History FanFic / TheDilgarWar

* BreakTheCutie: Well, G'Kar is not exactly a cutie, but entered the story as a naive idealist. Then he found himself having to help Ta'Kai [[spoiler: driving to suicide the greatest living hero of the Narns]], and he started to become more jaded and cynical. He thanked Ta'Kai for that right after [[spoiler: [[MagnificentBastard blackmailing her into stripping herself and the First Circle of all power and give it to the Third Circle G'Kar belonged to.]] ]]

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Captain Manly Power of the battlecruiser ''EAS Temeraire'', known to his crew as Captain Power (according to a character, he has the best name ever). Quite appropriately, his first appearance has his ship scaring away a Dilgar task force.

** Earlier captain [[AwesomeMcCoolname Manly Power]] of the ''EAS Temeraire'' entered the story by rescuing the League ambassadors and the ''Space Race'' via scaring away a Dilgar task force with just his presence.

* AssholeVictim: Len'char is especially callous even for the Dilgar. Having promised she wouldn't kill him, Jha'dur [[spoiler: tortured him nearly to death, healed him and made him immortal, [[UpToEleven tortured him even ''worse'']] and then, having verified he was fully immortal as long he wasn't hit in a vital spot, [[AndIMustScream sent him to the nearest approximation of Hell she knew to be eternally tortured]].]] The reader may still find themself cheering for what Jha'dur did to him.

** The Nova-class dreadnought is armed with ''[[MoreDakka 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 [[UpToEleven two of them have more firepower than the entire main battery of the Nova-class]]. Somehow, Earth engineers [[SerialEscalation 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.

** Also, the ''Corumai''. A failed SuperPrototype the Brakiri built in the attempt to bring the ''Nova''-class concept UpToEleven thanks to their superior technology, it massacred any Dilgar ship coming into weapons range as soon as they managed to patch her enough to move at half speed and fire slowly. And the Brakiri are mentioned as having finally worked out the design flaws.

** ''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 [[UpToEleven that have more firepower than everything else on the ship]]. Also, see MoreDakka.

** A literal example comes with Par'nan. Jha'dur had threatened to skin him alive for incompetence and speaking out of order at their first meeting. Yet, after she recovered from the coma Earthforce nukes had thrown her at Markab he went to her without knocking, announced her he was a warmaster due her brother's death during her coma and that the Supreme Warmaster was comatose, and then tried to drive her to suicide. Or, in simpler words, told her that her MoralityPet was dead and the one person that could order her to stop and would actually get listened was comatose. [[UpToEleven All of this backstabbing Len'char, who had got him the place in first place]]. He got off easy, as Jha'dur simply killed him on the spot before capturing Len'char (Gar'shan had ordered her to not kill him. [[FateWorseThanDeath Len'char would have preferred death]] [[AndIMustScream long before Jha'dur was halfway showing him her disappointment]]), subduing his supporters in the Warmaster Council and basically taking over the Dilgar Imperium.

* BigBadWannabe: 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 TheDragon to [[spoiler: the Shadows]] and the leader of [[spoiler: the ones who would become the [[BigBad greatest enemy after the departure of the Shadows]] in Series/BabylonFive]], but he gets OutGambitted by Jha'dur and his masters abandon him to his fate.

* {{Foreshadowing}}: Mixed with ContinuityNod in G'kar declaration he hopes he'll be able to [[spoiler: squeeze the life out of the Centauri Emperor.]]

* HeroicSacrifice: When the EAS ''Persephone'' chooses to stay and die fighting to defend innocent alien refugees from the Dilgar's murderous brutality, an act that does wonders for Earth's reputation as a heroic champion.

* SaltTheEarth: Jha'Dur does this to the planet Mitoc, the planned new homeworld for the Dilgar species, when she deliberately turns its orbital weapons on to depopulate it of both the natives and ''her own people'', including the 8 year old heir to the Imperial throne, rather have it fall to Earth's rapidly advancing forces and allies.

* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: while attempting to stop a political rival from giving the Dilgar Earth's coordinates, G'kar and said rival stumble on an alien ship that nearly destroy the Narn vessels by merely ''passin nearby'' and without even noticing. When [[NoodleIncident remembering this in the series]], G'kar will simply say that in space there are aliens that make the Narn and Humans look like ants.

