NecronLord wrote:
To be fair, at least the fivers that claim the First Ones were 'holding back' have things that give them a vague justification for it (I say this thinking of the current B5 RPG, which is probably non canonical, but still, and its actually rather cool Vorlon & Shadow sourcebook).
Only in the sense that it applied to the younger races, and only in certain ways. THey neglected, for example, that there was signficant evidence that the Planet Killers were the upper limit tier of B5 firepower (both Shadow and Vorlon PKs) for example.
Of course, they ignore that the Vorlons really wouldn't be personally on board those starships if they were the deathtraps and toys they like to claim they are. The Vorlons may indeed have billions of warships from long ago stashed, but those warships are still not individually that formidable, and they don't have the crew to operate all of them at short notice.
As I recall most of the "holding back" WRT to power of their starships applied mainly to the Shadows, who were using "weaker but more quickly built" organiwank warships as tools of forced evolution (IE the way they were in the Show.) THe Vorlons weren't doing that - if anything their older ships were less advanced than the newer ones (that I recall.) The only real way they "held back" was in the number of ships and territory they might have had (which is alot for some powers, but nothing near they claimed.)
These are the people that claimed they had effortless energy-to-matter conversion and thus needed no resourecs because they could create matter easily, could disintegrate ships at will (Even Culture ships). The rabid Fivers believed the FOs WERE culture level, if not higher (IE TRiad wanking.)
There may have been minor justifications, but the basic point is they blew it out of proportion and used it dishonestly. Much like the SFJ trekkies do (and they also claim they can take on the Culture, or 40K...)
The idea that the Federation has crack marines hidden somewhere is far more ludicrous. In fact, the only thing I can think of suggesting even a regular ground force is Colonel West in ST6...
Some of the more rabid Fivers insisted that the Shadows had armies of technomages that could resist multi-GT detonations and destroy enemy starships with "Spells of Destruction" hidden away to. Hell they tended to insist that the Shadows could field massed armies of technomages as mere grunts. (Won't even bother with the Machine People type wanking..)
. Normal human pilots etc were vulnerable to telepaths disrupting their ability to control the ships, hence the Shadows' plan.
