Divided they Fall
An History of Diplomacy in the Galactic cluster from the Dilgar War to the Goa'uld Interregnum, by Master Krel'nor of Chulak
When the Minbari War started, in July 2245, the Earth Alliance was immediately seen as a dead man walking by everyone, especially the Centauri and the older League races that had seen the Minbari waging war, be it in the Valen War, the Garmak War (in the 17th c.) or the Streib War (in the 21st c.).
So, basically, everyone turned their noses away. Everyone also reacted according to their own agendas. Let's begin with the League of Non-Aligned Worlds.
A ) An overview of the LonAW :
First of all, let's remind ourselves that the League was not a federation or even a confederation, merely an alliance of sovereign states. This alliance was focused on economy, trade and cultural exchanges. The best known example is the mutai, the Yolu martial art, that spread througout the League and beyond. The League was also a diplomatic forum, and in this aspect was rather successful. Sure, there were a lot of skirmishes, but never a full-scale war between members.
The League powers helped each other when they could without much risk. For example, they immediately all took in refugees from each other during the Dilgar War (except the Hurr and Grome), even though they also all remained neutral until attacked themselves, and then, they didn't coordinate in the war until the Earthers came and put themselves in overall command. Of course, the Brakiri took advantage of the refugees, as their culture commends them to do.
The League never became a military alliance for numerous reasons. The first was that the Drazi were members, and since they were always looking for a fight, nobody wanted to be dragged in when they started a full-scale war.
The second reason was that the Brakiri, Balosians, Hurr, Grome, Llort and Abbai feared the Centauri more (all had been colonized by them except the Abbai, who barely escaped an invasion in 2003), while the Gaim and Descari had a territorial conflict with the (aggressive) Narn, and the Drazi and Corillani had problems with both. Finally, the Ipsha, Yolu, Vree, Kor-Lyans and Torata weren't threatened directly by either and didn't want to be draggen in wars against either of them. Basically, diverging priorities.
The third reason was the myriad of conflicts between members. On Tiras, between Narn, Drazi, Gaim and Descari settlers (this conflict was intertwined with the low-level conflicts between Narn and Drazi, and between Narn, Descari and Gaim).
On Latig, between Hurr and Drazi. The Hurr moved in to take Latig during the Dilgar War, hoping the Drazi were distracted enough. The Drazi and Hurr navies were ready to fight, and ironically had to cooperate when the Dilgar swooped in. They were still destroyed. Hurr and Drazi historians are still arguing today who was responsible of the defeat.
The Gaim and Descari hated each other since the day of their first contact, which led to a war over a misunderstanding, and almost led to the Gaim exterminating the Descari.
The Kor-Lyans and Torata hated each other, and both hated the Yolu who acted pusillanimous during the Dilgar War, preferring to evacuate colonies and deny a fight, rather than actually fighting, despite their superior technology. The Torata and Kor-Lyans had hoped that the Yolu would act as a shield for them, and resented them for their "abandonment". So, the Torata and Kor-Lyans constantly raided each other, and raided the Yolu (ironically, they even cooperated sometimes against the hated Yolu).
For similar reasons, the Drazi resolved to make the Brakiri (who had, selfishly, refused to help against the Dilgar at first) pay for their perceived cowardice.
The Ipsha baronies and the Kor-Lyan kingdoms were almost always at war with each other, and their wars tended often to involve their neighbors. It also made diplomacy and trade with those two races very confusing.
The pirates, corsairs and other raiders were a crippling problem for the League economy. There were the outsiders, mostly humans, Narn and Centauri.
For the Tau'ri, it was simply a matter of widespread poverty in the colonies (and even on Earth). The Earth Alliance always clamped down hard on pirates, but it was not enough.
For the Centauri and the Narn, it was more a cultural and political matter. The Centauri pirates were mostly youngest sons of noble families who wanted to make a name for themselves, and who recuited commoners (looking to be rich) or even escaped slaves in their crews. There were also Centauri women who sought to escape their rigid patriarchal society, and usually made their own crews or worked in non-Centauri crews.
