Putting the fluff into scale

Here is a link to a site I've mentioned multiple times on the show that appeals to the SciFi fluff nut in me.

Jeff Russell's STARSHIP DIMENSIONS

It, better than any other site I've ever seen, demonstrates visually exactly how large warships in 40K fiction truly are.  What inspired me to write this post was the book cover from A Thousand Sons by Graham McNeil and Cain's Last Stand by Sandy Mitchell (Alex Stewart).

See all those little dots up in the sky over the pyramids of Tizca?

See that thing in the upper right hand corner over Cain's shoulder?

Those are battleships and cruisers in orbit.  They're big, really friggin big.  Big enough to make out individual details of the ships from the planet's surface.  But is that an accurate portrayal or just another example of artistic exaggeration?  After all isn't orbit really far away?  The largest man made object currently in orbit is the International Space Station and every time I've seen it overhead it was nothing more than a bright fast moving dot.  See for yourself on a clear night.

So I began to try to figure out just how big do 40K starships appear during an assault/bombardment when they enter low orbit?  To answer this out I needed to find out how high assault/orbital bombardment orbit was.  My answer was found in chapter 19 of Cain's Last Stand when he describes a Chaos cruiser needing "....about an hour.  More or less." to line up an orbital bombardment shot.  That duration of orbit around what's described as an Earth sized planet would put an assault/bombardment orbit at just under 150 miles high.  If a Retribution class battleship is 7.5 KM long then it's distance during an assault/bombardment would be about 20 times it's length from the viewer.

Do you want to see with your own eyes just how big these ships are?  Open this image in another window and leave it full sized, walk back about 14 feet and turn around.  This is how big it would appear to the sorry sap on the receiving end when it's firing shells and assault craft are being launched,

Does that put the size of these things into proper perspective?  Black Library book covers may be a bit on the dramatic side but they're accurate with the background imagery.

My thoughts on the Drake Equation

I'm a science fiction nut.  Ever since I've learned how to read my mind has been wandering to one fantasy place or another.  When I was a kid I made up my own world of fantasy and now that I'm an adult I fill them with somewhat more realistic version of what I dreamt of as a kid.

Add in my love of RPGs and an inherent nature to fill the gamer worlds I created with believable life and you can probably begin to understand my obsession with the Drake Equation.
If you don't know what the Drake Equation is then let me explain; it is an evolving mathematic formula used to estimate the approximate number of intelligent communicating civilizations in our galaxy.

You multiply the number of stars in our galaxy by the fraction that have planets, the fraction of those planets that are capable of sustaining life, the fraction of those where life actually develops, the fraction of those where intelligent life develops, the fraction of inteligent life that communicates and the final factor is the length of time the civilization lasts.
At this point in science the entire equation is little more than an educated guess.  We're little more than galactic upstarts and know very little about the real numbers the equation represents.  After all we only have our sun, our planet Earth, our biology, our race and current civilization to go on.  We're largely clueless on what the real numbers are like.

That being said I have a feeling our educated guess is probably pretty good.  With 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy even pessimistic numbers come up with over 100 intelligent communicating civilizations in our galaxy right now.  One could argue that if there are that many in our galaxy then where are they and why haven't we heard from them.  I answer back that the Milky way is a very big place and we don't know where they're at or how they're communicating.  I'm fairly confidant that we'll contact one this century.  If we don't then we'll have to ask ourselves why.  It could be that we're a heck of a lot more special than we think.
But back to science fiction and RPGs.  The Drake Equation is good for another reason.  We can guess how many world exist that are habitable and with life on them.  It's actually pretty easy, just stop short of the full equation.  I came up with nearly 2 and a half billion habitable world in the Milky Way galaxy even when I used rather pessimistic numbers.  When I used generally agreed upon accurate numbers I came up with 24 billion habitable worlds to explore.
No matter how you look at it there are a lot of habitable world out there.  Too bad NASA canceled the telescope we were going to use to find them.  Those 24 billion habitable worlds will have to stay in our science fiction and Role Playing Games.