Most images, and the video clip, came from either the Babylon 5 show directly. Additional images from:
b5tech.com/oldb5tech/
babylon5.fandom.com/wiki/Main...
If you haven't watched B5, you really, really should.
Most images, and the video clip, came from either the Babylon 5 show directly. Additional images from:
b5tech.com/oldb5tech/
babylon5.fandom.com/wiki/Main...
If you haven't watched B5, you really, really should.
WELCOME, you squishy humies! I've no idea how so very many of you got pointed here, but I would like to point out / stress that this was one of my earlier videos, when I was still figuring out this whole... whatever it is I do here thing. Feel free to poke around the channel for new, possibly more-polished content that gets released about once a week or so. And if you're a true glutton for punishment, there's always this: kzhead.info/sun/Z9WQodx9ppSneas/bejne.html
You forgot to mention that it was so accurately designed NASA asked for the the rights to it.
I also forgot to mention that there's a third type of Starfury, and even a dedicated PsiCorps variant. There's only so much time.
I don’t know what pointed me here (youtube-algo and love of B5?), but your video is pretty cool. Thank you!
Did you say space doesn't have gravity?
@@Mr.Beauregarde Did you really think you were the first to not make it to 4:13?
The one thing I loved the most about this show was the different levels of technology for each race or species. Other sci-fi barely separates the time of levels of tech. Such as Trek. Babylon 5 has Terrans at one level. Narn above us.. Centauri above them. Minbari above Centauri. The Vorlon were above the Minbari. You could tell that some were 100 years above others or 10000 years above others. Every ships architecture was distinct and different. I miss this show.
@@Svenne-man-1880 yeah, the Narn just went zero G out of sheer spite and stubbornness as they refused to install spinny things on their ships as they didn't want them looking less advanced than their arch enemies.
Reboot talk being discussed.....
The only other series I've seen this is Stargate SG-1. As far as Technology goes we are WAAAAYYYYYY behind. Put it this way about the same time in the SG universe the wright brothers were doing their thing the Gou',ld we're already perfecting deep space travel. We EVENTUALLY catch up but not before we make a number of mistakes. They have ray guns we got bullets. About the only weapon we came up with that gave us any "advantage" against the Gou'ld was the FN p90 and even then that advantage was debatable! I love that show as well for the fact we are not the Baddest kids on the block. The Gou'ld look at us our planes our weapons and are like oh that's adorable.
Well, it's coming back. Although it's going to the CW of all places, apparently, JMS is still just as passionate about B5 as he was back then. That memoir he posted on Twitter gave me a spark of hope that it won't be crap like (not) Star Trek: Discovery and (not) Star Trek: Picard.
And the show really put an emphasis on just how massive those power levels were. We almost never see how powerful the Vorlons or Shadows are initially but every species is just straight up *Don't even think of messing with them* Then in later seasons you get to finally see the elder races in action and it really is a holy shit moment. Every species has it's distinct look and the actual mythos and history of those ships are expressed in their design. I miss this show so much. Hoping the remake is solid.
Zathras used to being beast of burden. Zathras have sad life, probably have sad death, but at least there is symmetry.
I have a friend at work who loves the show too, and we throw this quote back and forward when the day goes south. Sometimes we just say "Zathras" when company is mixed.
You're saying it wrong. It's Zathras, not Zathras.
You are seeing?
Ahhh, no, no, no. You mean Zathras. Not Zathras.
Zathras never listen to Zathras.
In one of the DVD commentaries JMS said that NASA contacted him to ask if they could borrow design elements from this ship. Joe said he agreed with the condition that any such ship NASA made would have to be called a Starfury
Its funny i saw this comment because i was about to say the same thing about NASA and the starfury
@@richardtrue2758 hope we and Joe see them in our lifetime
If I ever invented a beam or particle weapon I'd insist it be called an 'Astro-blaster.'
@@OllamhDrab Sure, but "Pulse Cannons" has a nice ring, too. :D
Star furies as space forklifts... Little will anyone suspect they are actually Earth's first line of defence
Centauri may have laughed about selling Earth jump gate technology... then less than a hundred years later were crying over the fact everyone was paying Earth a fortune in jump gate fees. (Earth to my knowledge became one of if not THE biggest builder/deployer of jump gates)
yeah they built an entire ship class just to seed gates not to mention how big there where too
Is this known what was the barter on the earth side?
It's like that story/fanfiction with Star Trek, where the Vulcans are discussing how potentially terrifying humanity is after they gave them two warp engines. Generally, one of the common tropes I've seen in science fiction is that human curiosity and a competitive need to at least test our own limits has other spacefaring and longer lived races surprised by our tenacity.
@@jurybery I pulled this up from a wiki but "Their civilization now past its prime, the increasingly decadent Centauri became fascinated with the Humans and their abundance of art, trinkets and eccentricity and opened up trade with this new world, which included access to hyperspace. Initially the Republic leased time on their jumpgates before negotiating the sale of the technology for the Humans to build their own gates." They also apparently expected humanity to civil war itself out fast after quick attempts to expand and were ready to swoop in and basically colonize/vassalize Earth but that failed because of human paranoia at other space faring races that might invade united the people enough.
@@EpicNinjaShiro Reckless humans stumbled into a war with the Minbari, looted a lot of dead worlds for technology, found an alien death machine and probably other dangerous problems, and finally woke the Shadows. No one sensible would have ever let them loose on the galaxy.
I used to use these Inertial firing techniques in Wing Commander: Prophecy back in the day. You could literally shut off your engines, and turn around on an axis to fire on enemies chasing you, becoming your own tail gunner with forward firing cannons.
I remember something similar from a game called Tachyon: The Fringe. It had a weird system where you could press a key, and the ship kept flying on inertia as long as you held the key. There were few uses for that: There was an afterburner as optional module that allowed you to boost the ship to more than the normal max speed (yes, ships had max speed in space, whatever) for a short time, and if you held the key, you kept the extra speed even after the afterburner ran out of power. And you could of course turn the ship and shoot in a different diraction from where you were moving. The way I've used it was to boost myself close to a capital ship, turn around and snipe at vulnerable points (capital ships had weapon turrets, shield generators, engines and generators powering weapons you could destroy individually to disable that system) without spending too much time in weapon range. At some point, I've learned to disable certain class of a ship with one well-timed railgun shot that destroyed the weapon generator... something that wasn't easy to do otherwise, as it was hidden in a trench in the ship's hull, and a capital ship had a lot more firepower than your fighter did.
@@JackPhoenixCz Ah, Tachyon. Bruce Campbell's space shooter amirite? That was a really fun game man. Was huge and had so many branching paths it was dizzying. Why can't they seem to be able to make a game like that today? Also the ship designs were, hella unique. Almost artistic, I've never seen them anywhere else. Like Cadillacs and Ferraris in space.
This was also a tactic in the game Freelancer (2003), you could cut power and continue flying in a singular direction while facing another. It wasn't used well in the Vanilla game, but in mods it became more of a staple to combat. It was an effective method for Torpedo Strafing runs on Capital ships, or a disengage method when trying while leaning on the Afterburners.
That's called the "shelton slide" and it was mapped to the [A] key on at least as far back as Wing Commander III (early 1995, when I entered the franchise after an introduction to Privateer).
@@Blank_Redge Hahah that'a sweet man. I played Wing Commander 1 on the SNES as my first WC, it was super limited but had amazing music compared to PC. In Hindsight it's amazing they fit the game on the SNES at all. Only game I ever played on the SNES that used key modifiers. // L/R-Change MFD, // Select+L/R-= MFD Selection, Start- Confirm // Y- Afterburners, Select+Y Autopilot. // A- Fire Missiles, Select+A-Change Missile // B-Fire Guns, Select+B-Cycle Guns // Select+R+L+B- Full Guns (Not kidding lol) Really fucking bold. Not even modern console games dare do this, and it was great tho. Yeah it was a pain not knowing how to call for a landing at first... (R Twice to Comms, Select+R down to "Request Landing" Start, then approach lol) But it lead to a much deeper experience.
