39,327
edits
Cool Starship: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
(Import from TV Tropes TVT:Main.CoolStarship 2012-07-01, editor history TVTH:Main.CoolStarship, CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported license) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 5:
{{quote|''"The only thing between you and the vacuum of space is six feet of solid style."''|'''[[Spore]]'''}}
The cool ship can be a spaceship that other characters consider a [[What a Piece of Junk|piece of junk]]. In fact, you get [[Used Future|extra points for junky]]. If you can't call it a rustbucket, though, it has to be the one and only latest, just-about-a-prototype, bleeding-edge [[Shiny
An ancient living [[Precursor]]-craft, retrofitted with the latest techno-miracle gadgetry ''disguised'' as a rustbucket, that can think for itself... Okay, dude, quit hogging the cool.
Line 13:
Cool ships can even be single-seaters with no room to get up and walk around but capable of [[Faster Than Light Travel|zipping across the cosmos in no time]]. The [[Nobody Poops|lack of facilities]] is a non-issue, [[Handwaved]] for the [[Rule of Cool]].
To be even cooler, the cool starship may also be a [[Face Ship]] or come with [[Escape Pod|escape pods]], [[Frickin' Laser Beams|lasers]], [[Faster Than Light Travel|faster than light drive]]<ref>If it really is a ''star'' ship, i.e. designed to cross interstellar distances, then it had better have a faster-than-light drive if you don't want to wait several thousand years to get where you're going</ref>, and [[Teleporters and Transporters|transporters]]. If enemies try to board it, you may need to activate the [[Self
{{examples
== Anime ==
Line 135:
** Enterprise D from ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation (Film)|Star Trek the Next Generation]]''
** Enterprise-D...the future refit from "All Good Things". Best Star Trek ship EVER.
** The [http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/d/df/USS_Enterprise-A_quarter.jpg Enterprise from the TOS movies] was pretty freakin cool also, especially in the first two moves. Admit it... love or hate ''[[Star Trek:
** The ''[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090525051809/memoryalpha/en/images/0/05/USS_Reliant.jpg USS Reliant]'' from ''[[Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan (Film)|Star Trek II the Wrath of Khan]]'' just looks plain badass.
** Played with in ''[[Star Trek III the Search For Spock (Film)|Star Trek III the Search For Spock]]''. The ''[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090606201731/memoryalpha/en/images/6/6a/USS_Excelsior_in_Spacedock.jpg USS Excelsior]'' was intended to be an ''un''cool starship, an obnoxiously modernist contrast to the good old ''Enterprise'' we know and love. [[Rescued From the Scrappy Heap|We love her anyways.]]
Line 172:
** Also worthy of mention is the HMS Minotaur (''Minnie'' to her friends, just don't call her that in front of her [[The Captain|captain]]), the first of Manticore's LAC carriers. Capable of carrying and deploying a wing of 100 Light attack craft (20000 ton "fighters"), she and her wing almost single-handedly destroyed an entire battleship task group in their very first engagement and put the fear of the new Manticoran super-LACs well into the hearts of the People's navy.
* In another Weber series, ''[[Empire From the Ashes]]'', Dahak is a sentient battleship the size of the Moon (having destroyed and [[That's No Moon|secretly replaced]] the original 50,000 years ago). Even after he gets planetoid companions, all the characters still agree that Dahak is an awesome ship. {{spoiler|Dahak II even more so.}}
* On the subject of Weber, "Star Runner". An AI-controlled light cruiser equipped with ''battleship-grade'' engines and shields. As it's too small to carry useful numbers of the long-range SLAMS (Supra-Light Accelerated Missiles - essentially [[Wave Motion Gun|targeted black holes]]), the designers pretty much decide 'sod it' and [[Beam Spam|pack it bow to stern]] with [[Frickin' Laser Beams]], [[Macross Missile Massacre|missile launchers]] and [[Point Defenceless|point defence]]. It can outrun destroyers and ''[[Curb Stomp Battle|outgun battleships]]''. And as I said before, it's a ''light cruiser''.
** And it also has a hologram projector capable of making it look like a down-on-its-luck tramp freighter rather than, say, a stolen military experimental ship piloted by the most wanted woman in the ''sector''.
* In the classic ''[[Skylark Series|Skylark]]'' series by [[EE Doc Smith]], Doctor Richard Seaton and friends trade up through a series of increasingly powerful spacecraft. He discovers a substance that catalyzes the conversion of copper to energy and linear momentum, then makes contact with a succession of alien races and gains galaxy-turning scientific insights. The original ''Skylark'' is a forty-foot steel-hulled sphere, refitted with the alien metal [http://www.rogermwilcox.com/arenak.html "arenak"] into ''Skylark II'', then replaced with the mile-long blimp-shape of ''Skylark III'' using an even stronger metal, "inoson." He finally constructs the gargantuan ''Skylark of Valeron'' (his wife being tired of numbers) out of thin air and raw computation (having discovered the secrets of Sixth Order Forces and time manipulation), a ''thousand-mile-wide'' sphere. Its size wasn't ego -- he simply needed that much room for mechanisms to lock onto Earth after being thrown to the far side of the universe.
