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****Spoiler***** Valen
Is it just me or did the Valen look very Not Minbari. Which is odd to put the name of your most exalted one on a ship that looks like mostly earth tech.
The Luandra on the other hand is a very Minbari looking ship. The idea of an old ship still able to get up a fight is cool and make for a good story. Reminds me of the Falcon.
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[i]This is crazy. I hope I haven't brain my damaged.[/i]
I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
The Luandra on the other hand is a very Minbari looking ship. The idea of an old ship still able to get up a fight is cool and make for a good story. Reminds me of the Falcon.
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[i]This is crazy. I hope I haven't brain my damaged.[/i]
I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
Comments
The Valen is apparently a vessel which draws most of its design from human influence. It doesn't really look much like a warship, it didn't even get a shot off. Whatever it is, it doesn't seem to be the sort of ship they would have as a standard vessel in the Ranger fleet. More of a heavily armed courier and transport.
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[i]This is crazy. I hope I haven't brain my damaged.[/i]
I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
[This message has been edited by Freejack (edited 01-21-2002).]
Keep in mind that the Rangers are not JUST humans or JUST Minbari. So, a ship designed by humans is named after a Minbari. Makes sense to me.
JMS responded to questions about the [i]Valen[/i]:
[quote]>The Valen - A flying brick that someone apparently forgot to add
>weapons.
Yes. That was the intent. That's why David made fun of it on the balcony.
Nobody likes it, it was a compromise between Humans and Minbari (which Dulann
also mentions), more politically motivated than structurally sound. We won't
be seeing its kind again.
jms
(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2001 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
and don't send me story ideas)
[/quote]
and again here:
[quote]>What was with the Valen--not only was it ugly, it didn't even look
>Minbari.
As Dulann mentioned in his talk with David in the hall, it was influenced by
human military designers. David also made fun of it earlier.
>And where were the White Stars anyway?
The 80 or so surviving whitestars were either on station at Minbar or doing
larger more important work. This was considered a milk run.
jms
(jmsatb5@aol.com)
(all message content (c) 2001 by synthetic worlds, ltd.,
permission to reprint specifically denied to SFX Magazine
and don't send me story ideas)
[/quote]
[This message has been edited by samuelk (edited 01-21-2002).]
By the way, there were sure as hell more than eighty White Stars flying over the EA capitol in Rising Star. Perhaps they were all distroyed in the Telepath War.
But that doesn't excuse such a shoddy mobilization as to have only eighty ships.
The problem, I'm sure, is in the growing of the organic skin. Note that these whitestars were all made when the vorlons were around.
Re: Valen
If what Slade said in the other thread about the Valen being used to poke fun at trek is true, then I'm surprised they didn't name it something else, i.e. something very similar to a character or ship name from trek. Perhaps "Enterpriser" or something.
I can understand where the desire to poke fun at trek comes from. There was a voyager episode ("The Void") where the antagonist was named "Valen". He put out the appearance of being very calm and trustworthy, but was just trying to trick the crew.
[This message has been edited by Sanfam (edited 01-21-2002).]
[b]Eighty? [i]Eighty?![/i] For Heaven's sake, they can't be so hard to build that the Minbari can't do it! [/b][/quote]
Sure they can. Remember, White Stars used Minbari AND VORLON technology. I'm not sure where you get the idea that White Stars (or any other ship, for that matter) are easy to build. There's no transporter/food replicator/matter beaming technology that the Minbari use.
[quote][b]In the novelization of [i]A Call To Arms[/i], they mention that White Star 90 is a new ship (never saw the movie, so it could be indicated there as well), so either someone messed up or it took the Minbari [i]five fricken' years[/i] to figure out how to build a ship that they have had nearly a hundred fully functional models of! That, or the Rangers are just massivily stupid, and can't see the advatage of mass produceing the [i]most powerful warship in the known Galaxy![/i][/b][/quote]
Again, this is assuming you have some information on how long it takes to build White Stars.
[quote][b]By the way, there were sure as hell more than eighty White Stars flying over the EA capitol in Rising Star. Perhaps they were all distroyed in the Telepath War.
