Thirdspace aliens

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-13 11:50pm

Was reading the BY/Adarx debate today, and I downloaded the clips dealing with Thirdspace aliens. It showed Whitestars blowing them up, so I decided to see if you could do any figuring from them.

1) Size: I wish I had the abilities to isolate frames and scale so I could compare the things to the gate. As it is, I have to eyeball it. Judging by their relative size to the whitestars, They have the same diameter as the WS are tall, and are maybe a third of as long.

2) Speed: Hard to gague based on the two clips. Though in tspace3 they easily outrun a whitestar that turns and begins chasing a fighter.

3) Firepower: in the clip tspace4, the Whitestar takes (assuming the thuds of firing are all hits) about 8 shots with no signifigant damage. Each shot looks like a little bit of vaping, but alot of red hot shards and sparks being blasted away. Infact, it looks like what took the WS down in that shot was the explosion of the flying turnip, not it's weapons. It looks like a piece of debries strikes the main gun, and that's what goes off. (actually, it looks more like something was sent straight back up the stream, as I can't see anything strike the WS. However, the timing of the explosions makes me think the weapons system went off, like was said in Legend of the Rangers). In either case, the flying turnip did not collide with the WS before it blew up. There is a good 20 meters between them. In either case, in those 2 clips there is nothing suggesting huge firepower relative to any other observed race. Vorlon fighters seem to have more bang for the buck infact.

4) Hull strength: Hull strength is next to nil. The things go up as soon as the shield fail. I see two options: A) They went the ST route and depend on the shield for protection instead of any armor or B) the shield generator overloads and explodes as soon as the shields fail.

5) Shield strength. This is where these babies shine. In tspace3 it takes just about a 2 second shot from the main gun of a whitestar to kill a fighter. in tspace4 it takes about 5 seconds from the main gun. This works out to (using babtechs numbers) 6 MT and 15 MT shields each. Why the disparity? A couple of options:
A) Battle damage on the first fighter. The most likely, but unprovable unless it is shown before the clip.
B) Whitestar in tspace3 drew power from other system. They showed they could do this in Walkabout. Problem is it would be mor then just the jump engines, as even 120% wouldn't do. Maybe they pulled from the regular engines as well, explaining it's sluggish start in chasing them?
C) Different class of fighter. Not very likely.
D) Whitestar in tspace4 is damaged. Would lower the gun output. However, no damage is seen on the ship, and I doubt those shots we see hit would do it

Personally, I thing A is the most likely here.

So recap: Based on 2 short video caps, the things are faser then a Whitestar, are about 75 meters long, can take 15 MT before going up, but lack a serious punch. Thoughts? Locations I can get more clips to expand on this? Suggestions? Death threats?

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2003-01-13 11:56pm

(non-B5 fan here, so stupid questions are from lack of knowledge

)

How long is it between tspace3 and tspace4? Is it possible that the ships were refit with superior shields, possibly at the expense of engine power (similar to B and C, but providing a more "permanent" and IMO feasible solution)?

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-13 11:57pm

The Dark wrote:(non-B5 fan here, so stupid questions are from lack of knowledge )

How long is it between tspace3 and tspace4? Is it possible that the ships were refit with superior shields, possibly at the expense of engine power (similar to B and C, but providing a more "permanent" and IMO feasible solution)?

It's in the same battle sequence

The Dark · Post by **The Dark** » 2003-01-14 12:01am

*shrug* The only thing I can think of then is that they are slightly different versions of the same ship, sorta like how old WWI battleships served in WWII with varying amounts of modernization based on how much time the Navy had to work on them before having to send them out (or not having adequate weapons to place on them). Other than that, the previous damage theory is most likely, IMHO.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2003-01-14 07:28am

Hey, can someone mirror this over at SB please? Thanks

Brian Young · Post by **Brian Young** » 2003-01-14 06:31pm

Ender,

It is not difficult to isolate frames in an AVI. Download Virtualdub. It is the best linear AVI processor/editor/application there is. It is what I use, and would choose no other for such things.

http://www.virtualdub.org/