This abstract is an assessement of the force level of the Earth Alliance at the date of 12/31/2281. An assessement of the "first ones" technologies under Earthforce control is included. A summary of strategic balance at the date is included.

Actually, the most important technologies acquired from the First Ones under EFNI / E.A. control are the following:

Shadow technology

The data gathering about the shadows is something that goes on from the middle 2250. The most important sources of informations have been the Syria planum dig, the Ganymede dig, the recovery of relics of shadow vessels operated during the "Bright Eagle" (2259) and "Quick Shadow" (2261) missions, and the acquisition of the control of a former Psi-Corps/deviated E.A. research facility "Outpost 31" during the Telepath war of 2272.

The dig of Syria Planum	The Shadow vessel found and excavated on Ganymede

We are actually able to build an Armor working on the same principles of the real Shadow armor (see Nanotechnologycal armor). This system is effective, and has been employed for the first time on the Warlock destroyers. The Brightwarrior program spread the use of such a protection on a large part of the E.A. warships (see Brigtwarrior 1, Brightwarrior 2) - This defence system enables our units to be relatively immune to the bolts fired by the weapons of the thirdsapce fighters, and probably to survive a single hit from a thirdspace warship, even if with medium to heavy damages. The nanotechnologycal armor is the most important outcome of our contacts with the Shadows, and, even if less effective than the original Shadow bio-armor, represents a strategic quantum leap in the Earth Alliance military power. The politic questions originated by the use of this technology can be easily explanated by the fact that, actually, the Minbari, that negated to the Earth Alliance the access to the Vorlon technology, have lost a large part of their military edge against Earthforce: their Stealth system has been broken (and the Minbari know this fact, even if officially is negated), the armor of our actual warships can effectively oppose their weapons, and our weapon systems have a deadly effectiveness against a Sharlin warcruiser. The implications of these technological results are mainly two: the first is that the Minbari, in an eventual confrontation, even if stronger and still able to defeat the Earth Alliance, would have to pay an high price, and to sustain an attrition war that can last for many years; the second implication is psychologycal: for a millennium, the Minbari have been used to be the "big Gorillas" of the Orion sector, while actually they must face the presence of a much stronger Earth alliance and of a growing Centauri Republic. The whole "evilness" of the Shadow technology is, in fact, simple propaganda.

The capture of the Psi corps R&D Outpost 31 in sector 163 (18 May 2264, see chronology,Year 2264) gave to the Earthforce the control of five "Dark Rage" class warships , built with the assistance of shadow thralls.

Dark Rage class Shadowtech Destroyer

Actually, we have regained the capability to produce others of these ships, but, overall, the restarting of the production of the Shadowtech ships doesn't deserves the effort: the Warlord is a superior design from almost every point of view but the armor, it's simpler to build and at the price of a single Hybrid we can produce at least four Zenith assault ships or one and an half Warlords.

The capture of the Outpost 31 gave us the access and allowed the comprehension of two other basic Shadow technologies: the Antitachyon beam and the neural disruptor. The Neural disruptor is a system that enables, with technical means, to generate strong interferences against telepathic signals. Researches in this field have been conduced with some success by the E.F.N.I. since the early 2250's. The shadow neural disruptor is a technology whose existence was known by the Psi Corps, and obviously kept under the deepest secrecy by this organization. The EFNI was able to develop and manage some basic neural disruption techniques since the late 2250's.

Vorlon Technology

The Vorlon technology, from many points of view, is more effective than the Shadow technology, but it has an extreme difficulty in his management: all the Vorlon ships are living entities, and all their subsystems must be managed as a whole organic system, not as stand alone pieces of technology. The only real Vorlon tech that we have is the E.A.S. Titans, but seems extremely improbable that we will be able to manage these technologies in a timeframe useful for the next confrontation with the Thirdspace Aliens. The only race belonging to the ISA able to manage some Vorlon technology are the Minbari, and, luckily, they are actually sharing the outcomes of this technology with the Anla'Shok.

A Whitestar Assault Frigate

Must be remarked the fact that actually, for the Earth Alliance, neither the origin, nor the application of a military technology has a relevance: the next war will be fought and will be won or lost by all the races and peoples of the ISA together. It is our hope that Lady Delenn, in conjunction with Earth Alliance foreign affairs ministery, will be able to make the Minbari understand this essential fact, and to encourage them to apply their Vorlon technology to their warships, if the Minbari federation will remain unavailable to share it with the ISA members.

