B5 design flaws?

FaxModem1 · Post by **FaxModem1** » 2002-11-23 11:52pm

I've heard that the world of babylon 5 has design flaws, please listthem because I'm curious on what JMS screwed up on.

btw,please have your anwsers in plain english, I don't know a monkey wrench from a monkey's butt.(just kidding, but keep the anwsers understandable for techno-illiterate.)

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2002-11-23 11:53pm

Suffice to say that rotating sections on mobile starships to generate gravity is unfeasable to say the least.

[BL]Phalanx · Post by **[BL]Phalanx** » 2002-11-24 12:00am

Don't forget the Starfuries too.

They aren't actually screw-ups by JMS, since he didn't oversee the "construction" of every ship model. Mainly the criteria was "make it look good". He didn't exhaustively give directives, so he can't be held *that* responsible for it.

paladin · Post by **paladin** » 2002-11-24 12:38am

On an earlier thread, B5 mass of 2.5 million tons was determined to be too light.

Howedar · Post by **Howedar** » 2002-11-24 12:39am

Furies aren't truly major design flaws any more than underarmed ISD rears, poor TIE visibility, or necks on Trekships. They just aren't optimal.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2002-11-24 12:43am

The Sharlin class cruiser's fins are probably design flaws, as is the Shadow BC's large surface area but small volume design.

[BL]Phalanx · Post by **[BL]Phalanx** » 2002-11-24 01:02am

Master of Ossus wrote:The Sharlin class cruiser's fins are probably design flaws, as is the Shadow BC's large surface area but small volume design.

Supposedly those fins are for propulsion. That doesn't excuse the *rest* of the design, but at least there's some kind of reason for those fins.

Like I said before, it could be akin to the masts of ancient sailing ships. If you could avoid having such a weak structure, you would... but I guess the Minbari feel that the advantages of gravimetric propulsion outweigh the disadvantages of having those fins.

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-11-24 01:20am

Howedar wrote:Suffice to say that rotating sections on mobile starships to generate gravity is unfeasable to say the least.

And just what makes them unfeasible? I know a lot of authors have describe ships with rotating sections. Is there some way that it is possible?

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2002-11-24 04:02am

Howedar wrote:Suffice to say that rotating sections on mobile starships to generate gravity is unfeasable to say the least.

It's not that rotational modules on starships is unfeasible, but rather that the rotating section of the Omega-class destroyer is bad engineering. The far better concept that they had on B5 was the Explorer-class deep range survey ship in the second season episode "A Distant Star". with that vessel ( the EAS Cortez ), the rotational modules were cyllindrical and relatively small in proportion to the rest of the ship's structure.

The problem with the Omega design, as has been pointed out several times on this site, is that the section, instead of being a simple, clean cyllinder, is actually two large modules on either side of the central shaft. Not only do you have two large masses swinging around the central axis of the ship, which leads to multiple problems with ship's stability, it takes considerably more energy to accomplish the modules' moment of rotation than it would if you had a simple cyllinder. In addition, the two large masses block a significant segment of the firing arcs on either side of the vessel, leaving the midsection very vulnerable to attack —and the entire rotational section presents a much larger target profile. Not only that, you essentially have no passage from one module section to the other without first moving to the core section of the ship, which is very inefficent in terms of crew movement and equipment transfer from section to section.

Just about from every standpoint, the Omega represents idiot designing at its worst. I can't see how any engineering board in its right mind would sign off on this concept in the real world. There are far better ways to incorporate rotational gravity on a spaceship than that.

Alyeska · Post by **Alyeska** » 2002-11-24 10:45am

paladin wrote:On an earlier thread, B5 mass of 2.5 million tons was determined to be too light.

Actually thats not true. One person attempted to insult JMS about the weight of 2.5 million tons and JMS smacked him down big time. The reason is that 2.5 million tons is just the weight of the hull itself IIRC. That does not take into account the mass of everything else on the station.

Enlightenment · Post by **Enlightenment** » 2002-11-26 12:59am

Alyeska wrote:Actually thats not true. One person attempted to insult JMS about the weight of 2.5 million tons and JMS smacked him down big time.

