Everyone knows the ongoing question, does size matter? If you think this is going to be about “that” topic, I am afraid you are checking out the wrong post. This is about something entirely different, but as usual, there is an underlying point here. We have all seen the movies (more or less) where grand spaceships fly through space, and we continuously marvel over their intricate design and structures.
Star Wars and Star Trek sure do have their share of them, and the list will get long if I sit here and name pretty much every single science fiction series or movies out there and the ships therein. I will just let you guys harbor that information because when you are done checking this post out, you will know what I am talking about.It is always hard to comprehend the size of spaceships in movies. For example, if you have ever seen any of the Alien movies, you know that those giant freighters are supposed to be pretty big, but you have no real clue just how big they are. Dan Carlson from decided he wanted to put an end to all of this madness about which ship is bigger, so he set out on a journey to research and create some infographics that showcased the different sizes compared to each other.The result is a series of really detailed and quite interesting size comparisons that I am sure any science fiction fan will find ultimately useful.
It’s a LOT of ships, so you better brace yourself for an information overload. They are; however, awesome and all you really have to know is that most of the ships you probably won’t even remember if you’re anywhere close to being normal (unless you’re a helpless uber sci-fi fan who does more than just read about these things). This is quite amazing, and I can’t even fathom the time it must have taken to research all this! Click Images To Enlarge. I’d love to see this available as a series of posters!
I also see that there are update dates on the graphics–does that indicate that this is an ongoing project? There are a few other ships I’d love to see included, if the data exists. The Death Star, obviously, but also the Draconian Flagship and various fighters from Buck Rogers, the cruisers from both the theatrical and TV miniseries versions of Dune, The Jupiter 2 (and the Jupiter 1 from the movie) from Lost In Space, the Spindrift from Land of the Giants, the Dark Star, Tin Man from Star Trek, and anything from the Alien mythos.
Stargate Ships Schematics
Have you taken a look at Jeff Russell’s Starship Dimensions site?I’ve been using it since at least 2003 (personally and as a research toll when I worked at ILM!). I looked up Dan Carlson’s site on the Wayback Machine and couldn’t find anything older than 2007.Lots (all?) of the images are exactly the same.
There is no doubt that Dan has put lots of work into his images, but it really seems like he’s at least building on Jeff’s prior work without attribution or link.This is a good posting on a worthy nerd topic, but you may want to follow up with Dan and get the rest of the story. You may be sitting on an even more interesting story!
Stargate Earth Ships
Click to expand.Makes you wonder how the hell they managed to keep that a secret, it's like the best worst kept secret ever.Each ship is like building 10 super carriers, worse if you consider that every ounce of exotic material has to come through a 4 meter wide hole. That's like 6-7 million metric tons of metal and other resources that are needed not counting labour or the underground dry docks that they had to carve out, reinforce, and have all the attached supporting facilities with out a good place for thermal emissions, power or anything, it should take a god damn citing to make one of those ships and they made over half a dozen.It's a wonder that it's a secret at all. Click to expand.The Goa'uld are not a traditional naval power nor a traditional empire and don't think or plan like one.I personally feel it would more appropriate to think of Ha'taks as all in one mobile siege platforms rather than aircraft carriers or battleships. Think the Acclamator from Star Wars instead of Iowa or Nimitz.The lack of intermediate auxiliaries between Al'Kesh and Ha'tak is almost certainly due to the structure of the Goa'uld Empire. Each System Lord is the God Emperor of a interplanetary cult but that position is rather precarious. Deicide is a concern, as Teal'c said 'The slayer of my master is my new master.'
Sokar usurped Apophis' holdings whose holdings were in turn re-absorbed by Apophis. Your position as supreme being of your realm is only as stable as your ability to evade assassination. Which means not blithely handing the keys to FTL capable engines of mass destruction to your subordinates.Operating under such conditions, the limiting factors on a Goa'uld's power aren't just traditional resources like naquada and industrial capacity but also the number of trusted Goa'uld and Jaffa lieutenants. They have to be simultaneously loyal and competent. Klorel may have been Apophis' son and presumably loyal but he was untested and thus unpredictable. Not someone you just want to hand an army and some WMDS to like its the family sedan.
This leads to the System Lords handling things personally A LOT because who else can they trust to do the job and do it right? So if its usually you or one of your best buds or closest family on campaign, it simplifies matters to just have a few very big, very nasty platforms to work off of and that's also fewer potential liabilities.Intermediate designs require intermediate commanders which means having to make more judgement calls on who to trust with an escalating level of personal threat.
So lets say Ares decides to field an intermediate class of ship and hands the keys over to Deimos and Phobos. If one of them successfully goes rogue and either kills or converts the Jaffa onboard, that ship could pop up in orbit of Ares' homeworld and potentially drop a naquada bomb on the palace faster than a hypothetical garrison fleet could react.Lose an Al'Kesh to a Jaffa pilot who was compromised by watching Braveheart? Okay, big deal. Lose a medium cruiser to a Goa'uld butt hurt because you had their favorite slave tortured and killed 500 years ago and they never got over it, all of a sudden you have a rather significant problem.Fewer eggs in fewer baskets means fewer opportunities for disloyalty or failure and the opportunities that do arise are more likely to be dealt with by much larger quantities of very angry tattooed zealots with snakes in their guts.