A/N - I don't own Babylon 5, although I wish in TV series, they branched out more into alternate realities and alternate timelines, to make it interesting.
Anyway, that's why Fanfiction exists.
Happy Christmas (a nice early present for you all) - please let me know what you think.
The Beginning of the Age of Raiders.
President Levy was working late in the office of the Earth Alliance president - she was deeply aware she might not be able to hold onto the title for much longer, especially if the human race fell, and with it 10-20,000 years of recorded history would be lost forever because of three alien races who were after their blood for three completely different reasons - reading the reports grimly.
The evacuation of the core Alliance worlds was finishing up, with the core worlds now evacuated the outer colony worlds would be focused upon while elsewhere in their part of the galaxy, fusion bombs would be detonated to destroy the remaining beacons while, using the Underspace network, tachyon beacons laid down by their three enemies in order to compensate for the destruction of the beacon maps in this part of the galaxy, which required the use of special missions deep into an enemy-controlled territory and for them to be destroyed along with the destruction of several Jump gates to cause even more trouble for the aliens in the galaxy. But other reports made it clear to her there were many who were taking advantage of the evacuation and the war to spread their beliefs humanity should be isolated from other races.
Levy closed her eyes, rubbing her forehead and groaned quietly. She wasn't looking to passing off this mess to their next-generation although the probabilities of them ever having anything to do with aliens again were remote. There was a growing xenophobic movement in what was left of the Earth Alliance, but then it had always been there. A lot of it stemmed from simple ignorance of other lifeforms and civilisations they shared the galaxy with, and it had grown into all-out hatred from there.
Earth Gov were able to mitigate the worst of it despite one or two politicians having secret connections to the movements, but it had never really been anything serious although the Dilgar War had given them a lot of support since many believed the human race should never have to deal with the affairs of other races. It was essentially a belief saying "if they're fighting, let them and let us take care of our own" but now the beliefs of those movements had led to demands for the human race to become isolationist. Worse, she could understand the attractiveness behind the idea. If they just cared for themselves, and only fought if they had no alternative, at least they could spare many families the loss of somebody in the fighting.
When she realised that, Levy asked herself if she was one of those people whom she had condemned many, many times.
And she realised she likely was although she knew aliens better than those ignorant bigots.
Perhaps xenophobia was a genetic thing.
She cursed the Minbari, the Centauri, and the Narn for doing this to them; it was bad enough the movements were receiving a nice influx of new recruits - nothing helped those ignorant racists better than the chaos of a bloody war between Earth, and three alien races, two of which were more advanced than Earth was, and were responsible for so many human deaths and disappearances, but what was worse was how popular their poison was. In the past, they were known, but just about ignored by everyone but other bigots... now there was an influx of new members, people who'd lost someone they'd loved in one way or another in this pointless mess. They were lashing out at everything non-human, and even Levy herself could see the attraction of having a truly isolationist Human race where the only contact they had with aliens was to be aware of galactic events and nothing else.
She could see the attraction in not getting involved in their affairs, and the movements were up in arms about the need to evacuate what was left of their culture to a distant backwater part of the galaxy to escape the risk of extinction/slavery; they were using the opportunity of ranting to everyone who'd listen to them this proved their point. If humanity had not sent out the exploratory expedition into Minbari space, this would never have happened, and now it was perhaps a good idea to never meddle or intervene in the affairs of other races and just focus on themselves.
Levy…although she hated to admit it since she had made some friends among alien dignitaries, although now she could not call them friends, was beginning to agree with their viewpoint although she knew a lot of the anti-alien groups were just ignorant bigots spreading filth and poison around. But unfortunately, the aliens themselves hadn't helped the opinions given how they'd just abandoned Earth even after helping them during the Dilgar war. The Centauri and the Narn had abandoned and betrayed them in the worst way imaginable.
They come to the planet, all smiles and full of talk of diplomatic relations, and had now fucked off back to their own worlds and had left Earth to be abandoned to its fate.
Levy closed her eyes and focused on the reports. Perhaps those anti-alien groups had a point, perhaps Earth and the human race were just better left to themselves…if they ever returned to their home planet, although any alien trying to find their world would be hard-pressed. They were rapidly transforming this part of the galaxy into a navigational-tachyon-beacon desert, and if the part of Operation Exodus which would involve the destruction of other beacons and gates in other parts of the galaxy worked, it would all work out for humanity's favour. She felt nothing for the aliens anymore, and as she realised that, President Elizabeth Levy realised that she followed the same anti-alien rhetoric as so many others, deep down. But who could blame her at this point?
She wanted them isolated from the aliens, especially since she had lost some of her distant family to the filth out there.