The Narn piracy tradition comes back to the days when Narn was still under Centauri occupation. The first Narn pirates were Narn slave-soldiers in the Centauri house navies, or in Centauri pirate crews, who mutinied and slowly formed a pirate fleet. This fleet was instrumental in the Narn Liberation War.
The Centauri and Narn government, until the Treaty of Ardun, tolerated (or even encouraged) the pirates as long as they targeted each other's legitimate trade, or other rival governments' (such as the Drazi) trade. There was even a low-level conflict between Narn corsairs and Vree trading guilds, because of the Vree-Centauri trade.
The Centauri noble houses even used pirates to target each other trade, but only in foreign territory, where the Royal Navy wouldn't catch them. Both preferred the pirates away than creating problems on their own planets.
There was also a lot of intra-League piracy. Drazi pirates were (and are still) common, because of their culture, that values fighting and glory-seeking. Before the Minbari War, the Drazi government tolerated this piracy against everyone but the Abbai (who rose with them against the Dilgar at the first hour), the Balosians (for the same reason) and the Earth Alliance (who saved them in 2231).
Moreover, the Drazi government encouraged piracy against its enemies. Namely, the Narn, the Centauri, the Brakiri (who had refused to help the Drazi-Abbai alliance in 2230 against the Dilgar, until attacked themselves), the Hurr and the Merla.
Finally, there are the Ipsha and Kor-Lyans, whose feudal culture pushed them to piracy for similar reasons as the Centauri (for example, cripple a rival kingdom or barony, or a young prince wanting glory). There are the Torata, who practiced it more like a weapon to keep their neighbors weak, the Brakiri and the Llort.
The Brakiri piracy was caused by the deep social inequalities in the Syndicacy, the value put on personal enrichment, and oddly enough, by the human movies. Since 2021, the Brakiri started to receive Earth movies, for the few (under Centauri occupation) that had televisions. They often misunderstood the shows and movies, but still, seeing Tau'ri characters living joyful and rich, or adventurous lives, gave them hope. The Centauri tolerated it, thinking it made the Brakiri work better.
When, in 2179, the Centauri pulled out of Brakos, Tau'ri popular culture was legendary on the whole planet. There were Brakiri who fashioned themselves as gangsters from 1920s New York, CIA agents, Irish Republican terrorists, Illuminati, vampires, vampire hunters, vampire slayers, witches, Marvel and DC super heroes, goths and other human-based tropes, and there were the Brakiri pirates, who imitated the movies. In the first decades, the Brakiri (wannabe) pirates tended to be recruited by human captains, because they obeyed them perfectly. After all, they hero-worshipped human pirates. Of course, it became less and less true as generations of Brakiri pirates gained their own experience.
The Llort piracy is purely a cultural matter, because it's piracy only from the point of view of others. For them, it's all right to take something when you give back something else, even if the other hadn't consented to the exchange. At least, the Llort never were violent (unless fired upon first).
Ironically, piracy was the area where League species cooperated the most.
Many pirates weren't prejudiced, and would work with anyone with the needed skills. Of course, Drazi were hard to work with because of their temper, and Narn and Centauri almost never worked together, but for example, Brakiri and humans worked with everyone without problems. There were often Dilgar in mixed crews, before the famous war of course.
Piracy was not the only problem. There was also the unsavory treatment of pre-Space Age planets (like Enphili, Fendamir and Mipas) that the Drazi "protected" (whether they wanted or not). To justify this protection, they used corsairs to raid them (the Drazi government hid this part to its own people, who genuinely believed they were protectors), and exaggerated or made up stories about Centauri, Narn and human boogeymen. The Drazi also practiced outright colonialism on Shambash, but at least, treated the natives with relative respect.
We now know that the Hyach, the Drazi and the Earth Alliance knew everything about this, but turned a blind eye. The Hyach didn't want the Drazi to spill their own secrets (regarding the Hyach-Do genocide), and the Abbai didn't want to soil their (unlikely) war-based comradeship with the Drazi. The EA, as said before, needed the Drazi because, militarily, they checked the Narn.
Many Drazi also created problems as individuals, since they tended to start brawls (or even firefights, including in space) at every perceived insult.
