History FanFic / TheDilgarWar

* 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.

* NinetyPercentOfYourBrain: While Jha'dur is talking to Dal'Shan [[spoiler: her lover]], she goes on about how having large brains and only using a portion of them is against evolution and comes to the (unsubstantiated) conclusion that some unknown species has been tampering with the local life.

* 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.

* FragileSpeedster: Dilgar ships are remarkably fast and well armed, but their armor is rather thin. Drazi and Vree employ small ships of similar conception, only faster (and, in the case of the Vree, more heavily armed than anything of similar size) and more thinly armored. A [[StoneWall powerful enough defense]] (like the Abbai homeworld protection grid) or [[GlassCannon offense]] (like the Drazi army or the Hyach ships) can temporarily fend off the Dilgar. Jha'dur strength as a military commander is coming up with ways to use Dilgar speed and discipline to their greatest advantage.

* 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.

** Supreme Warmaster Gar'shan is the Supreme Warmaster for a reason: defeating Jha'dur in battle it's actually ''easier'' than dealing with him.

** Humanities hat is this. If humans are going to do something, they might as well use as much money, firepower and numbers as they can to accomplish it. Dar'ro mentions how human build ludicrously high 10 thousand feet skyscrapers just because they can or how they use hundreds of supercomputers for code breaking or [[Foreshadowing how they would buy missiles for hundreds of thousands even million of credits apiece and then fire them by the hundreds to defeat a single target.]]

* FragileSpeedster: Dilgar ships are remarkably fast and well armed, but their armor is rather thin. Drazi and Vree employ small ships of similar conception, only faster (and, in the case of the Vree, more heavily armed than anything of similar size) and more thinly armored.

* BoringButPractical: Earthforce disarmed the old stockpiles of nukes (including ColdWar era ones) by firing them at the Dilgar. Safer for Earthforce personnel, faster than building new nuclear warheads to fit into modern missiles, and cost-effective to boot.

* TheAce: 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.

** 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 move slowly. And the Brakiri are mentioned as having finally worked out the design flaws.

** The Dilgar [[EliteMooks Spectre]] got some stealt suits from the Drakh, suits that make the wearer invisible to naked eye and pretty much all sensors. Then a Spectre trying to infiltrate Earthdome discovered the hard way that [[EvilDetectingDog dogs can locate invisible Spectres just fine]], and react harshly.

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] by Jha'dur: when [[TooDumbToLive Par'nan]] tried to get her to do this by telling her how her MoralityChain had died in battle and her mentor was comatose and invokin whatever guilt she may have felt for the devastating defeat at Markab, Jha'dur [[OffWithHisHead cut his head]].
* ManlyTears: Joe Tennant shed them when he found out the mainteinance crew have painted two Jolly Rogers on his ship.

* 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 manouver, 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]].

* 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 her 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.

** 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 SpannerInTheWorks.

** A literal example comes with Par'nan. Jha'dur had treathened 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.

* ForTheEvulz: Apparently Jha'dur told Delenn the story just to [[spoiler: get her curious on how the war ended and telling her she had no idea and to ask humans, just for the hell of it]]. Jha'dur was really bored as a Minbari prisoner...

* GodwinsLaw: Justified here in that Ambassador Sheridan quietly advises the League to play up the Diglar's parallels to the ThoseWackyNazis to the Earth Senate in order to persuade them to help. Considering that the Dilgar are engaged in outright genocidal wars of conquest and horrific exploitation of subjugated peoples such as Deathwalker's sadistic experiments, the parallel is perfectly apt.

* CrazyAwesome: Joe Tennant by virtue of what he pulled at Markab.
** Stro'kath had one such moment by virtue of what he pulled at Deskartalos: [[RammingAlwaysWorks fleet-wide ramming attack]] [[BigDamnHeroes as soon as he enters a battle the rest of the Drazi fleet was losing]], scaring the Dilgar Third Strike Fleet into running away. What's more, it was an hell of an [[IndyPloy improvised]] XanatosGambit [[RefugeInAudacity to hide the fact that Stro'kath's fleet entered the fleet after a long travel and didn't have enough fuel for a conventional battle]]: by launching that attack, either the Dilgar ran in fear and, due Stro'kath taking out their supply ships earlier that day, wouldn't have enough fuel to return to battle for a few months (by which time the Drazi would have had the chance to refuel), or they stood their ground and lost an elite force and one of their best commanders while the Drazi would ''still'' have had enough ships to attack Omelos in a few days (just enough time to refuel), with the way for it now defenceless.