She never wanted to live in a time where they were forced to ally themselves or fight another race unless they had no alternative. In any case, there was no way the galactic community would allow them back into the fold; they had been burning their bridges ever since Operation Exodus had been announced. Levy even now shuddered each and every time she remembered hearing what the Operation in itself would entail, and quite a few generals and admirals of Earthforce had prepared on enforcing the specific part which said destroy the Jump gates to cover their tracks. In the end, it hadn't been necessary but at the same time… It had been a fight and a half for them to convince her the aliens were going to let them die, and the only way they could survive was to destroy their bridges with other races. They didn't need the gates anymore, not with the Underspace. Still, that meeting was not one she liked to remember.
There was plenty of time to worry about all that later, and when she did she would need to tell everyone there was simply no way humanity could co-exist with other races. In the meantime, Levy was more interested in the reports in front of her. The building of the colonies and the exploration and proposals to construct new colonies, and outposts in the surrounding systems via the Underspace network was underway and new influxes of people were arriving on the planets all the time. Levy made a note on the report, to remind her to advise the military and civilian governing party to not act on colonising anything just yet until they had everyone there.
The planets they were aiming for were garden worlds, although the xenoarchaeologist teams had found traces of ancient civilisations and signs they were destroyed by orbital bombardment centuries ago, although there were few if no signs of them having the capacity for an interstellar flight which made them even more attractive which meant if somebody did find them and left behind a beacon to guide an enemy force back and wipe them out.
Levy was unsurprised by the reports stating IPX were busily trying to understand why quite a few planets in a backwater part of the galaxy where very few people travelled to had been devastated but she pushed that out of her mind; IPX could have the fun for all she cared, so long as they concentrated on mapping out the Underspace out there, and found additional worlds they could colonise and exploit, so much the better. She made a note to make sure the IPX leaders out there bothered to map out the Underspace and study the planets.
Levy rubbed her face. She was exhausted. She had a huge amount of paperwork to get to grips with, lots of things to organise while the rest of EarthDome and Earthforce finalised preparations to evacuate the planet while ensuring the whole planet and the rest of the solar system was booby-trapped, so aliens would never come near Earth and take the ancestral home of humanity away from them, using it for their own ends. Thinking that reminded her of a project recently undertaken by Earthforce R&D on finding a way of not only jamming jump gates but also to destroy them as well.
It was figured since humanity no longer needed the clunky, expensive things which were more trouble than they were worth, and they allowed enemies the means of reaching the home system in wartime, but in this case, the future survival of the human race and the preservation of Earth was more important than any treaty with aliens.
The senate had immediately jumped on the plan, and while there were a few who believed humans should still mix with aliens, their voices were drowned out by images of Minbari warriors threatening them. Of satellites transmitting intel photos of Narn and Centauri warships planning to invade their colonies.
None of the ones in the senate or in Earthforce itself was concerned about what this would mean in the longterm. The rest of the galaxy would vilify them; destroying jump gates was a capital offence under galactic treaties and law, but many were increasingly finding it hard to care. In any event, with how many tachyon beacons were being hunted down and destroyed, while Earth relied more and more on the Underspace network to move galactic distances, nobody wanted Earth in the hands of either the Narn or the Centauri; both races would strip mine their world, and that was something no-one wanted.
Levy sighed and carried on with her paperwork, mentally disembowelling putting her name in the lottery for the Presidency of Earth.
XXX
The final evacuation was underway. The final refugee ships were leaving Earth, docking with larger support ships, which immediately left for the local Underspace openings before they entered the network, travelling to the worlds found by IPX and were seen as the newer colonies. While the evacuation was underway, the signals were sent into the local hyperspace regions, culminating in enormous explosions in the lower domains of jump space, sending enormous shockwaves through the galaxy while increasing the gravitational tides which had plagued all other races, and had resulted in hyperspace travel, - war, freight, and travel, on hold until the gravitational forces subsided.
However, the humans had been sending more and more old ships carrying large quantities of nuclear weapons and other large nukes into the deeper recesses of jump space, and they'd also transported a number of large asteroids carrying enormous nuclear bombs to the lower regions of hyperspace because they knew the lower you went in hyperspace, the closer to the remnant of the Big Bang you went and when it was disturbed….
Instant chaos.
The humans had been sending those ships further out of their territories on automatic without any consideration for the ships getting lost; there was no-one onboard them, and the ships were ancient by modern standards, and besides their only use was to carry nuclear weapons throughout the galaxy, where they'd be detonated by a chemical detonator on the ships, so it happened and there were no mistakes. The humans wanted as much of the galaxy's hyperspace awash with gravitational waves in order to hide their homeworld.
Their tactic was insane, and it had never been done before, not even by the First Ones.
But the reason lay in the fact all races dependent on hyperspace did not want it to become unstable, the more unstable it became, the more hazardous hyperspace travel became, and more unpopular that race responsible became. The humans no longer cared as they were now using a form of interstellar travel which didn't even touch hyperspace, and since the betrayal of so many species, the humans no longer cared for interstellar relations although in the future, even their most steadfast supporters for that philosophy, knew it might be important to make contact in the future….
Leaving Earth was an emotional moment for all of them, but all of the humans agreed with their President.
"We'll be back."