf Menschlicher Technologie basieren. Schließlich sind die Zerstörer der Exkalibur Klasse von 3 Spezies erschaffen.

[@Brakiri]

To think that the EA was capable of defeating the Dilgar with these early garbage vessels is either because the Admiralty was filled with good tacticians or the ineptitude of the Dilgars military knew no bounds.

[@TheTrueAdept]

Dilgar ships were literally cheap pieces of _outright crap_ in terms of durability but only below-averaged in armament compared to everyone else's ships. They had to due to the circumstances of having a time limit to expand before their own star went kaboom.

[@brianwhedon8442]

Earth ships focused more on weapons and armor. And human tactics were superior to the Dilgar. The Earth Alliance's actions during the Dilgar War were noted by the Drakh, but it was the surrender of the Minbari at the Battle of the Line which caused the Drakh to build Thenothk to lure humans to the Shadow side.

[@origami83]

2 bad we didnt see the warlock class in action in the series. Maybe it will in the new show. Nice video m8!

[@RokkitGrrl]

Only time we really got to see them in action was in the miniseries, the Lost Episodes. Look for warlock vs centauri and you'll find the clip. Warlocks put up a hell of a fight.

[@origami83]

@@RokkitGrrl Oh thx! i will look for the clip :D

[@chrism7395]

@@origami83 here it is, if I remember correctly it was made by the same team that did the CGI for Battlestar Galactica, it's a real shame we never got to see one alongside the Excalibur kzbin.info/www/bejne/nXi5iJejecd2j9U

[@origami83]

@@chrism7395 Thx, i found it ^^ Oh that is a nice bit of info, i like BSG alot aswell. I would love a new scifi show with similair battles, or a continuation of either B5 / BSG

[@mattwho81]

What I liked was the older races had stagnated and become complacent. Their designs were made for aesthetics as much as performance. The Earth alliance was young, dynamic and aggressive. They built their ships for functionality only and threw aesthetics out the window.

[@andrerosema6500]

The Warlock is the first earth-vessel to match a white star? From my perspective, even Omega-Destroyers could hold up against them in the series.

[@matts1166]

Perhaps that was a pound-for-pound comparison. White Stars really did fight outside their weight classes.

[@nonyabisness6306]

I allways liked the Nova. Just make a big hunk of metal and strap tons of guns on it.

[@dreamingflurry2729]

And Omega can destroy a Sharlin - problem is: It can't lock on! So hitting it is the problem, not having enough firepower to hurt it!

[@jandraelune1]

Technically the White Star and the Victory class are Earth Alliance ships, as much as the Shadow Omega is.

[@bigwitt187]

Victory, yes, but not the White Stars, they were a combination of Minbari and Vorlon technologies.

[@frankmontez6853]

Hmm kinda expected the latest ones the ones built with Mimbari? EA union help

[@MOrab46019]

We need a space game.

[@oscarb2407]

Centauri evolution and minbari could be great😊

[@Ishlacorrin]

The Centauri story is a bit sad, looking at the Primus and how long they kept that terrible design in service.

[@oscarb2407]

@@Ishlacorrin Primus is my favourite ship, and... bad design? really? primus can fire ALL the weapons from the frontal and side arcs. Only rear is vulnerable. Look the ship plans and you will see. The problem of the primus they are old, too old LOL. And Centauri history is very interesting, with the expansion, the orieni wars, etc! all ships and all factions in B5 are amazing! ^^

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@oscarb2407 I'm guessing you don't know the full history of the Primus. One sec I'll get it for you: *Though many of Primus class ships have been constantly upgraded and retrofitted over the decades, the Battle Cruisers are often under-powered for the large number of systems it must run. In addition to this, their armour by modern standards is far too thin for a capital ship of this classification.* *Sparse armour is due primarily to the fact that during the Primus's conception the Centauri attempted to fit her with a gravitic shield system. The experiment was a marginal success from a scientific point of view, but a disastrous error in combat. While the gravitic shields were capable of deflecting and refracting incoming fire, the system could be quickly overwhelmed by sustained fire and, as such the shields offered less protection than armour.* *Later, the Centauri retrofitted the Primus with more armour, which caused a myriad of new problems. Foremost, the Primus's frame was not designed to support the additional mass of heavy armour, which still left the Primus more vulnerable than it would have been had it been designed along conventional means. Armour also reduced the effectiveness of the shields, as the gravitic countermeasures had to project through more mass, and thus making them all but useless against heavy weapons.* *While having a distinct advantage in artificial gravity propulsion, the gravimetric drive system incorporated into Primus class ships are is over a century old and is moulded directly into the ships main systems. This system is antiquated, not very efficient and needs a great deal of power to be operated. On average, a Primus class vessel must expend between 50% and 65% of her total daily output just to run her gravimetric drive and artificial gravity system, and even at this the Primus can not use this system to its full potential. Do to the fact that this system is also the key component in the Centauri's energy defence fields, propulsion and defences can be knocked out by sustained weapons fire from fighter craft.* So yes, part of the problem is that they are old, but most of their trouble is that they were poorly designed to begin with.