* ZergRush: The favored tactic of the Earth/League alliance members, The Gaim, a ferocious insectoid species who ferociously overrun a Dilgar occupied planet. However, after an initially devastating beginning, the Dilgar eventually manage to keep them at bay with air strikes and heavy artillery.

* AcePilot: Bill Hague is assigned to the ace-only Ghost Riders squadron right after training, and quickly proves he belongs there. The squadron leader, David Sinclair, is introduced as Earthforce most lethal pilot in virtue of his unmatched tally.

* ActionSurvivor: The crew of the Space Race (mostly) smugglers who survive multiple Dilgar invasions and become one of the most experienced crews against the Dilgar

* AndIMustScream: Jha'dur may not be a lover of YouHaveFailedMe as most of the other warmasters, but when you earn one of her punishments they're pure horror. ([[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] by battlemaster Yeg'dra, who, after a major blunder of his costed the Dilgar the ability to crush the Drazi, simply prepared a truthful account of the battle and reported for punishment: Jha'dur [[LeaveBehindAPistol gave him paper, a pen, a pistol with a single bullet and five minutes to write goodbye for his family and kill himself]]). Then there's what she did to [[spoiler: Len'char]].

* AwakeningTheSleepingGiant: The destruction of the ''Persephone'' defending refugees from slaughter by the Dilgar proved enough to wake up Earth to a small degree. However, it was the Dilgar's moronic timing of invading the Markab territory, buffer state to Earth, just as the League survivors were giving an persuasively impassioned speech to the Earth Senate showing how despicable their enemy is, that finally got Earth into the war.

* {{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 [[EliteMook Spectre]] died cursing "humans and their unswerving desire to always have a bigger gun".

* BigDamnHeroes: 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.

* ContinuityNod: In the opening battle of Earth vs. the Dilgar, it was Captain Michael Jankowski who prematurely starts it when his superior was just about to talk a Dilgar commander into letting them leave the system. A furious Admiral wants to dropkick the trigger happy idiot from Earth Force, but the spectacular victory and Jankowski's political connections make this impossible. This is the same idiot who years later would start the [[HopelessWar hopeless]] Earth-Minbari War that almost got Humanity exterminated.

** The Ghost Rider squadron, Babylon 5 main starfury squadron, was embarked on the ''Nemesis'' during the Dilgar War.

* CoolShip: A few, but the ''EAS Nemesis'' takes the cake.

* DeusExNukina: Humans ''love'' their nuclear weapons, to the point that what they consider acceptable to hit a routed Dilgar fleet is openly considered insane by the Dilgar (who after Earthforce are the biggest users of nukes) for anything less than bombing a planet into oblivion. After that, they decide that the only way to attack Earth is a stealth ship armed with biological weapons, because a direct attack would be met with enough nukes to make the earlier display look like a fireworks show.

* DidntSeeThatComing: Jha'dur's attempt at poisoning Earth failed because the plague ship was ambushed by a [[spoiler: Minbari warship searching for them]].

* DividedWeFall: It's noted that if the League listened to the surviving Alacans or powerful members allied together for defense, the Dilgar would have been stopped. Instead, the Dilgar picked off each planet one by one and by the time the League realized the threat, no one in the League was powerful enough to stop them.

* {{Foil}}: Humans and Dilgar are what each race could have been. Humanity and Dilgar-kind both fought genocidal civil wars with despotic dictatorships. Humanity rejected genocide, nuclear destruction and tyranny, settling into a race of TechnicalPacifist while the Dilgar embraced it and became TheEmpire.

* HumansAreWarriors: They certainly impress Jha'Dur who sees one Earth ship, EAS ''Persephone'', fight to defend the innocent from the Dilgar and proving much tougher than any Dilgar expected. It is that story that convinces the League survivors that Earth is their last hope, and it does not disappoint.

* IgnoredExpert: Jha'Dur is both the Dilgar's best military commander and a brilliant scientist and even she can't convince most of the Dilgar's Joint Chiefs of Staff to act rationally concerning dangerous potential enemies like the Minbari and especially Humanity.

