Narn - Narn-Centauri War

Narn-Centauri War

In 2259, unknown even to the Centauri Emperor, certain factions within the Centauri Republic had arranged for a small fleet of Shadows to destroy a Narn military base in Quadrant 37, killing 10,000 of Narn's finest warriors. The Narn were unable to discover who had destroyed the base, and a few months later another Shadow fleet - again acting on a request from Londo Mollari, the Centauri ambassador to Babylon 5 - attacked the Narn's largest colony at Quadrant 14, destroying its defences. This time a fleet of Centauri warships arrived after the Shadows to occupy and secure the planet. They were quickly discovered and attacked by a squadron of Narn fighters. Upon learning of this, the Narn Regime - being unaware of the Shadows or their covert alliance with certain Centauri officials - officially declared war against the Centauri Republic (Season 2 episode The Coming of Shadows).

Over the next few months, the Narn steadily lost their defensive war with the Centauri. While the Narn spacefleet had looked impressive before the war, it had mainly been used in hit-and-run attacks on poorly defended Centauri targets. When it came to an all-out open war, the Narn found that the Centauri fleet was still much larger than their own, and that Centauri warships still possessed a significant technological advantage over their Narn counterparts. Centauri vessels were equipped with artificial gravity, which gave them more speed and maneuverability than Narn warships. Even so, the Narn's experiences with the Centauri allowed them to compensate for some of these problems, and in several battles (such as the one near Babylon 5), the Narn heavy cruisers were able to destroy or at least heavily damage their Centauri opponents before being destroyed themselves. What really doomed the Narn to defeat was the secret assistance the Centauri received from their Shadow allies; had the Centauri not been helped by the Shadows the Narn might well have successfully held back the Centauri forces for years. However, the Narn fleet was no match at all for the ancient Shadow vessels; a single Shadow vessel could easily destroy an entire fleet of Narn warships.

After losing the previous 30 years' territorial gains in only six months, the desperate Narn High Command decided to launch an all-out strike against the main Centauri supply base at a planet called Gorash 7. The Narn hoped that by uniting most of their remaining warships into a single armada, they could destroy the Centauri supply base and force the Centauri to temporarily halt their advance. This would give the Narn time to regroup and rebuild their forces. The danger of this plan was that, in order to create a fleet large enough to make the assault, the defenses of the Narn homeworld were severely depleted, thereby leaving it open to attack if the Centauri discovered the Narn's plan. Unfortunately for the Narn Regime, the Centauri did indeed learn about the Narn strategy by intercepting and breaking their coded transmissions, and planned a decisive counter-attack to end the war with a massive assault on the Narn homeworld itself (Season 2 episode The Long, Twilight Struggle). Ambassador Mollari relayed the information to the Shadows, and so five Shadow warships were waiting for the Narn fleet at Gorash 7. Although the Narn fought heroically, in a battle lasting only a few minutes the entire Narn armada was completely destroyed, and hundreds of Narn heavy cruisers and fighters were lost. Not a single Shadow vessel was destroyed (although one did receive minor damage).

Meanwhile, the main Centauri fleet was free to advance on the Narn homeworld, virtually unopposed save for a skeleton defensive force. When Ambassador Londo expressed his fear that the Narn would fight ferociously to defend their own homeworld, and that any invasion force would be "up to its neck in blood, their own," Lord Refa, his ally in starting the war, told Londo not to worry. Refa had developed a plan that would avoid major Centauri casualties by not landing an invasion army on the Narn homeworld; instead, a Centauri fleet would bombard the planet's surface with large meteors fired from mass drivers attached to Centauri warships. The meteors would simply "flatten" Narn cities and civilization, and the Centauri could then land and take over whatever ruins were left. Following Refa's plan, the Centauri fleet began to bombard Narn from space using the mass drivers illegally fitted to their battleships (mass driver bombardment is considered the equivalent of using Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Babylon 5 universe, with every major race having treaties against it). The mass drivers rained huge meteors down onto the planet's surface, reducing most of Narn's cities to rubble, killing millions of Narn civilians, and effectively shattering the Narn's infrastructure and defensive abilities. As an act of simple survival, the Narn Regime agreed to an unconditional surrender to the Centauri, who then re-occupied the Narn homeworld with military forces and enslaved the Narn people once again. The leaders of the Narn Regime, the Kha'Ri, were arrested and/or executed, and Narn became a "protected colony" of the greater Centauri Republic. The only member of the Kha'Ri to escape was G'Kar, the Narn Ambassador to Babylon 5. Although ordered to surrender to the Centauri by Ambassador Londo, G'Kar had asked Babylon 5 commander John Sheridan for sanctuary on the station, and Sheridan agreed. However, G'Kar was stripped of his title as ambassador and was not allowed by the Centauri to officially represent the Narn on the station, although he continued to do so in an unofficial capacity. The younger Narn blamed their defeat on the fact that their leaders had used Centauri strategies. The older Narn, who remembered the first Centauri occupation and enslavement of their world, believed that they were defeated because they had not been more like the Centauri. As a result of the Centauri bombardment, the Narn homeworld underwent major climate change, as dust blown into the atmosphere reduced the planet's sunlight, lowered the global temperature, and created near-constant windy conditions around the planet.