* 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.

** Stro'kath is in the same position: the only Drazi general capable to defeat the Dilgar, the governement consistently ruins his plans, costing the Drazi thousands of lives and their one possibility to defeat the Dilgar alone.
* {{Irony}}: invoked at Balos by Jha'dur, when she notes her flagship ''Vendetta'' is about to be blasted apart by the EAS ''Nemesis''.

* 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). That's what happens when you organize a coup against the one person who ''owns'' your intelligence community.

* ProperlyParanoid: Battlemaster Dal'shan, scouring Earth space to attack supply lines with a [[SuperPrototype Sekhmet-class cruiser]] (capable to outgun everything Earthforce had that was fast enough to reach weapons range and to either outrun or mission-kill from range Earthforce dreadnoughts) and two destroyers, aborted an attack on a convoy of four super freighters and seven relatively smaller bulk freighters when the convoy escort of four corvettes ran away. His first officer thought he was being paranoid. They barely survived what Earthforce had in place. An identical raiding force was marginally slower into spotting the ambush and was annihilated.

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.

* TheAce: 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 letal pilot in virtue of his unmatched tally.

Tropes:

Ten years, Jha'Dur and Sha'Dur have become senior officers as we follow their and comrades' bloody conquests against the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. Driven by the threat of their species' pending extinction, the Dilgar, already known as ruthlessly militaristic and species-centric, become horrifically brutal in their campaigns with Jha'Dur becoming both the most skilled and most depraved of the commanders both on the battlefield and in her sadistic laboratories respectively. Not only does she and her brother inflict terrible genocidal havoc, but they have to deal with internal political rivals even as a foster sibling, Ari'shan, becomes the supreme Dilgar AcePilot, albeit with a [[HonorBeforeReason code of honor]] and a strong conscience for his species.

However, there is one rising hope from a newcomer into the galactic stage, Earth. Realizing the growing threat of the Dilgar, tentative steps are taken to understand the full situation and the story follows various Terran heroes as they are drawn into the conflict. These include Sgt. Alfredo Garibaldi and his trooper comrades, originally of the ''Persephone'', a battleship which during a scouting mission under the cover of a humanitarian gesture [[HeroicSacrifice fell in heroic defense of the innocent victims of Dilgar brutality]]. There is also the crew of the freighter, ''Space Race'' who find themselves in the thick of the resistance with their secret agent friend, Jenny Sakai. Together, this ragtag group of soldiers and civilians stranded on a Dilgar controlled world strike the first unofficial Earth blow on the ground against the enemy, including Deathwalker herself, and escape with invaluable intelligence in an adventure that would be the first of many for them all. The opening skirmishes are not just in the frontier as Jenny fights subtler threats like hunting a deadly Dilgar spy on Earth with the help of Francis O'Leary, teenage hacker turned intelligence communications analyst extraordinaire.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: 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 [[TheUriahGambit forced to fight an unwinnable battle]] and, due the circumstances of the destruction of his ship, he's either dead or [[AndIMustScream worse]]. You feel sorry for her, even if she's now a borderline OmnicidalManiac (by the time of her appearance in [[Series/BabylonFive Babylon 5]], she has fully became one).
* 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 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.

* TakeThat: 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.

* AllThereInTheManual: The basic plot and all the ships come from the ''BabylonFive'' GDR and the ''Babylon 5 Wars'' tabletop game, so anyone having read the background material about the Dilgar War will know part of the story [[spoiler: and Jha'dur's ultimate fate: she accepted Morden's offer and escaped the initial Vorlon assassination attempt, but her escape pod was the objective of a free-for-all for her capture until the Brakiri managed to take her away. The ship with Jha'dur never reappeared, and the ambassadors at Babylon 5 received warning that they ''really'' were not ready for immortality]].

* 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 BabylonFive]], but he gets OutGambitted by Jha'dur and his masters abandon him to his fate.

* ShootTheBullet: 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.

* WoobieDestroyerOfWorlds: 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 [[TheUriahGambit forced to fight an unwinnable battle]] and, due the circumstances of the destruction of his ship, he's either dead or [[AndIMustScream worse]]. You feel sorry for her, even if she's now a borderline OmnicidalManiac (by the time of her appearance in [[BabylonFive Babylon 5]], she has fully became one).

* 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.