The ability of someone who thinks that an object released from spinning station will follow a spiral path to 'smack down' anything on technical grounds is next to nonexistant.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-11-26 01:01am

Enlightenment wrote:
Alyeska wrote:Actually thats not true. One person attempted to insult JMS about the weight of 2.5 million tons and JMS smacked him down big time.
The ability of someone who thinks that an object released from spinning station will follow a spiral path to 'smack down' anything on technical grounds is next to nonexistant.

He actually said that? ROTFLMAO!!!

XaLEv · Post by **XaLEv** » 2002-11-26 01:17am

Enlightenment wrote:
Alyeska wrote:Actually thats not true. One person attempted to insult JMS about the weight of 2.5 million tons and JMS smacked him down big time.
The ability of someone who thinks that an object released from spinning station will follow a spiral path to 'smack down' anything on technical grounds is next to nonexistant.

Hmmm. You have a quote on that?

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-11-26 01:19am

Enlightenment you are fucking kidding right? Oh my GOD! Falls of the chair!!!!

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-11-26 01:22am

Crown wrote:Enlightenment you are fucking kidding right? Oh my GOD! Falls of the chair!!!!

Nope, one the techincal advisors assured JMS that is what would happen. If you dig deep enough in the Lurker's guide it's all in there.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-11-26 01:26am

Stormbringer wrote:Nope, one the techincal advisors assured JMS that is what would happen. If you dig deep enough in the Lurker's guide it's all in there.

Who was the fuck of a technical advisor?

Actually don't worry, best I don't know lest I have and overiding urge to go and smack him/her/it one!

Post by **Vympel** » 2002-11-26 01:27am

ROFLMAO

That's classic I gotta remember that one.

I hear that technobabble in Baylon 5 started to increase near the end of its run ... is that true?

Stormbringer · Post by **Stormbringer** » 2002-11-26 01:29am

Crown wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:Nope, one the techincal advisors assured JMS that is what would happen. If you dig deep enough in the Lurker's guide it's all in there.
Who was the fuck of a technical advisor?

Actually don't worry, best I don't know lest I have and overiding urge to go and smack him/her/it one!

I don't know who, but he does deserve a bitchslapping. The B5 advisors were asleep at the switch on a nu,ber of cases. That being one of the more glaring ones.

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-11-26 01:30am

Not that I could remember... Although there was one cringe moment where Delen asks Lennier if he could perform the 'skin-skimming' maneouver that the Warrior cast do, and he replied not with another 5 years of training... but I could program the computer to do it (he does so in under 20secs).

Say it with me folks: WHAT.... THE.... FUCK!

Crown · Post by **Crown** » 2002-11-26 01:31am

Sorry the above post is for Vympel.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2002-11-26 01:53am

Stormbringer wrote:
Crown wrote:
Stormbringer wrote:Nope, one the techincal advisors assured JMS that is what would happen. If you dig deep enough in the Lurker's guide it's all in there.
Who was the fuck of a technical advisor?

Actually don't worry, best I don't know lest I have and overiding urge to go and smack him/her/it one!
I don't know who, but he does deserve a bitchslapping. The B5 advisors were asleep at the switch on a number of cases. That being one of the more glaring ones.

I think that the tech adviser misinterpreted the idea that if you "dropped" an object within a rotational framework, it would follow what appears to be a slightly curved pathway to the deck, whereas it of course it is actually moving at a straight tangent from the point of release while the rotational framework continues to move beneath and away from the "falling" object's path. Jerry Pournelle wrote of this effect in his book A Step Farther Out in a chapter speculating about life aboard an L5 colony, and noted how it would make for some interesting "english" in any game of baseball played within such a colony structure.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-11-26 01:53am

Enlightenment wrote:
Alyeska wrote:Actually thats not true. One person attempted to insult JMS about the weight of 2.5 million tons and JMS smacked him down big time.
The ability of someone who thinks that an object released from spinning station will follow a spiral path to 'smack down' anything on technical grounds is next to nonexistant.

ROTFLMAO!!

