Earth-Minbari War

Next War	Second Shadow War, Narn-Centauri War
Earth-Minbari War
Outcome	Surrender of Minbari at the Battle of the Line, destruction of major Earth Alliance colonies and most of Earthforce
Combatants
Earth Alliance
Minbari Federation
Leaders
President Elizabeth Levy General Robert Leftcourt General Fontaine
Grey Council Chosen One Dukhat† Satai Delenn Satai Hedronn Satai Morann Satai Coplann Shai Alyt Bramner
Casualties
Massive.
Heavy

The Earth-Minbari War began in 2245 when an Earthforce expeditionary fleet damaged and destroyed vessels in the Grey Council's fleet, killing Dukhat.

The Human fleet commander misinterpreted the Minbari warrior caste's tradition of approaching a ship with gun ports open as hostile action and fired on the Minbari vessels without provocation, from the Minbari's point of view.

The war lasted for two years and ended with the unexpected Minbari surrender at the Battle of the Line.

First shots

The war was provoked by an Earth Alliance task force led by Captain Michael Jankowski aboard the warship EAS Prometheus, engaged on a mission to investigate the Minbari. During the expedition, the Prometheus and her escorts encountered three Minbari cruisers, one of which was carrying the Grey Council, the highest echelon of Minbari society. The Grey Council was en route to investigate reports of sightings of their ancient enemy, the Shadows. Although Jankowski had been given strict orders to not do anything which might be perceived as hostile, Jankowski arrogantly disobeyed the orders and refused to jump to hyperspace when the Minbari spotted his fleet. He thought that by waiting to the last possible moment to jump he could gain valuable sensor information about the Minbari cruisers, and this would lead to a promotion and medals from a grateful Earthforce Command. When he finally did decide to flee, it was too late.

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 fact that the powerful sensors of the Minbari cruisers accidentally disabled the Prometheus' jump engines, thus preventing the ship from jumping to hyperspace and escaping. When told by his first officer that his vessel's jump engines had malfunctioned and that the weapons on the Minbari cruisers were "hot" (active), Jankowski panicked and opened fire on the Minbari ships. 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. However, the war of vengeance quickly turned into a holy crusade by the Minbari to exterminate humanity.

The Earth Alliance made frantic efforts to present official apologies to the Minbari through all possible diplomatic channels, and tried to obtain help (military or diplomatic) from neutral alien races such as the Centauri. However, no alien race wanted to incur the wrath of the awesome Minbari military, and so Earth was left to fight alone.

The War

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. Earth's 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 (Vega) and slowly entered weapon range of a waiting Minbari fleet. The Minbari fleet consisted of only twelve War-Cruisers, to the Earth Alliance's 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 these 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 its people of their impending doom.

While Earth ships had enough firepower to cripple or destroy Minbari vessels, the Minbari warcruisers were equipped with highly advanced stealth systems which 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 had considerably 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 few and far between, the Alliance losing an average of five ships for every Minbari ship destroyed. The only battles won by the Alliance were Pyrrhic victories, as the cost in ships and manpower always averaged a 3 to 1 loss in the Minbari's favor.

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 races like the Narns were willing to do business secretly, 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, then moving on to the next system, leaving the civilian targets intact. After they had driven to Earth and destroyed the last of the Earth Alliance's defenses, they would burn the planet, and proceed back out into the Alliance, destroying every human planet until no humans would be left alive. This was, for the Minbari, a war of genocide. However, the humans made the Minbari pay a steep price in blood for every step forward. In the Battle of Scimtar, a damaged Earth cruiser deliberately rammed a larger Minbari warcruiser, destroying both ships in the process. At the Flinn colony, ground-based human weapons forced the Minbari to land soldiers on the planet, and massive hand-to-hand combat raged across the planet's surface. In the end every human on the Flinn colony was killed, but the Minbari suffered heavy casualties in the fighting.

There were secret contacts through hyperspace transmissions, and a meeting was arranged 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 talks were related to internal factions unfavorable to the peace, and, for pure inertia, the hostilities went on, more ferociously 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 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 good-bye to their loved ones, and then throw themselves, without fear or hesitation, at 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 at the end. They did this for two years! They never ran out of courage. But in the end, they ran out of time."

– Emperor Londo Mollari

The Battle of the Line

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 their fleet finally reached the Human homeworld. To give Earth's civilian population time to flee to neutral territory, military and civilian leaders on Earth desperately organized a grand last stand, "to hold the line against the night". Nearly all of the Earth Alliance's remaining warships, fighters, and personnel were combined into a vast armada of more than 20,000 vessels (many of which are fighters). They were placed in near-Earth orbit and waited for the Minbari to strike.

Though a noble gesture, the defense was to no avail. In the engagement that came to be known as The Battle of the Line, an enormous fleet of Minbari warcruisers jumped from hyperspace and attacked the human armada with overwhelming firepower. They 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.

Aftermath

With the war over, the Earth Alliance pledged to build a diplomatic space station in neutral territory to promote galactic peace and prevent 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' philosophy; which claims that only through conflict comes evolution and growth. At the start of the war, the Earth Alliance was well behind both the Minbari and Centauri in military strength and technological prowess, and probably behind the Narns as well. Having survived the Minbari assault, the Earth Alliance began an incredible effort to improve and develop advanced technology and weapons to avoid such a disaster again. At the end of the series, only 15 years after the Earth-Minbari war and after the near-destruction of Centauri Prime by a combined Narn-Drazi fleet, the Earth Alliance was second in power to the Minbari Federation, and was developing warships capable of fighting even the Minbari to a draw. Additionally, the Earth Alliance had also developed and placed a powerful planetary defense grid around the Earth. The defense grid consisted of orbiting platforms equipped with anti-ship missiles, particle-beam cannons, and plasma energy cannons.

The real reason for the end of the conflict was that 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, the Minbari's most sacred religious artifact, 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, an horrific concept to them, and had no choice but to stop the war.