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** Or olive-drab if the creator's American.
#While not required, visibly being constructed from riveted metal plates is encouraged, as is [[Star Trek|Borg cube]]-like details called [[wikipedia:Greeble|greebles or nurnies]].
#Since [[Our Weapons Will Be Boxy in
#[[Space Fighter|Space Fighters]] and other small craft will be [[Old School Dogfighting|built around a cockpit and wings to look like airplanes]], but may have some style.
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Note that fictional vessels tend to use enormous amounts of energy yet typically lack [http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3au.html thermal radiators] to shed waste heat (no air-cooling in space). Although that ''could'' explain all the so-called wings...
Space wings are also often used in fiction as places to put extra weapons (like [[Macross Missile Massacre|missiles]]), and to store things (extra electronic equipment or fuel) inside them, although putting those things on or in the main hull makes more sense for a nonatmospheric [[Space Fighter]], as spreading out the ship's mass makes little sense for a vessel designed to maneuver in vacuum in three dimensions-- better to keep it compact, to conserve angular momentum. You ''can'' increase maneuverability by putting thrusters on the tips of them a la ''[[Babylon
See also [[Standard Sci-Fi Fleet]]
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== [[Film]] ==
* Originally, the ''Discovery'' in ''[[2001: A Space Odyssey]]'' was going to have large heat radiators to dissipate the heat from the nuclear reactor ([[Shown Their Work|and indeed did in the novelization]]). However, Stanley Kubric decided he didn't want to have to [[Reality Is Unrealistic|explain why a ship in space had what looked like wings]]. One of the very few instances in the movie they went with [[Rule of Cool]] over scientific accuracy.
* ''[[Starship Troopers (
* ''[[Star Wars]]'' has spacecraft starting off as an [[Elegant Weapon for
* The mile-long ''ISV Venture Star'' from ''[[Avatar (
== [[Literature]] ==
* Lampshaded in [[Anne McCaffrey]]'s ''[[Acorna]]'' series, where the Linyaari are openly baffled as to why human spaceships only come in one color. Slightly subverted in that Linyaari ships are, to human eyes, painted in loud and garish colors.
* Deliberately averted, avoided, hell, run away from in Darren Aronofsky's ''[[The Fountain]]'', where the Astronaut's spaceship --carrying only him and the Tree of Life within it-- is a huge transparent bubble that moves easily across space in its long, long journey from Earth to the star Xibalba. [[Word of God]] says that they chose this simple, but appealing design because not all spaceships have to look like “trucks in space.”
* In [[David Weber]]'s ''[[
** As for the shapes, given the physics of the universe, they tend towards a generally cylindrical design, with all warships having “hammerheads” on both ends to allow room for chase armament ([[Space Is an Ocean|similar to those on old-fashioned sailing warships]]).
* Subverted in [[David Drake]]'s ''Reaches'' trilogy, where the main characters' ships have ceramic hulls to resist the corrosive atmosphere of their native Venus. Every other spacefaring culture uses metal hulls, and it's noted that when the stresses of [[Subspace or Hyperspace|Transit]] become too great, a ceramic ship falls apart all at once, with a total loss of life (one ship is seen to have come out of Transit looking like a cloud of gravel), while a metal ship's hull might hold together long enough for some of the crew to be rescued. Also, ''everybody's'' hulls tend to be rounded, usually more-or-less cigar-shaped, although they fly or land with the long axis parallel to the ground, unlike “rocketships.”
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== [[Live Action Television]] ==
* ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]''
* ''[[Babylon
{{quote| '''Ranger Dulann''': ''If human military designers had their way every colour of the spectrum would be removed except for grey, green and black and we would all live in windowless boxes.''}}
** Averted with ''[[Crusade]]'''s [http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Excalibur Excalibur], although it must be said it was a joint human/Minbari project.
*** You can see both design philosophies incorporated in it. You have the Minbari traditional triple-fin hull structure, but it's also dark grey similar to the ''Omega''-class destroyers. Interestingly, the human ''Hyperion''-class heavy cruisers are brightly-colored with white and blue. However, those (as mentioned in the fluff) were designed by a different military contractor than the ''Nova''e and the ''Omega''s.
* ''[[
* The [[
* Generally followed to a T in ''[[Space: 1999]]'', with the show's signature Eagles being entirely utilitarian shuttles designed to function in the absence of an atmosphere, in lunar gravity. They were mostly grey, although some had orange details. The alien spaceships, on the other hand, were often brightly-coloured, in the style of contemporary sci-fi artists such as Chris Foss and Peter Elson.
* ''[[Stargate]]'' : The [http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/c/c0/F302.jpg F-302] is essentially a forward-swept flying wing with jet and rocket engines. The [http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/2/2a/X-303.jpg X-303 class battlecruiser Prometheus] and the [http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/stargate/images/3/3e/ApolloOverEarth.jpg BC-304 class deep-space carriers] however, being built out of a naquadah/trinium alloy, fit this trope perfectly.
