Earth-Minbari War

The Earth-Minbari War is a fictional war that takes place in the science fiction television series, Babylon 5. The war ended with Earth on the brink of destruction only to have the other side improbably surrender to the all but defeated planet at the last moment.

The war was provoked by an Earth Alliance force led by Captain Michael Jankowski aboard the EAS (Earth Alliance Ship) Prometheus, engaged on a mission to investigate the Minbari, a civilization of which Earth only knew of by rumors. During the expedition, the Prometheus and her escorts encountered a Minbari cruiser carrying the Grey Council, the highest echelon of Minbari society, who were en route to investigate reports of sightings of their ancient enemy, the Shadows.

Upon seeing the Earth vessels, the Minbari cruisers opened their gunports as a sign of respect and strength - even though Humans would have no knowledge of such a tradition. Dukhat, leader of the Grey Council, realized the error and ordered the gunports closed - but too late. Captain Jankowski misinterpreted the gesture as a sign of hostility, an impression compounded by the deleterious effects the Minbari sensors had on the Prometheus' electrical grid and jump engines, and opened fire on the Minbari vessel. Dukhat was killed and his protege Delenn, in a fit of rage, cast the deciding vote on the Council to wage a war of vengeance against Earth.

The Earth Alliance made frantic efforts to present official apologies to the Minbari through all the possible channels, included all the alien powers that could have given a far better support before the incident - while trying to gather on their side the military and material support of all the LONAW and other worlds that had been treated with condescendence in the former years, while organising a demonstrative show of power, aimed to intimidate the Minbari.

Hoping that they could prove to the Minbari they were a power not to be trifled with, Earth launched a strike against a Minbari mid-range military base. Earths intentions were to strike with a fleet of forty starships and destroy the Minbari base, thus proving to the Minbari that they were powerful and force the Minbari to the bargaining table.

This was to be the first major battle of the war. The Earth fleet entered the Minbari star system of ShLekkTha and slowly entered weapon range of a waiting Minbari fleet. The Minbari fleet consisted only of twelve War-Cruisers, to the Earth Alliances forty starships, which consisted of Heavy Cruisers and Dreadnoughts. Despite being well within range of the Minbari's weapons, the Minbari ShLekkTha fleet allowed the Earth vessels to close into range and fire the first shot. The battle lasted only twelve seconds. In this twelve seconds the Minbari destroyed every one of the attacking Earth vessels, allowing only one fighter to survive, so it could return home to tell her people of their impending doom.

While Earth ships had enough firepower to destroy Minbari vessels, the Minbari stealthing systems prevented EarthForce warships from achieving target lock. The Minbari, on the other hand, had no such problems and had weapons capable of destroying their enemies in single hits. In addition, their ships generally had greater maneuverability and acceleration. Furthermore, Minbari sensor systems were capable of overloading the shielding on EarthForce power systems, rendering their jump drives inoperable - thus eliminating the possibility of escape.

Victories were far a few between, the Alliance loosing an average of five ships for every Minbari ship destroyed. The only battles were won by the Alliance were pyrrhic victory, as the cost in ships and manpower always averaged a 3 to 1 loss in the Minbari's favor... and this was just to drive the Minbari attackers off.

Despite suicidal bravery on the part of EarthForce, the Earth Alliance found itself being annihilated, losing soldiers at an appalling rate, with the war itself progressing in favor of the Minbari. Attempts to acquire effective weapons from friendly powers such as the Centauri Republic were rebuffed for fear of the Minbari turning on them for aiding their enemy. While other interests like the Narns were willing to secretly do business, the supplies available were insufficient for Earth military needs.

The war was brutal, yet precise. The Minbari pursued a strategy of swift advance, jumping into a system in force, crippling whatever Earth Alliance military assets were present but also destroying all civilian targets before immediately moving on to the next system in their drive towards Earth. This was, for the Minbari, a war of genocide. However, the humans made the the Minbari pay a steep price in blood for every step forward.

