The Imaginary Spaceship appreciation thread.

[MissKittyFantastico]

The Starfury is probably the most realistic design of a Space Combat fighter with it's vectored thrust engines.

Funny thing about the Starfury - I loved all the Newtonian-combat tricks they did with it (pivoting to face and fire off-axis and all that) but I never thought it looked very cool, until I got a model kit of it to paint up with a personalised hull mural for a friend's birthday. No slight on the amazing job B5's CG people did with the equivalent of a broken iPhone and half an abacus to render on, but I feel like they never quite figured out which angles to shoot the Starfury from to really show its best side.

I have more than a little affection for the SSV Normandy

The proper Normandy too! I love the mobile engines, the landing with the nacelle tips pivoted down as feet, not to mention deploying the Mako by just shoving it out the door on a flyby - Cerberus really sucked the fun out of everything.

While we're in the right universe, I can't not fangirl the asari yet again:



I remember reading somewhere that Destiny Ascension was actually an early design for the mass relay that got repurposed after they changed their minds and went for the space tuning fork, and that kind of explains a lot of what I love about her: the light strips don't seem to correspond to any obvious layout of internal decks, the Codex makes a point of main gun barrel length (i.e. long hulls) being key to dreadnought combat power and Dessie completely ignores that, the engine is negative space - she's a ship of a people who don't think like us, don't build like us, and are doing perfectly fine without doing things in a way we think makes sense.

Speaking of ladies who don't really have any pressing need for us, but are sociable enough to put up with our crap anyway, Moya:



And I do have a special place in my heart for the trusty old Aluminum Mallard:

[Fixer]

The proper Normandy too! I love the mobile engines, the landing with the nacelle tips pivoted down as feet, not to mention deploying the Mako by just shoving it out the door on a flyby - Cerberus really sucked the fun out of everything.

You have to credit Cerberus for interior design though. Comfortable leather seats for the pilot and a banging loft for the Commander's personal quarters

For an entirely different style of spaceship. I give you, the Divine Right



An Emperor class battleship. The ancient hull of the Divine Right was recovered from the Space Hulk Inculate Evil after its capture near the Charon system in M36. The majority of power systems were found to be still functioning despite a sojourn in the warp estimated to be not less than ten millennia, indicating that its loss must have occurred before the Great Crusade. It was named according to custom by the captain who first located the hulk, Captain Jacobus, who fervently believed that visions from the Emperor had led him to the hulk.



The Emperor Class is thousands of years old. A massive fleet carrier that eschews the distinctive armoured prow of Imperial Navy ships for greater firepower and a huge array of sensors and communication equipment making it an excellent ship for command and control.

Like all technology in the Imperial, many of the functions of purposes of the mechanisms present are not well understood by the crew. Some sections of the ship may lie unexplored during the millennia of their service. It's not uncommon to find descendants of crew maintaining devices they do not comprehend in tribal like societies based on bizarre rituals based on the original jobs of their ancestors. Manual labour is used when automation is available and vastly superior. Massive cannon shells and gun tracks are pulled by huge gangs of indentured crew. Deaths with chain gangs being crushed under tracks are commonplace and barely a concern to taskmasters on the gun decks.

Human lives are plentiful, cheap and a resource easily spent in the 41st millenium.



Despite the hellish conditions and massive inefficiencies of such vessels, they manage to be an effective fighting force, commanded by iron willed, well educated and competent officers loyal to the Golden Throne. They are a vital and necessary defence against the horrors of the universe, for as bleak as the Imperium of Man is , the enemies of humanity are far, far worse.

[SlackerinDeNile]

The Pyro GX and all its variants from Descent. This ship doesn't make a lot of sense in terms of its science and physics but its really fun to fly around in and blow stuff up.

I'm also a huge fan of the Defiant from DS9, I'd take one of those over a Whitestar any day.

[MissKittyFantastico]

You have to credit Cerberus for interior design though.

Yeah, normally I just resent the Cerbies on principle for shoving everyone else out of the way and insisting the trilogy be all about them, but taking another pass at the interior decor without turian input wasn't the worst idea. Luckily the insides and outsides of the Normandies were so tenuously connected I don't see that it really creates any more of a problem to just shove the decks of the SR2 in an SR1 hull and call it a day.

Speaking of DS9 though:



The humble runabout (or not so humble in the Rio Grande's case). I always loved how easy it was to accept these as completely 'real', despite all the usual Starfleet tecnomagic going on under the surface - the bigger ships (especially the Enterprise and her ilk) are fantastical, and that's a fine thing - it's aspirational, really - but the runabouts are just so obviously sensible and functional, you almost barely have to ignore reality at all to consider them just plain fact.

[Mindworm]

I've a great soft spot for the Kadeshi mothership from Homeworld:

[MissKittyFantastico]

Can't believe I didn't think of this before - Yamato, or for those of us old enough that the internet wasn't a thing back then and we didn't know any better, the Argo:

[Fixer]

Time to pimp Spacedock's YouTube channel, with his review of the Cowboy Bebop ships:


youtu.be/V7lJrpphT9g

[GloatingSwine]

It's not just about what you do, it's about how you look doing it.

[Asvarduil]

Wouldn't mind this one showing up in a review at some point.

I freaking loved Flight of the Navigator as a kid. While it doesn't hold up so well to me today, I have fond memories nonetheless

[cilantro]

youtu.be/e6RAbB8afn0