The Behemoth in WCIII was a stupid idea

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PatrickJBuchanan

Spaceman
Here's why the Confederation should never have built the Behemoth:

When the Kilrathi attacked the Confederation much of the Confederation's fleet was destroyed at McAuliffe. There would have unquestionably been a military draft of the Confederation citizenry. Rather than wasting resources on one big ship (the Behemoth) that could have been easily destroyed by a Kilrathi fleet & fighter force, it would have been better to have used the resources to build more carriers and fighters to defend the Confederation worlds and then go on the offensive when ready. Furthermore, the armistice should never have been signed.
 
PatrickJBuchanan said:
Furthermore, the armistice should never have been signed.
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Well, that's painfully obvious, but it was a major plot device necessary to set up the foundation for Wing Commander 3. If you read Fleet Action though, you'd understand the complexities in bringing more Carriers online. And if you read False Colors, there's the suggestion that the Behemoth was built for more than ending the war with the Kilrathi. Also, by the time of Wing Commander 3, there was no more "building more carriers and fighters to defend the Confederation worlds and then go on the offensive when ready." Confed was weeks or months away from a major defeat. The Behemoth was pulled into service before it was ready, and if it weren't for the Temblor, the Kilrathi would've won. You can say in hindsight that the Behemoth wasn't necessary, but clearly something had to be done on an atomic bomb scale to prevent the destruction of Earth.
 
There is also a lot of time between the kilrathi attack on McAuliffe and the destruction of a large portion of the Confederation fleet which occurred in 2634. And the Armistice (2668) and subsequent use and destruction of the Behemoth in 2669. its not like the confederation just concentrated on building the Behemoth for over 30 years as a one shot, end the war weapon. The confederation did build carriers and other ships too.
 
I guess it's also safe to say that Tolywn is a bad leader, allocating much of Confed resources that don't pan out at the end. Behemoth, Black Lance, Vesuvious, etc., all strategic failures.
 
Tolwyn was not a bad leader, you only listed his failures. He was victorious in many battles, including the Battle of Earth, and the oh-so-effective CVE's were his idea.

And how was the Vesuvius a strategic failure? We know they continue making them since we see the TCS Eisen in Prophecy is a Vesuvius class.
 
The Behemoth wouldn't have failed if there wasn't a Kat bastard leaking information about it. If anything, I would say that was Eisen's strategic failure.
 
I don't think it would fall on Eisen so much. I think it would be the general failure of High Command or whoever decided it was okay to take Hobbes into the fold after he defected.
 
The Behemoth wouldn't have failed if there wasn't a Kat bastard leaking information about it. If anything, I would say that was Eisen's strategic failure.
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I wouldn't have blamed Eisen, Hobbes had been very loyal for several years, and his treason was due to sleeper conditioning Thrakhath gave him that he was forced to forget (Manchurian Cantidate, anyone?).

The Behemoth was a good idea, if it had been executed properly. I think it would have been better if it had a light fighter compliment built into it.
 
d3r3k said:
I don't think it would fall on Eisen so much. I think it would be the general failure of High Command or whoever decided it was okay to take Hobbes into the fold after he defected.
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Maybe that would've made sense if it happened a decade earlier, but Hobbes had been loyal to Confed for fifteen years at the point that the Behemoth stuff came together. Hobbes contributed more to the Confed war effort than he took detracted. He killed countless Kilrathi, leaked tons of intelligence and provided support in a number of crucial operations. It's almost unbelievable that Thrakhath let him be a sleeper agent for so long. And if the Behemoth were actually completed, Hobbes wouldn't have been able to leak out its terribly vulnerable spots. Imagine if the false armistice was never signed, then Confed would have won the war conventionally by late 2669, and Hobbes simply would've been a huge part of that success. It's definitely not the fault of whomever allowed Hobbes to become a trusted member of the military.
 
Fatcat said:
The Behemoth was a good idea, if it had been executed properly. I think it would have been better if it had a light fighter compliment built into it.
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True, for being so important it didn't seem to be all that well supported.

d3r3k said:
I don't think it would fall on Eisen so much. I think it would be the general failure of High Command or whoever decided it was okay to take Hobbes into the fold after he defected.
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Of course, but the captain has the final say regarding who or what can run around loose on his ship. He's a Kilrathi for God's sake.


