SIZE: MINBARI WAR-CRUISER.

II. ERRORS:

This is where things get fun and interesting. Now as many of you know (or should know), the size of the ships and vessels of "Babylon 5" was never actually calculated by the staff, thus the CGI team was left to guess how big the Sharlin should be in each scene. Sizes for the major capital ships were not figured out until before "Crusade" premiered and to this very day no official size figures have been made with regards to the Minbari War-Cruiser. Thus animators were left to their own devices and opinions while rendering scenes for the series.

A perfect example of the CGI artists using different scales is the classic schematic view from the official Babylon 5 Magazine, where the CGI artist in charge of rendering the Crusade episode "Rules of the Game" came up with his own scale for the Excalibur.. effectively cutting the ship's size in half and rendering every scene from that episode wrong, making screen captures useless as they would be out of proper proportion with other episodes which did use the correct/official size.

This guess work truly came into its disastrous own in the TV movie "In the Beginning", where we saw Delenn looking out into the void of Hyperspace from a window.. and window misplaced in the plasma flush vents of the Sharlin that carried the Gray Council. It is using this, along with the image of the War-Cruiser captured from the video game that we will determine the size of the Sharlin according to this window, and discover it is in error or if it fits the other facts.

First we have three images. The first shows us a reference for what we will be looking at, namely the scene mentioned above. Image number two shows us the whole expanse of the area Delenn is looking from. The third and final image shows us a close-up of the window.

	Here is the window, as seen in the movie "In the Beginning." Its interesting to note that, if the window is indeed in the right place, than the windows above and to the left would be at foot level. Oops. -_^ Of course the window shouldn't even be in the location seen here, as that area is supposed to be part of a plasma flush vent, not a hall way or Delenn's quarters.
	A closer look at the window in this image gives us not only an idea of how large it is, but it also gives us an idea of how large this bay section is, which will be important when comparing it to the window and then the size of the ship.
	A close-up of the window in this scene provides us with a size comparison necessary for estimating the height of the window relative to the person within. Problem? Always. The window, as with the whole fin, is at a 30º angle. Still, as it is flat to us the observers, we can still estimate it's relative size as compared to the rest of the ship.

Now, the size of the window as seen above in image three, measured in the larger image, came to 77 pixels from top to bottom. Delenn took up some 60 pixels. Adjusting for Delenn's height which is 5'6'' or 1.675 meters, we can safely estimate that the window is approximately 70 cm in height to the observer, and some 86 cm if viewed in a flat plane, adjusting for the 30º slant.

Adjusting for the smaller second image, where in which the window is only 40 pixels high, each pixel will equal 1.75 cm. Length of the block from right to left is 504 pixels, or 882 cm. From here we can estimate the total length of the War-Cruiser with respect to the window. Using the image borrowed from the Sierra video game, which is the most recent incarnation of the Sharlin mesh used on the TV series (season 2 to present), the mounts seen surrounding the window would each be roughly 7 pixels wide.

If each block is 7 pixels wide, and the block is 882 cm in width, then all we need do is divide the ship's total length by 7 and multiply that figure by 882. As the ship is 159 pixels long, the Sharlin would be a total of 22.71 blocks in length, or 200.34 meters in length ugh.. no. Why? Well, take a look at this.

Now how are those ships supposed to fit in there? The Nial is 22 meters long and the Flyer is 40 meters in length We've seen both these vessels launched from the Sharlin in many episodes from the ship's forward launch bay, yet the window scene gives us a figure that absolutely does not fit ANY of the OTHER screen shots or cannon facts. Were the Gray council sporting some super miniature version of the Sharlin? Do people use a shrink-ray before entering the War-Cruiser? Did the CGI team screw-up in a, big, BIG, hard core way?

If you said "The CGI team screw-up in a, big, BIG, hard core way", then you win the cookie (see what happens when people don't listen to Tim Earls?). Just look at the scan and screen captures below, which show the "AVERAGE" size of the Minbari War-Cruiser in relation to the Babylon 5 station, seen between Season three, four and five.

Image taken from "Z'Ha'Dum"	Image taken from "Z'Ha'Dum"
Image taken from "Z'Ha'Dum"	Image taken from "Z'Ha'Dum"

Take notice of the images above. We can clearly see that the Minbari War-Cruiser is passing behind the Babylon 5 station. Look how massive the War-Cruiser is, at nearly ten kilometers off and passing directly behind the Babylon 5 station.. does that look 400, 300, 200 or 150 meters in length to you?

Still not convinced? Okay, I can understand that. After all, how can we know the Flyer - the larger of the Sharlin's two support craft, can fit inside the War-Cruiser? Well, let's take a look, shall we?

	First question we must ask is do we know for sure that the Minbari War-Cruiser can carry a Flyer? Answer to this question is YES. To the top-left we see TWO Flyers docking with a Minbari War-Cruiser.
	In the middle-left image we see a Flyer launching from the War-Cruiser Ingatta, from the episode "Legacies", so even in the beginning (no pun intended) we knew for a fact that the War-Cruiser could indeed launch a Flyer class scout ship.

