39,327
edits
Cool Starship: Difference between revisions
m
update links
m (revise quote template spacing) |
m (update links) |
||
Line 4:
{{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-Looking Spaceships|techno-miracle]].
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 28:
* The ''Bebop'' from ''[[Cowboy Bebop]]''.
** Also, the personal fighter ships used by Spike (Swordfish), Faye (Redtail), and Jet (Hammerhead). Especially Jet's.
** The shuttle ''[[Too Soon|Columbia.]]'' Even if it does ''[[Harsher in Hindsight|almost burn up on re-entry,]]'' the fact that an ancient space shuttle still sort-of-kind-of works is pretty freaking [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|''awesome''.]]
* The ''Blue Typhoon'' from ''[[Sonic X]]''. It even has a [[Thunderbirds|Thunderbird 2 style launch pad for the smaller vessels!]]
* The ''Gekko-Go'' aircraft from ''[[Eureka Seven]]''.
Line 39:
* Space Battleship Ryo-Ohki from ''[[Tenchi Muyo!]]'', who also doubled as a [[Weasel Mascot]].
** Not to mention Kagato's ship, the Soja, from the OVA. It had as many dimensions as it did floors.
** Jurian ships in general look like nature preserves.
** The Galaxy Police are no slouches at building cool starships either.
* The ''Arcadia'' from ''[[Space Pirate Captain Harlock]]'' and all related series.
* The [[Galaxy Express 999]]. ''Steam trains [[In Space]].''
Line 57:
** ''[[Nanoha Force]]'' gives the ''Esquad Hückebein'' (which is so cool, it violates the laws of magi-physics) to the villains, and the ''Wolfram'' (a [[Spiritual Successor]] to ''Arthra'') to the heroes.
* The Bay Tower Base, and later the Orbit Base from ''[[GaoGaiGar|Yuusha-Oh GaoGaiGar]]'' are multiple [[Cool Ship|Cool Ships]] connected to a hub, which can deploy and serve various purposes. Three of them transform into the handle of a [[Drop the Hammer|giant hammer]] in the OVA.
** Also the J-Ark, a [[Cool Starship]] whose bridge detaches from the ship and turns into a [[Humongous Mecha|Cool Robot]] that can then recombine with the rest of the Ark to form the even ''[[Up to Eleven|Cooler]]'' Robot King J-Der. It's also piloted by Soldato-J, one of the biggest [[Badass|Badasses]] in the series, for even ''more'' cool points.
* The Shangri-La from ''[[Toward the Terra]]'' contains wide open fields, gardens, flowing rivers, palisades, a massive shrine for its leader, and a "bridge" in the form of a platform suspended above the aforementioned fields. Further, the ship uses psychic energy to attack, defend, and conceal itself, is capable of both space and atmospheric flight, and can even warp from the surface of a planet.
* Believe it or not, the manga version of ''[[Chrono Crusade]]'' actually contains a (spoileriffic) example. {{spoiler|Pandaemonium, the demon's world, is actually a gigantic spaceship that crashed into Earth and sank to the bottom of the ocean. It's huge, containing a huge city inside of it, including a large field of grass and trees. And yes, this means the [[Our Demons Are Different|demons]] are actually [[Sufficiently Advanced Aliens|aliens]].}}
Line 64:
* La Muse and various other ships from [[Kiddy Grade]].
* All of the ships from [[Gankutsuou]] are unbelievably cool.
* Imperial admirals' ships in ''[[Legend of Galactic Heroes]]'', primarily Reinhard's Brunhilde and Muller's Percivale.
* Frieza and Cooler of ''[[Dragonball Z]]'' each have at least one.
* The Bell from ''[[Magic Users Club]]''.
Line 142:
** The aliens of the Trek movies? [http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Valdore.jpg Valdore],[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Sona_command_ship.jpg Ru'afo's ship] and [http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Scimitar.jpg freakin' Scimitar.]