The Yolu were natural isolationists, and had to be dragged in by the Abbai, but were always reluctant to open up. The Hyach and the Vree were more helpful, but the Hyach reluctance to change and the Vree constant pranks caused problems too. Finally, nobody wanted anything to do with the Pak'ma'ra, who were seen as too alien and overlooked, as slow, lazy and stupid, among other (wrong) stereotypes.
All those reasons explain why the League wasn't working for defence, and failed spectacularly in the Dilgar War. Nobody moved to help the Alacans and Balosians in 2228, their neighbors pretended to believe the Dilgar lies.
Then, when the Abbai and Drazi were attacked too, the other members (chiefly the Brakiri) refused to help, arguing that the two "could defend themselves" (the Brakiri were also jealous of the Abbai technology) and that the Dilgar wouldn't attack the others, which was soon proven wrong.
As we can guess, the League reply to the Minbari War was, at first, even worse.
B ) The Earth Alliance and the League :
Reactions were mixed in the League in July 2245. Most members were sad for what was coming to the Tau'ri humans. They believed the humans would end up as a Minbari protectorate (like the Klathu and Norsai), or blasted back to stone age (like the Garmak). But they also feared (rightly) the Minbari wrath.
a ) The military capabilities of the League
The few races that had a technology sufficient to make the Minbari think twice before attacking, namely the Hyach, Yolu, Vree and Abbai, lacked the military mindset, the tactical and strategical sense, the industry and the numbers (both because of the Dilgar bombings, and of the Hyach genetic problem).
The Drazi didn't lack numbers, industry or military mindset (that's an understatement), but tended to charge without thinking of the risks or the losses. They also didn't really respect anyone but the Abbai and the Tau'ri, seeing the others as too soft or cowards. It's no coincidence that we, Jaffa, became fast friends with the Drazi.
Finally, the other members lacked everything, be it technology, numbers, industry or military mindset, at least when it came to a war with the Minbari. Moreover, all feared that their neigbors (other League members and more importantly, Centauri and Narn) would take advantage of a war against the Minbari.
Not only the League powers were cowed, but some actually didn't care (chiefly the Torata, who saw the war as opportunity to expand in EA territory, and the Hurr). At the beginning, an opinion rather spread in the League was that the Tau'ri had brought this on themselves, with their arrogance. After all, the alien governments had warned repeatedly the humans to not approach the Minbari border or seek a first contact, and the Earthers hadn't listened.
League governments and opinions were also annoyed at the Alliance "first of class" behavior in the last decades. At least, the Minbari would take them down a few pegs.
b ) The Earther imperialism and the League, Centauri and Narn annoyance
The Tau'ri tended to see themselves as a vibrant, expanding culture, and saw the League cultures in a patronizing way, full of exotism, even those that were centuries (or millenia, in the Yolu case) older than them. They also thought that they had won the Dilgar War single-handedly, which annoyed a lot the League powers.
Earth Alliance had supported the League during the war (even when it was still neutral) through lend-lease, of weapons, ship, and even food and water. After the war, the Alliance had launched the Lula Plan, that mirrored the Marshall Plan of the United States of America in 1946.
Of course, the price of the Lula Plan was steep, with the Treaty of Tirrith in 2232. The League members had to open to free trade with the Alliance, to repay the debt and to accept Alliance anti-piracy patrols (some were happy with that, some were not). The League currencies were now tied to the Earth currency.
Through the Lula Plan, the EA had reserved most of the rebuilding contracts to her own businesses. As a political gesture, President Hauser let the "trade faction" Centauri houses (Tavari, Mollari and Jaddo among others), who were long time partners, take up contracts too, but the best part of the cake went to Earth.
The other Centauri houses (especially the expansionist faction, that had always wanted to conquer the League and Alliance) and the Narn were completely locked out of this juicy market.
Moreover, the Treaty of Tirrith meant that while Earth businesses were able to sell their products to the League at a good price, their Centauri and Narn rivals couldn't (since they didn't benefit from the free trade clause). The Narn and the Centauri expansionist houses reacted by sending more pirates and corsairs. Which lead us to the next point.
The Alliance also took upon herself to protect the League against outside attacks and to patrol the League space against pirates. It was needed, since the League fleets and defence grids had been devastated by the Dilgar. The Narn and the Centauri expansionist houses were tempted to take advantage. The pirates (of all species) also started to take advantage of the situation, not only to capture trade ships in space, but to raid League planets on the ground.