* {{Irony}}: Invoked at Balos by Jha'dur, when she notes her flagship ''Vendetta'' is about to be blasted apart by the EAS ''Nemesis''. The fact she had previously called Earth Alliance as the nemesis (meaning someone extremely similar to you but different in one detail that makes them your sworn enemies and the one thing you can't defeat) of the Dilgar made this even more ironic.

* KickTheSonOfABitch: When Jhadur finally snaps and starts killing her political opposers ([[AFateWorseThanDeath save Len'char]]), you have to admit they had it coming.
* KineticWeaponsAreJustBetter: Earth armed the Olympus-class corvettes and the Artemis-class frigates with railguns. Dilgar ships of similar size are openly described as being wrecked by a single armor-piercing railgun round due to thin armor.

* LeaveBehindAPistol: When battlemaster Yeg'dra screwed up and reported for punishment to Jha'dur without justifying himself, Jha'dur spared him whatever horrible punishment she was thinking about and gave him paper, pen, a pistol and two minutes to leave a message for his family and kill himself, allowing him to die with honour.

* MirroringFactions: Humans and Dilgar, according to any character who knows both races' history. From Jha'dur's musings, it appears that on Omelos a regime similar to Nazi Germany took over the world with nuclear weapons and evolved in the modern Dilgar Imperium after enslaving or killing every Dilgar who wasn't a Dilgar Prime. From that emerged two similar but different nations, and so on. The similarities are so great that Jha'dur is clearly unnerved by Earthforce and consider it the nemesis to Dilgar armed forces.

* MookHorrorShow: The ground part of the Second Battle of Comac is shown from the point of view of the outnumbered, outgunned and outmatched Dilgar soldiers.

* MoralityPet: Sha'Dur, Jha'Dur's beloved brother. However, this is in ''very'' relative terms considering that he himself is an efficient ruthlessly genocidal military leader himself, with an initial fanatical machismo his sister manages to make him grow out of. However, his death thanks to a superior's betrayal and the enemy's newfound might removes the final personal restraints from Jha'Dur and become even more desperately fanatical and vindictive moves to both save her people and more importantly lash out against the universe.

* MoreDakka: a standard Earthforce tactic in fleet battles is to deploy thousands of multi-megaton nukes (according to the story, at Markab they deployed a dozen of them for every Dilgar ship).

* NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast: Dilgar dreadnoughts tend to have names like ''Conqueror'', ''Overlord'' and ''Terror'', but Jha'dur's second and third flagships, ''Deathwalker'' (named after the Brakiri avatar of death and the way they called the warmaster) and ''Vendetta'', takes the cake.

* NoKillLikeOverkill: 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 [[UpToEleven that have more firepower than everything else on the ship]]. Also, see MoreDakka.

* OhCrap: Ari'shan's reaction when his squadron takes on Earth's starfuries for the first time and its nearly wiped out in a few seconds.

* OutGambitted: 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 [[OverlyLongGag 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). As Jha'dur [[LampshadeHanging pointed out]], that's what happens when you organize a coup against the one person who ''owns'' your intelligence community.

* RefugeInAudacity: Stro'kath's plan at the battle of Deskartalos was to scare Dar'sen away with a fleet-wide ramming attack with the only purpose to hide the fact the whole Drazi military had ammo and fuel for only half an hour of battle. It worked.
** Doubles as XanatosGambit: had Dar'sen not run, his fleet would have been annihilated, and the Drazi would ''still'' have had enough ships to attack Omelos (with the way now open) as soon as the supply ships arrived.

* SoldierVsWarrior:A running theme. A ProudWarriorRaceGuy race is all well and good for border skirmishes and posturing but as Jha'dur consistently shows, a well trained army can outmaneuver and out fight a army of individual warriors. Humans are a threat because humans have discipline and ruthlessness to rival the Dilgar.

* TheStrategist: Warleader Stro'kath of the Drazi. Usually the Drazi's standard tactic and strategy is to ZergRush 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.

* SuperPrototype: the Sekhmet-class cruisers, made with new alloys and advanced weapons, [[DeflectorShield Deflector Shields]], artificial gravity and gravitic drives taken from destroyed League vessels (and, in the case of the ''Vendetta'', the interceptors of the ''EAS Persephone'', increasing the point defense and getting the ability to [[ShootTheBullet shoot down incoming fire]]). Their production was stopped by Jha'dur at twenty ships because they were massively expensive, each being worth a couple dreadnoughts, and they STILL can't survive a salvo from a Nova-class dreadnought.

