Flare Sci-Fi Forums: Scaling the Jem'hadar Battleship

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Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

So far, all we know about the length of the Jem'hadar ship from "Valiant" (DS9) is that it's "twice the size of a Galaxy-class starship" (or something to that effect). Of course, that could be a rough approximation, and I don't trust the dialogue anyway.

So...let's scale the ship! In the episode, the Valiant flies through the "rollbar" of the battleship. Since it can do this, we can assume that the Valiant is narrower than the width of the rollbar.

Also in the episode, we see a 3D diagram of the battleship. I'm assuming this is accurate, especially since I don't have any other diagrams or better views of the ship. Anyway, notice the mandibles in this image and the above one...the supports for the rollbar are just below their outer edges. Using this info, the maximum size the Valiant could be is demonstrated in this image:

Here, the Valiant is 34 pixels long, and the battleship is 336 pixels long. That's a ratio of about 9.88 to 1. If the Defiant is 120m, then the battleship is...1186m! That's very near the "twice the size of a Galaxy" length. Keep in mind that this is a lower limit, too. As I said, the above image shows the maximum width the Valiant could be...it could very well be smaller in relation to the battleship. Also, the 3D diagram is tilted down a bit, although not enough that it would make a huge difference.

I think the VFX people deserve a lot more credit than we've been giving them.

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[This message has been edited by The Shadow (edited July 07, 1999).]

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Okay, I'd say this agrees rather well w/ the representation of the battleship relative to the bug in WYLB. The question is: which set of numbers do we use? By my calculations, we can have a 120m Defiant, 95m bug, and 1130m BS, or a 171m Defiant, 130m bug, and 1600m BS. To each his own, I suppose...

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"Imagine all the people, living life in peace..."
-John Lennon, "Imagine"

[This message has been edited by TSN (edited July 07, 1999).]

Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

I disagree with the picture above. The Valiant EASILY fits in between these red lines:

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"Calm may work for Locutus of the Borg here, but I'm freaked out, and I intend to stay that way!"

- Xander, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

[This message has been edited by Altair (edited July 07, 1999).]

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

Well, I may have gotten the positioning off...I was going by the widths, in pixels.

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http://frankg.dgne.com/
RB: "'Get a life' is a phrase heard a lot, though I have never known exactly what kind was implied. Seems a lot of shallowness and greed is the rule."
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Posted by Michael Dracon (Member # 4) on :

Try these to scale it:
Pic 1
Pic 2

*changed pics into links because of loading speed*

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"Calm may work for Locutus of the Borg here,
but I'm freaked out, and I intend to stay that way!"

- Xander, Buffy the Vampire Slayer

[This message has been edited by Altair (edited July 07, 1999).]

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

Well, those actually don't help that much.

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

WYLB Spoilers!
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Tim and I tried to scale it a few days ago, and as he mentioned, we used a 130m bug to get a maximum battleship length in the region of 1600m.

The WYLB image in question

That gives us a maximum size of a Breen ship of c200m. IMHO, the Breen ship gets a bit too crunched based on its complexity if we go under 150m.

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"I... love you more... than I did the week before... I discovered Alcohol""
-The Barenaked Ladies

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

But, the bug is ~93m, unless the Galaxy is ~900m.

Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :

Well, perish the thought that the Odyssey scene might have been screwed up... Think about it: we know they shuffle ship sizes around depending on what they think "looks good" for the scene. If they want the Defiant to look big, they make it 200m (around DS9). If they want it to look small, they turn it down to 50 (FC). It's a documented fact. Did it occur to you that they were exaggerating the smallness of the bug when it killed the Odyssey to make it more visually shocking? It's like "Look, not only was it a little ship that destroyed a big ship, it was a tiny ship that estroyed a huge ship!" All the VFX people are interested in is eye candy. While they stumble over it sometimes, I'm sure they wouldn't know consistency if it bit them in the ass...

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"Imagine all the people, living life in peace..."
-John Lennon, "Imagine"

[This message has been edited by TSN (edited July 08, 1999).]

Posted by Aethelwer (Member # 36) on :

See, you're not giving them the credit they deserve! In the DS9 scenes, they could be using a different size for DS9 itself. FC was done by ILM, not the usual company. Personally, I think Stipes etc. made up the "dramatic license" stuff because they want people to believe their own private reality, and not what's actually happening.

Posted by The_Tom (Member # 38) on :

Again with the "Stipes knows nothing about his own VFX" rant... *sigh*

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"I... love you more... than I did the week before... I discovered Alcohol""
-The Barenaked Ladies

Posted by Jim Phelps (Member # 102) on :

Stipes doesn't know that the Defiant has a shuttle, but that's a completely different story.

The point is, we cannot treat Star Trek as if it were a historical event which the producers enhance for dramatic purposes. It's one thing to say that "Apollo 13" altered the actual events for dramatic purposes; that's a true and verifiable statement. Saying that "Star Trek" alters reality for dramatic purposes implies that we have access to the true Star Trek universe; however, such a universe does not exist.

At least, none of the producers would ever consider their initial intentions, rough sketches, and production charts to be the true Star Trek universe. This is a misinterpretation of their comments about things being altered for dramatic purposes; they simply mean that their initial ideas are modified by other departments involved, working together to create the ultimate experience for the viewer. Would they change their ideas to conform to the final version? Yes they would; Rick Sternbach increased the original size of DS9 to conform to the VFX, but they do not always have time for this.

Boris

[This message has been edited by Boris (edited July 08, 1999).]