** [http://scifiwire.com/assets_c/2009/02/StarTrek_enterprise_wall01_1280-thumb-550x293.jpg NCC-1701 Enterprise] from the 2009 [[Star Trek (film)|Star Trek]] film. That ship demonstrated how [[Beam Spam]] is meant to be done.
*** According to the crew, it was explicitly designed to be the ''[[Star Trek: The Original Series|USS Enterprise]]'' [[Hotter and Sexier|as a Hot Rod]].
*** That movie is fittingly loaded with them. The future ship [http://www.coronacomingattractions.com/sites/default/files/star_trek_2009_narada.jpg Narada] has the look of an [[Eldritch Abomination]], while {{spoiler|Spock Prime's}} ship is an awesomely [http://img.trekmovie.com/images/st09/ritcards/01.jpg weird little thing].
*** The "weird little thing" is canonically called [http://www.treksinscifi.com/trekdaily/pictures/2009-05-23-Spocks_Jellyfish.jpg The] [http://www.trekbrasilis.org/tbweblog/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/stc-4.jpg Jellyfish].
*** The [http://img.trekmovie.com/images/fanmade/kelvin_wall04_1280.jpg USS Kelvin]. [[Ensemble Darkhorse]], much?
* USS ''Discovery'' of Stanley Kubrick's [[2001: A Space Odyssey]]. A spaceship controlled by a genius computer in which the only real way to travel is in a cryo-chamber. Admittedly not FTL, but ranks highly on the [[Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness]] in that respect. However, as humanity's first long distance spaceship, its a pretty good effort, delivering the astronauts to Jupiter (Saturn in the book). Also the inspiration for the [[Standard Establishing Spaceship Shot]], accompanied by [[Crowning Music of Awesome|the "Adagio" from ''Gayane'' by Khachaturian]].
Line 160:
* The "Cavorite sphere" from H.G. Wells' ''[[The First Men in the Moon]]'' was nothing more than a room-sized sphere of anti-gravitational [[Applied Phlebotinum]] known as Cavorite, named after the story's well-meaning [[Mad Scientist]] Cavor. No giant rockets here. To begin their journey the crew merely unleashed the moorings so the hull could set about its gravity-repulsive business and, like a metal hot air balloon, float off into the void. This altogether genteel and erudite mode of transport allowed its Victorian-era crew to focus on pipe smoking, tea preparation, [[Angst|existential angst]], and other civilized behaviors. Possibly the ultimate in [[Steampunk]] technology.
* The Starship Lady MacBeth in ''[[The Nights Dawn Trilogy]]''. It's a giant flying basketball, but it also has 3 fusion rockets and 8 communication lasers (Masers) that just happen to double as Deathrays.
* The ''Heart of Gold'' in ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy]]''. The ''Bistromath'' is arguably a subversion of this trope.
** Hotblack Desiato's Space-Limo in the books and television series anyone? So cool Zaphod and Ford can't help but steal it. Even in the radio series, where it looks the same but is actually the flagship for a massive intergalactic war fleet.
* The novel ''Invaders From the Infinite'' featured the ''Thought'' - a ship made of, well, ''solidified thought''. It's main armament consisted of the device that made it.
Line 209:
*** Both versions of the Excalibur, the second being what amounts to a hot rod version of the Galaxy-class.
*** The Trident, Excalibur's sister ship
*** The Spectre, a badass Romulan vessel that can be rigged to run silent and virtually undetectable.
* The ships from Neal Asher's '[[Polity Series|Polity]]' books - the 'Cable Hogue' has the same mass as Earth's Moon, but it's bigger. 'Geronamid' and 'Jerusalem' are space-distorting huge, and make planet-eating alien creatures of near-infinite intelligence wet themselves just by their arriving anywhere. AI controlled, they also tend to be very self-aware, often inscrutable and occasionally inclined to sarcasm. The wardrones are even more fun...