In 2239, Corillan and Orillan rebelled against the Narn protectorate. The Narn had, unilaterally, decided to use those planets as naval bases, because of their position near the Centauri and Drazi borders, even though they never interfered in the internal affairs of the Corillanis.
At the same time, the Drazi and the Narn were engaged in a small-scale border conflict. The Drazi intervened to help the Corillanis, leading to an open war with the Narn, that was cut short by EarthForce's intervention. The Alliance "mediated" the conflict mostly in favor of the Drazi (who got the disputed colonies) and the Corillanis (who got full independence and joined the League).
In 2240, the Centauri expansionist houses (led by the Refa) massed a fleet to expand in Hyach, Abbai and Drazi territory. They had to cancel their plans, though, because EarthForce sent reinforcements, while EarthDome contacted the Emperor Turhan and the Centaurum, and got them to stop their wayward houses.
The Alliance, by sending a "peace fleet", offered safety to the League, allowing her own industries to rebuild what had been destroyed and trade to flow (and money to fill Alliance's coffers, of course).
But the peace fleet also stopped the intra-League piracy and usually killed pirates that didn't immediately surrender. The Alliance didn't understand the cultural and social importance of piracy in some societies (especially the Llort, the Kor-Lyans, the Ipsha and the Brakiri). Often, minor Kor-Lyan and Ipsha corsair princes were killed by the Earthers. Finally, the peace fleet, by its very presence, interfered with many intra-League small-scale conflicts. Many nations viewed this as imperialism and unwanted interference.
What made things worse was that EarthForce turned a blind eye on the Drazi piracy (in return, the Drazi never attacked human interests), because the Drazi were a key ally of Earth, useful to check the Narn in the region.
Finally, the Treaty of Tirrith created a High Court of Trade, to arbitrate every trade differend between League members and/or Earth Alliance. The treaty was almost a copy-paste of the Alliance trade laws, and went against some centuries-old customs in the League.
The war debt crippled the League economies, and the free trade disadvantaged them too, since the Alliance had a far larger industry than any League member. Soon, Earther cultural products, foods, raw materials and finished goods flooded the League markets.
In fact, the only races that didn't suffer too much of the free trade were the Abbai, Brakiri, Hyach, Yolu, Vree, Drazi and Cascor, who were more advanced (only slightly for the Cascor) than the Tau'ri, and could at least sell high-technology products, maintaining some trade balance. On those worlds, some sectors of the economy suffered, others thrived.
c ) The League immigration and brain drain
Those advanced races had also a lot of qualified workers that could find work in the EA, like the Cascor engineers. A lot of them came to work (until 2245) on Earth in California, in the aerospace industries.
Even that was a double-edged sword. On one hand, those expatriates got high wages, and were able to send money back to their homeworlds. On the other hand, that meant a brain drain, that further impacted those races' economies.
The other races (for example the Hurr, Balosians, Descari or Kor-Lyans), however, suffered in almost all domains, because they
hadn't high-technology products that would interest Earth, leading to a massive trade imbalance.
Many people from those poorer races tried to emigrate to Earth Alliance, legally or not. Those who came illegally had to pay hefty sums to immigrant smugglers, who took them to Beta Durani.
Beta Durani was close to League space, especially Vree and Torata. And the planet itself was the "Planet of the poor, the criminals and the desperate". Pharmaceutical, mining and shipbuilding (civilian and military) legal business thrived side by side with drug and weapons cartels. All needed a lot of workers. Human workers already worked and lived in squalid conditions.
So, the League illegal immigrants were sure to find work there, but of course they would be treated even worse than their human counterparts. The majority of those aliens worked on Beta Durani, but a lot were bought (as slaves in all but name) to work elsewhere. Many went to the mines of Cyrus, Vega, New Siberia, Kandhi, Cooke and Myoto (especially Cyrus), where they got the less paid and most dangerous jobs. Many more ended up as farm hands, factory workers, prostitutes, porn actors, or personal sex slaves for rich people. And a lot ended up as domestic slave workers.