[BL]Phalanx · Post by **[BL]Phalanx** » 2002-11-26 02:21am

Crown wrote:Not that I could remember... Although there was one cringe moment where Delen asks Lennier if he could perform the 'skin-skimming' maneouver that the Warrior cast do, and he replied not with another 5 years of training... but I could program the computer to do it (he does so in under 20secs).

Say it with me folks: WHAT.... THE.... FUCK!

What's the problem here? The Warrior caste can do it manually, but Lennier can't... so he gives the computers some parameters and the computer does it for him. It's not as if he wrote out a whole big program right on the spot, he just fed in parameters.

[BL]Phalanx · Post by **[BL]Phalanx** » 2002-11-26 02:31am

Enlightenment wrote: The ability of someone who thinks that an object released from spinning station will follow a spiral path to 'smack down' anything on technical grounds is next to nonexistant.

I guess JMS got lucky on that one then?

http://www.midwinter.com/lurk/countries ... e/008.html

This weekend, I was at the Space Frontier Foundation to receive an award for Babylon 5 for Best Vision of the Future, part of which was its recognition of our *deliberate efforts* to get things right. Zero-G maneuvering, civilian use of space, a working O'Neill station, on and on, all the stuff you think happens by "coincidence." And which has not generally HAPPENED on TV before. In attendence were the Delta Clipper team of engineers, astronaut Pete Conrad, leading researchers with NASA, JPL, McDonnell-Douglas, you name it.

And one of the people there, who had been with SDI and the Space Program for 12 years, currently a top-level NASA consultant, pulled me aside and said that after seeing the line about the gravity not letting the body get very far . . . he said he sat down to do the math required to come up with the actual MASS of B5, starting with the 2.5 million tons of actual structure, plus likely vegetation, quarters, occupants, ships docked inside...and when you add it all up, it came to about the same mass as a fairly small moon...and IT WOULD BE ENOUGH TO KEEP THE BODY FROM -- AS
STATED IN THE SCRIPT -- GETTING VERY FAR.

The body would drift from the station a bit, get pulled back, hit the hull, bounce, drift a bit, and be pulled back. Or go into a slow elliptical orbit. (He mentioned that in the history of the Apollo program, little bits of debris that would flake off the outside of the ship would remain in proximity to the ship, just on the basis of ITS mass and gravity, and it's not very big.)

A couple of other high-level engineers backed him up, and said that it was quite reasonable.

-and-

The 2.5 million tons of spinning *metal* refers only to that part, the metal casing. It doesn't include the furniture, the structures, the Garden, the 250,000 humans and aliens...so the total mass of the thing is MUCH greater than the 2.5 megatons. Also, the body was shoved out of the area around the cargo bay, non-rotating, which would also cut down on the momentum (as opposed to shoving out out of the rotating part, where it would speed away at 1g).

This was in response to someone who said that a body should not have been pulled back to the station, but instead would drift off because B5 doesn't have sufficient mass.

Patrick Degan · Post by **Patrick Degan** » 2002-11-26 02:34am

[BL]Phalanx wrote:
Crown wrote:Not that I could remember... Although there was one cringe moment where Delen asks Lennier if he could perform the 'skin-skimming' maneouver that the Warrior cast do, and he replied not with another 5 years of training... but I could program the computer to do it (he does so in under 20secs).

Say it with me folks: WHAT.... THE.... FUCK!
What's the problem here? The Warrior caste can do it manually, but Lennier can't... so he gives the computers some parameters and the computer does it for him. It's not as if he wrote out a whole big program right on the spot, he just fed in parameters.

No matter how you rationalise it (and I can think of one way it might be feasible), it still amounts to a technobabble deus ex-machina by which Delenn's Whitestar squadron was able to magick its way out of what should have been a fatally inescapable deathtrap. Not only poor writing on its face but implausible considering that the Whitestars should already have combat pilots on board who are able to perform the Skindancing manoeuvers. These are warships, after all, and it is assumed that warships would have fully trained crews manning them. It would be like sending out an entire squadron of F-18 pilots who had never been trained in the Immelman Turn for frontline combat service.

One instance where JMS definitely dropped the ball.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

B5 design flaws?

B5 design flaws?

The prime design flaws