* Subverted in [[Iain M Banks]]' ''The Algebraist'', where the ''Luceferous VII'', designed to suit the whims of the eponymous genocidal despot who has some definite ideas about how a badass flagship should look. His engineers apparently cried at one point, not wishing to be tortured to death for defying him when his designs became far too impractical to implement. It is mocked by the staff of the Navarchy as being a clear sign of vanity trumping sense, being too big to travel FTL via wormholes and far more vulnerable in a real fight than a sensible warship.
* In Tony Daniel's ''Metaplanetary'' series, the forces of the outer system have Cloudships: spiral-shaped clouds of connected meteoroids with uploaded minds named after classic writers; males are shaped clockwise, females counter-clockwise. They regularly travel to Alpha Centauri. The forces of the inner system have 5-mile long ships shaped like bundles of scythes with limited intangibility. There's also {{spoiler|[[Makes Sense in Context|a Jeep with an FTL-engine-in-a-Thermos]]}}
* ''The Emiline'' is the tricked-out space yacht belonging to Miles Flint, [[Retrieval Artist]]. A man of otherwise simple tastes, it's the one thing he spends his lavish fortune on: black, sleek, fast, upgraded with the latest defense and security whenever a new version comes out, richly carpeted and furnished and modified with a few features he's used to from his days with Armstrong police: handcuff mounting points, a brig, and so on.
* The ''Troy'' class Battle Globes from the ''[[Troy Rising]]'' series. A nickel-iron asteroid, hollowed and inflated to 9km in diameter, with walls 1.5km thick, acting as [[The Battlestar|home-port and carrier]] to ''Constitution'' class cruisers, and hundreds of assault shuttles. Plus an armament of tens of thousands of missiles, and laser emitters capable of throwing a petawatt or so (and more to come). Two-point-two ''trillion'' tons of death. {{spoiler|And they fitted ''Troy'' with an [[Orion Drive]] to make it mobile}}. So far, they've built two of them, with a third on the way...
Line 237:
*** The [http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/5/5c/USS_Enterprise-C.jpg Enterprise-C], commanded by Captain Rachel Garrett and Lt. Castillo. It was so badass, it's crew decided to [[Heroic Sacrifice|fight a battle they were destined to lose]] simply because it would lead to peace between the Federation and the Klingons. Now you know you're a cool ship when you get blown up and the ''Klingons'' are impressed.
** ''Enterprise'' [http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/7/74/Enterprise_NX-01.jpg NX-01], humanity's first Warp 5 ship. Not as pretty or [[Badass]] as later versions, but it did get the job done. And got it done well.
** The entire Constitution ''class''. They were fast, reliable, powerful, and tough. Remember the USS ''Constellation''? Blasted into near-scrap by the Doomsday Machine, antimatter exhausted and warp drive a 'pile of scrap', yet it could still fly and fight clumsily once Scotty got his hands on it. Those ships were arguably the best the Federation ever built.
** And that's just the main Human ships. Most of the supporting cast of races got cool ships, but the [http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/5/5f/IKS_Kronos_One.jpg Klingon] and [http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/1/15/IRW_TMet_firing_disruptors.jpg Romulan ships] were especially badass.
*** Especially since, if you go by the [http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/memoryalpha/en/images/0/06/IKS_Rotarran_fires_on_Jem%27Hadar_attack_ship.jpg IKS Rotarran], (Martok's ship) Dominion War-Era Birds of Prey are pretty much comparable to the USS Defiant.
Line 247:
** The Vulcan High Command ringships from ''[[Star Trek: Enterprise|Star Trek Enterprise]]''; particularly the [http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20081008011025/memoryalpha/en/images/5/58/D%27Kyr_type%2C_ventral_particle_beam.jpg ''D'Kyr''-class Combat Cruiser], but also the ''Surak''-class ships and the larger ''Suurok''-class vessels like ''Sh'raan''.
** Many of Starfleet's ships have a Fridge Coolness factor to them: before the ''Defiant'', Starfleet weren't really into actual warships<ref>That would be ''why'' the Defiant isn't officially classified as a warship</ref>, and so their ships had other primary purposes (exploration, mostly). Didn't keep them from going up against ''dedicated'' warships and winning...