[@oscarb2407]

@@Ishlacorrin what is the source, please?

[@Ishlacorrin]

@@oscarb2407 I have it in a word doc, it's from the 90's. Can't remember if it was from the CD, or one of the games. It's that old now I doubt the original source still exists. There were a few web pages that got those things together back in the day, but they all shut down. I saved as much as I could before that happened. I'm still annoyed that I missed the entry on the EA Nova. Have a lot of the others, but missing a lot from the games still.

[@edwineliel]

Good work and you obviously worked hard to get all the facts as well as knowledge in. Thank you! :)

[@-JA-]

❤️👏

[@RamosLuis2550]

so your saying the shadows were right, knock an anthill down, the ants will build a stronger anthill

[@bigwitt187]

It's no secret that war drives innovation. The question is whether it's worth the cost.

[@armni4619]

EF didn't "improve" the weapons they bought, they reverse engineered them. They never equalled or surpassed the originals. EF ships had good enough defenses, issue was in the overall technology used. Was so bad that the starfury first came out as a crash course to have at least some parity in an area of military application (metal fatigue was a big issue on wings). " besides the Minbari and..." it can rip any ship that isn't from a first one or middle race. Including sharilins and octurons. Problem was getting the shots to land before getting sniped from beyond its range. " decrease its maneuverability" not till the dilgar war. Had scavenged dilgar war wrecks that they were still sorting out. Vree versions offered were incompatible. Brakiri said no. Abbai said they were too young. " outdated targetting.." outdated and inferior aren't the same. EF did a 2x approach on this with getting the long range narn lasers and improved tracking systems, especially lidar on the warlock. Didn't work as hoped initially but reduced chances of straight losses. Issue with carriers was mainly that they were nearly all destroyed in the Minbari war, like the artemis class. EF only had battle type ships left to rely on and stuck with that. The Posedion was built due to a lack of carriers and to hold more fighters(96-364) as starfuries were still the 4th best fighter at the time, not as a recovery ship. Could you do the Abbai, Orieni or Markab next?

[@robertivey7644]

This is untrue. The Dilgar used Pulsar technology as their main weapon system. The EA refined this into the pulse weapons used on later ships. Also the Dilgar fighter was used to design the Starfury heavy fighter and then the later Thunderbolt. The plasma web point defense system used on pretty much everything is reverse engineered from the ruins of an extinct species.

[@robertivey7644]

The Poseidon was built post Babylon 5 as a Command ship for fleets of Omegas.It’s designed to launch all 96 fighters it carries at once.

[@armni4619]

@Robert Ivey @Robert Ivey notice the word "bought". Dilgar bolters were never bought. The aurora starfury incorporated dilgar thorun specs. Before that the nova and before that, the tiger starfury existed. The Eweb was theorized to be a full em shield system like the vorlons'. Do you mean to say that EF improved them to that level?

[@armni4619]

@@robertivey7644 carriers act as command ships in EF. Poseidon was NEVER meant to lead omegas. Was meant to be at the right place and time to launch fighters. Clark misused them and they ended up out of position by the time of the OSAT scare.

[@CArnoldi1]

I think Im one of the few b5 fans who doesnt like the look of the Omega destroyers. The spinning section just looks too complicated and vulnerable on a warship for my tastes.

[@kirishima638]

Some of these are non-cannon fan art.

[@wanderer3120]

294

[@ChristopherSloane]

Seems EA lacked quality construction methods and creativity, kind of like the other EA we have here in our time

[@Yemith_Gaming]

Loved the Babylon 5, Series. shame no games, well no mainstream games came off the franchise. Although, its probably going to be heavily woke. I still hope despite the WB merger the series will get a reboot.

[@tripleohno]

Ty for vid reminded me of ( quick Google search) One of the greatest science-fiction shows of all time is coming back in 2023 in a secret project featuring all surviving members of the show's original main cast. Can't wait, and intrested in bsg reboot ( thankfully they won't be steeping on the 2k remake ( great show)

[@BuckFutterd]

Utopian Broadcast, I would love if you would talk about and find out how the gate network was used. Meaning how did other species that didn't have jump capable ships at the time where able to explore using the gates of others when they only seem to go to systems that they are in control?

[@manwiththeredface7821]

I remember a scene in the show where they mentioned how the Centauri used to rent their gates out to Earth. Other jumpcapable species might have done the same with other upandcoming species. I suppose the contract must have been akin to "here's a map of the galaxy with jump coordinates, if you discover a new system with your nonjump ships just send us the coordinates and we arrive with our new jumpgate, we even assemble it for you to use and it's going to cost XYZ per month, if you stop paying we come and pack up our gate and we leave". Which by the way must have given the lender enormous power over these youngest races which realistically would have ended up in intergalactic spheres of influence with the Centauri, the Minbari etc. having their own "vassal-systems" but under the guise of "helping these young races who [for some unexplained reason] are not ready to have their own access to hyperspace". Yeah, Straczynski is much more of an idealist when it comes to alien politics than I am...