Line 252:
** The Babylon 4 station had engines and was even bigger. It served as the base of operations for a war 1000 years <s>prior</s> before it was ''friggin built''.
** The ''Agamemnon'' and other Earth force destroyers. They may be ugly chunks of metal with no [[Artificial Gravity|gravity control]], but they can take on much more advanced civilization's warships on nearly equal terms.
** Especially the awesome [[One
** The ''Excalibur'' from ''[[Crusade (TV)|Crusade]]''.
** The Shadow's giant starfield colored spider monster warships. Very effective at evoking the utter hopelessness of fighting them.
** The ''Sharlin''-class War Cruiser from the Minbari Federation. It's a giant blue angel fish...and that doesn't ''sound'' particularly cool, until you see it...
** The Vorlon ships. All of them. The dreadnoughts are imposing enough and can [[One
** The new EarthForce ''Warlock''-class destroyers. They don't have the spinning sections, as they're the first EarthForce ships to use [[Artificial Gravity]]. This means they're faster and more maneuverable. Plus, they feature advanced weapons and defenses. They're supposed to be a one-to-one match to the Minbari ''Sharlin'', even though there are only 50 of them in the fleet.
* ''Andromeda Ascendant'' from ''[[Andromeda]]''.
** ''[[Andromeda]]'' actually has two, one of each kind: The ''Andromeda Ascendant'' as the hot technomiracle, and the ''Eureka Maru'' as the "rusty bucket of bolts".
** How about the ''Siege Perilous''-class Deep Stand-off Attack Ship II? It has 180 missile tubes, 24 35-megawatt [[Point Defenseless|PDL]] turrets, 4 [[Antimatter|anti-proton]] cannons. Built to destroy entire fleets. Out of 4 built, 3 were shown on-screen (''Wrath of Achilles'', ''Balance of Judgement'', and ''Resolution of Hector''), and they look amazing.
* The ''Liberator'' from ''[[
* The Doctor's TARDIS on ''[[Doctor Who (TV)|Doctor Who]]''. Even though it barely works and constantly shakes and smokes, it is still the most powerful ship ''in the universe'', capable of towing ''the Earth'' through intergalactic space. And it looks like a Police Box.
** And have we mentioned that it's [[Bigger On the Inside]]?
Line 275:
*** They also look like [http://cf.geekdo-images.com/images/pic52141_md.jpg Split-Level Aggravation].
* The ''[[Lexx]]'', a massive spacecraft that resembles a dragonfly. Its [[Crippling Overspecialization|only weapon]] is a [[Wave Motion Gun]] that smashes the planets into bite-size chunks.
** A dragonfly, eh? [[Is That What
* Spaceship Imagination from Carl Sagan's ''[[Cosmos]]''.
* [[Stargate Verse|Stargate]] has a fair number of these:
Line 295:
** Then you've got Starbug, a transport ship used for ferrying people from the surface of planets to the Mining ship and exploration of planets. Has no FTL travel yet somehow managed to track the massive mining ship (although it did take a few centuries) and somehow managed to increase the amount of space within it. Oh and then after the main crew is killed by their future selves the ship somehow changes shape again to allow more extra room.
*** And it's also the very model that was withdrawn due to major flight design flaws. Go figure.
* Needless to say the Gerry and Sylvia Anderson series ''[[UFO]]'' abounds with them. SST's, tilt-fan aircraft decades before the Osprey <s>got off the ground</s> crashed, jet-powered seaplanes, [[Military Mashup Machine|submarine-launched jet fighters]], Lunar Modules piggyback-launched from VTOL carrier aircraft, bug-like Moon Mobiles that travel with an eerie ''[[Sound in Space|wooo]]'' sound <ref> Any time you hear an eerie sound in a Gerry Anderson series, it's produced by composer Barry Gray on his 'Ondes Martenot' synthesizer</ref>, Interceptors with a [[Nuke
** But ... but ... are any of those starships?
*** To paraphrase [[MST3K]]: "More like lower-atmosphere-ships."
* The Eagles from ''[[
* The Astro Megaship from ''[[Power Rangers in Space]]'' and ''[[Power Rangers Lost Galaxy|Lost Galaxy]]''. All the functionality of the ''[[Star Trek the Next Generation (TV)|Star Trek the Next Generation]]'' Enterprise, plus it turns into a giant robot!
** It's got [[Atop the Fourth Wall (Web Video)|Linkara's]] seal of approval!
Line 333:
* One of the possible settings in [[Maid RPG]] is space. Given the nature of the game, at least one of these will be involved in any game taking place in that setting.
