A New Empire in Babylon 5

[General Mayhem]

All right, so I was watching Balance of Terror the other day, and being a big fan of the Romulans and of Babylon 5 I thought of this, what if we place the Romulan Empire from 2290 in the universe of Babylon 5. They have all of the ships we have seen from that era and they have the same attitudes about Humans and any other non Romulan races. How do things change in this universe and if the Romulans go to war with the Earth Alliance or any of the other major or minor races in B5 who wins. In this scenario Clake fails to come to power and the Shadows don't show up, but the Earth/ Minbari war did happen. In this scenario the have always been in the Babylon5 universe and our debate takes place in Babylon5 universe at about 2255 or so, and moves on to the last season of Babylon5. Do the Romulans get involved diplomacy the way they did in Star Trek at that time(2290s) do they get involved in the building of babylon5, do they take sides in any of the major or minor wars from the show? Do the Romulans go into isolation again, or do they have a major impact on events in the Babylon5 universe? What are their advantages and disadvantages ?

[Trinoya]

As far as I'm aware, even the parent races have nothing on par with the Romulans circa 2290... The Romulans from that point had shields, holographic technology, disruptors, and the ability to have their ships self repair, turn invisible, and perform unimaginable (within the B5 universe) barrel rolls to avoid enemy fire...

This of course completely ignores the fact that Romulans also have warp drive (or the equivalent there of), which pretty much would render it near to, if not entirely, impossible to wage combat on any terms other than their own. Lets also not forget that that fact allows their ships to be in one place and appear in another for these STL speed limited races.

With all these factors I'd say the Romulans get all the little races to fight amongst themselves and focus entirely on ending the Vorlon and Shadow threat to their ultimate dominance. Presumably the Romulans, like most, would have no clue about the first ones, although their effectiveness would be of little consequence since the Romulans aren't known for going around and destroying worlds due to vendettas from thousands of years ago...

[Mike DiCenso]

You forgot another thing, Trinoya. The Romulan's also have that insanely powerful plasma torpedo, which is a thousand times more powerful than the largest available nuke in the B5 verse. Also, unlike in the Trek verse where the plasma torpedo's use in starship combat is limited against ships that can jump to high warp and run until it reached the weapon's range limit, no such restriction exists in the B5 verse where combat is strictly sublight. The plasma torpedo would be absolutely devastating in large fleet combat, if the proper tactics are employed to allow one or more ships time to charge up and fire it off, and best of all, this weapon's power is well above even the upper limit threshold required for killing Shadow and Vorlon ships.
-Mike

[Trinoya]

*nods* that I did, in my original write up for my post I included a breif mention of the capability to destroy starbases at great distance, but clearly had a brain fart and totally forgot to include the actual weapon that did it, even in the final draft (since I try not to be too wordy in my posts... although I often fail ^_^;; )

[General Mayhem]

I think the best part for the Romulans, is that they can use the jump gate system to get to a region of space then warp in and out of enemy space on the attack. Their plasma torpedoes are powerful enough to blast just about any ship in Babylon 5 to dust, and their shields should protect them from all but the most powerful weapons used in Babylon 5. We should also remember in the 2290s the Romulans were diplomatically active as well, so if they wish they would have ambassadors to Earth, Centuri, the Narn, and any other races, so they may take the place of the Shadows in this scenario.

[Mike DiCenso]

I don't think the Romulans would do any such thing. They clearly would have little to no interest in the games played between the Vorlons and the Shadows. On the other hand, the Romulans being more powerful technologically than even the Minbari would no doubt attract the attention of those two, and that in and of itself would lead to some potentially interesting scenarios. The Young races would probably also have to consider some kind of mutal alliance since it will become clear that the Romulans are far too interested in conquest, rather than any kind of co-existance.

In this case, I would see the Romulans possibly being used, at least for a time, in the place of the Centauri in the original storyline. Of course that assumes that a Romulan or Reman Praetor would fall for the "Sell Your Soul for Power" scheme the Shadows employed on Londo and the Centauri.
-Mike

[General Mayhem]

Well in this scenario the Shadows never wake up from hibernation, so the Romulans would be the major power in Babylon5. I can see them encouraging the Narn and Centauri to fight and then they conquer the winner. There would be no single race in Babylon5 that could stand up to the Romulans, not even the Vorlons can fight at FTL speeds.

[Mike DiCenso]

Well, if that being the case, you should have mentioned that in your OP that the Shadow's had gone into hibernation. The scenario and questions above do not even mention that as a possibility. In fact, you are very radically changing the question posed. The Romulans simply are not going to take the place of the Shadows. The Romulans simply have too different an agenda and philosophy than the Shadows to make it work that way.
-Mike

[General Mayhem]

Well, if that being the case, you should have mentioned that in your OP that the Shadow's had gone into hibernation. The scenario and questions above do not even mention that as a possibility. In fact, you are very radically changing the question posed. The Romulans simply are not going to take the place of the Shadows. The Romulans simply have too different an agenda and philosophy than the Shadows to make it work that way.
-Mike

I did say that in the OP, I also said no Clake. I wondered how the Romulans would fair in that universe, without the Shadows.