The beauty of the real-world physics associated with the Star Fury made the idiocy of the ships in Star Wars coasting to a stop in space when they ran out of fuel all the more infuriating. Thank you for recognizing all the careful thought that went into the design of these amazing sci-fi constructs.
As much as I hate the abomination called The last Jedi, I'll have to correct you here, because this is the one thing the movie got right (probably by accident, but still). The ships that ran out of fuel never stopped, but kept going at constant speed (Newton's first law), which from the point of reference of vessels that still have active engines and continue to accelerate looks like they are falling behind.
Ewww, don't remind me of the "awful 3". Those never happend!
I think the best argument for Star Wars ships were the fact that they all had gravity and inertia dampeners. Someone pointed out that the dampeners may cause the ship to have its own gravity well. Normal Newtonian physics will function completely differently when that kind of technology is applies. Hence space magic. Note that the Nial fighters used by the Mimbari also had gravity and you rarely if ever saw them use Newtonian physics to manuever.
@brainplay8060 And the Mimbari themselves considered the Starfury (and its pilots) equal to, and potentially even better then, the Nial. Only being held back by it's primitive engines, armour, and weapons.
@@hanzzel6086 No shields in Babylon 5 but yeah sounds about right.
Totally agree ! The Starfury design LOOKS like it should work . Simple , Elegant , Deadly . Very small frontal aspect would make them hard to Shoot , and that's the ONLY view you get most of the time .
A short time before the series began, JMS did a presentation to a packed room at Loscon. There he showed the first episode, 'Midnight on the Firing Line'. In the scene that showed the Star Fury in action, the room erupted into cheers because somebody was finally getting it right.
There's a good memory, I reckon
The lack of "space magic" at least in terms of the human ships is part of what made the show fun. Humanity wasn't superior or even on par technologically speaking so they had to rely sheer will and wit to carry on. The only other show that does the realistic physics in space better is The Expanse.
The Expanse makes me keen about the B5 reboot. Though it is going to be weird seeing a new cast in the old roles.
@@malusignatius Yeah, not sure who they can get to top Claudia Christian as Ivanovna. Or the actor who played G'kar.
Untill the point where expanse just screws up. Like when they talk about the need for slow deacceleration, and then a minute later the main character kills of the same speed in a few seconds.
NuBSG is also in that category. The space battles are great.
B5 was originally going to go even farther. The Omegas were supposed to have gimble-mounted engines. But it would looked strange to see a ship firing is engine "down" to turn right, and there was no real way to explain the physics that didn't break suspension of disbelief. So they went the Star Trek route and had fixed, in-line engines.
Always loved the style of the Earth Alliance ships, especially the Novas. Flying brick of guns that had so much dakka that it could punch above its weight despite more or less being an antique compared to the various other races. Running into the broadside of a squadron of Novas in a wall formation could outright cripple if not destroy whole taskforces from other races.... if they hit (BS minbari space magic)
The Nova beat the Dilgar and earned the respect of the non-aligned races, and even something the Narn and Centauri considered dangerous to their capital ships. It is one of the reasons Earth Alliance becomes the #4 major power amongst the younger races even though it is the youngest of those races.
@@jlokison damn right it did 👍
I always imagine a kinda chill Warrior Mimbari looking at the Starfury, Nova, etc and saying "Crude, but effective"
@@scottkirby5016 a fair few did. Even when they tried to outright murder humanity the warrior caste respected the human tenacity to go out swinging, hence the easy if suspicious alliance of the two species
@@scottkirby5016I mean, by the end of the War any Mimbari warrior who was being honest would admit the Starfury wasn't to be trifled with. The only Human spacecraft to consistently trade equally with it's Mimbari counterpart. Some Mimbari even began to view it as superior to the Nial (their fighter) in many ways, only being held back by (to them) 5000+ yr old tech.
One of the best examples of off-axis combat was in the reboot of Battlestar Galactica when Vipers attacked the Resurrection Hub. They flew parallel alongside the length of the hub but rotated 90 degrees and strafted the hub along its whole length. A beautiful maneuver to watch, a glory with real physics.
Space combat simulators are present as game genre, but those are typically zero g submarine simulators. There are however few that actually try to simulate space combat, one of them being "Babylon 5: I Found Her". It is free and i advise anyone interested to try it. One thing you can find by playing B5:IFH is that WWI/II style dogfight in space combat model, it tries to simulate (as this is what movie shows to) works between same spec undamaged fighters only if both side pilots agree that they must close up, sync their movement to a reasonable degree and keep it this way until content. If one side decides (and can afford) to avoid combat only serious tactical mistakes can prevent it from doing so. Missiles can partially affect this, butt it is possible to escape them. The dorsal guns however are completely useless given what ranges and relative speeds can a willing enemy enforce. It just won't be able to work this way. And it won't have to, as even with our current technology we can achieve much more than the limitations of that combat model. And BTW: when speaking about original Starfury's cockpit you missed something very important. It's placement and the pilot's placement in it are calculated to reduce as much as possible the impact of various possible G forces on the pilot.
It is a nightmare learning to fly the fury and not slide by ships for several miles.
Star Citizen lets you viper flip. Hell, the Khartu-Al is an alien import that's basically a Starfury maneuverability-wise, with the serial numbers filed off.
B5 was a masterpiece of writing and design. Not 100% sold on the Idea of a remake/reboot (who could possibly play Londo and G'Kar now?) but I would be excited to see it's iconic ships realised with todays special effects. Especially the Earthforce Fleet. One of the coolest aspects of the show was the varying levels of technology from race to race and as an example of practical open space physics the Humans in B5 are my favourite in all sci-fi. Star Furies. With the possible exception of Space:Above & Beyond's Hammerheads, Star Furies are my favourite Starfighter design. I love the way they move.
Another point in the Starfury's favor is the pilot position in the cockpit. You can see that the pilot is in a semi-standing position, which means that while under acceleration there is no pooling of blood in the head or feet, but just evenly spread out in the back. This allows a Starfury to pull off those incredible maneuvers without the pilot blacking out.
Loved the attention to techy/scientifically minded detail in the show. Like how when a hyperspace jumppoint opens for something to enter normal space from hyperspace, it's blue. When the jumppoint is going from normal to hyperspace, it's orangeish yellow. ie, it's red- or blueshifted because of how space is being distorted and how the motion is happening. Nice.
Yep, that's the attention to detail that makes for good hard science fiction (as opposed to the more common 'sci-fi' usually found these days).
I have never realized this:)
Most of the space scenes are very muted or silent too, unless something impacts directly (there are exceptions to this but as a general rule, no sound in space. Until the Shadows....the fact that they transmit those sounds through space in otherwise silent engagements was a subtle but terrifying stroke of genius imo
@@Veklim And of course talking about what was going on with the screaming Shadow ships is a huuuuuuuuge spoiler. XD The show was SO GOOD at making sure even little details like that did, in fact, turn out to be important and mean something. Years later, rewatching the series still means I spot new stuff. Love.