* This was subverted in ''[[That '70s Show]]''. The camera moves underneath a chassis to display it as a huge behemoth flying in space, only to reveal that it's a Vista Cruiser with Eric and Donna sitting in it. Incidentally, it could be considered a [[Cool Car]].
* The ''[http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/White_Star_class White Star]''(s) from ''[[Babylon 5]]''.
** 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''.
Line 303:
* The basis for the Astro Megaship - Mega Ship / Galaxy Mega from [[Denji Sentai Megaranger]]. Since the series was themed around computers rather than space travel, it was used as an orbital base instead of transport, but still.
** The [[Space Sailing|Gokai Galleon]] from ''[[Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger]]''.
* The ''Vulture'' from "[[Salvage 1]]." Built in a 1979 scrap yard from parts including a gasoline truck, a cement mixer and some old tires, the ''Millenium Falcon'' ain't got nothing on this baby when it comes to being a miraculously functional "piece of junk." It took its crew of a junkman, a former astronaut, and a propulsion expert all the way to the Moon and back to salvage NASA's collectibles.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
Line 313:
** Tau ships count, too. As if the fact that ''within half the Imperium's lifetime'' the Tau went from "[[Monty Python's Flying Circus|pointed sticks]]" to "tank-killing railguns, limited FTL, and drone workers", but the Tau avoid the "overdone Gothic" of Imperial space cathedrals in favour of sleek, curved surfaces.
*** The Manta is probably the toughest thing on the table in a standard scale game.
** How can we have one of these without mentioning ''Phalanx''? Not only is it the size of a small moon, it houses the entire Imperial Fists chapter.
** And ''Eternal Crusader'', the pimped-out battle barge of the [[Knight Templar|Black Templars]].
** And ''Bucephalas'', the Emperor's battle-barge.
** And ''Vengeful Spirit''.
** And ''Hunter's Premonition'' and ''Covenant of Blood'' from the Night Lords books.
** And the Eldar Craftworlds. So big they have in fact been mistaken for [[That's No Moon|planetary bodies]], and are able to carry an entire Eldar FLEET (up to and including a couple of their battlecruiser equivalents) in their docking bay... come to think of it most of the Eldar ships are pretty cool too.
Line 328:
* [[Magic: The Gathering]]: The Weatherlight, although it was designed by what was essentially a god to be part of a weapon that was powerful enough to kill an actual god So Yeah.
* [[Traveller]] has lots of these. The Terran Confederation Navy had the Indomitable class battleships, which practically destroyed the Vilani navy on their own.
** The Lightning class frontier merchant, half warship, half merchant. These were able to cruise in Vilani space at will, changing to privateers or scouts when needed.
** A fairly normal feature is a computerized surface that can be used to customize any imagery the captain desires. Similar features are available on several of the bulkheads. Thus even fairly ordinary Starships can look cool
* 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.
Line 351:
** Bonus point for the [[A Mech by Any Other Name|Orbital Frame]] version of Vic Viper in [[Zone of the Enders]] The 2nd Runner: it can even transform into a [[Humongous Mecha]]!
* The ''USG Ishimura'' from ''[[Dead Space (series)|Dead Space]]''. A mining spaceship that rips part of a planet and suspends it beneath the ship, ready to be mined.
** It is, however heavily industrial in design, only the higher ups get fancy furniture like sofas, end tables and double beds.
* The ''Normandy'' of ''[[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]]'', 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-Man Army|an entire Alliance fleet]]''.
** 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.
** The Shadow Broker has a pretty damn sweet vessel which is basically a giant flying fortress modified to be able to perfectly hide within thunderstorms.
** Given that [[Memetic Badass|Sir Isaac Newton]] [[Memetic Mutation|is the deadliest son of a bitch in space]], presumably the Everest-class dreadnoughts count.