* SuperweaponSurprise: When the Dilgar assaulted the Abbai homeworld they discovers that the Abbai, a species of [[ActualPacifist Actual Pacifists]] who only fight in self defense and don't even know how to build nuclear weapons, had recently bought thousands of nukes as a last resort against a Dilgar invasion and decided that the Dilgar cannot be allowed to come into weapons range of their homeworld.

* TakingYouWithMe: 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 OhCrap, Warmaster Dar'Sen manage to retreat just in time.

* TooDumbToLive: The majority of Dilgar High Command for bonehead stupid moves such as issuing standing orders to fire on the Minbari (The same ones who would later [[CurbStompBattle curb stomp]] Earth in the Earth-Minbari War) upon contact and ignoring Jha'Dur's advice to not provoke Earth and thus they provide the perfect excuse for Humanity to join the fight full bore.

* WorthyOpponent: 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 personally kill Dar'sen in a battle epic enough to homage the Dilgar's valour.

* NotSoDifferent: Humans and Dilgar, according to any character who knows both races' history. From Jha'dur's musings, it appears that on Omelos a regime similar to Nazi Germany took over the world with nuclear weapons and evolved in the modern Dilgar Imperium after enslaving or killing every Dilgar who wasn't a Dilgar Prime. From that emerged two similar but different nations, and so on. The similarities are so great that Jha'dur is clearly unnerved by Earthforce and consider it the nemesis to Dilgar armed forces.
** Ari'shan points out it goes both ways - just as humans can become like Dilgar, so do Dilgar have the potential to become like humans.
** Jha'dur also points out that the Minbari warriors are not that different from the Dilgar, and possibly even worse: after all, the Dilgar rampage was motivated by their need to escape their sun going nova and their inability to even consider asking for help, while the Minbari are doing it to avenge one man. She also compares Delenn with herself, declaring that if the humans knew who had cast the decisive vote to start the Earth-Minbari War, her name would be reviled among them as Deathwalker's is among the League.

* NeverFoundTheBody: 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 wonder 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 [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin ten thousand feet tall]]), and when he reappears Jenny plunges a knife into 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 ([[CaptainObvious 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 Vorlons... And the knowledge that [[spoiler: the Shadows had offered to save her, and no idea if she accepted or not]]. The EIA considers Jha'dur still alive...

* NeverFoundTheBody: 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 wonder 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 [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin ten thousand feet tall]]), and when he reappears Jenny plunges a knife into 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 ([[CaptainObvious 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 Vorlons... And the knowledge that [[spoiler: the Shadows had offered to save her, and no idea if she accepted or not]]. Being GenreSavvy, the EIA considers Jha'dur still alive...

** Played interestingly with some Earthforce ships. Characters will gush on and on about ''Hyperion''-class cruisers, ''Tiger''-class Starfuries, and ''Nova''-class destroyers, but those who watch the show know that all of these ship designs will be obsolete by the time the series proper starts by ''Omega''-class destroyers, ''Nova''-class Starfuries, and more.

** Earthforce actual power can come up like this. Everybody knew about Earth technological level, but pretty much no one but the Centauri (Earth best trading partners at the time) and those aliens who had fought some skirmish with Earth (Narn, Ch'lonas and Koulani) knew how deadly Earth warships actually were. Even after the encounter with the ''Persephone'' the Dilgar underestimated Earthforce, not knowing the actual very high numbers of ships Earth had (nor the obscenely high numbers of nukes Earth had) nor (apart Jha'dur and a selected few) understanding the difference between idealistic [[ActualPacifist Actual Pacifists]] like the Abbai and the idealistic nuke-loving [[TechnicalPacifist Technical Pacifists]] of Earth.
** Earth does this again later: when it's discovered that the Dilgar are producing the missiles of the [[spoiler: Shadow Planet Killer]], Earthforce reveals they have a small number of multi-gigaton nuclear warheads for planetary bombardament and fires them all against the facility producing the superweapon. It's not a new weapon, as the Dilgar have used similar weapons many times, but the fact Earthforce kept a few just in case is a surprise for pretty much everyone.