@@NapsAndNoodles ooooh, yeah.....spoiler right there. Sorry! o_O
It was very well done how they kept a theme for each of the races... In later season there's even a 'trial' of one of the main protagonists whereupon DR Stephen Franklin is providing evidence of which race was behind a series of attacks based on the type of damage done to the bodies of the crew of destroyed ships, indicating the type of weapons involved. I always think that the Shadow ships are absolutely one of the scariest and most 'Alien' of all Sci Fi ships in any franchise.. you should really watch this amazing series all the waythrough, not just good Sci fi, but one of the best shows ever put to air, the acting is brilliant, the story tackle many topics which today are extremely relevant and the writing is aimed at adults.
Shadow ships can freely phase between hyperspace and realspace. Whereas Vorlon ships have _shields._
I just love the description of this ship as “doing this weird *thing* over there” cause that’s exactly how i image us humans fighting in space, just thrust in a random directions and keep pointed at the enemy ship ending with us just zipping around randomly like insects
The Mimbari Nial fighters had one major advantage and that was their stealth. Without it the battles might have gone MUCH differently.
spoilers: I love how often the humans lose in babylon 5. They're the new kids on the block and they should lose in every conflict. It took a literal act of cosmic gods to save them and make the babylon station work.
The interesting thing is at first contact with the Centauri yes humanity were the new kids, and our tech was worse than anyone else's. Odd thing about humans compared to almost every other race in the B5 universe, we learn fast and improvise and develop new stuff quiclky. We also spread out fast and when we aren't being xenophobic asses we like trying to help others. Most of the League of Non-aligned world races have more advanced technology, but for many reasons are very slow in development and keep colonies close to home and without being very numerous. The Dilgar had slightly more advanced tech than humans and started tearing into the non-aligned worlds careful to avoid the Minbari and Centauri who both decided to stay out of the fight. The Narn decided they would sell weapons but not involve themselves. The Humans decided that they liked the non-aligned races, at that time, and decided to fight after a single bit of Earth property was attacked by the Dilgar. We bought Narn equipment and either bolted it onto ships or built new ships around it. We captured Dilgar vessels when we could and copied their tech and started throwing it back at them. If the Dilgar had been willing to talk we might not have blockaded their home system and watch it go nova, because we didn't know that was about to happen. But all of a sudden the new kids on the block are the 4th most powerful of the younger races militarily and politically. Even though some of the non-aligned races have better tech, and even after being nearly exterminated by the Minbari after we poked that hornets nest, the non-aligned races accepted that the humans were more powerful than anyone of them individually. The interesting and to some extent more realistic social and political dynamics in B5, compared to Star Trek or Wars, is one of the things that made the 1st season so interesting to so many fans.
I seem to recall a TV ad/promotion long ago for what I only later knew was the B5 TV movie "In the Beginning": It's the usual Earth vs Aliens story, but this time, the Earthlings are the bad guys. The story wasn't actually that simple of course. I've never found a recording of that on old VHS tapes, here on KZhead, etc.
@@jlokisonI would note Humanity's civilian causalities during the Mimbari War where actually pretty light, most of the dead were military personnel. This is because the Mimbari wanted to blitz through and destroy the bulk of their industry/military before Humanity could fully mobilize, and then finish off them off once there was no more meaningful resistance.
If you want a good illustration of the "flip" capability of the Starfury, check the Signs and Portents episode where the raiders attack Babylon 5 itself. That's human-on-human fighting, but still shows off the maneuverability of a Starfury compared to an atmospheric ship.
Sure, because when designing and constructing and atmospheric ship, you has to make lots of concessions one does not have to make when designing a pure space fighter. But I always thought and still think that the Hammerhead from 'Space: Abive and Beyond' was a great design that worked around those limitations quite well, making it a capable space fighter, while still being used very effectively for ground bombings, atmospheric dog fights and the like. In space it could also turn on the spot and those cannons that were capable of firing backwards were a great addition as well. And yes, I loved this show and still do! kzhead.info/sun/had-fKaRgIp5ZKs/bejne.html
@@Furzkampfbomber shoutout and love for SAAB! Actually just mentioned the Hammerhead in comment before spotting this, lol! My favourite part of the design was the independant cockpit section and the design for keeping the pilot area of the hangar airlocked from the launch bay. Elegant solution imo.
@@Veklim When I think of it and after having watched a lot of scifi that features space carriers, the whole system seems to make a lot more sense than others to me. The cockpit system alone, where the whole cockpit can also be used as escape pod, is quite sensible in my opinion. But then again, most of the mil-tec related stuff made a lot more sense in this show. Don't get me wrong, I always was a hardcore trekie, but combat in this show is ridiculous, whereby SAAB is quite realistic in many regards. And the contrast between alien and human mil-tec was one of the things that made the show interesting. The chigs using anti-gravity technology and what looks like plasma weapons, while earth forces still use firearms and tanks with treads, with the humans having some disadvantages, but apparently still exceeding when it comes to fighing in the dirt. Seriously, I simply can't imagine the Chigs doing dirty trench warfare, hand-to-hand combat or jumping into the dirt, with their ridiculously impractical and cumbersome suits. And by the way, SAAB is the rare case of an ensemble show where I do not have a preferation for some characters or dislike a character. The characters were all very well designed and the show had everyone have his or her episode and moments. Which were quite dark occasionally (just remember what happened to Wang), I guess that was one of the things that made the show being ahead of its time and was especially disliked by at least a part of the audience and by the suits that axed the show. I mean, SAAB came almost 10 years before Battlestar: Galactica, which hit the same dark, gritty and often quite hopeless tone and which got celebrated _because_ of it...
@@Furzkampfbomber Amen to that, was certainly ahead of it's time, and if anything deserved a reboot..... It managed to touch on a whole host of very real issues in the manner good scifi should, but at a time before doing such was actually the zeitgeist in any popular media. I always attributed it's ultimate failure to such, at least in part. Dealing with racism, drug issues, disability (both hidden and not), a whole host of historical references (often military-related) which spoke volumes about the implied state of affairs back on Earth without ever feeling the need to openly state or debate it. Subtle, layered and thoroughly ahead of it's time, doomed from the start! Also, poor Wang Paaaaul.....
One ship that I think could be cool to see you do a review of, which is one I feel is sorely underrepresented in the Sci-Fi community is the Andromeda Ascendant.
I've always thought of B5 as "science fiction", and the various iterations of Star Trek as "science fantasy".
Better to use a hardness scale. B5 is hard science fiction. That is, science fiction that mostly conforms to our current understanding of real world physics. Soft science fiction is going to be your Star Treks and Warhammer 40ks, since they involve technologies and elements that don't follow our current understanding of physics, incredible technologies, and some pseudo supernatural stuff that outright breaks normal physics. More realistic means Hard Science Fiction. Less realistic means Soft Science Fiction.
@@Thalanox And then there's science fantasy. "Now there's one thing I just don't understand, how can he lift a big rock just by waving his hand?"
@@geraldfrost4710 There is no "science fantasy". That would be categorized as soft science fiction. If you think that "science fantasy" deserves a distinct category from "soft science fiction", then I'd be interested in hearing your definition of it. If you want an explanation of lifting a rock and waving a hand, I'm sure there are many possible explanations available.
Yes, there is a lot of "magical tech" and "unobtanium" in Star trek while B5, with the exception of hyperspace gates/drives, pretty much kept to the technology and science that we know.
Yeah no, B5 is still science fantasy. Centauri, minbari and the old races tech is definitely impossible. Artificial gravity to organic ships depending on whom. Where are the giant heat sinks on the EF ship for the megawatts of energy there weapons output?? FTL communication, instantaneous from many many light years. How do their handheld PPGs have enough output to burn through a bulkhead... but not melt the users hands?? Fighters make no sense in (feel to read articles at projectrho for further info) yet the small fighters you are talking about generate enough energy to burn through cruisers halls. Don't get me wrong, I like B5, but minus the centrifugal spinning crew sections of a few ships, the show might as well have star trek tech.