** How can a ME list not include the ''Destiny Ascension''? The largest warship in the galaxy, it manages to hold its own during the surprise attack on the Citadel. {{spoiler|unless you go Renegade..}}
** The [[AI Is a Crapshoot|geth]] flagship is a massive dreadnought that can lay waste to the entire quarian fleet, even though it looks like a giant cockroach. Unless, of course, {{spoiler|Legion disables its weapons and defenses}}. Keep in mind that the quarian dreadnoughts (or civilians ships that pretend they're ''not'' dreadnoughts) are armed to the teeth with the Thanix cannons.
* In [[Starcraft|Starcraft II]], the protagonists' starship, the Hyperion, a stolen [[The Empire|Dominion]] battlecruiser, qualifies.
** Also, the Void Seeker (Zeratul's ship) and possibly the Shield of Aiur (Artanis' Ship).
* The ''[[Star Wars|TIE Fighter]]'' series of games featured the TIE Defender, which was the fastest starfighter in the galaxy; as well-armed as some bombers; shielded (unusual for TIEs); equipped with hyperdrive; and some models had a ''tractor beam''. Something of a [[Game Breaker]], it didn't make it into other similar games, leaving you with only the second best TIE Advanced starfighter.
Line 377:
* Dr. Robotnik of the ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog]]'' games always has one or two of these around, with the most memorable being the ''Egg Carrier'' in ''Sonic Adventure'' (this one even came with its own theme music) and the Wing Fortress in ''Sonic 2''. He wises up and builds an entire fleet in ''Sonic Heroes''.
** We see your Egg Carrier and raise you The Death Egg, as well as the ARK.
* ''Great Fox'' in the ''[[Star Fox (series)|Star
* In SSBB's ''Subspace Emissary'', one of the main plot object's is the Halberd, which even destroys easily the Great Fox. Fortunately it is eventually recovered by the heroes. {{spoiler|Then an even larger ship/cannon comes from a portal and blows it up. But four smaller, equally cool ships (and Olimar's pitiful lil' tin-can of a rocket) emerge to continue the fight. The Catch? The extremely large enemy ship is destroyed by Kirby using a Dragoon, essentially a flying hovercraft that (canonly) only allows for one pink ball to ride it. }}
** {{spoiler|And how did Kirby blow up the gunship? By [[Ramming Always Works|crashing the Dragoon into it]]. [[Made of Iron|Without even scratching the paint]]. [[Memetic Badass|Even Newton's Laws are no match for Kirby]].}}
Line 383:
** An even cooler example is the Comet Observatory from the first ''[[Super Mario Galaxy]]''.
* ''[[Halo]]'''s Pillar of Autumn was a Halcyon-class cruiser. According to the novels, this class of ship had been retired years previously and were destined for the scrap yard. They were slow, under armoured, had very few weapons, and were generally considered a joke among the fleet. The Autumn itself was in bad shape and could be accurately described as a junk-heap. This made it the perfect candidate to ferry the resident [[Super Soldier|Super Soldiers]] on their top-secret mission, and as such was refitted with top-of-the-line reactors and experimental weapons. That's right, a techno-miracle disguised as a rustbucket.
** The ''Pillar of Autumn'' was chosen for the mission because the ''Halcyon''-class was designed with an absurd amount of internal structural bracing. It could take a beating to the point of looking like swiss cheese and still maintain basic structural integrity. ...then they put in the self-cooling engines, special MAC Gun ammo and capacitors, and replaced an entire set of shuttle-bays with missile launchers, and put Jacob Keyes in command, and it became the most badass ship in the fleet. You first meet it in the first Halo game, as Cortana drives it around Halo's solar system terrorising ships twelve times it's size.
** Other ships in the series include the significantly less-cool In Amber Clad and Forward Unto Dawn. However, you also get to see High Charity - a giant ship/asteroid/city, which more than holds its own in the awesomeness category.
*** The UNSC frigates (the class that IAC and FUD belong to) get a slight coolness boost in ''Halo: Reach'' by performing heavy fire support for you on multiple occasions.