But that doesn't excuse such a shoddy mobilization as to have only eighty ships.[/b][/quote]
I don't count more than 80...more like 50-60....maybe 80 max. But not more than that.
But bluestars are around now, they may be cheaper/easier to build, so therefore are taking over the whitestars role.
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Ah nuts
[b]Again, this is assuming you have some information on how long it takes to build White Stars.
[/b][/quote]
Prototype fighters compleated in mid to late 2259.
First ship compleated December, 2259.
Some hundred ships made by late 2260.
Blue Star designed between 2267 and 2281. Presumably, the Blue Star is the second new class of ship to use Vorlon derived tech. The first is the Victory Distoryer, construction taking place between 2264 (final plans) and 2267 (launch). The ship is equipped with a Vorlon main weapon, never before seen on any younger race ship.
Considering that the Minbari could implament a weapon using tech millions of years in advance of theirs without any sort of model of how to do it exactly (as is the case with the White Stars), then it should be fairly easy to simply duplicate what they already had. In any case, they were definatly able to recreate and exceed the tech on the White Stars with the construction of the Blue Stars. Therefore, the absolute latest that new White Star production could have started is with the introduction of the Blue Star. The earliest is soon after 2262, based on Sheridan's assertation that they were running out of ships.
The most reasonable is that White Star tech was reproduced during the construction of the Victory distroyer, namely 2265-66.
Rangers is set... a year or two before that.
Damn.
Oh well, they should have new White Stars [i]soon[/i].
Just because there is/was a Whitestar named Whitestar 90 doesn't mean there are 90 in existence when it was christened. They could have already lost a few by then.
Also remember that the White Star fleet went up against the Vorlons, as well as being used in the Shadow war at Coriana (SP?) 6. I'm sure they lost many of the vessels during just those two battles, not to mention later during the Drakh conflict.
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"Ambassador we all know that the first casulty of war is the truth."
-John Sheridan
"To alcohol the solution to and cause of all of life's problems."
-Homer Jay Simpson
[b]Look at the scenes in orbit of Minbar. I saw several white stars. I belive the were in the lower left part of the shots. I'll have to review my tape.
[/b][/quote]
So? Those Whitestars probably already had captains.
It's whether the Minbari wish to use their resources to do so
Dear god why didn't I think of that, so obvious.
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"Ambassador we all know that the first casulty of war is the truth."
-John Sheridan
"To alcohol the solution to and cause of all of life's problems."
-Homer Jay Simpson
[b]Regarding the ship being named the Valen, it was sort of a joke by the Minbari--a ship that was half-human and half-minbari, just like Valen himself.[/b][/quote]
Well there's the unstoppable Mr. K again, I had not thought of that at all. There could definitly be some sybolism there.
Jake
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[i]This is crazy. I hope I haven't brain my damaged.[/i]
I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
JMS: Bear in mind that there were only ever about a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty whitestars built during the Shadow War. A LOT of those got wiped out during said war, so now you've got maybe 80 or so. You conserve your best ships for big jobs, you don't have them doing this kind of grunt work.
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I assume there'll be more built later.
[b]JMS said a thousand whitestars in a short story, just after the EA civil war. They must have taken heavy losses in the Centauri/Drakh war.
But bluestars are around now, they may be cheaper/easier to build, so therefore are taking over the whitestars role.
[/b][/quote]
Question: If they had a thousand whitestars, then why did Sheridan express the need for a "whitestar destroyer" to Delenn in the series? Remember, they took heavy losses during the Shadow War and the EA Civil War. More than likely they lost a bit more during the aforementioned Drakh war. (assuming they actually did fight a war..)
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Meaning that, by my prior logic in that the construction of the Blue Star is an irrefutable sign that it is possible to build a new White Star (see above post), then there can and should be more White Stars! Do I get a prize?
[This message has been edited by David of Mac (edited 01-25-2002).]
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We are here to place President Grenewetzki under arrest!
Remember that the White Star has Blue/Purple color in it's texturing.
At that distance from the camera, and also considering this was likely Maya and not Lightwave, we could be seeing a White Star in new light (pardon the pun)...
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