My favorite part of playing Freelancer was the ability to cut engines. It totally shaped my dogfighting so much, years later I more or less refused to play any other starfighting game without such mechanic.
it is one of the things that annoys me about Elite Dangerous... I cut engines and drift to a stop... I want to drift towards a star, slingshot and then fly away... Not stop dead in space !!
I remember reading in one of the books (I forget which one) that the Starfury was the only younger race fighter that the Nial pilots worried about going up against. So, recognition from the oldest of the young races to the youngest!
One of the things that really made Babylon 5 stand out was how the ship combat worked and how the show was a lot harder sci-fi than Trek or Star Wars despite having just as, if not more, fantastical elements to it.
I really want to see your take on the Gunstars of The Last Starfighter. The effects team wanted to have the thrusters that are clearly visible on the design working, but the Cray Computer they were using at the time just couldn't handle it and so they had to drop it, but otherwise it's still there. I'd like to see your break down of not just that ship but others from the movie as well.
The Starfighter is definitely on the list.
The hardware and software could easily handle the additional thruster flames. After all that Gunstar model was incredibly high res for its time. The problem simply was the time consuming work to constantly animate a dozen or more thruster flames in each shot. Consider that, apart from the preview module, there was no GUI and keyframes and their values were entered on a command line. All animation of objects, lights, cameras had to be done that way.
@@SacredCowShipyards Clear's throat...ummm It is a GUNSTAR not a starfighter. Starfighter is the name of the gunner....
5:35 In the Wing Commander universe, this is called the Afterburner Slide. For the curious, the game manual for the spin-off Privateer illustrated it in page 61.
Wasn't it called a Shelton slide or something like that???
I always hated the Starfury Thunderbolt. To go atmospheric they moved the cockpit forward away from the center of rotation. The Starfury Aurora with the pilot located at the center of rotation allowed the pilot to do extreme flip turns without feeling extra Gs.
Didn't they have basic antigrav at that point? Enough to nullify G-forces? I'm not sure the Thunderbolt is from the same generation of tech as the new 'no rotating crew segment' Destroyers.
@@JoshSweetvale no the Thunderbolt doesnt have inertial tech yet. They actually acknowledge the G force issues. The Thunderbolt pilots even wear specialized Flight gear to compensate.
The thunderbolt is good if you consider it for what it is rather than an upgrade to the Starfury. Thunderbolt is a transitional fighter meant to escort landing craft. Normal Starfury are better in space but when you need to land troops on a hostile planet there really isn't anything they can do after atmospheric insertion. A vital thing when you don't have air support craft on the planet already or are one of the last groups to evac from a planet
The pilot who was checking Sheridan out on the Thunderbolt even called out this design issue in the episode they debuted.
@@barrybend7189 they don't have artificial gravity, as a nitpick Earth Force DO have inertial dampeners, they're just rather minimal, and easily exceeded, at least in their fighters. Not sure if that's because the dampeners aren't good or its a power scaling issue. Even the centauri seem to have that issue in their fighters and they *have* gravity. I don't think the Minbari have any problems with it in theirs though
I always imagined the hyper-to-normal pre launch maneuver was the "high risk" deployment, as any sort of mechanical or navigation failure would lead to the fighter being lost, forever, in hyper space. (There's a fair bit on how easy it is to actually get lost in HS, and especially how difficult anything lost in HS was to find again).
that was shown in the episode when The Shadows ships started to get some screen time. During the episode one of the main cast had their Starfury damaged and adrift in hyperspace. They did recover MC but a fighter and redshirt pilot were lost but the black box was ejected and recovered.
@@demonoftheweb right I thought I remembered something like that happening, it's been a while. I think there's similar situations in one of the books as well as crusade.
It was presented as being *FAIRLY* safe if you're staying close to a capital ship (or in range of a jumpgate beacon). The example where they got lost in hyperspace was going a good distance from a jumpgate - too far to be safe - using a squadron of starfuries to give each other a "breadcrumb trail" to follow. Onf ot he starfuries got knocked out of position, and cut the others off from the safety line that had been strung out into hyperspace to give them a route home.
@@demonoftheweb Not sure you can really call him one of the main cast when that was basically the only semi-important plot point the character ever touched. The network (PTEN, IIRC) told JMS he had to add a fighter pilot to the opening credits, but he spends a season showing up on screen but doing nothing, and then dies.
@@boobah5643 I was calling the pilot that died a red shirt not an MC. B5 is in my top 5 maybe 3 sify show I've watched. I don't watch the credits very often unless I'm trying to figure out why a bell is ringing in my head.
Vosh's vorlon ship was a thing of beauty even given the early cg of the day.
"Terran need 10 their ships to destory one of enemy, so solution for them was simple, they send 30" its from one of the story on HFY redit.
Which one?
That sounds cool, until you realize the enemy outnumber then too
@@rommdan2716 but they are ready loose them all, is the enemy? if enemy shall win, let it by pyrrhic one :D
The Minbari were as old as a non-ancient species could be in the B5 universe. That's why they kicked the EA's butts. Before that the EA wiped the floor with the Dilgar-somethings so I was told.
Londo - 'Leave the Minbari alone, if you dojt bother them, they wont bother you..' Earth General - 'We took care of the Dilgar, we can take care of the Minbari' PRIDE cometh before that FALL and Humans has Pride for days or something this that
EA didn't wipe the floor with the Dilgar, but with the non-aligned worlds they were able to push the Dilgar back to their home world and contain them there. Eventually, a few years later, the Dilgar homeworld star when supernova and killed nearly all of them.
@@kentlangres2879 Ah.... Arrogance and Stupidity all in one package, how efficient of you. -Lando Mallari
Towards the end we see Starfuries take out both Shadow and Vorlon fighters, although they suffered badly from the trope that bad guys become less efficient the more of them there are. A single shadow ship is a unstoppable juggernaut early on, taking out just one was a massive accomplishment. However despite this when they get into the big climatic battles later on they are more or less just fooder same as everything else.
@@Sherool i dont think it was directly stated but i would not be shocked if the minbari shared some sensor tech with the League to allow for targeting as that was the biggest advantage in both the earth minbar war and for the shadows. not to mention the league also used psychers to help mess with the shadows. as for vorlons its likely a similar sensor tech gap helped.
I was just listening to Strazynski's commentary on one of the episodes. Apparently NASA liked the design enough they wanted to borrow aspects of it to design a 'space forklift' piece of equipment.
Straczynski agreed, on a single condition: IF they could use the design and actually built it, NASA had to call them Starfurys.
