• The new B5TV.COM is here. We've replaced our 16 year old software with flashy new XenForo install. Registration is open again. Password resets will work again. More info here.

A thought about the Valen and the WhiteStar

G

GShans

Beyond the rim
In LotR it is said that the Valen is the fastest ship built by the alliance, I have been trying to figure a way out of that statement, because in my opinion, it could in no way out run a WhiteStar, and i think i found it, this is a post i put up on the B5tech.com message board:
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr> I have been thinking about this since January, and i have come to a conclusion that would answer it for almost everybody, the Valen was the fastest ship built by the Alliance, here's the answer, the loop hole, The Whitestar was built between the Mimbari Religious Cast and the Vorlons, not by the Alliance, thus, The whitestar is the fastest ship used by the alliance, but not built by the alliance, so in total, the Valen was the second fastest.

Any Disputes?<hr></blockquote>
 
True.
White Stars were built before the Alliance.

Even if their production continued later, White Stars were ships meant for battle. To face Shadow Vessels, you need weapons and armor. Weapons eat energy and armor adds mass. Hence a lightly armed/armoured patrol ship like the Valen (especially if equipped with Minbari engines and power sources) might actually outrun (but not outfight) White Stars.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lennier:
<font color=yellow>True.
White Stars were built before the Alliance.

Even if their production continued later, White Stars were ships meant for battle. To face Shadow Vessels, you need weapons and armor. Weapons eat energy and armor adds mass. Hence a lightly armed/armoured patrol ship like the Valen
</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

Sorry, but that last one made me dizzy. /ubbthreads/images/icons/confused.gif /ubbthreads/images/icons/confused.gif /ubbthreads/images/icons/confused.gif Lightly armed/armoured ????? The Valen????? The Valen was heavily armed, and armored, and not very maneuverable. <u>Supposedly</u>, it was fast.

The lightly armed/armoured one was the Liandra. THAT was the patrol ship.


<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lennier:
<font color=yellow>
(especially if equipped with Minbari engines and power sources) might actually outrun (but not outfight) White Stars.
</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

I suspect a Whitestar would have made mincemeat of the Valen, partly because the Whitestar would be unlikely to get hit, because it'd run rings around the Valen, and slice it to pieces. Good thing they're on the same side.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr> Good thing they're on the same side. <hr></blockquote>
Until the Valen gets blow away in a matter of minutes by the first surprise attack before the jump point even closes. Man, that ship could not get out of the way from the line of fire!

Why, though, did the "dirty snowflake" keep firing and not try to move when the Valen made for a ram? Or did I miss it and Sarah managed to damage its engines completely?
 
KoshN:

Seeing the Valen succumb to attack fairly easily, I thought it was lightly armed/armoured. After all, the Alliance maintains peace among technically similar younger races. White Stars are very powerful, but not optimal for such tasks.

They are no longer fighting Shadow Vessels, but chasing pirates and patrolling borders. New ships would be built with those goals in sight. Their numbers would be larger, their price cheaper, and their individual fighting ability smaller.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Loadhan:
<font color=yellow>Until the Valen gets blow away in a matter of minutes by the first surprise attack before the jump point even closes. Man, that ship could not get out of the way from the line of fire!
</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

Right, well they hit the engines first, so they may not have been able to move.


<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Loadhan:
<font color=yellow>
Why, though, did the "dirty snowflake" keep firing and not try to move when the Valen made for a ram? Or did I miss it and Sarah managed to damage its engines completely? </font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

The assumption is that Sarah's hit did to them what their first hits did to the Valen.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lennier:
<font color=yellow>Seeing the Valen succumb to attack fairly easily, I thought it was lightly armed/armoured. After all, the Alliance maintains peace among technically similar younger races. White Stars are very powerful, but not optimal for such tasks.
</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

Since we never saw the enemy ships hit a ship of known strength from the B5 universe, we don't have a quantitative handle on how powerful the enemy ships were. If we'd seen the effect the various types of enemy ship bolts had on a Whitestar, that would be different. We'd have a "known" to compare to the enemy ships.

The Valen was hit something like 24 times in rapid succession. The first hits were aimed at the engines (per the David Martel and G'Kar discussion), so the Valen may not have been able to move very well after that, and so it was hit lots of times. It got pounded, but it took it. If the Liandra had taken as many hits, I think it would been destroyed a lot sooner. The Valen was only destroyed after it rammed, and even then it looked like it remained pretty well intact (structurally). This leads me to believe that the Valen was <u>heavily</u> armored. It was a lot larger than the Liandra. Bigger ships tend to be armored more at the cost of speed (unless a big engine is added, like on the Valen), and at a cost of maneuverability.