Humanity's stubborn resistance in the face of a far superior enemy later inspired the Centauri Emperor Londo Mollari to summarize the war with the words, "The Humans, I think, knew they were doomed. But where another race would surrender to despair, the Humans fought back with even greater strength. They made the Minbari fight for every inch of space. In my life, I have never seen anything like it. They would weep, they would pray, they would say goodbye to their loved ones, then throw themselves, without fear or hesitation, into the very face of death itself. Never surrendering. No one who saw them fighting against the inevitable could help but be moved to tears by their courage. Their stubborn nobility. When they ran out of ships, they used guns. When they ran out of guns, they used knives and sticks and bare hands. They were magnificent. I only hope that when it is my time, I may die with half as much dignity as I saw in their eyes in the end. They did this for two years. They never ran out of courage. But in the end, they ran out of time."

There were secret contacts through hyperspace transmissions, and was arranged a meeting between human and Minbari representatives, with the support of the Narn diplomatic corps. The peace attempt failed when Centauri warships ambushed the meeting; the recriminations over that event should have sealed Earth's fate, as both the Minbari Government and the Earth Alliance presumed that the disruption of the peace talk was related to internal factions unfavourable to the peace, and, for pure inertia, the hostilities went on, more ferocious than before, up to the inevitable conclusion.

Only one battle was a real victory for Earth, involving the destruction of the Minbari flagship Black Star. An EarthForce task group was ambushed by the Black Star in an asteroid field, leaving all ships destroyed or disabled. The damaged EAS Lexington, under the command of first officer Commander John Sheridan, acutely aware of the Minbari policy of exterminating all enemy combatants without mercy, even when they were legitimately surrendering, mined several nearby asteroids with nuclear devices as a precaution. The Lexington then issued a distress call, which attracted the attention of the Black Star. The mines completely vaporized the Black Star, giving Earth a much-needed morale boost. The Minbari considered it a despicable act of cowardice, and named Sheridan "Starkiller" in loathing and disgust; the Earth Forces justified the desperate tactic by noting that the Minbari policy of total annihilation was just as abhorrent.

The Minbari, frustrated by the futile but persistent Human resistance and their pride wounded by the handful of EarthForce victories, were determined to utterly annihilate the younger species by the time the Minbari fleet finally reached the Human homeworld. Military and civilian leaders on Earth desperately organized a grand last stand, "to hold the line against the darkness", throwing all remaining ships and personnel against the invaders to buy time for civilians to evacuate to neutral territory. Though a noble gesture, the defense was to no avail. In the engagement that came to be known as The Battle of the Line, Minbari forces swiftly destroyed almost all of the EarthForce defenders, with the desperate Human pilots reduced to desperate kamikaze tactics. But then, just on the cusp of a total Minbari victory, came the most unexpected twist in the war - the Minbari ceased fire and surrendered unconditionally to Earth. The entire galaxy reeled at news of this impossible reversal, and a great deal of wild speculation was voiced about what could have caused this drastic capitulation. However, the Minbari's governing Grey Council never revealed the official reason, even to their own people.

With the war over, the Earth Alliance pledged to build a diplomatic station to stop such misunderstandings in the future; the fifth and final station was known as Babylon 5.

Ironically, the Earth-Minbari war is a good example of the Shadows' theory; which claims through conflict came evolution. In the start of the war, Earth Alliance was the 4th biggest power at best. At the end of the war , they began an incredible effort to improve and develop advanced technology to avoid such a disaster again. At the end of the series, only 15 years after the Earth-Minbari war, Earth Alliance was second in power to the Minbari Federation after the fall of Centauri Prime, and even capable of standing against the gross of the Drakh fleet.

The Grey Council was present at the battle. They chose, for the first time, to take human prisoners to study. The study included scanning them with a triluminary, which revealed that Humans had reincarnated Minbari souls - and that one prisoner, Jeffrey Sinclair, carried the soul of Valen himself. The Minbari leaders realised they were harming their own souls through this war, a horrific concept to them, and had no choice but to stop the war.