Line 390:
** No mention of the [[Alien Geometries|Forerunner dreadnought?]] Incredibly fast and able to power a moon-sized city.
** The Covenant flagship ''Ascendant Justice'' from the novel ''Halo: First Strike'', which is enhanced by Cortana to the point of "ridiculous badassness" (superior shields, pinpoint jump-drives, one-hit-kill weapons, etc.). ''Welding'' the ''Ascendant Justice'' to the hulk of a UNSC ship in a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] solely for the purpose of providing [[More Dakka]].
** The ''Long Night of Solace'', the Covenant Supercarrier in ''Halo: Reach'', counts, partly due to its impressive entrance (one-shotting a UNSC Frigate from out of nowhere), and partly because of its sheer size - the thing is completely fucking '''huge''', around 27 kilometers long from the looks of it <ref>and from comparing it to the ~300-meter Covenant Corvette</ref>. Covenant Supercarriers are the largest warships ever made by the Covenant, and only about a dozen of them are known to have existed throughout the Human-Covenant War. As a comparison: [[Mass Effect]]'s Citadel is about 47 kilometers long. A Covenant Supercarrier is more than half of that length, and is about a dozen kilometers wide and at least half a dozen kilometers "tall". It carries enough firepower to take on half of the Reaper fleet singlehandedly and win. A trio of them would defeat the Reapers by themselves. They also carry hundreds of thousands of troops (and all of the armored vehicles, aircraft, gigantic cloaking-teleporting-jamming pylons, and more). One wonders how even the Covenant build these, let alone in significant numbers.
** Pretty much any Forerunner ship as described in [[The Forerunner Saga|Cryptum]]: some are made up primarily from hardened light, which can be turned transparent in some areas to simulate being completely outside. Of particular note is the unnamed ship used by the Didact, which, while small compared to some other ships, was equipped to singularly wage a large battle, and the Fortress ships, which were 50 kilometers long and capable of {{spoiler|destroying Halos on their own}}.
* ''[[Eve Online]]'' has many of these, but the Veldnaught, piloted by Chribba, gets special mention. Beyond being a capital ship, it is located in high-security space, where capital ships are not allowed to enter, but the Veldnaught was already THERE when the rule was put in place. So what does Chribba use it for? Mining.
Line 397:
** 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.
*** And children's toys for the AI.
Line 429:
*** The ''Naggarok'' {{spoiler|the ship that [[The Virus|The Beast]] entered this galaxy in}} is one of the most intimidating ships in that entire series. It's huge, armed, infectious, and once {{spoiler|the [[Game Breaker|super-advanced engines]] are repaired it can cross vast distances in seconds, while it would take your fastest ships tens of minutes. Something that large simply should not move that fast!}}
**** It can do that because it has an '''inertialess drive'''. Though if we are already there, the counter to the ''Naggarok'' must be mentioned: Super Acolytes. A fighter with dual '''rapid-fire ion cannons'''. Mind you, that's destroyer-level firepower packed into a fighter!
** Apparently it's [[Cool Starship|so cool]] it needs a second mention here, apart from being the first videogame entry. The {{spoiler|Sajuuk}} from Homeworld 2 is a very cool one as well, packing the most powerful weapon in the game. In addition, remember the thingy that enabled the Mothership to make such long-range hyperjumps? {{spoiler|Sajuuk}} has ''three'' which means it can hyperjump during battle with absolutely no cost. Let's recount: a super-heavily armored, 5km long and 1,500,000 ton ship with a [[Wave Motion Gun|Phased Cannon Array]], medium-range nanite cannons, quite fast self-repair and slow speed offset by the ability to execute tactical hyperjumps with no resource cost.
* The Furon Mothership and Scoutship(saucer) from the ''[[Destroy All Humans!]]!'' series.
* The ''[[Free Space|FreeSpace series]]'' turns the [[Cool Starship]] into an art form. Both games feature several classes of massive capital ships that are thousands of times the size of the player's fighter, armed with not one but ''several'' [[Wave Motion Gun|Wave Motion Guns]] apiece, including a fleet of 80 alien juggernauts that, together, ''blow up a star''.
