Peacekeeper command carrier vs ISD II

[starfury]

I posted this on the b5 board awhile back but didn't get much response So I will post it here, can the PK command carrier even survive combat with a imperial star destoryer of the AHN era.

[Cpt_Frank]

Forgive me my ignorance oh furious little snubfigter, but what's a Peacekeeper command carrier?

[starfury]

the Peacekeeper command carrier is the main warships of the peacekeeper race on the show farscape, their main armanant is a weapon called a frag cannon, they also have prowler fighters.

I think will show a command carrier again in the later shows as heard that had at least a crew of 50,000 from the "Into the lion's den" epiosde.

[Eleas]

(starfury)
"So I will post it here, can the PK command carrier even survive combat with a imperial star destoryer of the AHN era."

Difficult to say. Always in motion the Command Carrier is.

[Sokar]

That would be difficult to tell , we really don't have any good examples of the yield of a Peacekeeper Command Carrier's(PKCC) Frag Cannons(its main gun's). PKCC's are massive warships , I'd guess(I've never attempted to measure the images of the CC's shown on Farscape to try to get a 'real world' size) about the same size as a Super Stardestroyer but it has a smaller crew(only 50,000) but large sections of the CC are devoted to training areas and weapons factories given their role as a mobile base more than as a warship. A CC's main offensive punch comes from is complement of Prowler fighters and Marauder Assault ships , also I dont think that they are really designed to fight solo, short of Crais's pursuit into the Uncharted Territories we've never seen a CC alone , it is usually surrounded with smaller PK warships , called Warfighters( I think , I only remember Crais detailing the rest of his ships to escort the convoy while he pursued Moya, and I remember them being called Warfighters) I would asume that these are the PK version of the line battleship or heavy cruiser

It would be a hell of a show though, personally I'd be more interested to see Storm Troopers vrs. Peacekeeper Commandos

[Cpt_Frank]

Shit the Carrier is 17 kilometers long? And only 50 000 crew?

[SirNitram]

Shit the Carrier is 17 kilometers long? And only 50 000 crew?

Sort of like the Somtaaw Command Ship being 5 miles long and having 1500 crew.

[Sokar]

Given that vast amounts of the Command Carrier are given over to training areas that recreate potential combat environments and factories for the production of weapons and equipment its total crew would be less than a SSD. Command Carriers look like they serve as mobile bases as well as capital warships for the Peacekeeper Armada. CC's also serve as home for many of te 'billet birthed' Peacekeepers who are born into service. They are as impressive as hell but I'm not sure how well they would fare aginst the warships of the Empire

[Invader ZIm]

Good question....

The PKs have been seen to deploy at least 4 types of ships:

Prowler -

Type: single seat fighter (deployed in large numbers). It can carry at least one additional person in the cockpit (ref: Permiere S1, and Nerve S1). The normal flight uniform of a Prowler pilot seems to mainly be in a Vacsuit, although the cockpit is pressurized.

Armament: Pulse cannons and possibly some missiles. There is at least on structure on the Prowler wing that appears to resemble an old FFAR rocket pod from a Vietnam era UH64 Gunship. But until the capablity is demonstarated on-screen, definate presence of a "missle pod" is purley speculation. There is deffinately a hard point to carry a large self guided torpeodo (seen recently in season 3).

Propulsion: Never specified in Farscape. It is sufficent to allow the Prowler to leave the surface of a 1G (note: I say 1G b/c in the permiere episode both Aryen and Crichton vist a commerce planet by way of Ayren's Prowler and appear to be moving around in a normal unencumbered fashion) planet, and be in orbit in a very short time.

Controls: Not much is evident other than the pilot uses a device called "oculars" which apparently allow sensor/control information to be transmitted to the optical nerve. It is also shown in "Till the blood runs clear" (Farscape S1) that oculars provide some level of sensory enchancment (Ayren and Crichton use a set in the same fashion as binoculars would be used).

Additional: The Prowler has been seen in almost ever episode of Farscape, although not always in action. Ayren Sun parks her Prowler in the cargo bay of Moya and often it can be seen in the back ground as can the Farscape One module.



Maruder -

Type: IMHO the closest naval classification of the Maruder is that of a Corevette. It has demonstarted the capability to transport a squad of at least 4 PK commandos. It may not be unreasonable to believe that it could transport more but 4 is the demostarted capacity (ref: A Bug's Life S1). The Maruder seen in "A Bug's Life" was also fitted with a hatch that allowed the troops to deploy before the ship had actually landed, much the same way that helicopter gunships will fast rope troops to the ground. This could indictae that the Maruder plays a heavy roll in ground support.