Nice work! The Starfury is also one of my favorite science fiction craft as well. The only criticism I've heard of the design is those engines mounted out at the ends of the craft's arms. Yes, "reaction control thrusters" is excellent and realistic. They're also a heckuvalot of mass out there at the end of those arms. Even in space and "zero-G" mass has its effect. To get the craft moving - or to stop it from moving - takes energy. And the more mass you have located that far away from the axis or point of rotation, the more energy you're gonna have to spend getting it moving. So, those engines in those locations are not the best solution. Mounting 'em close in to the Starfury's main body and centerline while running their exhaust ducting out to the ends of the arms however, would be the way to go. And it wouldn't look as damn cool. So, big honkin' engines out at the ends of the "wings" is the way they went. And that does look cool. The other bit would be the cockpit and all that glass. Even with today's aircraft technology, fighter pilot's spend most of their time in combat looking at their instrument displays. The idea being to engage and defeat the enemy when he is still a long, long away from and you're thus relying on your aircraft's sensors to pick him up, lock on to him, track him and fire upon him. All without ever actually laying eyes upon him. That the whole "BVR" - Beyond Visual Range - type of combat and that's even here on Earth with our current best technology. Yes, being able to visually acquire and track a target with the human Mark 1A Eyeball is still valuable for when the planes close to such "point blank" range. So, a bubble canopy with its unrestricted view is of great importance. But out in space the distances would most likely be much, much greater. And our ability to see targets hundreds of thousands of miles away - still quite close in "outer space terms" - would be pretty impossible. So, the need for such "direct vision" windows or canopies is actually gonna be pretty limited. And, as you pointed out, all that glass also means plenty more weak spots for the bad guys to shoot you through. What would be much more likely is computer vision systems in which there's either no "direct vision" (i.e. windows) or very limited amounts of it. Even here with our current tech we're moving in that direction for our combat aircraft. The helmet mounted displays - the systems built into the pilot's helmets which project their imagery right onto the pilots visor - are becoming increasingly prevalent and encompassing. They display the needed sensor information that pilot would normally have to look down at his instrument panel and that allows the pilot to keep his eyes on the target outside of the plane. The systems are also getting to the point of presenting imagery onto the visor from cameras and sensors mounted all around the aircraft. That sort of imagery makes it seem as if the plane isn't there. That is, when the pilot looks down or to the side and would otherwise be seeing his lap or the wings of the plane, the computer generated imagery melds the information from the various cameras and sensors to depict things as if the plane was invisible and he was looking right through it all. It's pretty cool stuff. And it's getting better every day. So, for a future "space fighter" type design would most likely feature a super advanced version of that in which the pilot wouldn't need to look through any canopy or port holes or anything. And he'd be more effective anyway by relying on the computer vision imagery that'd give him a 360 degree field of vision with all the various sensor information provided as well. Hence, no need for such a highly visible cockpit as on the Starfury. But that would also mean we couldn't see anyone in the cockpit either and that wouldn't be as visually interesting or assist the story telling worth a damn. So.... In any event, the Starfury is still one cool spaceship!
In reference to... "...heckuvalot of mass out there at the end of those arms." You're RIGHT there are some drawbacks to that particular design... but there are also advantages... 1) It gives the engines more leverage to change the attitude of the ship (yaw, etc) 2) Defensive/redundancy - it helps to prevent "fratricidal" destruction of the other engines if one suffers some kind of damage. Example, one engine gets hit by enemy fire or even an explosive malfunction, then the shrapnel (etc) from that engine destroys the engine next to it... or even the fuselage itself if it were actually mounted to the fuselage instead of a wing-like or strut/spar extension. A little deeper into point 2... The further apart the engines are, the less likely to have a fratricidal loss (and the more leverage, too). IF the engines are directly side-to-side... touching on one side, it takes FAR more of a difference in thrust AMOUNT to change a vector/attitude... you need separation for that... basically, you'd have to completely shut one off, which would cut your acceleration by half. IF the engines are actually touching on one side, then anything which took out one, would almost certainly take out the one touching it. The further apart apart they are, the smaller the arc of exploding debris from one that COULD hit the other.
The reason Starfurys have windows is because they could also inspect a target or object up close. They still rely on scanners for deep range combat.
@@barrybend7189 Yes, and there are several views of those scanners in operation, in various episodes.
They shouldn't have been crewed either, they should have been drones. A drone would have been able to handle accelerations and inertial stresses that would have turned any human into a meat paste.
@@aguyhere7945 There is little AI in Babylon 5. There’s no way Earth could field all AI Starfuries.
+1 just for Sisko. I miss Babylon 5. It’s been 25 years so time for a rewatch
It's so good. I mean, granted, the first season's graphics are... so bad. And most of the fifth season was... a lot of filler. But the total story was just an amazing arc. Even though Marcus got screwed in the end. Or not, which is the sad part.
@@SacredCowShipyards I don’t even remember a lot of it. I watched seasons 2-4 and caught reruns of 1, but then moved to Japan and never got a resolution. So now is the perfect tim- oh. $.99 per episode through Apple... I could have sworn Netflix had it recently but alas. Something to look out for in the future then
@@parandiac Yeah, I could swear one of the systems had it for free recently, but JustWatch indicates it's all pay-to-play now. Kind of strange, given how old it is.
Yarr.
@@SacredCowShipyards I'm glad Ivanova didn't. It would've been a pity boffing. Marcus loved her, and would have been insulted. Remember, he was Minbari trained, and they have a ritual for everything.
I like the Term 'PFM drive' (Pure F'ing magic) or Clarktech (Coined by Isaac Arthur of SFIA)
The term "Clarketech" (with an "e" because it's a reference to Arthur C. Clarke) was in widespread use sometime prior to 2012. Isaac Arthur's KZhead channel only dates back to 2014, and it was sometime after that when he's supposed to have "coined" the term. So no, as brilliant as he is, the credit doesn't belong to him for that one. But he did also spell it right.
Most realistic starfighter ever right up there with the highly forgotten gunstar from the last starfighter
_It'll be a slaughter!_ _That's the spirit._ 👍
As much as I love the iconic Gunstar; the cockpit placement is far from optimal.
Old school!! So cool!!
@@houstonhelicoptertours1006 well something thats meant to use a pilot and gunner while also being able to launch from a planet.
The Gunstar looks like a generational development of the Starfury.
that ship is a work of art. and hands down one of the coolest. also deadly.
Just an FYI: in B5 the term for the jump points is aperture. They open an aperture into or out of hyperspace.
B5 did use a CGI scene a couple of times through the series of a star fury spinning around and laying down it's own cover fire as it drifted along. Their weapons were Pulse Plasma Guns, similar to, but much bigger versions of, hand held PPGs, which were basically balls of really hot plasma. So it could pop off a bunch of these plasma balls along the path behind it, and provide cover fire for it's own escape. And remember, it had forward firing engines. So it was fully capable of acceleration while facing backwards and providing its own cover fire. Pretty cool, indeed.
In the scene at the beginning of "Severed Dreams" where the Alexander is being chased down by the Clarkstown, you see quite a few 'furies just flying backwards alongside the Alexander firing back at the chasing ship. A cool scene among many from that episode.
I used to think X-Wing fighters were the coolest starfighter ever. Then came the Starfury. Eat your heart out, Red 5.
How did I miss this gem? I love Babylon 5 content! Damn, I wish it would get a remaster, it would be amazing to see the station, ships, and miscellaneous redone with explicit rather than inferred details.
I will freely admit that I was a little leery of watching this one. They got so much just spot on from an engineering perspective (and from that of a Newtonian physics space sim fan) that I was dreading what you were going to say. Phew, I won't have to go cry in a corner now because you said mean things about my baby. I wouldn't have anyway but now there's no need.
Also also... The design is really cool and intimidating. And pulling that off in addition to being 'technically correct' is another level of achievement.
Have you looked at the Hammerhead fighters from Space: Above and Beyond? While they are also made for flight in atmosphere, they also use typical reaction drives with thrusters all over the plane to change directions in space.
Also on the list :).
That was a great series and loved the hammerhead ! The angriest angel (mcqueen) vs ivanova would be one hell of a fight In space or on land
@@chrishoughton2500 Ivonova would win as she is God Boom Shakka
Aaaah, a man of culture. Please let me the honor to upvote for the hammerhead position on your list. Not only is it cool and believable, the whole show gets far to less love. Not even a remake that destruct the original feel, like everything else today receives.. Well, maybe this is a good thing. Anyway, the Hammerhead is still on my personal lovelist for space fighters. Hammerhead, Starfury, Viper Mk1
@@drdeth2000 McQueen does not believe in God.
babylon 5 was pitched first to paramount cbs. CBS said no... as soon as WB announced b5, Paramount looked for a director for a new tv series set in the star trek universe based around a space station that would act as a trade hub and diplomatic center. While the show creators and writers were unaware of b5's script and bibles, the Exects who pushed for the series, had and did push it closer to b5 then it should have or would have been.