What surprises me is that the Valen never even got off one shot. It had to have had rear guns.


<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lennier:
<font color=yellow>They are no longer fighting Shadow Vessels, but chasing pirates and patrolling borders. New ships would be built with those goals in sight. Their numbers would be larger, their price cheaper, and their individual fighting ability smaller. </font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

Not all of the new ships would be built in these patrol ship classes. They'd still build a few bigger ones to replenish what they lost in the Shadow War and EA Civil War. That's what the Valen probably is, a new ship class, the first of it's class and a failed design. The fact that we mainly saw only these two ships in the movie is unbelievable, and was forced by the loss of the CGI (<font color=red>Damn Warner Brothers straight to Hell! Those frickin' bastards!</font color=red> /ubbthreads/images/icons/mad.gif /ubbthreads/images/icons/mad.gif /ubbthreads/images/icons/mad.gif Their carelessness, cavalier attitude and ineptitude never ceases to amaze and disgust me.)

Since we never saw a Whitestar next to the Valen or Liandra (except in the distance), we cannot judge the relative sizes. The Valen could be bigger or smaller than a Whitestar. We just don't know (and this is one of my biggest gripes with TLaDiS, the lack of benchmarks.), and JMS isn't talking. All we know is that the Liandra is about 1/3 to 1/4 the length of the Valen.
 
B5Tech is estimating the Liandra at about 160 meters, and the Valen at about 1300 meters, now i know this is not completely reliable, and all that stuff about B5Tech, but they even said that they were estimating, the liandra on the size ratios between it and the cam-bots, and the Valen on it's side by side with the Liandra. One thing i don't like about the Valen, it's supposed to be the fastest ship ever built by the Alliance, but the thing i don't get, how can an ion engine outdo Gravimetric engines like on the Mimbari Heavy Cruisers, and you can tell that the Valen's engines are ion, because of their flight through "Hyperspace" (if you can call it that)
 
Are you sure?

If that was the case (I saw nobody floating around) the ship must have had a separate gravity device, whereas most Minbari ships have only one engine, which handles both propulsion and onboard gravity (and is for obvious reasons very well protected).
 
I wonder if the Valen was meant to be a battleship or more like just a transport ship. You would figure if it was to be a battleship, it would have bigger, badder weapons. The fact that it could be crippled in a firefight in just minutes would seem to indicate to me that it wasn't designed to fight.
 
about the engines, i am sure, B5tech says it has a gravitic reactor, which would explain the gravity, but the engines are most definitely ion based, you can see the trail left by it, <a target="_blank" href=http://www.b5tech.com/misctech/engines/engines.html>here is a look at what i am talking about</a> Scroll down and take a look at the pictures of the Gravametric engines and the Ion engines next to eachother, you'll see what i'm talking about, and if anybody could get a still of the Valen and the Liandra next to eachother in Hyperspace, i would really appreciate it, email it to navitas@attbi.com as an attachment, i'll post it on my website, and put a link to it.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by RW7427:
<font color=yellow>I wonder if the Valen was meant to be a battleship or more like just a transport ship.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

From what i've read, It was supposed to be the Rangers version of the Sharlin, a Heavy Cruiser, but Earth's meddling made it weak, and supposedly, the weapons were still working, but the controls to fire them were destroyed. If this was supposed to be the Rangers Heavy cruiser, then that means that these probably would have taken the place of the Victory's, now that would of sucked, they could have always made the Excallibur a Presidential Ship for Sheridan.

Again this is from B5tech, but it has some merit, and i do like the job that they have done there, most of the stuff that is on there has some official source backing it up, so i consider that site the closest thing to official canon there is online, and everything ever stated by tim earls and JMS about tech is on there.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr> Since we never saw a Whitestar next to the Valen or Liandra (except in the distance), we cannot judge the relative sizes. <hr></blockquote>
Okay this isn't the best way to judge but I noticed it each and everytime I watched the movie ...

In at least one or two scenes, we see a Maintaince bot (or some other bot) next to the Liandra. It has the same shape as the ones around B5 though different (possibly more Minbari-like) textures and colours on its surface. It was pretty close to the ship so I would guess that a rough estimate of how many times the Liandra was compared to the bot could be inferred. Now, do we know about how big the bots are? I'm not sure if we've seen them next to something whose size is more well known - like a starfurry. Of course, the bots in the movie might not be the same size as the B5 bots - even if they are the same shape - so this is probably a long shot.