Anyway, the studies on the E.A.S. Titans, and the informations gathered by the EFNI from the Edgars corporation, builder of the Victory class Heavy Destroyers, allowed the EFNI R&D to develop an effective and fully operational Quantum direct discharge cannon, that is the main weapon of the Zenith class Assault Vectors - This weapon is 30% more powerful than the "Victory" Quantum discharge cannon, and thanks to the contribution of the Kirishiacs, that gave us the knowledge for building a real "First One" class gravitic quantum singularity reactor, the rate of fire of this weapon (24 discharges/minute) allows an effective (and devastating) tactical use.

Kirishiac Technology

The Kirishiacs, as remarked in the Damocles abstract-part 1 , are the only Ancient race that was and is available to a direct collaboration with the Earth in terms of information sharing and access to some technology. We have obtained priceless informations about our potential enemy, and more than all, a Kirishiac Lord manged the construction of the Warlord, a Warlock-inspired warship built with key Kirishiac technologies: the Warlord is combat capable, and a deadly weapon, the deadliest we have, but, more than all, was a way to learn how to build a compact, powerful and affordable Quantum Singularity Gravitic Reactor, that cranks out a power about ten or twelve times the power of a Victory Class destroyer, or of a Sharlin Cruiser. This is the key to build the Zenith class Assault Vectors, and fits easily into the engineering section of the Centurion Dreadnoughts, enabling these units to near triplicate the rate of fire of their Mk. XIII G.O.D. cannons. The gravitic technologies employed in the Warlord are not a watered down variant of the originals, or something obtained from relics or wreckages, but original technologies, explained and illustrated by a collaborative Ancient.

Another fundamental outcome was the comprehension of the basic principles of the "gravitic torpedo", and the priceless possibility to adapt and use this technology in our missiles warheads. A graviton warhead, while releasing the same amount of energy of the fusion bomb used to boost it, releases this energy in form of a powerful graviton wave, that has two main effects: first of all, it imposes a tidal force while crossing a target, and so, if the detonation is close enough, the tidal force is so powerful than it can literally tear in pieces a ship. More important, from all the points of view, is that the graviton pulse of this weapon collapses the propulsion system of the TSA ships and fighters, and disables their shields: this technology is still experimental, but the developments and the first trials are very promising, and an initial pre-production is yet active: our best hope is that the graviton warheads will be quickly adapted to the missiles of our ships and fighters: a large diffusion of this type of weapons, and the confirmation of their effectiveness, could be really the decisive factor in the possible impending confrontation against the TSA.

"Dark Rage" class Shadow destroyers (5 units)

E.A.S.Titans (Vorlon technology merged Warlock destroyer) (1 Unit)

E.A.S.Warlord (Kirishiac technology "Warlock like" destroyer) (1 Unit)

Zenith class Quantum assault vector (15 units, in production)

At the date (12/31/2281) the Earth Alliance can line:

22 special war units of various types (see above)

128 Centurion class Heavy Dreadnoughts (all at the Brightwarrior standard) - 48 of them are enlisted in the Dinassault 55 attack force

8 Poseidon class Carriers (all at the Brightwarrior standard)

4 Tillman delta Heavy Dreadnoughts (all at the Brightwarrior standard)

96 Gladium class Frontal Assault Vector (all at the Brightwarrior standard)

615 Warlock class Heavy Destroyers (all at the Beta standard)

291 Nova II class Dreadnoughts (all at the Beta standard)

310 Nike class Battle Cruisers (all at the Beta standard)

1288 Omega class destroyers (all at the Epsilon standard)

248 Nova Delta class dreadnoughts (all at the Brightwarrior standard)

122 Nova Gamma class dreadnoughts (all at the Brightwarrior standard)

1336 Lupo Beta class Frigates (all at the Brightwarrior standard)

for a total of 4448 first class line units.

can be added a total of 226,000 Starfury fighters of different types (Aurora,Badger,Thunderbolt,Firebolt)

Could be added:

221 Hyperion (Midwinter/Midwinter_N) class cruisers (42 of them mothballed)

385 Vigilante class Cutters

235 Olympus class Corvettes

But seems unuseful consider these last units, with the possible exception of the Vigilantes, worthwile of utilization against the thirdspace Aliens, except that under the most desperate circumstances.

Anyway, this force structure is actually able, after a ten years long shipbuilding and upgrading activity, to defeat a Thirdspace Aliens intrusion of about 1500-2000 TSA warships, and this presuming that the TSA have not improved their tactics. The losses could be between the 20% and the 40% of the actual forces. This means something between 160,000 and 350,000 human lives. The losses against such an invasion force could be contained arount the 3-6% if the whole force of the ISA, particularly Minbari, Anla'shok, Centauri, Narn, Vree and Hyach will be involved. Given the power level of the enemy, the Drazi, Brakiri and Pak'Ma'Ra fleets would be useful as planetary defence forces, but must not involved in large-scale front line fightings, because they have neither the firepower, nor the survivability to effectively attack TSA formations of consistent numbers. The support of the Whitestars assault ships, or of consistent Vorchan/Morado formations to the Earth Force units is essential. The combined operations of joint E.A./Vree task forces seems extremely effective, and the Vree corporations have granted their support to the Earth Alliance against a TSA intrusion.