I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this, but the warthog is the Fairchild Republic A-10 THUNDERBOLT II. Sheridan's ship paid homage to the Flying Tigers. There were many of these little titbits in B5.🇦🇺🐨🇦🇺
13:10 I remember an episode where a character (Garibaldi?) mans a Starfury in an emergency wearing shirt sleeves. I don't remember what the circumstances were, but I do remember him saying, "If this cockpit breeches, I'm dead."
Someone was about to ram another one into a sensitive part of the station.
First episode is season 5. A rogue from the Clark admin was trying to kill President Sheridan.
@@davidarmentano Now I remember. He was going to shoot out the window, letting everyone out except for Sheridan. It's what gave Garibaldi time to get to him.
Kind of looking fwd to JMS doing another B5. With today's updated production value and his writing ability not too worried about a reboot.
The real X factor on it being good is the cast. The original managed to catch lightning in a bottle by collecting an amazing set of actors. That chemistry won't be easy to reproduce.
@@nobodyimportant2470 Agree, that's why I said not to worried. Still room for it to go sideways.
@@earnestbrown6524 Getting another perfect cast, and keeping all of today's SJW nonsense out of it? I can't be optimistic. It would be better if they continued the story from after the "Legend Of The Rangers" movie, with the new alien race "The Hand" etc, rather than rebooting from the start.
@@kerryedavis I loved that movie. Would be nice to see the new ranger ships fighting alongside the fighting bricks of the EA against the hand
One of the descriptions of the Starfury, which I think was made into the motto for the 361st Tactical Squadron that Sinclair was part of during the Earth-Minbari War, was "Ugly but well hung."
I have a pedantic nitpick. But what are nerds without pedantry? ;-) This was a fantastic description of one of the best sci-fi shows as far as realistic space travel goes. I'd like to add that Babylon 5 itself is specifically a type of station called an O'Neill Cylinder. The original concept back in the 70s was for two counter-rotating cylinders, one inside the other, to cancel out gyroscopic forces. Babylon 5 may or may not have a counterweight somewhere, but the fact that it isn't the entire station rotating is probably helpful. Anyway, the pedantic nitpick! You said several times that there is no gravity in space. This is a common misconception, and terms like "zero gee" and "microgravity" unfortunately foster it. There is quite a lot of gravity in space; aboard the ISS, crews experience very nearly the same amount of gravitational attraction as they do standing on the surface of the Earth. It's less, but not by much. You might lose a few pounds by climbing a 250 mile ladder, but that's all. You'd still stick to the ladder just fine, and if you let go, you wouldn't go floating off into space -- you'd plummet to the ground and die. (Well, not really. You'd accelerate far beyond the normal terminal velocity of a human, since you'd be above the atmosphere, and then burn up on reentry.) The reason things are weightless in space* is not because there is no gravity. It's because they are in freefall. As it turns out, acceleration from gravity and acceleration from anything else are pretty much indistinguishable to humans, and weight is just the force you exert on the ground. So if the ground is falling at the same speed that you are, you won't be able to exert any force on a scale at all and will be weightless. But gravity is very much still pulling you. Babylon 5 orbits the planet Epsilon 3; that means it is bound by gravity. (Heck, the station itself is massive enough to have a significant gravitational field. Nothing like a planet or even a moon, but comparable to a small asteroid or comet.) If you jumped off a ladder 250 miles long, you'd plummet to the ground. So why doesn't the ISS? Well, it actually is plummeting to the ground. Constantly. The trick is that it's also moving forward, very very fast, and the Earth is round. If you travel forward fast enough, then your fall will actually miss the Earth. You'll fall around it, endlessly. At 250 miles altitude, this requires traveling about 17,500 MPH. So gravity is very much still there in space. *Things in space aren't always weightless. As I mentioned, acceleration from gravity is indistinguishable from any other acceleration. This is why a centrifuge would be an effective way to simulate gravity. As far as our bodies are concerned, it would be indistinguishable from the real deal. Other acceleration also works, like burning your engine. When the ISS does a reboost maneuver, it's generally done along the station's long axis, and although the force is too slight to really feel, crews can nevertheless demonstrate it by releasing objects and watching them fall aft. This is also why rapid aircraft maneuvers produce higher G-forces, of course, and why the Enterprise needs inertial dampers to prevent turning the crew into jelly. The Starfuries do not appear to be making excessive maneuvers; their tight turns probably require a fair bit of training to endure, but it's within the realm of human capabilities, and that's something I really love about this show. I just hope to god the reboot doesn't mess it all up....
Ah yes, exploiting inertia, I remember doing that a bit in the pc game Freelancer, going fast and then cutting the engines and turning 180 degrees to shoot the little bastard on my tail with my best guns and maybe a missile or two for good measure before putting the engines back to full power and afterburning out of the way.
Cool video! Appreciate your very science-literate / verisimilitude approach to sciency-make-believe. And, yes, Sisko is super cool, perhaps the best! Many happy returns!
To address the "Glass" cockpit issue. Synthetic Sapphire ( Crytiline Aluminum)is as tough as Steel,. It is literally the real-world version of Star Treks' "transparent aluminum". It can be manufactured by the ton IRL., and It's already used for Military optics, aircraft cockpit windows, etc. The cockpit of a Star Furry could in theory be as tough as the side of an armored vehicle. with its angled slopes, and general shape, that cockpit could stop autocannon rounds and still be completely transparent "glass". :)
9:22 My parents had the box DVD set and I grew up watching this show. And I never ever thought that the launch of the Starfuries was just centripetal force! Like letting a ball on the end of a string go! That's so cool!!!
The A10 Warthog's proper name is the Thunderbolt. Just an interesting side note.
Thunderbolt II, remember it is the second plane carrying the Thunderbolt name.
@@Jaegerrants Ah yes indeed. I forgot about the original back from the WW2 era.
very very frightening?
Fun fact: NASA thought so highly of the design that they wanted to license it for a future project/program. JMS & the B5 team gave it to them.
Love to see the Thunderbolt design for the next generation of fighter.
@@Chode216 more like Dragbolt. Biplanes are rare nowadays for a reason.
In your example of side strafing, if they fired their engines at #4, they could continue to shoot while orbiting the target.
*Has sudden flashbacks to aerial duelling in Tribes* Godsdamnit I'm old.....
@@Veklim I miss the original Tribes. That was a fun game. :)
If you orbit the target you end up with a predictable flight path and soon have an "oh drat" moment with defensive fire. Slide on by the come in for another pass from a different direction or angle. 8 fighters doing that give the target a bad hair day.
@@dennismulhall3057 It depends on the target. If your swinging around it in an orbit brings you directly behind it, where there's less armor/coverage, then you can either continue to drift sideways, or work on accelerating to keep yourself behind the target. plus, even though you are "orbiting" the target, you can still jink up and down while pitching to maintain target. Not easy, but it can be done.
I became a early fan of B5 and JMS when following JMS on the Babylon 5 Usenet group. What excited me at the time was exactly what you speak about, the far more realistic physics of the space station and ships. Love this video on it. It was remarkable for the time, even now.
wasn't that great? he was so approachable. answered us too ... real chatty. except for that troll. ford was his last name i think. i miss usenet.
@@philsaggitariusa3738 Usenet is still there. It's just not what it was.
That was an awesome time. I still have a couple of emails from him in my archive folder. And a printout of every article from The Lurker's Guide.