** One of the series' shining examples has to be the ''Lucifer'', the [[Nigh Invulnerable]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9soWW_haNbM planet-killing superdestroyer] that functioned as the first game's [[Big Bad]].
*** By the second game, both sides have bigger nastier juggernauts that could take out a Lucifer without breaking a sweat. Unfortunately, the Shivans have the aforementioned 80 of them (that we see; they may well have far more elsewhere), but there's only one Colossus.
** The Freespace Open Source Project, a massive and still highly active collaborative effort that constantly updates the game with improved code, AI, mechanics, missions, and entire new mods/total conversions, understandably has its own fair share of cool ships. The [[Blue Planet]] series, in particular, features realistic and fantastic ships in fitting and excellent missions.
* ''[[Xenosaga]]'' was full of these, being a full-on scifi as it was. The Rhinemaidens from the beginning of the story, the Elsa, and of course the huge megaship Durandal that's practically as big as the space station it docks with to become the Kukai Foundation's HQ.
** To say nothing about the Dammerung which is among the biggest ships ever covering ''10,000 square kilometers'' (just under the size of the country of Lebanon).
Line 441:
* [[Albion]] has the Toronto, a ship that can transform into a mining facility, that automatically builds/repairs itself, and is virtually indestructible. And the whole thing is controlled by a single computer, and manned by relatively small crew.
* The ''[[Escape Velocity]]'' series has a number of cool ships. ''Nova'' alone has the cool-looking Modified Starbridge, the hideously powerful Polaris Raven, the very cool Auroran Thunderforge, and the [[Series Mascot]] Kestrel... and the [http://evn.wikia.com/wiki/Manticore Manticore] - built out of junked Leviathans, it's probably the best ship for piracy in the game as its primary weapon, a ring of eight ion cannons named the Crown of Thorns, only disables and doesn't destroy targets, and its huge cargo carrying capacity can be converted to carry weapons.
* The CSS Astrid from ''[[Ground Control]]'' deserves a definite mention - it's introduced by way of hammering an opposing ship belonging to a technologically superior faction into retreat with just a couple of salvoes from it's cannon... It then goes on to reappear in the sequel as a 300-plus-year-old derelict which just happens to still be in working order, and house an engine which would allow it to reach the next galaxy over...
* Pretty much any ship controlled by [[Marathon Trilogy|Durandal]] - the beginning of ''Marathon 2'' sees him destroy a Phfor battlegroup using a single stolen scoutship... which he had upgraded to be able to hit targets a twice the maximum distance a dedicated warship could; ten thousand years after that game he's upgraded to a [[Precursor|Jjaro]] dreadnaught renamed ''Manus Celer Dei'' - given that a Jjaro ''spacestation'' was capable of creating blackholes as a weapon (to combat [[Eldritch Abomination|EldritchAbominations]]), you're left wondering what a Jjaro ''warship'' could do to top that...
* While ''[[Galactic Civilizations II]]'' allowed you to build your own [[Cool Starships]] in a lego-esque design menu, a special mention has to go to the Arnor vessels you can sometimes find in special anomalies and turn to your side. Just one of these vessels has sufficient power to take entire enemy ''fleets'' of dreadnoughts on and shrug them off with minimal damage. God help you if you try to fight one of these in the hands of someone with a couple of Military Resource starbases. Your game is officially over.
** The smallest of them, in the hands of someone ''not'' having any Military Resource starbases, can be killed by a single dreadnought - even if there are three of the Arnorian ships. Still, when a ''corvette'' can give a good showing in combat with a dreadnought...
* This is definitely the element of ''[[Infinite Space]]''.
* Everything in [[Freelancer]] could qualify.
* Pick any starship type boss from [[Fraxy]].
* The [[Starship Titanic]]: a t-shaped hotel in space with a luxury restaurant, bar, canals and lots of marble.
