Dilgar War
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The Dilgar War is a fictional war that forms part of the back story of the science fiction television series, Babylon 5.
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[edit] The War
When the Centauri Republic began its decline, the Dilgar began a massive expansion of their own empire. They had the monolithic will, the power, and the ideology to start an all-out war and win against everybody but the most powerful of the adversaries.
The xenophobic Dilgar were then suddenly faced with extinction when it was discovered their sun was about to go supernova which led to a bloody campaign to capture territory and assure the survival of their species between 2229 and 2232. Believing all species that were not Dilgar to be nothing more than potential slaves at best, the Dilgar quickly began attacking and destroying the outposts of many alien worlds.
By 2228 the Dilgar raider attacks and rumors that the Dilgar were preparing for a major war quickly brought the League of Non-Aligned Worlds together. In 2230, the Dilgar openly assaulted the League sector. Despite combining their forces, the League of Non-Aligned Worlds was fighting a losing battle as world after world succumbed to Dilgar conquest and experimentation. Dilgar tactics in this war were ruthless, including the destruction of entire worlds and the use of conquered races as subjects in their biological experiments. The League races were overwhelmed by the Dilgar assault and suffered heavy losses. The desperate league called upon the major powers for assistance and help.
Even the Narns backed down from confronting the Dilgar when their own defenses on the Narn colony of Halax VII proved ineffective. By the time Narn forces arrived at the fallen system it was learned that the Dilgar Warmaster Jha'Dur, had experimented and infected the entire colonial populace with biogenic weapons, killing almost all the Narn colonists.
After this attack, the Narn, not wishing to bring down the further wrath of the Dilgar, sent a peaceful delegation to their world. The first two ambassadors sent were used in scientific experiments. The third Narn representative was finally able to open relations with the Dilgar Empire.
At the Tyree system, a fleet of League ships with some Narn ships present attacked a Dilgar war fleet. Losses on the allied forces were heavy and with the fleet crippled, the Allied forces were about to give the order to retreat. A fleet of Earth Alliance warships jumped out of Hyperspace to join the fight, providing the allies with their first major victory in nearly a year.
When the war began, the Earth Alliance had only recently emerged as an interstellar power, having acquired Jump Gate technology from the Centauri. In 2231, Earth intervened on the side of the League, motivated at first by a desire to establish a reputation for the Earth Alliance as a major player in galactic affairs, and later by moral outrage as the horror of the Dilgar atrocities became clear.
The Dilgars sent an assault task force against the Earth alliance's Orion Colonies, with a strength of more than 180 ships, and the task to reduce Orion VIII and its population in ashes in order to knock humanity out of the war. What the Dilgars were unaware of was that their communications were intercepted and descrambled and when they emerged from the hyperspace, instead of a small garrison, they faced more than 600 ships and thousands of Starfuries. Against the overwhelming numbers and the raw power of the Fleets they had, the only choice of a quick retreat.
Earth's entry turned the tide of the war, succeeding in driving the Dilgar back from the league sector and their colony worlds and finally pushing them all the way back to their homeworld after the Battle of Salos in 2232. All Dilgar Warmasters were captured and tried for their crimes, except for one, Jha'dur, who disappeared during the fighting at Salos. The League's warships then entered orbit around the Dilgar homeworld and accepted their unconditional surrender.
As part of that surrender Earth forces blockaded the Dilgar jump-gate, confiscated all the Dilgar's quantium-40 supplies as reparations and imprisoned the Dilgar in their home solar system. After the war ended, the Dilgar sun went supernova, wiping out the entire species.
[edit] Deathwalker
Unknown to Earth and the League, a single Dilgar survived both the war and the supernova: Warmaster Jha'dur, the most infamous leader of the invasion. Jha'dur was a specialist in biochemical, biogenetic, and cyber-organic weaponry, and was responsible for many of the atrocities committed by the Dilgar during the war. Her activities earned her the nickname "Deathwalker". After the war, Jha'dur was sheltered by the Wind Swords, a militant clan of Minbari warriors, in exchange for her services as a weapons expert.
The Wind Swords concealed Jha'dur's existence from the other races until 2258, when she left Minbar and traveled to Babylon 5 with one of the fruits of her research: an experimental drug that retarded the aging process in humanoids, conferring immortality on whoever used it. A key ingredient in the drug could not be synthesized; it had to be extracted from living beings. The resulting genocidal wars would be her vengeance on Earth and the League for the extinction of her people.
As Jha'dur's ship prepared to embark for Earth, a Vorlon warship arrived and destroyed it, vaporizing Jha'dur and the only existing sample of the drug. With the death of Jha'dur, the last trace of the Dilgar was erased from the galaxy.
[edit] Earth-Minbari War
During her time with the Windswords, Jha'dhur played on the Windswords frustration for the relative lack of official power. Under her advice, the Windswords were the ones who advised against making contact and they were the ones who approached an Earth Alliance ship with their gunports open thus starting the Earth-Minbari War.
In many ways, the Earth-Minbari War was Jha'dhur's revenge on the Earth Alliance. Earth's swift and easy victory over the Dilgar caused many EarthForce officers to become overconfident, believing that other alien races would be no more formidable.
The carnage was greatly exacerbated by Jha'dur's efforts as a weapons expert during her time on Minbar. When the war began, the Wind Swords approached the Grey Council and offered them devastating weapons that Jha'dur had developed in the preceding two decades. These weapons were used against the humans, a fact that undoubtedly gave Jha'dur great satisfaction.
[edit] Sources
- Jha'dur's story is told in the episode "Deathwalker".
- The origin of the Earth-Minbari War is shown in the movie In the Beginning.
- The number of humans killed in the war is stated by journalist Cynthia Torqueman in the episode "And Now For a Word".
