Image: Rear view

Image: Bow-on

Image: Top view

By Joe Brown

After the Shadow war and other conflicts had reduced the military resources of the Interstellar Alliance, and in particular of its member the Earth Alliance, a new class of very advanced ships were concieved. The Interstellar Alliance would supply the technology, while the Earth Alliance had the will and resources to construct them in secrecy. The design was based upon technology from the Whitestars, Vorlon and Minbari technology, as well as the latest of technology and research from the Earth Alliance.

Finally, after four years of design and construction, the first two prototypes "Excalibur" and "Victory" were completed. More ships will eventually be built, since a fleet of them were planned from the beginning. A Victory Class Destroyer is around two kilometers long, but very manueverable for a ship its size.

The ship has four main beam weapons mounted in the nose section, and several beam weapons and anti-fighter pulse cannons in different strategic locations, making the ship capable of firing in any direction. But there is also a super weapon housed in the tips of the three "wings", extremely powerful Vorlon weapon-arrays. When fired, three beams of energy from the tips of the wings combine in front of the nose for a devastating blast.

This powerful weapon was however designed for ships with much better reactor output (like a Vorlon ship), so firing this weapon leaves a Victory Class Destroyer dead in space for one minute while all systems recharge. Obviously this weapon should only be used as a last resort.

Defensively the hull of the ship is covered by a new plastique/crystalline alloy, capable of reflecting 80% of an energy weapon. A Victory Class Destroyer is capable of carrying many small spacecraft in its docking bays, several shuttles, and two squadrons of fighters. The bridge and most crew areas are located at the base of the top "wing".

Model Construction:

I built this model shortly after the debut of the pilot movie "A Call To Arms" for the series Crusade. Any design inaccuracies (and there are a few) happened because much better views were available of the ship during the series, which started six months later!

The wings are a sandwich of sheet styrene, two exterior thin panels over a thicker inner panel. The main aft hull sections were of various items, including PVC, sheet styrene, and cocktail stirring straws! The forward hull is made from wooden dowels, covered with a layer of Bondo Surfacing putty, and the forward 'petals' are heat-smashed styrene sheet. The very aft end of the hull is from insulation foam, as are the three wing-tip mounted engines.