Basically, dozens of millions of League people became slaves througout the Earth Alliance. And the majority of them died early from sickness, starvation, dangerous working conditions, suicide or murder. They had to fear not only their masters, but police and human gangs.
Especially the Earth First gangs, made up of xenophobic humans. After all, all those cheap alien workers made it even harder for the poorest humans to survive and get correct wages. The human miners, farm hands, factory workers and sex workers were hit hard by the new concurrence.
Of course, all this was for the immigrants who actually arrived on Beta Durani first. Many more died even before that. Smugglers often took the money and killed the immigrants instead of taking them, or spaced them to avoid being caught red-handed by Earthforce patrols. Then, there were trigger-happy Alliance captains who shot any forbidden ship without warning, since those ships were either immigrant smugglers, arms or drug dealers, or pirates. Finally, there were Torata raiders who lurked near Beta Durani, and other alien pirates on the way.
During the Reconstruction years (between 2232 and 2240), people on the poorest planets of the League (Balos, Androma, Bestine, Kor-Lya, Vartas and their colonies) were desperate enough to try to immigrate, en masse, to Earth Alliance territory.
Of course, the first to emigrate were the most educated and qualified (even if they still often ended up as slaves). Those planets had lost many people to the Dilgar War, and lost many more to this population drain, including their intellectual elites.
It was only in 2240 that they started to really recover, and that the drain, slowly, stopped. The help from human charity organizations (mostly religious), Alliance and Abbai state humanitarian programs allowed those planets to reconstitute their education (including higher education) systems.
Those programs also helped many trapped immigrants to go back home with qualifications and the means to survive. In July 2245, the poor planets were still poor, because of the Treaty of Tirrith, but were out of the post-war hell.
However, a lot of people still hated the humans for what happened to the immigrants.
d ) The human tourism
Tau'ri tourists also flooded the League planets, and soon a (rather justified) stereotype appeared around their arrogance and bad behavior. A not-liked brand was the tourists that came for "religious" reasons.
Since Earth had met her alien neighbors, there had been many new religions, sometimes oddly mixing up old Earth religions (like Christianism, Wicca, Judaism...), mythologies dating from the Classical (and Goa'uld) Era, and elements from alien cultures and religions. Usually, those people didn't understand how alien cultures worked, and didn't make the effort to either. They simply wanted to take what looked cool everywhere.
A short-lived cult (Omnus) ended up worshipping together the Centauri Great Maker, as the "masculine creator" on one hand and the Abbai "Great Mother" (who they actually made up from different Abbai religious figures) as the "feminine" creator. They, also conflated the angels from Earth religions with the Centauri pantheon of (secundary) gods (1). Finally, the Omnus cultists integrated religious or cultural important figures from Earth (Jesus, Muhammad, Moses, Buddha, Raël (2)...), Centauri Prime (Tuscano), Narn (G'Quon), Brakos (Brakir) and other planets in their lore.
The Omnus didn't create too much problems, because they were pacifists at heart, and most of them came to live in the Abbai Matriarchate. The Abbai didn't mind, after all, the sixteen Abbai religions had always coexisted in perfect peace, so one more wasn't a problem.
But the increased Tau'ri tourism in the League led to dozens of similar cults popping up, and they often tried to (clumsily) proselityze League masses with distorted versions of their own religions, while shamelessly appropriating League cultures.
The more traditional Earth religions (Christianity, Islam and Buddhism especially) also illustrated themselves with their proselytism, with more success. After all, they had much more experience and maturity. The Vatican was the most active in sending misionaries.
Moreover, the Vatican, the Orthodox, Protestant and Mormon Churches, the Muslim and Buddhist organizations were bringing a lot of humanitarian help, which made their misionary work a success.
While some sectors of League societies viewed that with sympathy, others didn't like foreign religions doing misionary work on their own planets. Moreover, the Brakiri Syndicacy, the Ipsha Baronies, the Kor-Lyan Kingdoms, the Grome Cooperative and the Hurr Empire didn't appreciate those new religions, which carried potentially dangerous ideas like peace and social equality, and might have given ideas to their oppressed masses. So, they covertly funded gangsters and pirates to attack the misionaries, and xenophobic groups to make anti-Earth propaganda.
