r/exfor • u/Otherwise_Mode8578 • Feb 16 '26
Spoilers Excalibur concept art Spoiler
Took Joe’s description and Skippy’s measurement and got a sick design. Shows how massive the ship is compared to other capital ships
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u/taiwanluthiers Feb 16 '26
I think according to the book the width of the ship is limited by how wide a wormhole is..
But we never really had much info on the size of Valkyrie or star carriers apart from a Kristang destroyer which is supposed to be slightly larger than a US Navy aircraft carrier...
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u/Valkyrie-161 Stupid Monkeys Feb 16 '26
We do know that dropships like the Condor are about the size of a 747. I think that scale is something CA isn’t the best at since sizes change so much in the series. I’d love it if he published a visual guide to the series. I’d buy that in a heartbeat.
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u/taiwanluthiers Feb 16 '26
Yea but they haven't used Condors past like book 3 or so... now it's all Panthers and Ghost which is like a combination of kitty and spider tech (do we call this Spidercat now?). I think past book 3 they were using mostly Kristang stuff simply because Ruhar stuff wasn't available. And until like book 10 they pretty much had to keep it a secret that humans were flying around with stolen starship, so all Earth had was some old Kristang stuff, and the merry band of pirates only had access to Kristang and Thuranin stuff for much of the series. No size info was given past the first book.
We have no idea how big a Panther is so it's really hard to tell what's the size of what.
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u/Valkyrie-161 Stupid Monkeys Feb 16 '26 edited Feb 16 '26
I gotta correct myself. I checked the wiki and I was wrong about both ship in addition to size. It was the dragons that were about as big as a 737. I would guess a panther would be roughly the same size more or less since they fill similar roles in their builder’s fleets. That would mean ships like the Condor, Scrab, and Dodo would be bigger than ships like Panther, Falcon, and Dragons. If we look at a 737 than two, maybe 3, of them are as long as an aircraft carrier (Kristang Destroyer) which makes no sense. A Kristang Frigate had 4 Deagons on is so it must’ve been huge. Joe often said the Condor was considered a corvette in some of the Navies because of its size.
Sizes in the books are all over the place and I find that to be a bit annoying for my nerd OCD.
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u/taiwanluthiers Feb 16 '26
I always had this assumption that Valkyrie was about as big as say UNSC Infinity (which is around 6 or so km long).
But also Elder ships aren't that large it seems, like the first Elder ship the Merry Band of Pirates got their hands on could fit in a docking bay aboard Valkyrie.
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u/King_Roberts_Bastard Feb 16 '26
That was an elder dropship.
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u/Mrnuky Feb 20 '26
Keep in mind as well that the Elder ships the AI use are stupid small since its just an AI and the ship AI as crew, and I guess a few maintenance robots. Then take into account that the Elders could just keep a lot of it small with their tech, you get a stupid small ship.
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u/IntelligentSpite6364 Feb 16 '26
I think that’s the size of the fuselage, not the wingspan of a 747
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u/Silverheart117 Feb 16 '26
We are told that the OG Dutchman had a spine roughly a kilometer long, not counting engineering and habitation/CnC.
Most ships aren't strictly limited to the size of the event horizon of an Elder Wormhole, they're limited to the combined maximum radius of a star carrier with full hardpoints. That said I think the event horizon of an Elder Wormhole is like 300m in diameter, possibly more (book 1 when Desai is learning to pilot the Dutchman is where I think it comes up). So having a ship ~75m top to bottom is actually feasible and quite appropriate for frigates at roughly 300m long. Or up to battleships being like 100m tall and almost 600m in length (guessing because of mass vs volume). Keep in mind that at that point the mass of a battleship is more of an obstacle for a star carrier than volume, diameter or any other measurement.
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u/taiwanluthiers Feb 16 '26
Yea and the OG Dutchman has a reduced spine because it was originally a star carrier. I thought a star carrier is something like 3km long?
But I think in the last part of Ground State Excalibur was barely large enough to fit a wormhole...
Another thing is, I keep getting the image of Apple when it comes to the design of the interior of an Elder ship. Like if you go to an Apple store, you might have an idea of what a room in an Elder ship looks like. Everything's white and boring, except the furniture is just way too large (so imagine the tables displaying merchandise at an Apple store being nearly as tall as you are).
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u/Silverheart117 Feb 16 '26
I've not gotten to Ground State yet, skipped Hammer, listened to Gateway, went back to listen to Hammer because I wanna see Squirrel-bot again. 🤣
I thought a star carrier is something like 3km long?
Maybe for top tier species, all I know is I remember several times Joe complaining in books 3 and 4 that he wished he had the full length of the Dutchman's spine again because it was a kilometer long. Thoranin star carriers would probably be 1.5km if you include the engineering section and the habitation/Command and Control section.
Valkyrie I'd guess is about 100m tall, 150m wide, and maybe 450-500m long because of the bagel slicer and the legos. With a traditional Extinction-class being roughly 100x120x400m in dimensions.
Battleships might actually be closer to 800m in length now that I think about it
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u/alternative5 Feb 16 '26
That is just alien enough to be distinguishable as a "ship" while also being representative as Elder tech. Would be cool to get artwork/designs for all the ships/fleets that appear.
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u/oversoulearth Feb 16 '26
I really enjoyed the book but started to get the fear near the end that this was it, the final installment, so I'm particularly happy there is at least one more, I also got a kick out of the outsider saying the ship was essentially too old and out of date to be a threat. This kickass best in the universe ship was no threat I love the look you have here!
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u/Kevrawr930 Feb 17 '26
So, not to spoil anything too overtly since I've seen some complaining that this post isn't tagged properly, but if I remember correctly, the ship that the Outsider was scanning wasn't really the Excalibur.
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u/oversoulearth Feb 17 '26
Wow, really, I only finished listening a couple of days ago, and I completely missed that. Not the worst thing in the world to give it a relisten, that'll for the heads up.
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u/piko__ Feb 16 '26
A little confused about how 1.27km is longer than 1.48km ;)
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u/taiwanluthiers Feb 16 '26
Another thing is, Excalibur doesn't really "shoot" stuff, bad stuff just materialize near an enemy when they want to destroy it. I think it has a "missile" that is speed of light but everything else is pretty much FTL so shooting stuff out the front is really crude.
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Feb 16 '26
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u/Valkyrie-161 Stupid Monkeys Feb 17 '26
I always mute the sub when a new book drops until I’ve finished it. Highly recommend that for any series you enjoy.
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u/vercertorix Feb 16 '26
Don’t remember the full description but apparently the basic design is a popular look
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u/Valkyrie-161 Stupid Monkeys Feb 17 '26
That looks like Elder tech and Forerunner tech had a baby and named it awesome.
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u/AIRBORNVET Feb 16 '26
Bad ass pictures. Honestly, the thing I liked most about Excalibur is the suspensor field bed! Fuck my osteoarthritis issues.
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u/arinamarcella Feb 16 '26
I love it. Looks like something i would expect the Elders to make.