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The Dilgar War (view source)

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A [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2594689/1/ grand long fanfic] (104 Chapters!) by [http://www.fanfiction.net/u/901958/Lord_of_Misrule Lord of Misrule] of ''[[Babylon Five5]]'''s most neglected part of its [[Backstory]]; the war against the Dilgar that established Earth Alliance as a major power in the galaxy.
 
The story, initially as told by Jha'Dur aka Deathwalker to the Minbari during the Earth-Minbari War, tells of her brother Sha'Dur discovering that their world's sun was going to nova in 15 years. Although their immediate superiors scoff, the Dilgar military takes the warning seriously and recruits the siblings for a solution. Deciding that going public would be equally devastating with the probable mass panic and asking for help by neighboring worlds with an evacuation would mean being ruthlessly exploited, the Dilgar military decides to find a new home and secure it by force by absolutely any means necessary.
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* [[BFG]]: Paul owns a Smith & Wesson Model 29, chambered for .44 Magnum. Upon getting hit by its bullets and discovering his body armor wasn't enough, a Dilgar [[Elite Mook|Spectre]] died cursing "humans and their unswerving desire to always have a bigger gun".
** The Nova-class dreadnought is armed with [[More Dakka|''thirty-six'' enormous laser cannons]]. Yet those aren't the most powerful weapons in Earthforce arsenal: the plasma mortars are shorter-ranged and too big for anything but a space station, but [[Up to Eleven|two of them have more firepower than the entire main battery of the Nova-class]]. Somehow, Earth engineers [[Serial Escalation|managed to fit two on the bow of the Nova]]: when they fire the ship can't fire anything else or even move, but they can destroy a battlestation in less than a minute.
* [[Big Bad Wannabe]]: We have two of them. The first is warmaster Len'char, a shrewd politician but nowhere as smart or a capable military commander as Jha'dur and Gar'shan, with his plans continuously backfiring. Then we have Salasine of the {{spoiler|Drakh}}, the man behind {{spoiler|Len'char}}, who qualifies by means of advanced technology he gave to the Dilgar, having manouvered {{spoiler|Len'char}}, and being [[The Dragon]] to {{spoiler|the Shadows}} and the leader of {{spoiler|the ones who would become the [[Big Bad|greatest enemy after the departure of the Shadows]] in [[Babylon Five5]]}}, but he gets [[Out-Gambitted]] by Jha'dur and his masters abandon him to his fate.
** Warmasters Par'nan and Dru'tal separately tried to take over. Their fates are detailed in the [[Too Dumb to Live]] and [[Out-Gambitted]] entries.
* [[Big Damn Heroes]]: The Dilgar surround the planet, Markab, its religious inhabitants pray with all their might for a miracle, and get one when 100+ jump points suddenly appear as Earth's space naval forces attack.
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* [[Evil-Detecting Dog]]: The Dilgar's secret Spectre troopers, armed with an advanced cloaking tech that makes them invisible, learn the hard way that Earth dogs can detect them easily.
* [[Fate Worse Than Death]]: To quote from the story: '"I promise I will not kill {{spoiler|Len'char}}." Jha'dur said solemnly. Then she broke into the most evil grin Ari could remember seeing. "No matter how much he begs for it."'
* [[Fling a Light Into Thethe Future]]: Towards the end of the war, after Jha'dur's final defeat at Balos, Gal'shan sends thousands of people away on sleeper ships, so that the Dilgar will be able to settle and make a comeback some day in the future.
* [[Foreshadowing]]: Mixed with [[Continuity Nod]] in G'kar declaration he hopes he'll be able to {{spoiler|squeeze the life out of the Centauri Emperor.}}
** In the last real time segment, set on Babylon 5 herself, Jha'dur openly talks of an incoming war the Minbari Warrior fears, and anticipates both the Minbari Civil War and Clark's aggressive external politics and military build up.
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** Some Earthforce ships have equally ominous names, most notable the dreadnought ''Nemesis'' (Joe Tennan's ship and the vessel that {{spoiler|gutted the ''Vendetta''}}) and the ''Thanatos''. Also the Ghost Riders squadron, assigned to the ''Nemesis'' during the Dilgar War and later part of Babylon 5 defense force.
* [[Neutral No Longer]]: Earth remained neutral for most of the story due the Senate's opposition to the war. Then, between the League's ambassadors invoking the [[Godwin's Law]] before the Senate and convincing it the Dilgar were an impending danger and the Dilgar's timing in invading Markab Earth entered the war and proceeded kicking Jha'dur's ass.
* [[Never Found the Body]]: Played straight four times. The first time is when Dar'ro drives a car in the sea at Manhattan and his body isn't found (the EIA agents immediately wonders where he'll reappear). The second time is Dar'ro again, who apparently falls to his death after jumping from the Ten Thousand Tower (a skyscraper [[Exactly What It Says Onon the Tin|ten thousands feet tall]]), and when he reappears Jenny plunges a knife in his heart barely a second after he was shot in the back, just to be safe. The third time is when Jha'dur's battlecruiser is destroyed by the ''Nemesis'' over Balos, with Jenny asking if they found the body ([[Captain Obvious|when Earthforce searched the relic they discovered that the body was missing and the ship had been finished by unknown weapons]]). Finally, in the fourth, we have the canonical death of Jha'dur as happened in the series, with her shuttle disintegrated by the Vorlon... And the knowledge that {{spoiler|the Shadows had offered to save her, and no idea if she accepted or not}}.