Armament: None demostrated as yet on-screen.

Propulsion: As with the Prowler the Maruder is capable of leaving the surface of a 1G planet and making orbit without a signifigant time lapse (ref: Season of Death S2 ). The propulsion system indicated to incorperate 'cesium' fuel (ref: A Bug's Life S1) a fact which is used later to destroy a feeling Maruader ( it was leaking ).

Additional: The Maruder has been seen in only about 4 episodes (S1, and S2) of Farscape to date. In "exodus from Genisis" S1 the observation is made that a Maruder the main characters come across is being used as a scout. In the Season 2 finale several Maruders can bee seen in the cloud of ships that surround Scorpius' Command Carrier, apparently on picket duty.


Command Carrier -

Type: Very large capital ship, sporting a large amount of fighter cover and support ships. It has a referenced crew complement of 50,000. The actual number of fieldable fighters and support craft is not known. The size of the ship is reported to be "over a METRA" (Note: METRA not meter, this is one of Farscape's inhouse SI units and although it is speculated to be roughly equilivant to a Kilometer (ref: scifi website ) the writers on the show have not 'nailed it down', and so have avoided making some of the stupid SI unit mistakes the Trek writers have. They appear to be a common captial ship in the Farscape universe, but only 3 specific vessesl of the type have been specifically shown.


Armament: 4 large main batteries of what are referred to as 'Frag Cannons", are located fore and aft on the port and starboard sides of the ship, away from the main hull on extended circluar winglike structures. Each battery is made up of 3 indivual weapons. Each indiviual weapon is fitted with a mechanism to absorbe the recoil of it firing during a salvo.
Each battery is mounted in a gimbal type mechanism which apparently gives it a wide feild of fire both to the sides of the ship and above and below. The reported rage of the Frag Cannons is 45 Metras (Ref : Permiere S1) which could be 45 kilometers. If the rage is so short it could indictae the cannons are not the weapon of choice for the PKCC (unlike the ISD's HTLs). The perferred weapon could be a very large fighter and gunship compliment, in which case the PKCC would operate more like a LHD or CVN and a BB or CA likethe ISD does. Presumably the ship mounts more light or heavy armament but who knows, we have not seen it yet.


Propulsion: Not much is known. The PKCC is evidently capable of sublight speed because we can see it move on screen. How fast is an open question because Farscape rates speed in a unit called a HEDGE, and I have not seen any reference to what a Hedge relates to in SI (maybe its better that way too). Also the PKCC is also presumed to be capable of FTL as well, but it is not something that has been demonstarted on-screen as yet. It could be the PKCC uses starburst like Moya ( which seems to operate similar to Hyperspace in SW ), or some other variant of FTL travel unique to the PKs.

The 4th type of ship is the Leviatan transports which appear to be very common in Farscape. So much so that multiple species operate them.

There is a 5th type that is mentioned by Crais in the Premier episode, called a "Rear Battle Fighter". But I have never seen a ship on screen that is refered to as such.

I have to admit that one of the things I like about Farscape so much is that the eriters are not engineers or scientists and are not pretending to be ones either. So you dont run into the foolish nonsense that Trek puts out.
But until the capablilties for the ships are further demonstarted and quatiniifed in some fashion (like the TL shot nailing the asteroid in ESB) then all we can reasonably say is "who knows" how it would match up against an ISD.

I will say this about the PKs. If the PKCC operation is like that of a CVN then fighters and speed would be their primary weapons. The heavy guns on the ship would be present to support mass landings and if nessesary to combat other ships that the PKCC could not out run. The PKCC ( if it is based on this model ) is all about projecting prower, like U.S. CVNs do today. While the ISD is much more of a consolidation of this concept and is expected to duel directly with its opponent.



VICTORY! VICTORY FOR ZIM!

[Invader ZIm]

Man its late sorry about the typos


CURSE YOU POOP DOG!

[NecronLord]

Also in premiere is an armarda of ships, inculding verious crusers and support ships.

