Omega Class Destroyer - Ship Specifications

Ship Specifications

This is a subject, relating to all the ship designs seen in Babylon 5, that has caused a great deal of, sometimes heated, debate within sections of the shows fan community.

While some technical details for the Omega were released in publications such as the Babylon 5 Security Manual and the B5 CD-ROM reference guide, most were considered to be incorrect by some fans who closely scrutinised the images of the vessels seen in the show.

A number then went on to publish, on various web sites, sometimes highly detailed and imaginative facts and figures based on their own observations while occasionally incorporating officially released details. This has essentially resulted in no universally accepted technical information appearing for the Omega on any fan, reference or sci-fi internet site. Though some are more widely quoted than others.

For example, in the show the crew numbers of an Omega destroyer is mentioned on three occasions. 547 (season 4 episode, "Intersections In Real Time"), a little over 1,000 (season 4 episode, "Endgame"), ) and 347 (Crusade episode, The Needs Of Earth). Although no explanation is given for the differences, a quite logical consensus was generally reached among interested fans that it depended on the deployment of the individual ships. Though the actual crew numbers that appear on fan sites is often none of the above.

The ship's length is often stated to be 1714.3 metres. This is in fact the only officially released number quoted for the Omega destroyer to appear on most internet sites. It was created by Tim Earls, who joined Babylon 5 in season 4, as part of a size chart he was asked to create by the shows executive producers, shortly after becoming the Art Director for Visual Effects, at the start of the fifth season of the show. (Not the CGI Director which is another incorrect detail that is sometimes published on various sites.)

However, this length for the ship is often quoted, without caveats, along with lists of other details that are purely fan Conjecture (for example, that the Omega can carry 36 Starfury fighters). This figure originates from a fan's direct observation of a fighter launch sequence viewed during the season 3 episode, "Severed Dreams". In fact, the relevant scene opens after the launch sequence had already begun and was left while fighters were still leaving the two vessels that were shown. The largest number viewed during the sequence was 34 which was launched from the Omega named the Churchill.