* ''[[Star Control]]'' had a number of these, but the crowning example has to be the ''Vindicator''<ref>You can actually name it whatever you want, but that's its default name</ref>, the protagonist's starship from ''Star Control II''. Properly equipped, it was far and away the most powerful ship that could be fielded, outclassing even the mighty Ur-Quan Dreadnoughts... and it was just a [[Precursors|Precursor]] utility ship, not even designed for combat!
** And not even *finished*... the factory ran out of minerals long before construction was complete, so it's only the skeleton of a starship and *still* scares the crap out of most of the races you meet.
* Several of ships from ''[[Tyrian]]'' have [[Healing Factor|self-healing armour]] and secret weapons.
Line 480:
* ''[[AH Dot Com the Series]]'' has several, most notably of course the eponymous MES ''AH.com'', which subscribes to the "vast rickety old warship with skeleton crew" setting similar to ''[[Red Dwarf]]''.
* The ''[http://conceptships.blogspot.com/ Concept Ships Blog]''. Your one-stop-shop for [[Travel Cool|obscenely awesome]] [[Expospeak Gag|transportation methodologies]].
* The [[Dominion and Duchy]] universe has had several in fourteen 'sections' of the story so far. The main government has a Senate Tower that converts into a starship, what might be a major religious group has the Cathedrum Valencia, which is a flying tower with alabaster wings and holographic clouds swirling around it. There are also the three Earth ships that while not described are the first Earth ships to travel faster-then-light. The majority of the examples on this page are trumped by the Bellacroix. While it is the 'Capital City Ship of the Monolith Group', it is massive. It is described as being the size of the '''''Soviet Union!'''''
* The Unconstant Lover in [[The Endless Night]] is frequently described as a [[What a Piece of Junk!|piece of junk]] but is also one of the most maneuverable cargo freighters in the galaxy due to the bizarre and dangerous modifications it has undergone, making it the perfect [[Space Pirates|pirate spaceship]].
* The setting of [http://www.countryshipyoors.wordpress.com The Countryship Yoors] qualifies for this. As the same suggests, it's a ship. The size of a country. Of course, which country is never specified...
Line 504:
* [[Mad Scientist|Jumba's]] spaceship from ''[[Lilo and Stitch]]'', [[What Could Have Been|which was originally going to be a stolen passenger jet,]] but was immediately changed into what it is now due to controversy concerning the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
* [http://toonbarn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Aya-in-Frontier-Space.jpg Aya the Interceptor] from the [[Green Lantern the Animated Series|Green Lantern animated series]] is a Green Lantern ''starship''. Oh, and it's the fastest thing ever created by sentient beings.
* Most ships from the French cartoon Once Upon a Time...Space. The coolest ones were the warships used by the republic of Cassiopeia.
Line 515:
* The Scaled Composites SpaceShipOne was an awesome little white epoxy rocketplane with a unique movable tail/wings combo and blue star decals. The still-being-constructed SpaceShipTwo ups the ante by being silver and black.
** SpaceShipTwo has now been revealed and, yes, it is still freaking cool.
* [[wikipedia:Deep Space 1|Deep Space 1]] was only an unmanned space probe, but it was propelled by an ion engine, several times more efficient than a normal (chemical) rocket.
** ''Dawn'' and ''Hayabusa'' are also propelled by ion engines - the latter being the first spacecraft to collect samples form an asteroid and bring them back to Earth, and the former being the first double-orbiter probe - planned to orbit the asteroid Vesta, then leave under power once its done collecting data and fly to the dwarf planet Ceres. Ion engines accelerate much much more slowly than rockets<ref>at max. throttle, Deep Space 1's engine produced a third of an ''ounce'' of thrust</ref> so they can't be used as launch engines, but once in space, their ability to fire for a very, very long time means that they eventually hit velocities far greater than what a rocket with the same amount of propellant could manage.
* ''Voyager 1'' and ''Voyager 2'' -- so far, among humanity's ''only'' starships, together with Pioneers 10 and 11, as they've recently left the Solar System. Bonus coolness points for the fact that they're still working after ''thirty years'' in space, plus ''Voyager 2'' being the unique probe that has explored the four outer planets.
| |||