* [[No Kill Like Overkill]]: Nova-class dreadnoughts are armed with eighteen twin laser turrets, powerful enough that four or five are more than enough to kill anything the Dilgar have (at Markab, a full barrage from forty-nine of them was enough to kill a third of the Dilgar First Strike Fleet in seconds, and would have killed more if the hulks of the leading ships had not absorbed part of the salvo), and two plasma cannons [[Up to Eleven|that have more firepower than everything else on the ship]]. Also, see [[More Dakka]].
** The liberation of Tiree is a truly egregious example. The planet was garrisoned by eight regular Dilgar division, one Stormtrooper division (low quality thugs in uniform) and one Guard division (elite). As a starter, Earthforce launched an orbital barrage with plasma and 'tactical' nukes of two megatons each that destroyed air and artillery support and reduced the eight regular divisions to fifteen thousands shaken soldiers who took refuge in a city near a concentration camp filled with Markab civilians. Due the concentration camp, Earthforce couldn't nuke the surviving Dilgar, so they deployed ''ten'' divisions (two of which armored) and devastated the city with orbital, artillery (conventional and rocket) and aircraft bombardament, with similar effects to a nuke. Then they deployed thermobaric weapons, before having the ten divisions advance. Amazingly, the only Markab losses where among the unlucky ones used as human shields to protect the trench line hit by the artillery.
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** Three in a single scene: first it's warmaster Dru'tal as Jha'dur lists what support he had for his planned coup and how it had been destroyed, then happens to warmaster Sen'la when Jha'dur tells him she knows he was supporting Dru'tal, and in the end the whole council save for warmaster Yor'lothan (who opted to curse Jha'dur) when Jha'dur orders her men to execute them.
* [[Out-Gambitted]]: Warmaster Dru'tal tried to organize a coup against Jha'dur, only to have Jha'dur laugh in his face before she told him what had happened to his support: the {{spoiler|Drakh}} were now with her as guinea pigs, the Eight Infantry Division, garrisoning Omelos' capital city, had just lost its command staff in an 'accident' involving a stalled engine and a freight train, the Circle of Supreme Justices judges had been killed when a missile in a nearby munition factory 'misfired' and destroyed the whole High Court building, and the [[Overly Long Gag|governor of Tirrith had been killed by Starfuries while traveling to Omelos]] (Jha'dur blamed herself for this one because she had ordered it using four starfuries captured earlier in the war). That's what happens when you organize a coup against the one person who ''owns'' your intelligence community.
** Jha'dur standard modus operandi in battle is to outgambit her enemies, hitting it exactly where it hurts most and transforming their strenghts into weaknesses. Then at Markab admiral Hamato of Earthforce outgambitted her thanks to their ability to listen and decode her orders in real time. At Balos, finally, Jha'dur outgambitted him back, and would have forced an armistice if it hadn't been for a [[Spanner in Thethe Works]].
** Warleader Stro'kath of the Drazi was a professional outgambitter, first ruining the Dilgar counteroffensive against Operation Retributive Strike by hitting their supplies, and then launching a counteroffensive against warmaster Dar'sen (who was ready to defeat either a Drazi fleet or an Earthforce fleet) by attacking with a combined Drazi-Earthforce fleet (where Dilgar plans against a Drazi fleet meant exposing themselves to Earthforce superior firepower and endurance and the ones to deal with Earthforce meant opening wide open for the Drazi wolf pack tactics).
* [[Overshadowed Byby Awesome]]: Happens to Alfredo Garibaldi, who had become famous for beating to death a Dilgar Spectre (special force with uniforms that make them invisible) with a crowbar. He is universally considered a badass for that, and gets a promotion to sergeant... Then, on Gamma 7, captain Franklin demolished various fuel tanks, a trench line and the mission objective (a communication building that was to be captured or destroyed) ''with one anti-tank missile''. They immediately tell Garibaldi he's still badass but Franklin is more, and Garibaldi accepts it.
* [[Paranoia Fuel]]: An in-universe example is Jha'dur's ultimate fate. Did the Vorlons actually kill her? Did she join the Shadows and/or Drakh? Did she {{spoiler|recreate the Drafa Plague to exterminate the Markab in a way that made them unwilling to even consider searching for a cure}}?
* [[Playful Hacker]]: Francis is one, and proves it in his very first scene by casually penetrating the protected area of the site of Earthforce to impress a girl. Then the girl admitted being a member of the Earth Intelligence Agency, and had him choose between serving prison time or join the EIA and getting paid for being a [[Playful Hacker]].
