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 How big is the Liberator?
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| MadHatch |
Posted on 03-10-2024 08:45
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 Delta Grade  Posts: 43 Joined: 26.03.22 |
The Liberator is an interesting ship – certainly original when compared with many ships from other shows. Whilst the Liberator was seen on screen in 38 episodes of Blake’s 7, there are no mentions – in any episode – of just how big the ship is. In looking at this question, I have decided to draw only on-screen evidence. Whilst there is a Technical Manual for the show, it is fan-produced and not endorsed by the BBC. The work within it is very comprehensive and very useful – but without official endorsement, I think it best to put it to one side. With only 38 episodes (of 52) to look at regarding information on the Liberator, we can draw certain conclusions about the shown internals and the actual shooting models used. This is in spite of the fact that none of the shooting models had windows (at least one windowed room was seen in “Voices From the Past”) or visible airlock hatches (although the Liberator was shown to have airlocks in “Space Fall”). One shooting model did feature the cargo scoop that was a big part of “Time Squad”, and this gives one point of scale. Also, and more importantly, two ships were shown to dock with the Liberator, “Space Fall” and “Aftermath.” This is important because one of those ships was seen in detail and with airlocks; the London, introduced in “The Way Back.” Not only was the London seen in detail, but it was also seen to fly towards the Liberator and dock with it. (The other ship, a Federation shuttle was not seen in enough detail to get any information on.) Therefore, in order to work out the scale of the Liberator, it is essential to work out just how big the London actually is. The London is one the ships that feature in the “Horizon Blake’s 7 Technical Manual” – and I have used this to get the rough proportions of the ship to build a 3D model of it, deferring to screen evidence in terms to get detail (“The Way Back,” “Space Fall,” “Cygnus Alpha,”). The London was a converted cargo ship that transported prisoners from Earth to the prison planet Cygnus Alpha. It is first seen landed on Earth with two people in the foreground. This presents a problem, as the two people shown cannot be to scale with the ship. Simply put, they are too big to fit into the airlock seen on the ship, and so are either larger to give us a forced sense of perspective on how big that spaceport is, or statues that are a part of the spaceport. It should be noted, that this is the point that most people use to work out the size of the London, the issue is – that neither of these two people/statues is actually next to the ship, and therefore there is a question as to perspective and scale. In “Space Fall” the London encounters the Liberator, which has been abandoned and is drifting in space. We are treated to short footage of the London turning to align itself with the Liberator. When the decision is made to board the ship, the London deploys a Transfer Tube and locks on to an airlock on the Liberator. This is where we can start working things out, in terms of the size of the London. Actors are shown against the outer airlock hatch of the London and within the Transfer Tube. From this, we can work out the following: the height of the airlock on the London, and the height of the Transfer Tube. The airlock – as shown – is approximately 1.8 meters in height, with the Transfer Tube having a height/diameter of 2m. This is consistent with the heights of the various actors seen against the airlock hatch, and within the Transfer Tube, and thus can be used to scale the London.    The proportions of this 3D model are consistent against the shooting model as is the size of the airlock as well. Based on this, we can work out that the length of the London is 39.1 meters (approximately). Based on the internals of the ship as seen in the show, this seems to be (roughly) correct. This is at odds with the Horizon Technical Manual, but as I say I am working with screen evidence only at this point.  Now that we have the length of the London, we can start working out the length of the Liberator. The most commonly sited lengths for the Liberator place the ship between 175-250 meters. Here is the Liberator shown at 175 meters, 200 meters and 250 meters next to the London:    As we can see, this does NOT match the screen evidence as seen in “Space Fall” (assuming the length of the London is correct).  So let me continue to scale the Liberator up until we reach parity with the above image:   At a 400-meter length we start to reach parity with the screen evidence. In fact, when I try to match the placements of the ships in that image, the scale feels right.  Now, what about the internals? Keeping it as simple as I can, here is the Liberator at a 400-meter length with the outline of the Flight Deck projected onto the ship. This is a massive guess, as the location of the Flight Deck within the ship is unknown, but it seems logical that it would be in the centre of the hull.  This is, of course, at odds with the deck plan from the Horizon Technical Manual. But having studied it, I believe there are issues with that layout. The cargo scoop is behind the habitable area as designated by Horizon, so therefore the cargo holds would be as well. Speaking of the Cargo Scoop – it is seen used in the episode “Time Squad” and then seen on the shooting model at various points throughout the show's run, but not used again. This too is a point of scale, as the Liberator is shown to scoop up and take on board a generational pod. But the London is the big clue to the Liberator's size and length. Therefore I am happy to state that the Liberator is 400 meters in length with a +/- margin of error of 10 meters. Comments, thoughts and the like are very welcome. |
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| MadHatch |
Posted on 03-10-2024 14:21
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Delta Grade Posts: 43 Joined: 26.03.22 |
I'm leaving my original post up, because it makes a lot of good points, but I have to inform, you all that I made a mistake. When I was measuring the London, I converted Imperial to Metric using the wrong formula, and as a result, all of my measurements are out by a factor of 25 per cent. It's not easy to admit you've made such a mistake, but I'm holding my hands up to it before someone gets a ruler out and points out the problem. In this case, it was my other half who pointed out that the equation I'd used was wrong. *sigh* Using screen evidence, and the right tools the London measures as follows:  45 meters on the nose. Makes me wonder if the effects team were working in metric at the time. Based on this image, the Liberator is approximately 11 times the length of the London or 495 meters. I've rounded it up to 500 meters -   With this image giving us parity with the screenshot -  So this makes the Liberator approx 500 meters in length - not 400 meters. I apologise for the mistake. |
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