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Valiant was a name given to at least two human military fighter carriers. One was a large Earthbound flying aircraft carrier used by UNIT during the early 21st century. (DW: The Sound of Drums, The Poison Sky, and others) Theother was a space-based fighter carrier from the very late 2190s that patrolled the reaches of the Solar System to prevent incursions by Andosian pirates and other non-human threats. (BFA: The Nowhere Place)
21st century
Every detail of the 21st century Valiant was designed by "Harold Saxon", and it was used for the first
human contact with the Toclafane. (DW: The Sound of Drums) The Doctor, Martha Jones and Jack Harkness teleported onboard using Jack's Vortex manipulator at the coordinates 58.2 North 10.2 East.
In the following year in an erased timeline, the Valia'nt formed the base of operations for the Master. The Jones family (with the exception of Martha Jones, who had escaped and Leo Jones) and Captain Jack Harkness were imprisoned on the ship, as was the Tenth Doctor. It also held the paradox machine inside the Doctor's TARDIS. When the timeline was erased, the Valiant was the only point in space and time not to revert, instead moving directly through time, due to it being the "eye of the storm", that is, of the
paradox machine. (DW: Last of the Time Lords)
The Valiant was fitted with a mounted energy weapon almost identical to the gun used to destroy the Sycorax, meaning the technology could have been salvaged from the remains of the Torchwood Institute. During the Sontaran invasion of Earth in 2009 Colonel Mace called in the Valiant, which was referred to as Hawk Major. The powerful turbines were used to clear the Sontaran's fog away from the ATMOS factory and the energy weapon was used to blast apart the factory, killing many Sontarans. It was unknown if the weapon was installed after the Master's defeat or if Harry Saxon himself had it incorporated into the initial design. (DW: The Poison Sky)
The Valiant was specifically targeted when the New Dalek Empire attacked Earth following its transportation to the Medusa Cascade. (DW: The Stolen Earth) It took heavy damage and when it was forced over heavily populated areas, the decision was taken to land on empty farmland, avoiding a further loss of life. However, the attack still continued (DWBIT: Dalek Wars) and a massive force of Daleks swarmed the ship, taking out its shields. The order was given to abandon ship, and the Valiant was destroyed. (DW: The Stolen Earth)
Propulsion
The Valiant used what appeared to be large Turbofan engines.
The Valiant seems to be able to rotate these engines to lower itself toward the ground as seen in (DW: The Poison Sky) As it was designed by the Master, it was more advanced than any current Earth vehicle due to the fact that it has been previously mentioned to have had the reverse-engineered Jathaa sunglider technology built into it. As a back-up it may have had some alternative form of travel, like Anti-gravity propulsion. These allowed it to not only hover high in up in the Earth's atmosphere, but to move across the globe to any destination deemed necessary.
Weapons
It was unknown what sort of weapons the Valiant utilised, apart from the reverse-engineered Jathaa Sunglider weapon. It may have featured a series of CIWS turrets and short range missiles, but as a United Nations ship it might not as it is stated to be neutral territory (DW: The Sound of Drums) The Battles in Time: Dalek Wars depiction of the battle showed fighter jets were tasked to the Valiant.
As Jack Harkness overheard a soldier reporting that the shields were down, the Valiant may have had some kind of protective force-shield.
- The Valiant's design was very similar to that of Cloudbase/Skybase, the headquarters of Spectrum from Captain Scarlet TV shows (the Captain Scarlet cartoon was a contemporary of the Who revival) and to Helicarriers used by the fictional Marvel Comics organization SHIELD. The Valiant's weapon system looks like the one that was salvaged from a Jathaa sunglider and the Death Star's planetkilling weapon system from Star Wars. A similar-looking vessel, commanded by an elite British air corps, also appears in the fantasy film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
22nd century
The 22nd century Valiant was a response to a decade-long problem Earth was having with alien raiding parties — principally Andosian pirates — that were attacking human shipping lanes. Consequent to this assignment, it patrolled the outer Solar System, near Pluto. It was commanded by Captain Tanya Oswin, and carried a full compliment of Damocles-class fighters.
On 16th January 2197, the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe materialized on Valiant. There, they discovered that some of its crewmembers were hearing a mysterious bell, just as they had in the TARDIS. They quickly ran afoul of Captain Oswin in trying to investigate the incongruous sound.
The Doctor and Evelyn soon discovered that the ship's cargo hold had a mysterious, ancient door in its cargo hold, which led out into open space. The bell seemed to be a kind of "siren call" which led the crewmembers that heard it through the door and out to their deaths.
Immediately sensing the grave danger this door posed, Captain Oswin sent a distress call back to Earth, but could not hope that backup would arrive any sooner than about two months. This suggested that Valiant was likely not a faster-than-light ship
- As described in the audio play, this ship had much in common with the Battlestar class of ship from Battlestar Galactica. The fact that human ships would take so long to go from Earth to Pluto seems at variance with The Waters of Mars, which plainly establishes that humans developed faster-than-light capability in the late 21st century, possibly showing that time was rewritten after the frequent alien invasions of 2009, as faster-than-light capabilities may have been created from salvaged alien technology.