Babylon 5 question

[Miss Chicken]

Now that i think of it you are probably right. It took Marcus and Stephen quite awhile to get to Mars.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Sorry for the bump, but I have a B5 question of my own. I may not have seen *every* episode, so if this has been answered please forgive me, but:

Has any enemy alien race ever tried to attack a jumpgate directly?

Seems that jumpgates would be tempting targets for attack, since interstellar travel in B5 seems to depend on them. So has anyone ever tried? Do jumpgates have in built defense systems that repel an attack?

 

[MetalPants]

The gates do not have defense systems, and Sheridan on a whitestar does destroy a gate.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ I see. Is that the only time that's ever happened?

I did some checking on wikipedia, which says that jumpgates are considered neutral territory and it is considered grossly uncivilized to even try to attack them. Has this been confirmed on the show?

 

[DonIago]

The Drakh-controlled Centauri ships were bombing jumpgates late in the final season. They came close to destroying B5's.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Guess these Drakh don't have much in the way of principles, then...

 

[Mal]

I would expect that the reason for no chickens, even for just a couple, is that resources on this space station are still necessarily conserved. There isn't a whole lot of leeway to be used for something liek that which would consume a number of resources on its own.

you're telling me there is enough room for a zarg, but not for a chicken?!?

 

[Reverend]

According to the 'Dining on Babylon 5', Fresh Air does actually have a Spoo pen...two in fact since and the Narn and Centauri refuse to share. However they don't require much care, chickens and other such livestock consume food, water and produce waste which isn't a lot of help when most of the plants are in hydroponic gardens. It's probably just not worth the expenditure to keep them just for a few eggs and maybe two or three meals worth of meat per animal.

However, I think there was mention somewhere that some of those large open reservoirs also serve as aquafarms in addition to basic water storage and centrifugal ballast.

^ I see. Is that the only time that's ever happened?

I did some checking on wikipedia, which says that jumpgates are considered neutral territory and it is considered grossly uncivilized to even try to attack them. Has this been confirmed on the show?

They're not exactly neutral as the newer ones built or maintained by still existing races are the property of that race, however as a rule and a safety feature they can be opened by anyone on the other side to exit hyperspace. The only restriction is in entering as it requires a special code that activates the jumpgate sequence; that code is tied to the ship's transponder and logged as a means of collecting tolls for passage though gates and especially trade corridors. Ancient gates - the ones left by whomever built them - or abandoned gates are considered fair game to whomever can get them to work.

Destroying a gate is akin to blowing up a bridge while simultaneously destroying a major highway. Hyperspace navigation depends on the network of tachyon beacons that link gates together and allow ships to find their way from one lace to another. Destroying one gate in the chain not only cuts off non-jump capable ship in that area but also breaks a link in the tachyon beacon network and too much of that jeopardises the entire network. For most races it'd be moronic because it'd hurt them just as much as their enemies. In the case of the Drakh, for one thing they're servants of chaos so they don't mind creating a little and crippling the other races' trade corridors as it wouldn't affect them.

Most of this is from background info, but there was some mention made in 'Movements of Fire and Shadow': -

"We've had reports, unconfirmed but reliable that the Centauri have begun targeting enemy jumpgates."
"But that's a violation of every rule of civilized warfare. Wars come and go, but the jumpgates have to go on. Otherwise the entire hyperspace beacon system falls apart. If that happens it'll hurt them as much as anyone else."​

 

[Hermiod]

^ I see. Is that the only time that's ever happened?

I did some checking on wikipedia, which says that jumpgates are considered neutral territory and it is considered grossly uncivilized to even try to attack them. Has this been confirmed on the show?

Yes, everyone reacted angrily to the (not-)Centauri attacking Jumpgates in season five.

 

[David cgc]

I don't think it was ever mentioned in an episode, but there was some backstory about the Earth Alliance either shutting down or encrypting their own gates during the War to frustrate the Minbari's attempts to find human colonies.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Minbari ships can easily open their own jump points, though, so I don't see how that would help.

 

[DonIago]

If they were locating human colonies via the relay system, and whatever humans did made the relay system difficult/impossible to use for tracking purposes without having those codes or what-not, that would make a difference.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I doubt the Minbari were using hyperspace beacons to locate human colonies. They probably just relied on their own intelligence network and/or their extremely powerful sensors.

Besides, as has already been pointed out, if Earth blew up the jumpgates outside its own colonies, that would be a bit of a pyrrhic victory, wouldn't it? Which probably wouldn't even last - the Minbari would find them anyway.

 

[DonIago]

Given the humans lost far more often than they won and were being beaten back to Earth to be annihilated, it doesn't seem entirely unreasonable that they might try to take down the navigation system in the meantime to try to isolate colonies, provided the navigation system was tipping off the Minbari as to where human settlements might be.

When you're desperate for your own survival, it's easy enough to consider actions that would seem insane under other circumstances.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Earth was desperate, yes, but not stupid. To destroy your own jumpgate would be to completely cut yourself off from the rest of the EA. That in itself would doom your colony to extinction.

 

[David cgc]

I doubt the Minbari were using hyperspace beacons to locate human colonies. They probably just relied on their own intelligence network and/or their extremely powerful sensors.

You need to be at First Ones-level to be able to navigate hyperspace without a beacon.

 

[Hermiod]

^Yeah, even a White Star needs a beacon lock.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

I doubt the Minbari were using hyperspace beacons to locate human colonies. They probably just relied on their own intelligence network and/or their extremely powerful sensors.

You need to be at First Ones-level to be able to navigate hyperspace without a beacon.

No, I meant in normal space. The Minbari could probably just scan for human technology. And/or let their spies do most of the work.

 

[David cgc]

And how would they get to the system without a hyperspace beacon?

Honestly, this does make sense. The B5 universe isn't that large, with the EA have a few dozen systems, at most. Considering that virtually every battle in the the war ended with a rout for the human forces, tactics like this are probably the only way the war lasted as long as two years.

 

[Hermiod]

^In the Beginning says they made it last two years by fighting to the last man for every inch of territory. The Minbari didn't seem to be the orbital bombardment type and left each system after its defenders were killed. This allowed Earth to use suicidal guerilla tactics to inflict significant casualties on the Minbari.