The ‘Babylon 5’ EAS Agamemnon Breakdown: Sometimes to Save Earth, You Have to Betray It
The EAS Agamemnon played a major role in Babylon 5‘s Earth Alliance Civil War as one of the only ships to fight on both sides.
Few other species in the galaxy would find themselves saved from the brink of annihilation and then decide, “what we need is a bigger, more destructive warship.”
And yet that’s exactly the kind of thinking that lead Earthforce to develop the Omega-class destroyer, the first of which was the EAS Agamemnon. Created in the wake of the devastating Earth-Minbari war, Omega-class destroyers, and the Agamemnon especially, were designed to take on the technologically advanced might of the Minbari military.
EAS Agamemnon – Design and Capabilities
After the Earth-Minbari war, Rocketdyne Industries began work on a new project: the Omega-class destroyer. Omega-class destroyers were intended to fight Minbari ships. And in the aftermath of the war, Omega-class ships like the Agamemnon quickly became the most ubiquitous (as well as powerful) capital ships of the Earth Alliance fleet.
The Agamemnon was one of the first of these new capital ships. Designed with a sensor suite capable of locking onto the stealth capabilities of Minbari vessels (though this proved to be of questionable use), the Agamemnon carried an arsenal of heavy weaponry.
The fore section carried four 52mm Plasma Pulse Cannons, as well as two Laser Batteries, while the aft sported two more Laser Batteries. Scattered throughout the hull were eight 40mm Pulse Cannons. And learning from the Minbari war, the Pulse cannons could also be configured to fire in a solid beam, allowing for more precise and accurate fire.
But the beam weapons alone were only a fraction of the firepower. The Agamemnon’s real strength lay in her launch bays, capable of deploying gigaton class mines, as well as 72 different “red missile” hatches. And on top of that, the ship carried two full squadrons of starfighters, typically the Starfury or Thunderbolt design.
The Agamemnon – Captain Sheridan’s Diplomatic Tour
The first mission of the Agamemnon was a long diplomatic tour of the League of Non-Aligned Worlds. The ship, captained by the infamous John Sheridan, embarked on a three-year-long patrol of the outer sectors, during which it made contact with many Non-Aligned World members. However, under Sheridan, the greatest distinction was a mission to aid a supply vessel attacked by enemy hijackers.
Perhaps this was one of the reasons that prompted Captain Sheridan to move up the list to replace Jeffrey Sinclair as commanding officer of the Babylon 5 project.
With Sheridan gone, the Agamemnon fell under the command of one Captain James Under James’ leadership, the Agamemnon made many successful rescue missions and might have been just another capital ship until the Shadows began ramping up operations for another war with the Vorlons.
Shadow War, Civil War, and Beyond
The Agamemnon clashed with her former captain when Sheridan led a mission to destroy a captured Shadow Vessel, secretly being studied by Earth Alliance forces. During the operation, Earth president Morgan Clark declared martial law and took the power of the Earth Alliance, leading Sheridan and many others in Earthforce to break away, and going to war against Clark.
Unfortunately, the Agamemnon was not one of them. At least not at first. Believing their former captain to be guilty of treason (thanks to the relentlessness of Earth’s propaganda machine), the Agamemnon clashed with Sheridan’s forces. Until they learned that Clark-loyal forces were attacking civilian targets.
Over the course of a days-long chase, the Agamemnon caught up with Captain Sheridan at last, and the crew promptly defected. Which meant they joined in fleet action against their former Earthforce comrades. Still, it was the Agamemnon that led the charge for the Liberation of Earth, engaging the Planetary defense grid almost to the point of destruction. If not for Sheridan and the Agamenon, Clark’s tyranny might not have been broken, and lasting peace in the galaxy might have been consumed by Shadow instead.
Instead, Babylon 5 endured!