Not only do we know for a fact that the War-Cruiser can launch Nial class Heavy fighters and the Lintira class Flyer, but we also know that the War-Cruiser can hold a Starfury, as seen in both the Pilot movie "The Gathering" as well as in the original TV movie "In the Beginning."

Size figures for the Starfury alone disprove the ridiculous 200 meter figure offered up by the massive "window error" seen in "In the Beginning" but let us continue and see if mainline Minbari ships can help us disprove this myth.

	To the top left, we see a Minbari Flyer exiting from the Babylon 5 station's forward docking port. Now, using the Babylon 5 Security Manual and the schematic of the Babylon station offered in that book, we know that the face plate of the Babylon 5 station is a minimal of 330 meters in diameter, a maximum of 350 - giving us an average of 340 meters. Using this information we can estimate with a fair amount of certainty the size of the Flyer. Now, in the second image to left, we see the B5 face plate. Face plate if 420 pixels wide. This means that every pixel equals 0.809 meters. The docking port it's self is 80 pixels in width, and is thus 64.7 meters in width. As we know the sides of the docking bay are not flat however as seen in the third image left, so we can round this figure to 65 meters. Given the picture seen third left, below the plate, the width of the bay is shown at being 586 pixels. Flyer's width relative to the docking bay would have been some 167 pixels. If the bay is 65 meters in width, then each pixel would equal 0.111 meters. Thus the width of the front of the flyer would equal 18.524 meters. Using schematic figures of the Minbari Flyer offered on the "Recognition Chart" poster, the Flyer's width between the two forward fins is mean width was 142 pixels. Total length was 326 pixels. If the width of the Flyer is equal to 18.524 meters, than the Flyer's total length would have to be a minimal of 42.5 meters, which is within 3 meters of the official size of 40 meters stated in the Babylon 5 video game. As such, the 40 meter figure is likely accurate and the Flyer and Nial are the offical sizes. Some may wish to note that the size figures for the flyer are offered on the poster, but unfortunately none of the figures on the poster, save for the Hyperion figures, appear to be accurate or are supported by what was seen on-screen. In addition, figures for the Flyer and the Drazi Sun-Hawk were copies of the size figures for the Nial.. a point not in dispute as we know that the Sun-Hawk is a small Cruiser and that the Flyer is larger than the fighters, as the pilot of the Flyer sits while the Nial pilot must lay down, as noted in the image of Delenn sitting her Flyer, to your left.

So, as seen in the figures above, the 200 meter length figure for the War-Cruiser does NOT fit with it's size as shown relative to the Babylon 5 station which we know is five miles in length. 200 meter figure does NOT fit the size of the Nial, which we know is 22 meters in length, nor does it fit with the size of the Minbari Flyer who's size of 48 meters was clearly proven in the section above.

	Here we see more pictures of the Minbari War-Cruiser next to Babylon 5. In the image on the left we watch as the Minbari War-Cruiser passes between Babylon 5 and the Planet. Look at how high the fins stretch above and below the station, despite being kilometers off?

In the images top-left, we again see a Minbari War-Cruiser passing by the station. Again.. the AVERAGE appearance of the Minbari War-Cruiser in comparison to any/all known objects, clearly shows the War-Cruiser being close to a mile in length. Even at it's smallest, bottom-right, the War-Cruiser is shown to be absolutely no less than a 1100 meters in length compared to the station, a discrepancy that can easily be explained away by the ship's distance from the station - obviously it's further away than the War-Cruiser in the first image in the trio of pics above.

As always, due to no size having been set down in stone, there were instances where the Minbari War-Cruiser looked bigger, or smaller than the average appearance of 1,600 meters, but one mile does appear to be the average size the War-Cruiser was scaled at, making this number the most likely candidate for the War-Cruiser's true size.

Just look at the scan to your left to see that fact. With a few minor exceptions, the Sharlin class War-Cruiser was always shown between 1,400 and 1,800 meters in length, despite what was seen in the window shot from "In the Beginning" or the monitor shot from "Legacies."

It is obvious the CGI artist eyeballed the scene in "In the Beginning" and thought to himself "wow, it sure makes the ship look big" and rendered it as so. Of course I feel I must mention the error made by the artist is understandable, as he/she was given so many conflicting figures to work with.

It's another interesting fact that, if the window shot from "In the Beginning" was true, than the internal volume of the fin would only be 4.6 meters, hardly befitting the massive winding corridors seen a moment later when Delenn spoke with Dukat.

One thing is for sure - who can blame AOG or anyone else for that matter, for making mistakes about the size of the Sharlin when the show's very own production staff couldn't keep it strait themselves? But, then again, what can one expect when one considers that they produced the show for five years before even considering establishing the actual size of the ships and vessels they had created. And oversight? Yes. Why? Because the thing fans were supposed to be enthralled with was supposed to be the story.. not the technobabble.

Myths - Errors - The Truth - Conclussions