White Star (Babylon 5) - Depiction

Depiction

The White Star-class was designed and built through a collaborative effort between the Minbari religious caste and the Vorlon Empire. With the reorganization and revitalization of the Rangers as a force with which to fight the Shadows, it was imperative that they be provided with a warship that would not be inherently recognized as either Vorlon or Minbari. As such, the ship was designed and built in secret and in large numbers by the Minbari worker caste. These vessels proved devastating during the Shadow War and the subsequent Earth Alliance Civil War. After the dust had settled, they served as a vital part of the Interstellar Alliance's military assets.

The White Star commanded by John Sheridan was thought to be unique until near the end of the third season (in And the Rock Cried Out, No Hiding Place), where it was revealed that the first wave of 40-50 White Stars had entered service. White Stars continued to be built and they were used extensively thereafter. The original White Star was vaporized as Sheridan crashed it into the largest city on Z'ha'dum while detonating two 500-megaton nuclear warheads.

While powerful ships being that of Vorlon and Minbari tech, Earth-Alliance Omega class destroyers proved they could lock onto a White-star and destroy them, thus breaking the Minbari "stealth" advantage they had before against Earth (in the episode "no surrender no retreat" they confirmed weapons lock on the Whitestars). The Advanced Omega class destroyers from the Earth-Alliance nearly wiped out the White-stars and Susan, but the White-stars managed to win the battle by a small margin.

Unlike most other large ships in the series, White Stars were numbered, with most not being given unique names—Enrique Montoya's Maria (White Star 27) in Season 5, being the only known exception. At least 90 White Stars had been constructed by the end of the series.

The White Star was regarded as being amongst the smallest ships in the Babylon 5 universe which had the capability of opening its own hyperspace portals (known as "jump points") rather than relying on the jump gates already at a location used primarily by civilian craft, or upon jump points created by larger allied craft.

The heavy losses suffered in the conflicts of the Shadow War and subsequent liberation of Earth led to the design of the larger and more powerful Victory class destroyer as an Earth-Minbar joint project taking after Vorlon designs. The first results were two prototypes completed five years after the events of the television series. The White Stars were the best ship in their class size of cruisers, but the Interstellar Alliance had been forcing them to "play up", fielding them against heavy destroyers which they were never really meant to handle one-on-one. The Victory-class was therefore a concerted attempt to create a new backbone of dedicated heavy destroyer-class vessels for the Interstellar Alliance fleet.