The ABSOLUTE best sci fi ship EVER
... would be the TIE Defender
@@darthkek1953 hmmmmmm. Many points for all things Star Wars..... NONE of their ships, fighters or mechanized vehicles make any sense. From a realism point of view the star fury is logical and obeys Newton.
@@darthvex1971 if we're Interstellar we're in a post-Newtonian world, but most importantly TIE fighters make the best noises.
@@darthkek1953 I LOVE Star Wars. I'm a huge fan. My gamer tag is Lord Victus..... All sci fi uses magic, not just the Force. Nobody builds ships more ignorant than Star Trek. SW uses fighters like they are in ww2....ST is bullshit because you can't see light years away to know what's in the next system over. I take it all in stride. The Expanse is the closest to reality with B5 and BSG the next.
StarFury isn't a "ship", it is fighter-bomber.
This StarFighter Design Actually belongs to NASA: They actually bought the plans to it from the creator and producers a long long time ago as a reference for the development of a real space starfighter due to the beauty of the design. It was even in SciFi Magazine I believe back in the day, there was even an article on it.
IIRC there's a clause in that contract that said "And the class has to be named Starfury." Which made it comedic when NASA wanted it for essentially a maintenance craft. You know, because that's the job they actually need done. Can't blame them for that, just made me laugh.
@@Sorain1 Oh, I'm absolutely sure it would be "adapted" as a fighter design pretty quickly if needed though but the whole "maintenance craft" routine is a nice touch. After all you don't buy a microwave to stick in your oven at the house normally, i mean.
Fun fact: Babylon 5 was crawling with Star Trek actors, writers and designers, many of whom were also working on DS-9 at the same time.
B5 is still my all-time favorite Sci-Fi series. I loved seeing the physics at work on the fighters while I was in high school and college, and I loved the stories and the underlying points being made in them. This was a GREAT show. Part of me cringes at the thought of a reboot, but the creator saying that he wants to go back and do the show over with all of the things he's learned since the first incarnation gives me hope that this 2nd incarnation may be actually better. Time will tell.
I heard this and my thoughts "oh noooooo please noooo". I really REALLY hope I am wrong. I just don't remember the last reboot that worked for me.
BSG's reboot was good. But that's the only one I can think of.
Great clip and a major difference between the series. The fall of night shows this strafing against a Centauri Primus class
Wing Commander 3 allowed strafing like this and was great. Aim in the same direction as the big ship then ease off the power rotate 90 degrees and strafe the entire ship as your momentum carries you :)
It still did not allow for full newtonian physics, and your fighters had a speed limit. While not realistic, it is understandable why they went with that. I tried out the B5 game (well, a demo of it anyways) when it came out, it had full newtonian physics, including letting you accelerate and pick up speed as much as i wanted. Problem was, i was either too slow and picked off easily by enemies, or i flew past them waay to fast to even try hitting them. It was realistic all right, and not particularly fun to play. On an unrelated note, if you liked the Wing Commander games but just cannot get into them anymore because of how dated they are. Look up Wing Commander: Darkest Dawn. Its a fan project built on the freespace 2 engine, but it makes you forget you are not actually playing an official game. The characters in the "story" and the missions are just pure awesome. (Its set during the Wing commander 3 timeline, but you play another pilot from another carrier.)
@@_Muzolf Prior to DosBox and its ability to downclock the processor, I got Wing Commander II (CD Version) working on a semi-modern PC. The results were... interesting. All of the cutscenes and non-flight aspects were fine. Flight was problematic. When I launched, I would immediately explode. The processor was so much faster than CPUs were when WCII was programmed and the game had no inherent clock control, so launch to boom was happening immediately for the humie because the same number of clock cycles were occuring on the multicore 4 GHz processor in a fraction of a second compared to the design single core 160 MHz Pentium.
@@_Muzolf I remember that. You had to press button to disable the "speed limit" to let you accelerate. It was the hyperspace rescue mission or something, I got bored and just kept firing the thrusters. First time I played that mission I slammed into the ship that needed rescuing while still accelerating, under a second from first detection to hitting it. There was a reason they had "speed limit" on by default...
Project Sylpheed did that as well. And detonating battleships was fun too.
Is one of the only ways of taking out capital ships with fighters in Star Citizen (currently in playable alpha) made by same guy that made Wing Commander and Freelancer.
You highlight what I have always called the difference between science fiction and space fantasy, great vids 👍
Always loved the paintjob of the PsyCorps Starfurys
I still have a Revell model of this! My favourite fighter. Ever. One issue with the Thunderbolt is the cockpit is further from the centre of rotation. This would exert more G force on the pilot than in the regular Starfury, making it less effective in extreme maneuvers while in space. So despite the greater flexibility of the Thunderbolt, it was slightly less effective in microgravity than its older sibling.
Great to hear you still have it, I still have my Revell model also it takes pride of place on display
Loved this show from the first run even though it was on 12:30 Sunday mornings here. My absolute favorite ship was the Whitestar. You should do it soon. It had a little magic drive but still had realistic acceleration physics
Definitely agree. The Whitestars were the coolest.
It's been a week since I found your channel, but I keep coming back. Please keep creating, there's tons of people who don't know how great your videos are... yet.
I'll keep doing what I do. Thanks for stopping by!
The shit?!? I just started rewatching this last weekend, and this is on my recommendations?!? I'm not disappointed, just freaked out
THE ALGORITHM KNOWS ALL. THE ALGORITHM SHARES ALL. ... eventually.
The Starfury is probably one of the most unique ships in sci-fi simply because of what it can do. As you says it pays attention to Newtonian physics whereas almost no other sci-fi universe does. Ok the new Battlestar Galactica had SOMETHING similar in the way the Vipers etc flew, but the Starfury would kick Starbuck’s arse every time-and that’s BOTH Starbucks, original included.
Funnily enough, the Battlestar Galactica novels (as in the ones the original series was based on) had pretty good respect for physics in ways the original show didn't really do justice. Also more interesting Cylons than the ones in the show or the new series...
The Expanse also does the scienec very well. There are no fighters, but you do have the racing ships.
"Warships don't like getting shot at." XD Such profundity! Good video. Why the algorithm waited 2 years to recommend it to me I don't know. The Starfury has always been one of my favourite ships of all time.
the star fury is up there with Space 1999's Eagle
What I always found fascinating about newtonian space combat is that acceleration is key. A missile that has higher acceleration, faster turn rate and longer fuel supply will always hit you. You just can not outrun or dodge it.
Newton is one bad mother fucker. Every time you pull the trigger this gun accelerates 10 lb of iron to .25 light speed. With no atmosphere there is nothing to slow it down it will just keep going until it hits something. This means that every time you fire this gun you are ruining someone's day. It could be the ship your shooting at, the planet behind them, or some alien light-years away in thousands or millions of years but someone is going to have a bad day.
@@nobodyimportant2470 and that is why sir isaac newton is the deadliest son-of-a-bitch in space. Also, please dont eyeball your WMDs
Roci will knock it down with PDC fire.
This is why point defenses matter.
If you want a true Starfury experience, with newtonian physics, inertial flight and including navigating in hyperspace, I highly recommend an old game called "I've found her".
That's the badger! A tech demo they put together to advertise their community game with scenario mode and the titular mission where you search hyperspace for a lost ship that's incredibly hard to find without getting lost yourself! Thanks, I'm going to download that again
so. watched every video in the backlog now. ALSO. congrats on 5k.
Thanks!
15:06 long vid of a major reason I loved B5. Everything in it was sort of, well, just believable for the details such as the Starfury. Excellent show. I hear they're making a reboot.
Could have shown video of the old game Asteroids for your example.
