Numbers? What numbers? They were newly independent and had no time to properly fit out their military. I got the impression it was getting there, but wasn't close and that was a problem with their bellicosity and prodding of the Centauri, they were poking the bear when they couldn't properly fight even if they were strong enough to give the Centauri pause.Wargriffin wrote: ↑Tue Oct 15, 2019 2:51 pmcdrood wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 4:54 pmCrypticMirror wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 11:51 amAt the end of the series, yes, but at the start it was the Humans and Narn that were closer in parity. The Centauri were a declining power, but they were still far more advanced than humanity. Their ships had reactionless drives and artificial gravity. They were closer to the Minbari than they were humanity, albeit a definite second fiddle to the Minbari (the Minbari being a reclusive species, prior to their contact with humanity, means that the gap in power probably isn't obvious as it might otherwise be). In truth, the Centauri are the top tier power in the galaxy prior to humanity waking up the Minbari and the Vorlons to get involved again.FlynnTaggart wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 5:28 am If I remember correctly the Centauri and Earth were about par in strength, the Minbari on the other had were the strongest race aside from the old races.
The ranking, at the start of the series is:With the insularity of the Drazi being the deciding point in the latter, and a couple of big leaps in power ratings between the top three. By all rights, and if it hadn't been for the Minbari deciding to prop up humanity following their near genocide of us, humanity ought to be even lower down those rankings; especially by the end of the series.
- Vorlons
Minbari
Centauri
Narn
Humanity/Drazi
The show made it clear that the Centauri "decline" was primarily due to the policies of Emperor Turhan. He legitimately regretted his people's and his family's past actions. Once he died, without appointing his own successor, the shackles were off the expansionist elements who got Cartagia on the throne. Yes, they had Shadow help, but it was clear the Narn were outmatched in any case.
The only thing the Narn had advantage wise was Numbers which went away really quick... and Yeah outside of a Few specific attacks... The Centauri War machine pretty much rolled over the Narn without the Shadows help.
Delenn and Sinclair kept trying to warn G'kar that picking a fight with the Centauri would destroy the Narn. The problem is the Narn saw the Centauri not fighting back as a sign of weakness that was inherent... not the Centauri were placating to the Narn due to internal policies
once Turhan was gone... Ya know all those Narn attacks that We never got to pay them back for... Yeahh Kids gloves are off
They remind me of the position Russia was in in 1914. After spending a decade of reform and rebuilding after the R-J War they expected to take years more to finished it. WWI happened when they'd reached a decent level to make a good fight, but it wasn't finished yet, especially with the navy, and the war completely threw them into chaos from which they never recovered.
From what I gather it was just a steady decline of complacency. JMS even compared the Republic with with his take of the British Empire that was too sure of itself and too steady in its dominance that they slowly let things slip until they realized how hard it would be to get back.cdrood wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 4:54 pm The show made it clear that the Centauri "decline" was primarily due to the policies of Emperor Turhan. He legitimately regretted his people's and his family's past actions. Once he died, without appointing his own successor, the shackles were off the expansionist elements who got Cartagia on the throne. Yes, they had Shadow help, but it was clear the Narn were outmatched in any case.
In that context, Turhan could be looked upon as the avatar of "Managed Decline" to the Centauri rather than the singular cause which was already underway long before that mindset existed in Britain
The Drazi were always one of the major minor powers, they never reached the level of being a Great Power. If one of the Nonaligned Worlds matches that its the Narn and how it's tried to approach the minor powers, especially by rallying their fears of Centauri expansionism.Madner Kami wrote: ↑Mon Oct 14, 2019 11:24 amI tend to disagree. While Humanity, thanks to the War of Extermination done by the Minbari, suffered heavily, they are definitly leaps and bounds ahead of the Drazi. Remember, it was Earth Force that basically won the Dilgar War all on their own, while an entire League of Worlds was not capable of doing so. Now, Humanity might have lost most of it's military assets, but that puts humanity into a rather unique position: They don't have to deal with and maintain old crap, everything they get will be brand-spanking new and be designed by lessons learned from a war against the most powerful race in the galaxy, bar the Old Ones. Even the weakened Earth Force is way ahead of the Drazi, as even the most basic unit of Earth Force, the StarFury, is considered to be almost on par with it's Minbari counter-part, plus Earth Force doesn't entertain a ritual, that risks eliminating half it's population at random every five years.CrypticMirror wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 11:51 amThe ranking, at the start of the series is:FlynnTaggart wrote: ↑Sun Oct 13, 2019 5:28 am If I remember correctly the Centauri and Earth were about par in strength, the Minbari on the other had were the strongest race aside from the old races.With the insularity of the Drazi being the deciding point in the latter, and a couple of big leaps in power ratings between the top three. By all rights, and if it hadn't been for the Minbari deciding to prop up humanity following their near genocide of us, humanity ought to be even lower down those rankings; especially by the end of the series.
- Vorlons
Minbari
Centauri
Narn
Humanity/Drazi
The ranking was always
Vorlon by a wide margin.
Minbari
Centauri just behind the Minbari enough to make both think twice of pissing each other off despite the clear superiority of the Minbari military.
Earth a good ways behind the Centauri, but still solid before the war with the Minbari. After that, knocked down badly and rebuilding, but with no one close to them following up behind so they never really lost their place in the hierarchy.
Narn just able, and just recently, to qualify as a Great Power.
The problem EarthForce has with the war with the Minbari is the massive loss of institutional knowledge, but not something a show would ever get into.
Having your military decimated and rebuilding it materially is but half of the matter and the easiest one to accomplish. Losing all those lives and the knowledge and competency that went with them cannot help but cripple them until the next generations of personnel climb up the ladder and relearn those new lessons.
This was the immediate trouble Japan was in from the attrition of pilots they suffered in WWII. Building new planes was relatively easy, too easy, they would up with too many and not enough good pilots or fuel to properly use them.
Think of it like an infection in the body or a colony of bacteria somewhere like your kitchen counter. You hit them here and there they have enough numbers to reproduce and recover quickly, but you hit them at a certain threshold and the only way they're going to recover is through time until they regain that numerical resiliency.
This is the reason why the Chinese Navy is a worry for the future of the USN, but not yet. They are building carriers now, but they need to train the navy around them, from pilots knowing what to do to how carrier battle groups operate. That leaves them effectively useless until about the 2030s at the very least.
This is also why the RN holds so tightly to retaining fixed wing carrier aircraft even if they're utility is near useless at the moment: if that is abandoned the RN is in such financial trouble they'll never have the money again to ever rebuild the institutional knowledge that would be lost by sheer lack of use. Whatever they might get injected with a major war wouldn't be enough to matter until long after the war was over, even if they were able to instantaneously rebuild carriers and fill them with aircraft to fight in said war.