* In [[Exalted]] the very ''Sun'' itself is a battlestation known as '''Dirigible Engine Daystar''' designed to fight back armies of billions of Raksha and rogue Primordials. The Daystar is detailed in five parts on the Ink Monkeys' Blog ([http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/blogs/freelancers/archive/2010/05/19/ink-monkeys-vol-13-the-daystar-part-i.aspx I], [http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/blogs/freelancers/archive/2010/05/22/ink-monkeys-vol-14-the-daystar-part-ii-1.aspx II-1], [http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/blogs/freelancers/archive/2010/05/23/ink-monkeys-vol-15-the-daystar-part-ii-2.aspx II-2], [http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/blogs/freelancers/archive/2010/05/24/ink-monkeys-vol-16-the-daystar-part-ii-3.aspx II-3], [http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/blogs/freelancers/archive/2010/05/31/ink-monkeys-vol-17-the-daystar-part-iii.aspx III], [http://forums.white-wolf.com/cs/blogs/freelancers/archive/2010/11/09/ink-monkeys-vol-the-daystar-finale.aspx Final]).
* The ''[[Starfire]]'' hex-map-based wargame was ''all about'' combat between fleets of starships. The units varied in size from tiny one-man fighters all the way up to Monitors four times as large as a space battleship, armed with quasi-inertialess ion engines, nuclear missiles, [[Antimatter]] missiles, [[Frickin' Laser Beams]], [[Tractor Beam|Tractor Beams]], [[Deflector Shields]], and a host of other deadly hardware.
== Video Games ==
Line 355:
* The ''Normandy'' of ''[[Mass Effect (Video Game)|Mass Effect]]''. Not only is it ''really'' fast, it is also a stealth ship. ...and hella expensive. But hey, you can't put a price tag on cool!
** The ''Normandy'' SR2 built by Cerberus in the second game {{spoiler|1=to replace the SR1 after it got blown up}} is even cooler. Everything from the original design was amped up, including the luxury; Joker likes the new leather seats. And an Artificial Intelligence that eventually {{spoiler|takes total control over the entire ship, and describes the ship as being her body}}. Yeah, the SR2 is pretty much the definition of Cool Ship. Oh, and there's even a bar if you fork over the cash for some DLC.
** In ''[[Mass Effect 3 (Video Game)|Mass Effect 3]]'', she gets another overhaul, including a spiffy new emblem and blue-white paint job, the ability to provide [[Death From Above|fire support]] to the player (in some instances), and new areas opened up. How cool is the ''Normandy'' in ''ME3''? A fully upgraded ''Normandy'' is worth almost as much War Assets as ''[[One
** Meanwhile, on the [[Big Bad]] side of the equation, we have Saren's flagship Sovereign. A massive, vaguely arthropod-like starship that's [[Nigh Invulnerable]], engages two full-strength battle fleets simultaneously, and is implied to only lose by plot device. {{spoiler|Did we mention that it's actually sentient and the one calling all the shots?}}
*** Really, even though they're practically the poster boys for [[Abusive Precursors]], all of the Reapers are just awesome.
Line 397:
*** Every pilot in Goonfleet knows that the original Rifters were built from bicycles and televisions stolen from the Amarr. :)
** The Magathron Navy Issue was at one point considered one of the most aesthetically pleasing ships in the game, given that its base design was already [[Badass]] looking. However, unlike the regular issue, it sported a jet black paint scheme with blue lighting. To the point that people bought it just because it looked cool.
*** This changed when the Dominion expansion altered the paint scheme to a [[They Changed It, Now It Sucks|horribly ugly forest camo.]] Chided by players as being perfect to hide the ship behind all the trees in space. The price of the Mega Navy Issue took a nice drop in response.
** The Scorpion received an epic visual overhaul with the deployment of Tyrannis, which was especially well received by the player base.
Line 497:
** ''[[Transformers Cybertron]]'' gives us the ''Atlantis'', ''Ogygia'', ''Lemuria'', and ''Hyperborea'', four ancient Cybertronian starships equipped with loads of guns and self repair systems that keep them in good condition even through millennia of abandonment. The Atlantis was at the bottom of Earth's ocean, the Ogygia and Hyperborea were buried (the Hyperborea did have its temple-styled observation deck exposed, though), and the Lemuria sat for ages with its ventral decks in a lake. They can be merged into a colossal warship called the ''Ark''. There's also Vector Prime, who turns into one.
** And not to forget the Transformers that turn into spaceships: Cosmos, Sky Lynx, Omega Supreme, Blast Off, Astrotrain, Cyclonus, Scourge...
** Among the most unique ships is the Quintesson Cruiser, which is a spinning screw shaped ship. Mostly used by the Quintessons, and the Autobots used one and {{spoiler|[[Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?|impaled Unicrons eye with it.]]}}
** ''[[Transformers Armada]]'' got its name for a very good reason. Both the Autobots and Deceptions field [[Standard Sci Fi Fleet|fleets]] of massive starships. One of the most notable are the Axalon and the Hydra Cannon.
* The ships from ''[[Invader Zim]]''.
Line 538:
[[Category:Travel Cool]]
[[Category:Cool Starship]]
[[Category:Trope]][[Category:Pages with comment tags]]
| |||