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* [[Smug Snake]]: G'kar, of course. He's still learning the trade, but he's already quite good.
* [[Shoot the Bullet]]: as in Babylon5 proper, Earth warships are equipped with Interceptors, energy-based CISW capable to shoot down incoming fire from plasma, particle and missile weapons (lasers are trickier, as they need that the laser is firing directly at the Interceptor), and treat enemy fighters as ''target practice''. Their only glitch is that they overheat fast in pitched battles, so they're more a way for Earthforce ships to close in and make their superior firepower count.
* [[Spanner in Thethe Works]]: Francis O'Leary, a young hacker who got voluntereed by Earth Intelligence Agency as a codebreaker with the express purpose to make him one for {{spoiler|[[The Mole]] in the Codebreaking section. Francis outed that [[The Mole]] was the head of the Codebreaking section}}. Later he did again at Balos, when he realized that {{spoiler|killing Jha'dur meant that her fleet at Balos would lose any coordination and managed to send Hamato the message 'It's not an hydra', prompting him to launch a final desperate counteroffensive against Balos aiming exactly for Jha'dur's ship}}.
* [[The Strategist]]: Warleader Stro'kath of the Drazi. Usually the Drazi's standard tactic and strategy is to [[Zerg Rush]] in the wall of fire of the Dilgar ships, but the ones under his command (or the one of his students) fights more intelligently, forcing the Dilgar (who, after an initial blunder, sent against them their best commander after Jha'dur) to a standstill, and would have probably won if not for political meddling. Also, as a junior officer, he's the one Drazi who killed {{spoiler|Ari'dur}}, but he never found out until much later.
** Supreme Warmaster Gar'shan is the Supreme Warmaster for a reason: defeating Jha'dur in battle it's actually ''easier'' than dealing with him.
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* [[Synthetic Plague]]: Jha'dur job other than leading the war against the League was creating lots and lots of these, bringing entire planetary populations to extinction. There are even hints that she [[spoiler: created a plague mimicking the mythical Drafa Plague to exterminate the Markab in a way that would leave themselves unwilling to try and heal themselves and even think they were deserving to die [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge|because they had killed her brother]].
* [[Take a Third Option]]: When Salasine asks Jha'dur to choose between Order and Chaos, she chooses ''both'', and casually shoots down his attempts at getting her to choose one (preferably Chaos).
* [[Take That]]: While discussing the newest [[Godzilla]] movie in 23rd century it's pointed out that Earthforce could kill Godzilla with a single railgun round from orbit, making an indirect dig at the inability of the various alien invaders to kill the various [[Kaiju|kaiju]] without resorting to another kaiju.
* [[Taking You Withwith Me]]: Stro'kath tries to pull this on the Dilgar Third Strike Fleet and Home Fleet at Deskartalos, by entering the battle and launching a fleet-wide kamikaze attack. After a major [[Oh Crap]], Warmaster Dar'Sen manage to retreat just in time.
** The Dilgar plan at Balos was based on this and {{spoiler|''nine thousands'' ships specifically made for the job}}.
** Battlemaster Dal'shan after his ship was disabled by a ramming from Earth corvette ''EAS Shannon'' activated the self-destruct to prevent capture and blow up the ''Shannon'' (and Earth Intelligence best computer expert when he realized he had boarded his ship too).
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* [[Well-Intentioned Extremist]]: Jha'Dur and Sha'Dur in that they are doing all this purely so they can save their people. However, the fact that they feel ''everyone else'' has to die to achieve that is a problem.
* [[What a Piece of Junk!]]: The ''Space Race'' after its first major adventure when it was upgraded with new high performance propulsion system, weapons and armor to become the toughest freighter imaginable. Also the ''Delphi'', a seemingly beat up, but perfectly jump capable, military spacecraft that is the Space Race's armed support and means of escape during its secret missions.
* [[Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds]]: Jha'dur, sort of. Her lot in life had been quite bad, and she had grown hard and cold, and perfectly willing to bring devastation on an untold scale to save her people. She had the means to destroy worlds, but wasn't willing to do so. Then Earth enters the war killing one of her few real friends (almost a brother) and nearly killing her, and when she recovers from the coma she discovers that her father figure is comatose due an unknown poison and her brother had been [[The Uriah Gambit|forced to fight an unwinnable battle]] and, due the circumstances of the destruction of his ship, he's either dead or [[And I Must Scream|worse]]. You feel sorry for her, even if she's now a borderline [[Omnicidal Maniac]] (by the time of her appearance in [[Babylon Five|Babylon 5]], she has fully became one).
* [[Worthy Opponent]]: A few Dilgar feel this way about Earth and, in minor part, the Drazi. Warleader Stro'kath of the Drazi and warmaster Dar'sen feel this of each other, with Stro'kath openly expressing the wish to kill personally Dar'sen in an epic battle.
** The Cascan declared this in battle to Jha'dur by having their best fighters from their flagship striking at the ''Deathwalker''. Jha'dur replied in kind by setting Ari'shan and the best fighter squadron wipe out the fighters that had hit her ship.
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