Ghost Ship: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

The main characters receive a [[Distress Call]] or randomly come across a (seemingly) deserted vehicle and have to figure out what happened and [[Everybody's Dead, Dave|where everybody went.]] Usually they run across [[Monster of the Week|exactly what happened]] when it tries to eat them. A [[Big Dumb Object]] may be involved. And sometimes [[Big Boo's Haunt|there are actual ghosts]].

 

If you're looking for otherworldly ships with tattered sails crewed by [[Ghost Pirate|the damned]], see [[Afterlife Express]].

 

 

{{examples}}

 

== Board Games ==

** Space Hulks are also an important part of 40k's background fluff. These ghost ships are conglomerations of lost and destroyed spaceships and other space debris, which drift randomly through both real- and Warp-space and tend to be full of horrors, of which Chaos worshippers, Orks and Genestealers are the most common and least terrible.

** There are also more typical ghost ships, the result of what happens when a ship's Gellar field breaks in [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|the Warp]]. What happens to the unfortunate crew is [[Fate Worse Than Death|best not contemplated]], for when such vessels reappear in realspace they tend to either be deserted or filled with daemons instead of men.

== Literature ==

* The [[Dean Koontz]] novel ''Phantoms'', about a town whose entire population has disappeared or been killed.

** In ''Ragnor's Claw'', they face a space hulk, which is a conglomeration of dead ships, and float in and out of warp without visible control.

*** The seventh novel ''The Emperor's Finest'' depicts this period in detail at last.

* "Three Skeleton Key", a short story by George G. Toudouze, is about a derelict ship filled with [[You Dirty Rat|rats]] running aground and invading a [[Lighthouse Point|lighthouse]]. It was famously adapted as an episode of the '50s radio series ''Escape'', narrated by [[Vincent Price]].

* ''[[SeaQuest DSV]]'' season 1 episode "Knight of Shadows" -- ''underwater'' ghost ship, even.

* ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'', "Rising", "Aurora"

* ''[[The X-Files|The X Files]]'', "Dod Kalm," "Triangle" (to a lesser extent)

 

** ''Super Metroid'' had a wrecked ship, complete with flooding, electrical discharges, ghosts, and weird bouncy things.

** Another one appears in ''[[Metroid Prime]] 3'', where Samus is sent to the wreckage of a Federation starship lost in battle. In retrospect, it was probably [[Primal Fear|a better idea]] [[Apocalyptic Log|not to]].

** ''[[Metroid: Other M]]'' takes place on the Bottle Ship, which is essentially this.

* A ''[[Homeworld]]'' mission had you investigate a ghost ship. While it ignored strike craft, it would immediately take over any capital ship that got within range. When you had no ships in range of its effect, it looked like a derelict in a mass of other derelicts. As an extra bonus, amongst those other derelicts was a missile destroyer - which was extremely effective at taking out strike craft.

* The [[Infocom]] [[Interactive Fiction]] computer game ''[[Planetfall|Stationfall]]''. The cause of the station's emptiness turns out to be {{spoiler|an alien artifact that corrupts and controls technology; if you lose, it duplicates itself and spreads the copies throughout human space.}}

* ''[[Rogue Galaxy]]'' had a ghost ship level, which was also the [[Bonus Dungeon]] in that particular game, available only after the main story. It even had a special guest NPC.

* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass|The Legend of Zelda Phantom Hourglass]]'', the direct sequel to ''Wind Waker'', has a literal ghost ship which is ''called'' [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|the Ghost Ship]]. It sails around abducting people {{spoiler|and stealing their life force}}.

* In ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'', Link gets aboard on the fabled "ferry to the other world" in the Shadow Temple, tripulated by Stalfos. Made creepier by the fact that it doesn't sail on water, but on ''air'', and it sinks when it meets its the goal line.

* The Von Braun of ''[[System Shock|System Shock 2]]''.

* ''[[Super Mario Bros.]]'':

* The Ghost Ship from ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]''.

* The ''Elizabeth Dane'' in ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines]]'', whose crew was wiped out while carrying the game's central [[MacGuffin]].

* ''[[Seiken Densetsu 3]]'' at one point in the game has you boarding a ship to get to the next continent. Strangly, no fee is charged (unlike every other boat ride) and when you go to sleep, you wake up to find the ship is actually a ghost ship.

* ''Cryostasis'' is made of this. A lone meteorologist finds himself on a derelict Soviet nuclear icebreaker, missing for over a decade. The ship is completely frozen, and the crew are either dead and perfectly preserved by the cold, or dead and somehow mutated into ice monsters. The player character also sees both ghosts and flashbacks of events as everything was going to hell aboard.

* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' has one. The MVS Estevanico, which crashed on a planet about a hundred years ago. Even though it's a historical relic, it's falling apart and it's also extremely creepy.

* ''[[Legend of Dragoon]]'' has the Queen Fury crashing into a phantom ship filled with undead enemies, and where some important information about the Black Monster is learned.

** Returns in ''[[Ōkamiden|Okamiden]]''... sort of. {{spoiler|You travel to the past just before it gets attacked. You have no idea when this will happen, [[Doomed by Canon|only that it will]]. Possibly even scarier this time around, despite not fitting the trope.}}

* Space Griffon [[VF 9]]. See above example with Space Hulk. Imagine if a Tyranid Tyrant manifested into an ever-evolving [[Cosmic Horror]] by not only understanding but controlling and absorbing energy from The Warp, enough to inflict long-distance mind control and mutation upon your fellow soldiers, and change the Genestealers to rogue machines and [[Body Horror]] Silent Hill creations. There's a reason why you'll brick the toilet with this game despite the fact it places you in a [[Macross|vaguely familiar transforming mecha.]] Though, a good half of it IS atmosphere. If you aren't really 'feeling' it, it just won't affect you as much aside from the long range powers thing.

[[Category:Haunted Index]]

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