B5: And Now For a Word

[Mickey_Rat15]

Mass drivers can launch payloads. Those payloads are high velocity mass and so is dangerous, dangerous things can be weapons.

Everything can be a weapon, if sufficient force (in physics terminology) is applied.

See Larry Niven's story on first contact between functionally pacifist humans on a ship that is technically unarmed and a Kzinti warship. Of course, there is also a cargo mass driver being used to "drop rocks" on Earth in support of the Lunar Revolution in Heinlein's "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".

[FaxModem1]

As for Centauri ships I think that assessment is either inaccurate or misleading as later this season we see a Centauri warship split its firepower between B5 and a Narn ship and still get through B5's upgraded defensive screen which we had never seen happen before (so if they are old designs then they still have better firepower than Earth ships).

The Centauri (yeah, that's how it's spelled) line their ships with a lot of fast firing light weapons on wide ard turrets with a small number of heavy weapons. For all the firepower it put out, the Centauri ship didn't impede the Narn ship at all and only did superficial damage to Babylon 5. And when Babylon 5 returned fire, it inflicted fatal damage without even trying.

Compare that to the battle in Severed Dream the next season. Two Omega Destroyers and the station versus two Omega Destroyers and two Hyperion Cruisers, and they really won because a badly damaged Churchill rammed the relatively intact Agrippa and even then Babylon 5 and the Alexander were hanging on by a thread with no hope against another two Omegas and a single Hyperion.

Again, it would not a clean victory by any stretch, but I think Earth would have the edge. And the Centauri certainly believed so and that the gap was only going to widen. As Londo put it, Earth were the new sharks in town.

Note that the Centauri were also winning their war against the ISA in season 5, and only really lost when the Regent purposely sent the defensive fleet out on a fake mission while also turning off the planet defenses because the Drakh wanted a broken people.

Though, the entire reason for that was because they were having the offensive line of their fleet fighting being done by automated ships made for the Drakh using Shadow tech while the Defensive line made sure that no other nation came into their space.

In season 3, after the fall of Narn, the Centauri waged multiple wars on the League at once. Londo considered it idiotic as it left them open to attack from the other major powers, but they were doing so with almost complete impunity. The Centauri were a capable power during that era, and no one wanted to fight them if they could avoid it.

[McAvoy]

Centauri were always considered the declining power in the series. Doesn't mean though they are no slouch.

I kinda figured the Centauri were second only to the Minbari even in their prime. But they recognized Earth was fast becoming a powerful force in space and knew soon Earth would surpass them.

Then again the whole concept that Minbari stealth tech (unable to lock on) was barely used on later in the series. Either you take it as it being forgotten. Or Earth developed the ability to target Minbari ships. Which turns the tide of power in the series.

[Wolf359]

Was the light up dildo kid one of the ones in the turbolift with Picard in “Disaster”? He looked familiar anyway.

And the way Chuck said “willy” made me giggle. Guess that just shows my level of humour...