Re: B5 Parasite Fighters (first season!)

>> From: Sprayform <sprayform.dev@netwales.co.uk>
>> To: FTGZG-L@bolton.ac.uk
>> Subject: Re: B5 Parasite Fighters (first season!)
>> Date: Wednesday, 12 March 1997 19:18
>> 
>> At 17:17 11/03/97 +1000, you wrote:
>> >The Raider carrier seen in Signs and Portents, back in season 1,
carried
snip

>> >Are you sure that it wasnt the habitation core rotating and the
docking
>> ring fixed?? (the ring was rather skinny and some way from the
apparent
>bulk
>> of the ship) Everything is relative in the deep black yonder!
>> 
>> Jon (T.C.)
>> SDL
>
>Yup, I'm sure. I checked the tape last night and it's clear that the
rings
>rotate (at least in one shot, with the carrier framed against B5; in
some
>other scenes it isn't so obvious what, if anything, is rotating). I
don't
>know if there is anything official going around on this ship, but I'd
guess
>that pirates would be converting an existing ship to a carrier and
their
>carrier may well be an old liner or troop transport with fighters
(fifteen
>of them?) hung off the only available space. 
snip

	As I recall (I haven't seen it for a while, and some little
bastard
has stolen my video recorder) the Raider's carrier was a new departure
for
them - something about "a ship of this size" being a major investment
and
one that they were divided about.  That means they must have had other,
smaller vessels acting as fighter tenders, and they must also have a
base of
operations.  Evan's idea of their carrier being somewhat improvised
makes
good sense to me- perhaps it had little or no fighter maintenance
capacity,
and they do all that stuff in a base?  After all, their carrier is
presumably going to spend a lot of time hiding, interspersed with short
forays.

Cheers,
Rob Paul

Rob Paul
NERC Institute of Virology 
Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3SR	  Tel. (01865) 512361
rpaul@worf.molbiol.ox.ac.uk
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  "Once again, villainy is rotting meat before the maggots of justice!"
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