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[
** One model of [[Drop Ship]] in particular, the Leopard, was even called “the Brick” in the canon itself. Its slab-sided appearance, coupled with a small bridge, stubby wings and massive engines on what amounts to a nigh-rectangular chunk of steel means it falls squarely within this trope.
* ''d20 Future'' ([[Science Fiction]] expansion to ''[[
* [[Traveller]] : There is no standard for traveller; it depends on function and aesthetic taste and there are myriads of possible ship designs(indeed some traveller fans mainly like designing ships). Ships made to actually land on and take off from a planet generally have a "needle/wedge" design which looks something like a space shuttle. However this requires sacrifice in payload and the heaviest ships are generally serviced in orbit.
** The Lightning-class ships a multipurpose merchant/scout/privateer built by the Terrans for viking like voyages into Vilani space is a handsome ship that looks like a long wedge with short stubby wings.
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* ''[[Free Space]]'' does this with all Terran ships (and with the [http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/images/Gtvacolossus.jpg Colossus], which was a combination Terran and Vasudan ship). For the [http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v423/kc1991/VasCruis2.png Vasudan] and [http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/images/Sjsathanas.jpg Shivan] ships, tendencies are to have more curved and smooth designs instead of blocky ones--the ships still tend to be paint free, but colored differently to give them a more alien look.
* ''[[Halo]]'', the UNSC ships are boxy in shape, in contrast to the curvy purple flowing aesthetics of the Covenant. Acts as a visual reference for both how far advanced the Covenant ships are compared to the clumsy human vessels, as well as their [[Scary Dogmatic Aliens]] status verus the practical human military.
* ''[[
* ''[[Infinite Space]]'': mostly averted, especially in Adis, where the ships are both extremely funky-looking and pink, but it does happen: the Freedom and Nebula in particular are both grey, flying bricks.
* ''[[Mass Effect]]'' averts this: the ''Normandy'' SR-1 and SR-2, the main ships in the series so far, are non-conventionally shaped, though vaguely reminiscent of rocket ship designs, and always brightly painted white. This is sort of justified, however, by the fact that visual recognition in space is almost impossible, so it doesn't really matter what color the ship is painted. Other ships featured in the series tend to follow the same philosophy, and the ''Destiny's Ascension'' is essentially a [http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20091227112424/masseffect/images/e/e8/DestinyAscensionFlyby.png big flying cross] [http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090207040549/masseffect/images/2/2b/MassEffect_2008-08-13_12-37-43-71.png with an oval cut out of the middle.]
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* Terrans of ''[[Starcraft]]'' operate these kinds of spaceships and put very little effort, if any, into making them look pretty. This is in stark contrast to the whimsical [[Crystal Spires and Togas|Protoss]] designs which seem to feature no straight lines or right angles whatsoever, and to the Zerg [[Organic Technology]].
* ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'' plays this straight. Human ships are oblong and consists of blocks riveted to a central frame and are the most utilitarian-looking of all the species: The only off part is the very noticeable ring structure around the engines (it's their faster-than-light drive). Because of this engine, human ships also have poor turret coverage on the back and tend towards front-heavy ships with forward-and-side firing arcs. While paint schemes for different sides makes some of the colour variable, the default ship colour for humans tends towards the grey with some red and green mixed in (by contrast, Tarka's ships are mostly bright red and deep green, the Hivers use beige, the Liir use turquoise, the Zuul blood red and the Morrigi deep purple).
* In the ''[[Wing Commander (
* In the ''[[X (
** In particular the Terran '[[Elite Army|AGI Task Force]]' or ATF seem to have taken this trope to heart with the Tyr Destroyer, and Odin Carrier, both gunmetal grey boxes with engines.
* ''[[X-COM]] Interceptor'' tends to avert this, with the human ships actually using functional, forward-swept-wing designs, or in the case of the second-tier ship, rounded wings. All ships are also painted, and in the case of the X-1A tier one ship, even whimsical, with shark teeth painted on the nose.
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* The Terrans in ''[[Galactic Civilizations]]'' by default have a ship aesthetic midway between ''[[Star Trek]]'' and ''[[Babylon 5]]'', with mainly rectangular shapes and stuff taken from this trope's catalogue with bluntly triangular wings, chunky radar dishes, large and blocky externals. Unless you reset the colour scheme, Terran vehicles come painted white and blue. When [[Design It Yourself Equipment|building your own]], you can use far weirder-looking alien components to make them less blocky.
* ''[[Civilization]] III'', true to its fame of having everything dead realistic, lets you build an UN Unity spaceship that more or less looks like an extremely huge rocket. This has a practical reason though: the Unity requires an aerodynamic shape in order to cut through the Earth's atmosphere.
* Played straight for the Colonials in ''[[
== Western Animation ==
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