* SuperweaponSurprise: When the Dilgar assaulted the Abbai homeworld they discovers that the Abbai, a species of [[ActualPacifist Actual Pacifists]] who only fight in self defense and doesn't even know how to build nuclear weapons, had recently bought thousands of nukes as a last resort against a Dilgar invasion and decided that the Dilgar cannot be allowed to come into weapons range of their homeworld.

* ShootTheBullet: As in Babylon 5 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.

* [[AmericaSavesTheDay Earth Saves The Day]]: Earth is the obvious analogy for America in this version of WorldWarII and its entry into the war is an equal moment of celebration.

* RecycledINSPACE: This story is essentially WorldWarII in space.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Captain Manly Power of the battlecruiser ''EAS Temeraire'', known to his crew as Captain Power (according to a character, he has the best name ever). Quite appropriately, his first appearance has his ship scaring away a Dilgar task force. His name may not even be a coincidence, as there was a real Royal Navy Captain of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manley_Laurence_Power same name]].

Has a ForWantOfANail-style AU sequel in ''Fanfic/AFightingChance''.

This work contains examples of the following tropes:

* MeaningfulName: see FauxSymbolism.
* MightyGlacier: Earthforce ships are notable for being ugly, slow, capable to take a lot of punishment and hit HARD, as shown by the ''Persephone'' destroying approximately five times worth her own mass of Dilgar ships (made out of three cruisers, two destroyers and four frigates) and could still fight. And the ''Persephone'' was a mere heavy cruiser, that is both faster, less armed and softer than the Nova-class dreadnoughts, one of which, the ''Nemesis'' in a battle was hit by a kiloton-level nuke, innumerable plasma and laser shots by Dilgar weapons, a Starfury shooting at the fuel lines (the nuke had destroyed the ship's ability to maneuver, that was the only way to make her change course) and HER OWN WEAPONS (they had to kill a Dilgar gunship, and the hull was in the way), and all she needed was a couple months in spacedock before returning fighting capable and scoring the first killing of a Dilgar [[SuperPrototype Sekhmet-class cruiser]].

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Well, armor piercing answer. Throughout the story, Jha'dur gives constant justifications for her increasingly sadistic and genocidal actions. Ari'shan pretty much called her excuses out as nothing more than excuses. Jha'dur is so stunned by his words, she actually stops for a few seconds.

* RightManInTheWrongPlace: Practically a RunningGag with the Space Race (and Paul Calendar specifically) encountering Dilgar invasions and ships while on smuggling trips. Only partially justified the crew actively supporting the war effort and at least two of them looking for Dilgar ships.

** Done again on Alacan. When the humans are about to retake Alacan, the Dilgar set off nukes planted on the planet. The ensuing nuclear holocaust wipes out the remaining surviving Alacan natives as well as the Dilgar on the surface.

* AwesomeMcCoolname: Captain Manly Power of the battlecruiser ''EAS Temeraire'', known to his crew as Captain Power (according to a character, he has the best name ever). Quite appropriately, his first appearance has his ship scaring away a Dilgar task force.
* BadBoss: Most Dilgar high officers have a tendence to execute subordinates who have been defeated or who tell them they're wrong. Jha'dur and a few others are more lenient, sparing subordinates who loses due bad luck and circumstances and encouraging them to voice their opinions, but they're rare. This results in most Dilgar officers being unable to think on their feet and bites them back in the ass at Balos, as [[spoiler: after Jha'dur is apparently killed in battle there's noone capable to direct the battle half-decently and the Alliance can pick them off piecemeal]].

** Specifically, humans fall under the Humans Are Soldiers version of the trope. There are plenty of ProudWarriorRaceGuy and religious fanatic races (like the Drazi or Markab) and [[SoliderVsWarrior they are all defeated]]. Humans have the discipline and ruthlessness to match the Dilgar.

** Specifically, humans fall under the Humans Are Soldiers version of the trope. There are plenty of ProudWarriorRaceGuy and religious fanatic races (like the Drazi or Markab) and they are all defeated. Only humans have the discipline and ruthlessness to match the Dilgar.