Text 14129, 197 rader
Skriven 2007-04-27 21:29:34 av Vorlonagent (499.babylon5)
     Kommentar till en text av rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated
Ärende: Re: Relative ship sizes in the B5 universe (and others)
===============================================================

"Jeffrey Kaplan" <nomail@gordol.org> wrote in message 
news:tr733353r97rmvqqc4qj8sulqp9vh97fql@gordol.org...
> It is alleged that Vorlonagent claimed:
>
>> > Even the Minbari, the most advanced of the "younger races" have
>> > technical breakdowns, and they have almost-god-level tech, with
>> > refractive hull plating to disperse energy weapon hits, automatic
>> > self-repairs, etc.
>> Don't forget artificial gravity and gravitic drives.  IIRC, self-repair 
>> is a
>
> We know the Centauri have artificial gravity too, from which we can
> presume that the Narn do, though I think they don't.  From the design
> of the Brikiri ships, they probably have it as well.

The Centauri don't appear to have gravitic drives, however.

When we see a Narn bridge, the occupants are strapped down.  Safe to say the 
Narns don't have artificial gravity.

As for the Brakiri...dunno.  They could have it but they might not too.  If 
they did, I'd wager they bought it from someone or got especially lucky. 
They're a rank-and-file non-aligned world members, not one of the five big 
players.


>> > And we've had at least one reference to a radiation leak in a 'Fury's
>> > power core.  IIRC, that's what killed Ramirez (he had a bet with
>> > Franklin about the Mars baseball team).
>>
>> A radiation leak from a pure-fusion core isn't going to kill anyone.  Not
>> over the short haul.  Fusion is not 100% clean but it's pretty clean. 
>> Over
>> time the gamma and neutron radiation will take its toll.
>
> Technically, I never said the 'Furies have fusion reactors, only that
> they have "a" reactor...  Ramirez died of radiation poisoning, and it
> was noted in the show, by the Starfury's own on-board computer, that it
> was the reactor core of the Starfury that was leaking enough radiation
> to kill him.  Make of that what you will about the power plant.

Maybe it has a nuclear battery or uses fissionables in the power source in 
some way we don't understand.


>> There are vexing unknowns about this.  How many shots are in your average
>> PPG cap?
>
> According to the Security Manual (page 54), the pistol can fire 4 to 12
> shots, depending on the setting, and the rifle, with its larger cap,
> can fire twice that.

The security manual, like most novels, is shot full of continuity holes. 
The people who did the most careful work seemed to have been the guys who 
wrote the first B5 RPG.  Not the security manual, not B5 Wars.


> (I also have "Dining on Babylon 5".)

I'm not familiar with that one.


>> How many shots are in a starfury cap?
>
> The Manual doesn't say.  It does say that a standard Starfury is armed
> with not two, but four 20 megawatt pulse discharge cannons, configured
> with one pair firing larger, more powerful but slower shots and the
> other smaller, less powerful but faster shots in bursts.

This sort of proves my point about the Security Manual.  Looking at the 
show, we've never seen a Star fury fire weapons from more than the same two 
points.  The Security Manual also has its own designations for earth 
fighters, like "MK I", "Mk II" and "MK III", which runs at odds with the "SA 
23" designation that you can get from the RPG and I'm pretty sure other 
sources (IIRC, including the Official Guide to B5 CD, though I don't think a 
whole lot of *IT* either).  I figure if they can't get the fighter's 
designation right, what else did they let slide?


> It also says that the 'Fury has four main ion engines and four smaller
> ones that run on "vaporized solid propellant".  The main engines are
> the ones facing the rear, the solid propellant ones are the lateral
> thrusters.

I guess it's possible, but it sounds like they made stuff up.


>> Do people siphon the helium from a spent cap in order to talk funny at
>> parties?
>
> If it's spent, then there's probably no helium left. :)  But it sounds
> like the kind of thing that Ivanova would try after a few drinks.

I'd expect there ought to be some.  You'd overfill a cap with helium to 
insure that there's be enough gas to shoot each time and compensate for 
minor leaks and the like.


>> >> When has B5's defense grid shot projectiles?  Episode, please.  The 
>> >> only
>> >> defense grid I can think of to use physical weapons was Earth's.
>> >
>> > "The Fall Of Night", for one.  The smaller guns that pop up have
>> > rotating drum ammo feeds, and the barrels recoil after every shot.  If
>> > they were energy weapons they wouldn't need that.
>>
>> They still shot little balls of light.
>>
>> With PPG technology as the standard weapons technology, I have to assume
>> it's plasma if it glows.
>
> Could be tracers... :)

Could be...

Nah.


> According to Michael Garibaldi, as quoted in the Security Manual, about
> the station's Defense Grid:
>
> "We have laser cannons, guns, interceptors, and pulse cannons.  These
> and the sophisticated tracking systems have enabled the station to
> defend itself against warships in the past.

Another point against the Security Manual.  B5 has never shot a beam weapon 
(laser) in any fight.  It has a message laser, but that's not something that 
Garibaldi would be referring to in this "quote".  Unless I'm mistaken, the 
Manual's quote isn't a line from any B5 episode.


> "Although we have not called on its help yet in external defense
> matters, we should also be able to call upon the use of the
> >>CLASSIFIED<< the surface of Epsilon 3.  Its >>CLASSIFIED<< is more
> than sufficient to destroy and entire >>CLASSIFIED<<.
>
> "NOTE: Epsilon 3 had a moon before >>CLASSIFIED<<."
>
>> I'm not a fan of retconning all sins.  I sometimes prefer the honesty of
>> accepting that somebody dropped the ball when that seems to be what 
>> happend.
>
> Wanna know something?  When I first heard what the crew compliment of a
> Nimitz class carrier is, my draw dropped.  I had no idea it was that
> large.  I kept thinking, "what could they possibly need that many
> people for?"  And sometimes, like now when we're debating the crew size
> logistics on a fictional craft, I still wonder about that.

Many highly specialized technical needs multipled by 2-3 duty shifts.  (I 
don't know whether it's 2 or 3)


>> B5 is a show that makes much of its money on the fact that it's very 
>> intense
>> and very real.  That means it's built with late-20th century precepts in
>> mind, which includes things breaking and needing repair, design and
>> construction flaws and all the rest.  That means that people are going to 
>> be
>> fixing all that broken stuff and shoring up the more serious flaws if
>> possible.
>>
>> It's easy to see how the pure gargantuan size of a 1500 meter ship might
>> elude a TV production company working in constant crunch mode to crank 
>> out
>> episodes.  The 1100-crew figure is an error or the 1500 meter length is 
>> an
>> error.  In a SF world that also tried to be real the way B5 tried to be
>> real, you can't have the super-nifty tech to allow that small a crew fly
>> that big a ship.  Not and maintain the real-ness.
>>
>> Me, I decided to take the 1100 crew and eject the 1500 meter ship.  Your
>> mileage may vary.
>
> Me personally, I don't care.  I just accept both figures.  It's not the
> kind of detail that jolts me out of enjoying the show.  What jolts me
> out are internal inconsistencies.  And that's one reason I like B5 so
> much, there are damnfew such internal inconsistencies.

I agree.  Thing is, I worked on Sierra's B5 computer game and had this one 
staring me in the face.


-- 
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent

"Methane martini.
Shaken, not stirred."

"Spirituality without science has no mind.

Science without spirituality has no heart."

-Methuselah Jones
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