Victory Class
From The Great Machine
The Victory-class Destroyer was the first Human ship designed using Minbari and Vorlon technology. It was the first class designed by the Interstellar Alliance after its founding, and was intended to be a capital ship successor to the White Star, filling the need for a larger and more powerful destroyer-type ship in the IA fleet.
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[edit] History
In 2262, Interstellar Alliance President John Sheridan became concerned that the White Star fleet was being used by the Interstellar Alliance for everything from patrol duty to major engagements. What with the difficulty of their construction given the amount of Vorlon technology that went into building them, sacrificing a half-dozen White Stars in every serious firefight was becoming more and more expensive. Eventually, they would run out.
It was then that he envisioned the creation of a destroyer-class White Star. The Minbari would supply the designs and technical specifications, while Earth would handle finance and construction. It proved beneficial to all three parties: the Minbari would get additional R&D on adapting their own technology, to say nothing of Vorlon, for other races; Earth would get access to advanced new technology, including gravitic drive; and the IA would get a new, more powerful ship.
He commissioned the construction of two prototypes. The Earth Alliance agreed under the condition that the Minbari Federation would sign on first. Ambassador Delenn managed to convince the Worker Caste-led Grey Council, and design and construction commenced in secret in the Minbar system.
In 2267, President Sheridan and Michael Garibaldi took a trip out to the construction yard to see the nearly-completed prototypes, the Victory and Excalibur. At first, the ships could not move under their own power, the gravitic propulsion system not functioning properly. However, this problem was soon corrected. A few days later, the prototypes were pushed into emergency service as President Sheridan and Earth Alliance Captain Leonard Anderson confiscated the ships in order to investigate an attack on a nearby world.
[edit] Design
At the time, the Victory-class was the largest ship ever constructed by any of the younger races, measuring 1.25 miles from fore to aft. The design of the ship, true to the nature of its builders, is a synthesis of Human and Minbari aesthetics. The large, three-finned shape to aft resembles Minbari design, while the long boom in front sporting heavy weapons calls to mind the longer, sleeker ships of the Earth Alliance.
[edit] Drive Systems
The Victory-class Destroyer is the first ship built by the Earth Alliance to use gravitetic engines. This technology was limited among the younger races to the Minbari and perhaps the Centauri and Vree. The advanced drive gave the ship impressive acceleration and deceleration capability, as well as negated the need for reaction control systems, as the ship's inertia was directly controlled for maneuvering.
An upshot of this type of engine was that it provided inertial dampening and artificial gravity, just like in Minbari vessels.
For long-range travel, the ship boasts a military-grade jump drive. The jump engines are strong enough to jump the massive vessel into hyperspace.
[edit] Command Systems
An advanced computer system runs the destroyer's systems. Control of the vessel is maintained on the main bridge, which sits at the base of the upper fin at the aft of the ship. The bridge was designed along the submarine model, linear rather than circular. Ships systems were smart enough that control was managed at only a half-dozen stations.
Directly back from the main bridge in the same compartment are the map room and conference room. The map room features a holographic map table, enabling the commander of the vessel to plot the ship's course in 3D virtual space. The conference room features a wall-size communication screen, allowing the attendees to hold conference with important individuals across the galaxy.
[edit] Offensive & Defensive Systems
The imposing nature of the ship's design is not a feint, as the weapons on board the Victory-class are just as impressive.
Its primary weapons consist of eight heavy gravitic discharge cannons, similar to the cannon found at the fore of a White Star, only far more powerful. These cannons give the ship the firepower of an entire squadron of White Stars. Four cannons face forward, four aft, and are able to steer around fifteen degrees off axis.
The secondary consist of additional light gravitic and neutron bolt cannon turrets along the boom to provide broadside capability. The defense grid is made up of multiple heavy repeater interceptor cannons mounted on the fins and can hold off large numbers of fighter craft and smaller vessels. An added feature of the interceptors are their ability to retract back into their gun blisters to cool and be replaced by additional cannons.
However, the most impressive weapon at the destroyer's disposal is the main gun. It is a super-heavy gravitic discharge cannon adapted from Vorlon design. Upon firing, graviton streams are generated by the gravimetric engines, channeled through open space to a point fore of the boom, and then fired straight forward from the vessel. The intense energy of the main gun is capable of destroying even the most fomidable foes in a single blast.
A design flaw that was never overcome during construction is the power draw of the main gun. Charging the gun takes almost all energy out of the ship's batteries, leaving only enough energy for life support and artificial gravity. The ship is unable to fire or maneuver during the sixty-second power rebuild.
The hull of the vessel is covered with a new type of Crystalline Armor designed by the Minbari and improved upon by the Human engineers constructing the vessel. Since almost all space-faring races use energy weapons, the armor is designed to refract away up to 80% of the energy from an attack. The layered structure of the armor then ablates away the physical strike and remaining energy, thus minimizing the damage.
Additional defensive systems of the White Star did not make it into the destroyer's design, such as the reactive bio-armor, energy shields, and auto-repair systems.
[edit] Support Systems
Travel through the ship is provided by a series of "bullet cars" that run in subway-like tubes all over the vessel. The interior of the tubes is pressurized. The bullet cars are reminiscent of the core shuttle on Babylon 5 or the maglev system on Mars, and can run the length of the mile-long ship in just a few minutes.
The underside of the front boom of the ship contains a cavernous hangar bay that holds all the support craft for the vessel. Large hangar bay doors, reminiscent of those on Babylon 5, close off the bay from outside space. Once closed, the hangar bay can be pressurized to allow unprotected access to all vessels on the deck. The sides of the hangar bay are lined with maintenance bays that can be closed off from the main hangar and pressurized.
Example support craft:
- Starfuries
- Thunderbolts
- Personnel Shuttles
- Atmospheric Shuttles
- Maintenance Bots
To rapidly deploy fighter craft in combat conditions, there are three fighter bays beneath the hangar bay. Each of these hangar bays mount a "coat rack" that can launch three Starfuries at once. This prevents having to launch all the ship's Starfuries from the main hangar door. Using this system, all of the ship's Starfuries can be launched within a few seconds.
As an additional bonus to having intertial dampeners, there are a series of gravity "nets" arrayed down the length of the hangar bay. These nets can slow a ship making an emergency landing on the deck.
[edit] Conclusion
Famous examples of the Victory Class Destroyer are the IAS Victory and the IAS Excalibur.
As of Crusade, the Excalibur is the only surviving example of the Victory-class Destroyer, due to a sacrifice made by the captain and crew of the Victory in order to destroy the control center of the Shadow Death Cloud attacking Earth.
The Excalibur was reconfigured into a mobile research facility to try and find a cure to the Drakh Plague now infecting Earth. President Sheridan suggested Captain Matthew Gideon, a "problem case" in Earth Force, as commanding officer. This led to the events of Crusade.