I recommend watching Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning. Not a satisfying ending, but surely entertaining.
Before the screen even shifted I knew we'd be doing a breakdown of the Starfury. Such a great ship from such a great show. I loved watching Babylon 5 as a kid. Story was great and it was one of the few shows where humanity... just sucked. Even then, the writers brought together amazing stories and really brought you into the universe and all it's interesting and diverse species were easily recognizable (well except the Vorlons. We are all Kosh). Some of my dearest TV memories come from Babylon 5.
Banking in space serves the purpose of keeping G forced parallel to the axis of the spine of a sitting or standing person. In human architecture, this makes higher G forces bearable. It also avoids the "everyone run to the right, now everyone run to the left" as they tilt the camera in each direction. The Star Fury's pilot can't see to the side or backward? They don't have backup cameras in the future? My sports car has one! I don't know which came first, but the Star Fury looks a lot like an X-Wing fighter from Star Wars. In my next novel, the protag and his gang will use a non-reaction drive. Direction will be chosen at the outset because turning will not be necessary (quantum physics involved).
Problem i have with the Thunderbolt, looking at it, is that the G-forces in that cockpit are going to be murderous compared to the base starfury.
It always annoys me when people call the Thunderbolt an upgraded Starfury. It isn't an upgrade but a transitional fighter. Not as good as the Starfury in space and likely not as good as the purely atmospheric fighters but being able to switch between the 2 environments is needed for beach head missions. If you are looking to land troops on a hostile world, you will need something to protect the landing craft until you can set up runways and unpack normal atmo fighters. If you are forced to evac the planet due to overwhelming attacks from the planetary forces you want fighters that can break atmo escorting the last bus off world or those pilots will be trapped behind enemy lines.
It will be interesting to see where J. Michael Straczynski's reboot of Babylon 5 ships designs go, whether they stay true to the old designs or go in a different direction. Either way interesting times ahead. kzhead.info/sun/fZqJkdWygpx-rY0/bejne.html
I have... reservations, which I'll probably bounce off of during this week's episode, just because of the timing.
I doubt today's Hollywood can out act the original cast.
@@OOTurok There is no replacing G'Kar. Or Londo. Or...
@@SacredCowShipyards My reaction when I saw the news of the reboot: "Ahhh...ohhh...not The One."
@@LIA-52 especially as its CW and everything on CW sucks its gonna be some teen angst drama after all this is the same network that gave us such shit like Riverdale.
B5 was my favorite show to watch, I always worried it would get cancelled before its conclusion. i still remember lines like, "my shoes are to tight" (to dance) or "I should have bopped him just once". Good story, good video and have a good day.
And importantly the pilot is at the center of mass so the ship spins around them thereby reducing forces on the pilot.
To be honest Humans had the last laugh if the Centauri laughed all the way to the bank, Earth Alliance forces exposed the Centarui Primus as a paper tiger when one took on Babylon 5.
In limited fairness, going up against a five-mile-long station with a single Primus - and not even a mass-driver-equipped one, at that - was not the Centauri's smartest decision ever, /especially/ since they already knew the humies' military capabilities from the recent war and whatnot.
@@SacredCowShipyards Very true but I think even Shepard was a little shocked when it just fell to pieces.
Don't get me wrong - the Centauri were modeled after the /very/ late stage French Ancien Régime, with all of the associated "our military is /entirely/ for show" problems, but... yeah. Poorly-maintained, poorly-equipped capital ships going up against a Known Badass Station was just a poor decision, all around.
Also the entire defence grid had just been upgraded to include state-of-human-art anti-capital ship weaponry
@@tomasdawe4423 not to mention fighter support, it was anything but an even fight.
I always liked the Starfury because it looked a lot like something I designed in high school (to be fair, my drawing would have looked like a cross between a V-22 and a tie-fighter. I also always felt the reason for banking in space wasn't for aerodynamic forces, it was to direct centripetal force during the turn "down" the normal direction of gravitation for the occupant(s).
G forces are real and the human body does not handle lateral G-forces as well as it can vertical. you are correct that being is space does not change this aspect. Anyone who's done dogfighting in Elite Dangerous can tell you that traditional dogfighting maneuvers aren't entirely obsolete in a zero-G environment. Aiming while coasting in space has serious limitations in terms of evasion and angles of engagement. Not that such maneuvers have no place in space combat, it's all about being able to manage engagements in a way that generate advantages while not giving enemies an easy time getting accurate fire on you.
@@Skyfighter64 yup, absolutely, my favourite ED move is actually a much tighter 'horizontal' axis flipping version of the strafe used in the example but you get a couple of good shots off and radiate out of the roll if you wanna survive. That's what boosting is for...! Luckily g-forces don't seem to matter to the pilot in ED or I would have killed myself SO MANY TIMES by now o_O
Sorry to get a little meta, but I think Battlestar and Babylon paved the way for the Expanse which takes the recognition of Newtonian Physics and turns it into an obsession that I find very pleasing. Also, no shields makes those rail gun slugs going through the hull one of the most interesting visuals in sci fi right now, IMHO. I think that a sci fi writer might feel constrained by real science but talented ones have used it to create some really spectacular stuff like that Babylon 5 fighter. Warp cores are cool but there's coolness to be had by not always going that route. Very nice video. Keep it up.
I love how the first image makes G'kar look like the station's masthead.
Cpt. (Frm. Admiral) James Tiberius Kirk. Every time !
Incorrect.
You are correct sir!
It’s an X-wing that actually would work if you built it… I wonder if SpaceX will end up making some lol. Hey made a Fireball Junior in the Crew dragon after all… (Fireball Junior is the front part of Fireball XL5).
SpaceX can try, but I believe the design currently belongs to NASA.
The Starfury always did feel so believable in B5 - there was an RPG game which went through the various itterations of the Starfury type fighers, all the way up to the Aurora model which was what B5 used (until they got their hands on a sqyadron of Thunderbolts). The earliest models were shown as a having only 2 main engines and a monoplane arrangement, with the various additional manoeuvring engines at the front, top and borrom of the wing, up to the Starfury Tiger (I think) where there were 4 wings with manoeuvring engines and the 2 primary engines were mounted to the sides of the main fuselage. The old TTA books (scifi art books from the 80's) had a fighter called the Hornet which mounted its 4 main laser weapons pointing in 2 different directions - 2 mounted pointing dead ahead, 2 at an angle. The idea was that an attack run could be made as either a staight in attack, or could start a straight in run then turn away to bring the angled guns to bear, or attack along an angled approach - 3 different possible attack patterns, making it harder for the enemy to work out where the attacker would be. Especially as it was stated that these attacks took place in very short timeframes.
Banking in space would still be useful for handling g-forces. We handle positive g's far better than negative or lateral g's.
In valens name!
In Jeffrey Sinclair's pseudonym ha ha
There was an episode (I think it was the last episode of season 2) where you see Star Furies strafe and destroy a Centauri Battleship showing off the tactics you describe.
Yeah, I just couldn't find the footage in time for the episode :).
@@SacredCowShipyards also in the earlier episodes where they hunt down pirates.
The advantage of using the jumpgates is that the ship does not have to use its own power to form a portal. That means that you can enter back into regular space with everything fully charged and ready for a fight. The disadvantage of using jumpgates is that they are not always where you want to go. If you want to enter back into regular space as close as possible to an enemy and attack before they can deploy defenses you have to use a large ships jumpgate engine. That of course means you would need more than one capital ship if you are going against other large ships or a station so the other ships can be fully powered while the ship that formed the portal can redirect its energy and get weapons and defenses fully powered.
An "inertial dampener" just gets you wet inertia. If you want to not get slammed by acceleration, use an "inertial damper".