The true problem of the EA fleet is that it has in all his designs the legacy of the Earth-Minbari war: so, each ship has been conceived to face the single-ship type structure of the Minbari fleet, with a combination of enhanced weapons and improved armors, and this tendence, well represented by the Omega and Warlock destroyers, has been enhanced by the later conflict against the Drakhs and by the few notices about the TSA. This style of design has both positive and negatives outcomes: actually, the Earthforce Navy can put out a firepower at least at the level of the whole centauri fleet, and at least as effective as the one of the whole Minbari fleet, while our warships are surely the better armored and defended of the whole ISA, and the weapons we use are able to inflict a so quick and devastating first blow that actually we are probably better equipped than the Minbari itselves to face a "first one" level enemy: the GOD heavy particle cannons and the pulsed spinal lasers makes a real difference, but the bulk of our ships are relatively slow, and in all our efforts we have been able to build a structure that has more capital ships than escort units to support them.
Beyond the technical aspects, our edge is in the excellent level of training of the crews and pilots, and in the excellence and experience of a class of officers that has experienced the fires of two or three wars.

NOTES

Interstellar Alliance

The I.S.A./Anla'Shok fleet is structured on 102 Victory class Destroyers, about 550 Whitestars I (survivors of the Shadow and of the Drakh war), about 380 Whitestar II, about 370 I.S.A. standard cruisers. It's a structure numerically consistent, and it can count upon an excellent training and an high motiviation of the crews and has the superior technology of the Whitestars.

Whitestar task force	The I.S.S.Starbright, Victory class Heavy Destroyer

Minbari Federation

The actual Minbari Fleet has a force of about 3300-3400 Sharlin/Shargoti Cruisers, about an half of them mothballed, and something like 300-350 Tinashi frigates. At the End of the E.M. war the Sharlin/Shargoti number was around 3700 units, but about 300 ships have been lost against the Shadows, 10-11 during the Minbari civil war or for attrition, and 82 against the Drakhs . The Minbari are beginning to reactivate their production facilities, but the full mass production capability shown during the Earth-Minbari war and before the shadow war will not be running at full speed for at least one or two years, and this essentially due to internal political troubles.

Centauri Republic

The Centauri Republic fleet can line up about 900 - 1000 Octurion class Heavy Destroyers, about 400 Maximus class Battle Cruisers, about 9500 Vorchan and 1200-1500 Morado attack cruisers, and eventually 250 Primus Battle Cruisers. Almost all the Vorchans and about the 65-70% of the Octurions have been upgraded in the Firebird program , with more effective weapons and nanotechnologycal armor; the program is still active, and the centauri Shipyards are building Morado cruisers and Maximus destroyers at an impressive rate.

Narn Regime

The Narns can line up about 1600-1700 G'Quan-I (improved) cruisers and 90-100 Bin'Tak Dreadnoughts - The improved G'Quan has a polycrystalline layered armor, an enhanced gravitic fusion reactor and more powerful beam weapons. The new G'Kar Dreadnought, built with some Minbari technologies gained thanks to the I.S.A. "Standard Cruiser" contract, is under production, and the first batch of 15 units is entering service. The industrial efforts of the Narns are impressive, even if not at the level of the Centauri Republic or Earth Alliance, but this is due to the still partial recovering from the damages of the Narn-Centauri war. The actual Narn forces, anyway, must not be undervalued, and the high and intermiediate ranks of the command structure is mostly formed of capable and experienced officers, veterans of at least one, and eventually two wars.

Vree Union

The Vree can line up to 600/650 Xill cruisers and about 250/300 Xorr cruisers. The training of the crews is good, and the technical level of the ships in terms of maneuverability, weapons and system is excellent.

CONCLUSIONS

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We must prepare to fight an enemy with a power and a technology close to the one of the Vorlons and of the Shadows, and a ferociousness that challenges any logic and comprehension. The survival, the victory, the contanement of the losses against such an enemy will depends upon three main factors: how many forces the Thirdspace Aliens will unleash against us, how much time is still left to prepare, and more than any other consideration, how much united will be the ISA to quickly fight them and hold a resistance line.
The last combined fleet exercises, and the growing consciousness of the problem among the various governements, allow us to hope.