I have been a fan of science fiction for more than twenty years, since my parents introduced me to Star Wars some time in 1991. Since then, I’ve become obsessed to varying degrees with shows including Star Trek, Babylon 5, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica, and others. The infinite realm of possibilities presented through these stories has great appeal to me — but I’ve loved different shows for different reasons. I love Star Trek for its optimistic tone and its incredibly detailed universe. Farscape caught my eye because of its refreshing, casual tone and the writers’ willingness to take risks in order to produce an exciting, entertaining series. And Babylon 5 stole my heart with its stirring, inspiring, all-encompassing series arc about the conflict between Order and Chaos.

Generally, I don’t buy into most of the incessant crossover debates that frequently rage on certain sci-fi bulletin boards. Rather than waste time proving that the Imperial Star Destroyer can blast Kirk’s Enterprise into molten slag, I prefer to enjoy each story based on the merits of its own setting and plot. That’s not to say that I haven’t occasionally speculated about the results of cross-series encounters — I’d love to see Babylon 5’s Shadows go head-to-head with a Borg Cube someday. (Imagine the spectacular effects for that encounter!) But I remember that each series is based around its own quasi-scientific principles. Although an antimatter warp core may be the most powerful reactor in Star Trek, there’s no telling how that might compare to the Minbari’s quantum singularity core or a Leviathan’s hetch drive. Since the entire technological background is fictional anyway, the writers can simply make up any solution that they wish for the sake of the plot.

Although I’m not that interested in the technological comparisons between series, I’ve occasionally wondered about how a certain starship would compare in size to those of another series. When Farscape’s John Crichton first saw Moya, he exclaimed, “That’s big.... really big.” The question is, just how big is “big”? So I started to gather a list of the sizes of various science fiction ships. Star Trek and Babylon 5 were easy, because those are some of the best-documented as far as the sizes of (most) of the ships are concerned. (And of course, I live on those kind of size discussions at message boards like the Flare Sci-Fi Forums. Just don’t ask anyone how long the Defiant is... trust me.)

There are plenty of fans out there who have worked up all kinds of comparison charts on their own. From Jeff Russell’s fantastic interactive comparison chart and Graham Kennedy’s venerable configurable comparison list to Bernd Schneider’s definitive size reference table and annotated list (which most others — including myself — cite as the primary source), there’s no shortage of choices out there.

But the one thing that very few of those charts has ever done is to include non-canon fan designs alongside the original canon starships. I decided to create one all-encompassing chart that would include many (if not quite all) of the Star Trek ships that are out there. The charts available below include those created by the Advanced Starship Design Bureau, Masao Okazaki at the Starfleet Museum, and Star Trek: Renaissance, the fan fiction series of which I was once a part.

I originally started this project as a side project, to fulfill my own curiosity for how the ships stacked up. But when I started checking the statistics for visitors to this site, I discovered that it had become one of the most popular pages on Star Trek Minutiae! And I’ve even found copies of it floating around elsewhere on the web. So, here’s the original cross-sci-fi starship reference!

Star Trek Comparison Charts

Pre-Federation Starships (to 2161)

1px = 1m • Updated 2020-06-23 Federation Starships (2161-2300)

1px = 1m • Updated 2015-05-11 Federation Starships (2300-2380)

1px = 1m • Updated 2015-02-25 Alien Starships, Part 1

1px = 1m • Updated 2015-02-25 Alien Starships, Part 2

1px = 1m • Updated 2015-02-25 Alien Starships, Large

1px = 5m • Updated 2015-02-25 Space Stations and Huge Starships

1px = 20m • Updated 2020-06-23 Shuttlecraft and Small Starships

10px = 1m • Updated 2020-06-23 Alternate Timeline

1px = 1m • Updated 2016-08-30 Alternate Timeline (EAS Sizes)

1px = 1m • Updated 2016-08-30 Discovery Starships (Starfleet)

1px = 1m • Updated 2020-06-23 Discovery Starships (Other)

1px = 2m • Updated 2020-06-23

General Sci-Fi Comparison Charts

Small

10px = 1m • Updated 2020-06-24 Medium

1px = 1m • Updated 2020-06-24 Large

1px = 10m • Updated 2020-06-24 Huge

1px = 100m • Updated 2020-06-24

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you send me a poster-sized version of your chart? If such a thing existed, I would have published it already. Consider that the vast majority of the images that I’ve used were drawn solely for viewing on a computer screen; they’re very low-resolution and would be incredibly grainy if printed for a poster. It’s simply not possible to make a poster-sized chart. Why doesn’t your chart include [insert your favorite ship] from [insert your favorite series] ? Most likely an omission is either because it’s not a sci-fi series that I watched regularly, or else I could not find any images appropriate for my chart. In either case, the only way I could consider your request is if you can point me to a decent-quality side view image of the ship that you’d like me to add. I don’t have time to do research for every little wish list, especially for shows I’m not familiar with. You got the wrong size for [insert your favorite ship] ! More likely I’ve used a size that you don’t agree with. There’s lots of conflicting information for many different ships out there. As a result, I’ve often had to choose the measurement that I considered more appropriate. However, I’m certainly willing to consider alternative size figures, if you can send me some evidence. But what about the Death Star? That’s too obvious to miss! First, the Death Star is so friggin’ huge that it doesn’t fit on even the largest chart I’ve made. And that’s even for the low-ball estimate of the size, which brings me to my second point: No one can agree just how big the Death Stars actually were, so there’s no point in doing their sizes.

Size References

I’m also currently working on a bibliography for all of the artists who created the various starship images featured in these charts.