SIZE: MINBARI WAR-CRUISER.

III. THE TRUTH?:

So, just how big is the Minbari War-Cruiser? Its obviously not 300 meters as stated in "Legacies" as no image in the entire series fits such an absurd number. The image of the window from "In the Beginning" seems to be some compromise between AOG's figures and the figures seen in the first season, but is still in direct contradiction to EVERY other scene in the series. On top of all this, the CGI staff has never gotten around to figuring out the size of the Sharlin because.. they didn't think it was important (although Tim Earls is working on finally solving the problem).

So, what does that leave us? That's right my friends, that leaves us with the wisdom of the over eager fan (tell me that doesn't send a shiver down your spine?). So, first lets begin with the Nial class Heavy Fighter. We know how big the Nial is, as it was one of the few ships made to be in proportion to the Starfury. The Nial is 22 meters long. A Sharlin has been seen launching Nails' from her forward docking bay. What does that give us?

Image taken from "Points of Departure"	Image taken from "Points of Departure"
Image taken from "Points of Departure"	Image taken from "Points of Departure"

Looking at these screen captures of the Trigatti from the season two episode "Points of Departure", we watch as a Sharlin launches fighters. The fighters are at an angle making it difficult to measure, but when one adjusts the relative position of the fighter to the closest visible marker, in this case the gun ports on the Sharlin, it would appear that one Nial is approximately the same length as the bulbs at the tip of the weapon emitters. Scale this to the graphic we have of the Sharlin, and each Nial comes to approximately two pixels, making each pixel 11 meters, as seen in the image to the top-left. In addition, it should be noted that the Minbari War-Cruiser does not carry just one or two fighters, but a full compliment of 15 fighter craft as seen above (please note that two are blurred together on the far right of the screen).

Given that the total length of the image is 159 meters, the Trigatti would have been approximately 1,749 meters in length. A pretty close number indeed. Unfortunately this figure is not very accurate, as the image is as such that we can not get a really accurate scale relative between the fighter and the War-Cruiser. Still, this is probably very close to the Sharlin's actual size. But does this rough estimate match up with the other vessels of the Babylon 5 universe? Well, let's take a look.

In the frame below we have screen captures from "In the Beginning" where a Nova class Dreadnought collides with a damaged Sharlin. We know the size of the Omega class Destroyer, which is 1,717.3 meters. The Nova's dimension are the same as the Omega's save for the rotating section. This gives us our size figures for the Nova at some 1,455.6 meters. Size of the cowl that covers the forward section of the Nova and Omega are all but identical, making the hammer shaped forward section some 278 meters in height.

Image taken from "In the Beginning"

Above, in image one, we see the Nova class Dreadnought. Image two shows the Nova just a second before impact. In image three we see the impact and the approximate size of the surface area impact seen bottom-right. While at an angle, this gives us a much better idea of the size of the Sharlin, as we know the dimensions of the Nova and have an image which we can actually outline the contact area and accurately estimate the size of the War-Cruiser relative to the Nova.

In the fourth image you can see the results, the impact area is clearly outlined on the Sharlin. Area struck has a height of 29 pixels. Divide the height by the actual size of the Nova's cowl and we discover that every pixel equals 9.58 meters. As the Sharlin listed here is 159 pixels long, the collision seen in "In the Beginning" suggests that the Sharlin is 1,524.2 meters in length

Just to make sure this fits, please note the silhouette of the Nova class Dreadnought next to the Minbari War-Cruiser. In this image the War-Cruiser is shown at 1,600 meters in length, the Nova at her length of 1,455.6 meters. Both images fit one another and fit the scene noted above, as well as the scene from "End Game" where these two ships were shown flying side-by-side. Of course, some people have tried to use the dreaded "window error" scene from "In the Beginning" to try and redefine the size of the Nova. This is rather interesting, because this follows the logic that if one looks hard enough, one can find the magical image that will reveal all the size secrets of the Babylon 5 universe.. untrue of course, but some people are out there looking for it. Understandable, I myself made the same mistake until I realized that such a quest was futile given the fact that NONE of the ships were ever given sizes.

Still, let us look at this new little theory.. can we change the size of the Nova?

The answer to the question "Can we use the flawed window scene from ITB, to redefine the size of the Nova" is a big, huge, fat, ugly NO! Forget the fact that the Nova and Omega share the same dimensions, save for the Omega having a rotating section. Forget the fact that we know the official size of the Omega, and thus using that figure can ascertain the official size of the Nova. Forget all that and you are still left with one un-refutable fact - the Nova as seen in EVERY image next to the Babylon 5 station, is no less than 1,400 meters in length. As seen here in the eight available images of the Nova class Dreadnought shown in comparison to the Babylon 5 station, every shot of the Nova clearly shows that the Nova is NO less than 1,400 meters in length, back of engine to tip and antenna.

Thus the 1,600 meter figure for the Sharlin does seem to fit the bulk of all the screen shots seen of the Sharlin class War-Cruiser throughout the series, save for the blatant errors made due to human error by the CGI team. From the many flybys near Babylon 5, to fleet action against President Clark in "End Game", all signs seem to point to one conclusion.

Myths - Errors - The Truth - Conclussions