[Invader ZIm]

Good point. It seems that the PKs possess a military and industrial capacity that could approach that of the Empire. They certainly feild and operate ships in large fleets (seen in Premeire S1). No character has been specific about the size or exacat composition of the PK fleet, but we are lead towards the understanding that they, the Nebari and the Scarrions(sp?) are the preeminate military powers in that region of the galaxy. Further more it is suggested that the PKs and the Scarrions are at military parity with each other - thus both sides desperate attempts to develop Wormhole weapons.

Two other things are know about the PKCCs that I forgot to mention. There service time is apparently very long. In "PK Tech Girl" S1 the Zalbinian(sp?) is at least 300 CYCLES ( aonther Farscape Unit ) old b/c Rigel states that he spent that much time as a prisioner on it. A cycle is considered to be roughly a year, but I suspect it may only be something closer to half. But like all the other Farscape Units (FUs ) the writers have not said what the SI correlary, and I dont think they ever will.

The other fact about PKCCs is that they possess a sheilding system which (by on screen visuals) can block both physical impacts and Plasma weapons. In the "Pk Tech Girl" episode the crew of Moya activate the sheild system on the wreck of the Zalbinian to prevent Moya (parked nearby) from being hit by a direct fire Plasma weapon and to prevent boarders from getting on the ship. The sheilding system was damaged presumably when the Zalbinan was hulled and had random gaps which allowed one hositle to penetrate.


OBEY ZIM!

[spongyblue]

As far as I know Leviathans were the only ships that could starburst, which is why they are so prized. The whole point of Tylons birth(moys baby, long story) was so that the peacekeepers could have a gunshipp that could go into starburst since no other ship is capable of doing it.

[Invader ZIm]

As far as I know Leviathans were the only ships that could starburst, which is why they are so prized. The whole point of Tylons birth(moys baby, long story) was so that the peacekeepers could have a gunshipp that could go into starburst since no other ship is capable of doing it.

I'm not sure that is true. According to Crais in "Family Ties" S1 the whole point of the Leviathan warship project he was supervising, was to produce a craft that could both be grown (not constructed) and respond to neural and voice command without a Pilot installed.

I dont subscribe to the concept that organic technology is more advanced that other forms. But it does offer the significant advantage of not having to be "built" but grown. In this case Leviathan transports ( of which there are alot ) could have been used to brith 'insta'-warships. ANd because of the nature of the Leviathans, no crew apart from command functions would have been required ( the DRDs do just about everything else from damage control to taking out the trash ). The PKs could have then used the additional space on the Hybrid-Leviathans to transport ground troops or have the thing grow large hangers for Prowlers. Leviathans after all are stated to develop internal structures to more efficently serve the needs of the people using them.

In short while Tayln like warships may not have been able to take many hard hits in combat, the real advantage the PKs were trying to develop was "throughput". Having warships born and grow to maturity was apparently more cost effective and efficent than devoting the manpower and resources to built a ship. Perhaps it worked out to say a ratio of 5 Hybrids born and operational to every one PKCC constructed in the same time frame. With the large captial ships they already possessed the addition of large numbers of small, fragile, automated, but flexable cruisers would have meant a big suppliment to overall fleet strenght.

I'm not trying to suggest that if the Leviathan project was implimented by the PKs that they would abandon the construction of other ship types. But rather that they would essentially be getting these hybrid-organic ships for "free", doubling or tripling the rate of ship prduction without increasing the manpower or production facilities.


NO GIR THOSE PIGGIES ARE FOR SCIENCE!

[NecronLord]

It would certainly be able to destroy an ISD II if they ever get their wormhole tech.

[spongyblue]

You may be right. I have no definite clue. They should a quick glimps if I'm not mistaken in S1 of a ship that belonged to the cousin race of the Luxan. It blew up cuz of something funky that I cant remember. Also curios as to what the Hynerians have. They have a large territory of space and I wonder what kinda stuff there pakin.

[kojikun]

Note on size of a PKCC:

I forget the episode title, but in the first season Moya and company run across the derelict Zelbinian. Moya, in comparison, was approximately 1/10th of the length of the Zelbinian. Moya herself, from external shots of windows and Crichtons pod as comparison, is approximately 500-600 feet long. 10 times the length of moya puts a PKCC as approximately 1 mile long, or 1.6 kilometres. Give or take 280 feet.

And according to the official site, a Metra is equivalent to about one kilometre, making that statement and onscreen evidence corroborate one another.

The last episodes of season three also seemed to indicate this size, tho we never got a good shot for comparison. The PKCC seemed to tower over everything around it, and good easilly have been 1 mile long, or possibly more.