UNIT’s greatest weapon designed by an
evil genius!
I wanted to be able to
lift the lid on the Valiant and peer into the various rooms and corridors,
right down to the engine room, weapons rooms, open the casings and peer inside,
twiddle a few levers and get a feel for the entire ship as a whole. Alas, there isn’t a Haynes manual for the
Valiant, as there is for the TARDIS, Millennium Falcon and Death Star. So I had to come up with an alternative.
Searching for data on
the Valiant is extremely difficult as little is known about this warship of the
skies, aside from a few small paragraphs in various encyclopaedias and DVD
files along with a few photographs.
When you look at the concept
art for the Valiant designed by Peter McKinstry, you get to imagine just how
big this ship is. This is far larger
than the standard warship we’ve seen crossing the Atlantic; it even appears
larger than the super carrier, the USS Nimitz.
But the Nimitz itself does give us something to work with.
The USS Nimitz, a modern
day super carrier is the heaviest warship of its class beating that of the USS
Enterprise (not Captain Kirk’s ship) and comes in with a surface displacement
of 100,000 tonnes.
In the 1990’s a concept
was considered by the American Navy for a mobile offshore floating base (MOB)
as large as 10 standard aircraft carriers.
It would mean that planes could land anywhere throughout the world’s
oceans, avoiding all requirements to seek permission to put down on land. But it was going to cost a considerable
amount of money and so in 2001 the idea was scrapped.
In ‘The Sound of Drums’
President Winters of the United States,
had instructed that the meeting with the Toclafane would not be held on
sovereign territory, this led me to believe that he meant on land. This was not the case. Sovereign territory is the term used to
relate to warships or aircraft carriers in the oceans, which are bases in their
own rights; it’s only when they come close to land that they have to seek
permission to enter that region.
This is where the
Valiant avoids all such permission. Who
owns the skies above the Earth?
The Valiant could be
considered to be the future of mobile offshore bases; it’s off shore in all
manners of the word. It’s almost off
planet!!!
So
what makes it different to a super carrier warship?
First we have to look at
the USS Nimitz to get a broader idea.
The USS Nimitz stands 20
stories above the water and reaches the colossal length of 1,092 feet which is 333metres
from bow to stern. Or to get another
perspective, is the height of the 77 story Chrysler Building if it were laid
lengthways across the super carrier.
It’s also 77metres wide from port to starboard.
The Valiant looks as if
it would more than quadruple the size of the USS Nimitz going by the artwork of
Peter McKinstry.
The USS Nimitz super
carrier caters for a lot of people; up to 6,000 live and work aboard the
ship. That’s a lot of mouths to
feed. Not to mention the pilots and the
passengers aboard the aeroplanes. The
USS Nimitz can carry 90 aircraft. So you
can imagine that the Valiant, in its vastness could cater for a lot more staff,
even if we didn’t see many of them aboard the ship during both episodes
involving the Master, inside or on the flight deck.
Protection of the ship’s
hull is vitally important especially in battle.
The hull of the USS Nimitz is made up of extremely strong steel plates
measuring several inches thick. This can
protect it against fire and damage during battle. The hull portion below the water line is
narrow and rounded; the lower section has a double bottom, which is double
plated. The reason for this is if it is
torpedoed, through the outer layer, the inner layer will prevent massive
leakage.
Although we cannot say
for certain what the Valiant is made from, it is possible to assume it could
have been created from something similar to that of alien technology and alien
metals, as the fierce attack upon it during the Dalek invasion in ‘Stolen
Earth’, would have destroyed a normal warship, but it took many hits before the
Valiant finally went down.
There are various
viewpoints regarding what happened to the Valiant during the dogfight in
‘Stolen Earth.’ One suggests it gave the
order to abandon ship after receiving heavy enemy fire, another suggests that
after suffering damage, the ship was destroyed and all hands on deck were lost,
but another says it landed over abandoned farmland but was still heavily fired
upon.
Firepower
As we’ve already seen,
the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz is the largest aircraft super carrier of its
class. Given its weight, it would
require one hell of a lot of power to move it gracefully through the water at
speeds in excess of 56kph.
The USS Nimitz is one of
a handful of nuclear powered warships currently owned by the American Navy.
The Valiant’s firepower
comes from a Jathaa Sunglider – an alien space craft that flew over the
Shetland Islands 10 years before the Battle of Canary Wharf. Shot down by Torchwood, it was later stripped
of its resources, and the weaponry salvaged was used against the Sycorax space
ship on Christmas Day, just as it was leaving Earth’s airspace.