Another possiblity ... we saw a Liandra life pod against at least the size of Hand snowflake - one time a very good angel from directly below while it was being brought aboard. I'm not sure if we saw it relative to the Liandra itself ... but we did see the Valen's lifepods against actually people so we know how big they are and I'd presume the pods would be nearly indenticle in size. Looked so when we saw Kaftka in one.

Any thoughts? /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif
 
Those were cam-bots, that's the b5tech name, also called mait-bots, two meters in length, and that's how B5Tech figured the length of the Liandra, by the scene your talking about, and like i said above, they came out with 160 meters in length.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by GShans:
<font color=yellow>If this was supposed to be the Rangers Heavy cruiser, then that means that these probably would have taken the place of the Victory's, now that would of sucked, they could have always made the Excallibur a Presidential Ship for Sheridan.
</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

The Victory class (12/2266) came <u>after</u> the Valen class (2265). If anything replaced anything else, the Victory class would have replaced the Valen class, not vice-versa.


<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Loadhan:
<font color=yellow>Okay this isn't the best way to judge but I noticed it each and everytime I watched the movie ...

In at least one or two scenes, we see a Maintaince bot (or some other bot) next to the Liandra. It has the same shape as the ones around B5 though different (possibly more Minbari-like) textures and colours on its surface. It was pretty close to the ship so I would guess that a rough estimate of how many times the Liandra was compared to the bot could be inferred. Now, do we know about how big the bots are? I'm not sure if we've seen them next to something whose size is more well known - like a starfurry. Of course, the bots in the movie might not be the same size as the B5 bots - even if they are the same shape - so this is probably a long shot.

Another possiblity ... we saw a Liandra life pod against at least the size of Hand snowflake - one time a very good angel from directly below while it was being brought aboard. I'm not sure if we saw it relative to the Liandra itself ... but we did see the Valen's lifepods against actually people so we know how big they are and I'd presume the pods would be nearly indenticle in size. Looked so when we saw Kaftka in one.

Any thoughts? /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>


Going from memory:
Hard to judge the size of the Valen or Liandra from the size of a maint bot, but the escape pod size makes the snowflake ships look pretty small, and therefore in conflict with the size of the snowflake ship that the Valen rammed. Remember, all three snowflake ships looked the same size.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by KoshN:
<font color=yellow>The Victory class (12/2266) came <u>after</u> the Valen class (2265). If anything replaced anything else, the Victory class would have replaced the Valen class, not vice-versa.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

2264 not 2265, as said by <a target="_blank" href=http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers/intro/>Scifi's webpage</a>, though probably late 2264.
Yeah, sorry about that, it came down to a mistake in my wording, The Victory's, as everyone knows, were to become a whole fleet, similar to how the WhiteStars were done, but with the destruction of the construction facility, and the head guy being an evil marsy, they only had one left from there, and what i meant to say was that: If the Valen's had been successful, there probably wouldn't have been plans to make a full line of VCD's, and just to finish the two currently in construction, turn one into the flagship for the Alliance, and have the other as Sheridan's personal ship. Sorry about the messups on how i sometimes word things.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by GShans:
<font color=yellow>2264 not 2265, as said by <a target="_blank" href=http://www.scifi.com/b5rangers/intro/>Scifi's webpage</a>, though probably late 2264.
</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

Could have sworn I saw a JMS comment saying 2265, but can't find it now, so that one's my faux pas. It's Rangers in 2264.
 
<blockquote><font class="small">Quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by GShans:
<font color=yellow>From what i've read, It was supposed to be the Rangers version of the Sharlin, a Heavy Cruiser, but Earth's meddling made it weak, and supposedly, the weapons were still working, but the controls to fire them were destroyed. If this was supposed to be the Rangers Heavy cruiser, then that means that these probably would have taken the place of the Victory's, now that would of sucked, they could have always made the Excallibur a Presidential Ship for Sheridan.

Again this is from B5tech, but it has some merit, and i do like the job that they have done there, most of the stuff that is on there has some official source backing it up, so i consider that site the closest thing to official canon there is online, and everything ever stated by tim earls and JMS about tech is on there.</font color=yellow><hr></blockquote>

I didn't know that. Thanks for the info. /ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif
 
At 1300 meters, the Valen would be over one mile long, and I don't buy that. It's also hard to believe that a 'small' patrol ship like the Liandra could be almost two football fields long. I haven't visited B5 Tech, but they don't sound too reliable.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

No members online now.
Total: 120 (members: 0, guests: 120)

Share this page

Back
Top