There were also the sexual tourists (of all genders and sexual orientations), who came here because of the interspecies porn. They came to League planets to sleep with locals, and often slept with prostitutes or committed rapes.
An even worse kind of tourist was the dealers, that came to sell drugs, specifically tailored to each species. They took advantage of the Alliance's prestige, often passing themselves a Dilgar War veterans, to impress young people and offered them drugs as "free gifts", making them addicts. There were already a drug market (with local, Centauri and Tau'ri dealers) before the Dilgar War, but after the war, the influx and prestige of humans made it grow to a critical problem.
To sum up the situation, the Alliance still got love and gratefulness because she saved the League, but her "first-of-class" behavior and the many problems she created soon annoyed ordinary people and governments alike in League space, while also annoying Centauri expansionist houses and the Narn Regime.
Even this gratefulness was limited by the fact the humans moved in only when their ally and direct neighbor, the Markab Confederacy, was attacked, and almost completely ignored the plight of the League before that (only giving the barest humanitarian aid).
Of course, people tend to forget that the Alliance wasn't ready in 2228 or even 2229, and would have lost at that time, and that the Alliance prepared itself since 2212 (frantically since 2220) for a conflict with the Dilgar. Senator Santiago had lobbied since 2228 for a military intervention, to help Alaca and Balos, but EarthDome was forced to refuse.
This grudge was completed by another. When the Alliance finally entered the war, the Earthers refused to split their fleet and help everyone at once. So, while Balos had to wait until the end, and Alaca, Mitoc and Krish were utterly sacrificed, Earth Force saved the Brakiri first, followed by the Abbai, Ipsha and Vree, and only then the others. These choices were both strategical and economical (the Brakiri, Abbai and Vree were important trade partners, while Balos or Alaca were economically irrelevant).
Once again, should Earth have split her fleet, she would have lost.
Moreover, after the war, the Earthers saved the Alacans, Mitoc and Krish from their near-extinction with their artificial uteruses, and helped them to rebuild. Paradoxically, people from Balos, Alaca, Mitoc and Krish were still the most grateful (after all, Earth had helped them, even if it was very, very late, while everyone else had forsaken them), but in other nations, there were people resenting Earth.
All those bad feelings, of course, didn't help the Alliance's case when the Minbari War started.
C ) The fear of the Minbari :
The Drazi, thanks to their warrior culture and their debt of honor, immediately sent a fleet of 1,000 warships to help Earth, when it was confirmed that the Minbari wouldn't stop with diplomacy.
However, the Drazi fleet was destroyed in jumpspace, but not by the Minbari. We know it's not them, because the Minbari almost never lie, and besides, Minbari Warriors would have gloated about this. We still don't know for sure who did this.
At the same time, the Abbai, Hyach and Markab sent three diplomatic ships to the Minbari outpost of Sorpigal, to ask about a diplomatic settlement. The Abbai and Hyach ships were destroyed immediately by trigger-happy warriors. The Minbari captain stopped his men from destroying the Markab ship, because he remembered the old Alliance of Valen. But he also gave the Markab a stern warning about interfering further.
The League worlds, despite this, accepted human refugees at first. But in September 2245, the Grey Council sent fleets to threaten the League homeworlds and the Tirrith space station (which hosted the League Council itself), asking the League to cut all trade with the humans and to stop taking in refugees.
The Warrior caste had actually wanted to strike at the League worlds, but Delenn and Branmer managed to calm them down, and had to accept this gunboat diplomacy act as a compromise.
It worked, at least initially, with the League worlds cutting ties with the Alliance. Of course, the League also repelled the Treaty of Tirrith (which was moot since there was no trade anymore) and cesed her war debt payments.
(1) Today, we know for sure that the Centauri pantheon of gods, like the Dilgar, Roman, Greek... pantheon, was actually made up of Goa'uld. I can only recommend you to read "The Religious Revolution in the post-Minbari War galaxy", by Professor Andros Valk of Pangar.
(2) The Omnus cultists considered Raël, or Claude Vorilhon, founder of an extraterrestrial-based cult in the 20th century, as their father, even though the Raelian movement disappeared in the 21st century.
