Sartha v. Drakhri (September 4, 2025)

[Bandit LOAF]

There's an exchange in End Run where Kevin Tolwyn excitedly claims he has shot down a Drakhri and Bondarevsky points out that it was actually a Sartha. This always felt a little relatable specifically because Wing Commander II's manual had World War II-style 'plane recognition' silhouettes for all the ships. Here's the excerpt:

Jason walked out of the room and back out on to the flight deck. Tolwyn’s fighter was pulled off the flight line and came to a stop. The canopy popped open and an exuberant pilot stood up and climbed out of his ship, joyfully slapping his ground crew chief on the back.
“I got one, I got a Drakhri,” Kevin announced, coming towards Jason.
Jason said nothing, looking at Kevin coldly.
“Didn’t you hear me, sir? I got a Drakhri.”
“First off it was a Sartha, so get your plane recognition straight.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I guess I’m just excited.”
“That Sabre you were supposed to cover,” Jason started, his voice cold.
“That Sartha was coming straight in on us,” Kevin interrupted. “I snapped a thousand clicks ahead to meet him and the furball turned and ran back towards the moon’s surface. I figured if I didn’t nail him right there he’d be back up for more trouble, maybe hit some of the medevac’s coming back up. So I went down and got him.”

I was curious what this 'mistake' might have looked like so I lined up both of the original models and rendered them at their canonical lengths. As you can see, the Sartha is much, much smaller than the Drakhri!




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Original update published on September 4, 2025

 

[Mekt-Hakkikt]

That's quite the size difference - wouldn't have thought it to be that visible. 8.3 to 11.7 metres?

Anyway, seeing them both side by side: I live WC2's Kilrathi ship designs! (Except the Dorkathi maybe) They're really favourite style.

 

[Bob McDob]

Maybe the length figure is based on the leading edge of the wingtips, which would make the Sartha quite a big bigger. But still, in an engagement with closing speeds measured in hundreds of kilometers the size difference is probably not that relevant. In flight sims I have a hard time judging sizes accurately, and that's at only one kilometer per second.