PatrickJBuchanan said:
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Heh heh, GO PAT GO!!! :D
 
McGruff said:
Of course, but the captain has the final say regarding who or what can run around loose on his ship. He's a Kilrathi for God's sake.
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And he was the ship's executive office, a full colonel in Confed. Questions about his loyalty were resolved more than a decade earlier. Any restrictions Eisen placed on him would have been purely out of racism without any attention paid to the years of dedicated service Hobbes paid. Just because it would've prevented this particular incident doesn't make it okay. Everyone spent years questioning Hobbes' loyalty, and he truly proved it over and over and over. Eisen's fair hand is not to blame.

(And as Eisen pointed out, the Victory was Tolwyn's ship at the time..)
 
Super weapons do seem a silly idea to me. Nor would I have just invested in building more ships. Perhaps something in between? That's why I liked the plasma weapon that the Midway acquired from the Nephilim. Not super weapony but not too conventional either. Could destroy a big cluster of ships but not a planet.

That's why I didn't understand the Death Star. If it could destroy a whole planet, well, why would you need to? You could just take even half the firepower of it and invest in maybe two or three smaller space stations that could at least destroy any given ship with one shot and have a faster refire rate. (and for the Death Star's capable fire power, I'd say it had a pretty good refire rate as it was)

And I know they say to destroy Kilrah would mean the automatic defeat of the Kilrathi cause of the whole "all roads lead to Kilrah thing". But it still just would've seemed more prudent to build secret weapons where you don't put all your eggs into one basket. But then I guess that's why they made the t-bomb too.
 
The Death Star was not a strategic weapon but a weapon of pure terror.
After demonstrating its power on alderaan the emperor thought that no other system would try to resist against him.
Though I still think is was a wast of resources. 8 eclipse-class SSD's would haver the same firepower as each one of them has a single superlaser. But ok, thats another storry.

The behemoth was build to cut of the "brain" of the Kirathi warmachine.
 
8 eclipse-class SSD's would haver the same firepower as each one of them has a single superlaser. But ok, thats another storry.
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^^^ This is exactly what's wrong with Star Wars fandom.
 
Speaking of it, why does the Behemoth recoil upon firing, being an energy gun?

EDIT: Ah, yes, the topic, well, it was a thingie called "plot device", dude.
 
McGruff said:
Of course, but the captain has the final say regarding who or what can run around loose on his ship. He's a Kilrathi for God's sake.
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So? We've seen enough treacherous humans as well. I'd be more worried about one of my crew members being a mandarin then about Hobbes, a Kilrathi that proved his loyality more then once and would be killed upon return home (at least that was the situation which we believed to be true).
 
As I see it, Tolwyn mistrusted the Temblor bomb because he did not believe that a single pilot would be capable of breaking through the defense line at Kilrah. The Behemoth would allow the TCN to blast its way through Kilrathi Defenses, fire and blow the whole planet to bits with a massive frontal assault. Well, that's what Napoleon thought at Waterloo as well (if you replace "planet" with "Alliance" and "Kilrathi" with British and Prussians...). Put simple, he mistrusted Blair personally because he knew that it would be the Colonel who would do the Temblor Run.
 
Delance said:
Speaking of it, why does the Behemoth recoil upon firing, being an energy gun?
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Perhaps the recoil is from machinery from within? You can come up with any number of reasons in sci-fi.
 
Monsterfurby said:
As I see it, Tolwyn mistrusted the Temblor bomb because he did not believe that a single pilot would be capable of breaking through the defense line at Kilrah. The Behemoth would allow the TCN to blast its way through Kilrathi Defenses, fire and blow the whole planet to bits with a massive frontal assault. Well, that's what Napoleon thought at Waterloo as well (if you replace "planet" with "Alliance" and "Kilrathi" with British and Prussians...). Put simple, he mistrusted Blair personally because he knew that it would be the Colonel who would do the Temblor Run.
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Not quite. Tolwyn knew about the Temblor Bomb project, but it was never his choice which one to pursue. The Temblor Bomb was Taggart's project right from the start because it fit in perfectly with the idea of black ops. At that point it was kind of an arms race. Both teams were trying to beat the other as far as whose project would be used. The Behemoth was chosen originally, but when it failed, Confed turned to the Temblor Bomb. Tolwyn just wanted so badly to be the one to save the Confederation again.

Edit: I've always thought the recoil made sense with the Behemoth. Sending out that much energy from one end of the ship isn't too much different from firing off your engines.
 
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