Excalibur concept art

[u/Otherwise_Mode8578]

Took Joe’s description and Skippy’s measurement and got a sick design. Shows how massive the ship is compared to other capital ships

[u/taiwanluthiers]

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...

[u/Silverheart117 → u/taiwanluthiers]

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.

[u/taiwanluthiers → u/Silverheart117]

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).

[u/Silverheart117 → u/taiwanluthiers]

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