This firepower was used
again onboard the Valiant in the destruction of the ATMOS factory during the
Sontaran invasion (Poison Sky).
The UNIT vessel was the
creation and design of one man, Harold Saxon.
When gaining power he became involved in the Ministry of Defence, thus
having the power to control the decisions of UNIT, not for the safety of the
human race, but for his own means, by using the aircraft carrier for his own
Time Lord Empire that he was building on Earth.
Speed
Because they’re nuclear
powered, steam turbines help to power these aircraft carriers such as the USS
Nimitz through the water at speeds up to 35 knots, or 40mph (64kph). This means they could arrive at their destination
across the ocean in just a few weeks.
The Valiant is just as
fast, powering through the sky with limitless ease and even engaging in
dogfights (Stolen Earth).
Lifting
the Lid
Taking the outer cover
off the aircraft super carriers, the Nimitz and the Valiant, we can take a look
at what dwells beneath the flight deck.
Note that the only part we could locate any real indication of what was
inside the Valiant is that of the flight deck command station left of the
flight deck. We can only surmise that
what goes on above and below the flight deck is standard for all aircraft
carriers.
Onboard a super carrier
such as the USS Nimitz, weaponry is housed all around the ship, at the bows and
sterns, below deck and on the flight deck itself. Onboard the Valiant, things are slightly
different, and the firepower is extremely different too. Aboard the Valiant your targets don’t often come
from below, more often they come from above and from paradox worlds and the
Medusa Cascade where the Earth was transported to during ‘Stolen Earth’.
If you look at the
inside of an aircraft super carrier you will notice it covers the entire ship
in detail. We would therefore assume
that the lights and station at the other side of the Valiant were for storage
and for cabins for the 6000 plus crew.
If we are to assume also that the Valiant is much larger than the USS
Nimitz, then we’re looking at more than triple the amount of people working and
living aboard the UNIT ship.
So let’s look at the
interior of the Valiant.
(A)
Operations Deck
The nerve centre and
attack station, is located on the second floor of the flight deck command
station, and situated beneath the Control Deck.
It is manned by UNIT, Royal Navy and Department C-19 personnel.
(B)
The Bridge
As with any ship, this
is where the Captain is in control of the vessel. It’s also where the Master and Lucy saw the
arrival of the Toclafane and where Martha and Tish saw the Toclafane hurtle back in order to protect the Paradox Machine.
(C)
The Control Room
This is where President
Winters was assassinated, where Captain Jack Harkness was killed by laser
screwdriver (The Sound of Drums), where the Doctor was reduced to an old man
(The Sound of Drums) before being punished after attempting an escape plan and
reduced to a small goblin like figure and kept in a cage just for show (Last of
the Time Lords) and where the Master was shot and killed by Lucy Saxon when the
illusion was broken.
(D)
Multifunction Masts
The masts contain the
antennae that link to the worldwide defence grid, the Archangel Network and the
Guinevere Space Program.
(E)
Sonar Array
This is the most
enhanced sonar suite combat system on the planet.
(F)
Sonar Hub
This stores over 10,000
hydrophones for long range sonic detection.
(G)
Executive Lounge
This would host
functions for VIP’s such as the US President and other dignitaries. It comes complete with a bar.
(H)
Level 4 Prison hold
This is the area of the
ship that held Captain Jack Harkness chained and tortured for a year.
(I)
Reactor Feed
This channels energy
from the Valiant’s own onboard nuclear power plant.
(J)
Galley and Mess
The kitchen and dining
hall are for the Valiant’s crew. The
logos adorning the uniforms and the walls are Gallifreyan, a symbol of the new Time
Lord Empire.
(K)
Recessed Cannon
Concealed aboard the
Valiant are the weapons including powerful and flexible battery guns.
Housed beneath the
Valiant are the laser cannons taken from the crashed Jathaa sunglider. This was used against the Sontaran’s ATMOS
factory on Earth, using the same principal as that of the Torchwood attack on
the Sycorax. The laser cannons blast consists of several beams of green light
focused on a single column for the maximum impact.
I hope this gives you
more of an insight into how the Valiant operates.
Resources
Peter McKinstry artwork
©BBC Doctor Who 1963
Doctor Who Encyclopedia
BBC 2009
ISBN 978-1-849-905-565
Doctor Who A Definitive
Guide to Time and Space
ISBN 978-1-84-607291-8
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