Whats Your Favorite Starship/Fighter/Space Station? Why?

[yngvi]

I've only ever seen my favourite in my imagination. It was 'Jongo 3' from Keith Laumer's 'Galactic Odyssey'. It's drive was never explained, nor was it's fuel but it ripped through the universe on a 'column of ravening energy' or some such nonsense. The hero (Billy Danger) found it in a scrapyard and the owner gave it to him 'cos he needed all his money to do it up (ha ha!)

Kicked ass though!

[FONTAINE]

my fave ship is the USS DEFIANT and my fave staion is DEEP SPACE NINE because,
Firstly, The defiant was equipped with quantum weapons and deep space nine was armed to the teeth and it fought off a massive kilngon fleet

[yngvi]

Were the kilngons those guys who stole your pottery ovens? (sorry)

[ushumgal]

For pure visual appeal, I'd have to say the original or refit Enterprise - a ship that looks amazing from almost any angle.

For elegance combined with realism, the Babylon-5 starfury.

And for sentimentality, I'd have to include the Serenity from Firefly - ugly ship, yes, but an amazing show

[The Procrastinator]

The Liberator. Made of torches and duct tape, but the class.

[Ehkzu]

If you know anything about sci/tech--which some of these posters obviously do--you tend to home in on the few vessels that make any kind of sense.

So of course the B5 Earth warships and space station get major props since they don't rely on the black box we call artificial grav.

As do 2001's Jupiter probe & orbital shuttle and Firefly's Serenity. all for being the only space vessels in any show every that didn't go Whoosh! in the vacuum of space.

OTOH if I inhale some wacky dust I've gotta put in a vote for Red Dwarf and its little green illegitimate offspring. And the city/ships in the SciFi channels' Dune rev. And the aliens' crashed vessel in Alien. And of course, for maximum wacky, the Vulcans' flying cities from the original Flash Gordon saturday serials from the 1930s.

As for the Millenium Falcon I say feh, despite it deserving a few points for being assymetrical. But the pom-pom guns were stolen from shipboard Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns from WWII. Um, ray guns have no recoil, so the whole thing was ridiculous. Lucas knows nothing about engineering--all his visual ideas, like Tarantino's, come from watching other people's movies and reassembling them.

Overall I'd say it's easy to do space vessels that look exciting superficially. There are lots of cool looking vessels in many movies and anime. But the few that reflect any serious thinking about their mission and what we actually know about engineering and physics deserve kudos from us all. They put the sci in sci fi, most of which is really fantasy with rivets.

The least satisfying crafts, to me, in general, are the fighters. Most of them just suck. A fighter that flies only in space would probably be globular, however boring that sounds. Those that go into atmospheres would need streamlining, but they'd probably have to be way bigger than the ones we usually see, unless they have some black box propelling them instead of rockets fueled by some sort of reaction mass. That's a lot less sexy than something the size of a Corvette but more likely.

And why aren't more of them manned remotely? If I were doing a military sci fi movie I'd fill it with cool little drones of all sorts.

Curious that no one named anything out of the anime world.

[Celeritas]

the ships of invader zim.

the big one is "the Massive" it's the flagship of the Irken Military's effort at galactic conquest. the side pods are full of snacks so "the Tallest" (Irken leaders) can kick back and watch cartoons with plenty of tasties while their army spreads DOOM throughout the universe.

the little one is a "Voot Cruiser" an all purpose personal ship.

I prefer the modifications Invader Tak made to hers but I couldn't find a pic.

[Perpetual Man]

Having scanned through the the thread there are so many ships and each one made me add it to my list - which rather defeats the object of the the exercise: Starfuries, Moya, The Defiant, TIE fighters, Star Destroyers, The Liberator - they all have to stand out, and probably more besides.

But as was mentioned earlier the winner by just a notch has to be The Enterprise, as seen in Star Trek the Motion Picture. It might not be practical, or even realistic, but it looks good, almost beautiful and Jerry Goldsmith's music just adds to it. (And it doesn't look too bad in battle in Wrath of Khan!)

As far as Space Stations go, I'm going to join what seems to be the favourite and go for Babylon 5, the look of it is just perfect!

And just to add something to the mix - id travels through space with people in it so it could be a space ship - the TARDIS. Something completely different. It looks like no other ship, almost mundane but it's bigger on the inside than the out - how cool is that!!!

Oh, and did I mention it also travels in time?

[rowengaurd]

Gotta say i do love the Defiant, also have to admire the sheer power and size of the Enterprise E, but i think my all time fav has to be the Apollo from SG1 and SGA i'd love to go and test the Asgaurd beam weapons they rule!!

[Vladd67]

Originally Posted by Ehkzu

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The least satisfying crafts, to me, in general, are the fighters. Most of them just suck. A fighter that flies only in space would probably be globular, however boring that sounds. Those that go into atmospheres would need streamlining, but they'd probably have to be way bigger than the ones we usually see, unless they have some black box propelling them instead of rockets fueled by some sort of reaction mass. That's a lot less sexy than something the size of a Corvette but more likely.

And why aren't more of them manned remotely? If I were doing a military sci fi movie I'd fill it with cool little drones of all sorts.

In the series Andromeda the ship is equipped with unmanned fighter drones IIRC

[sloweye]

Station- K7 (better than a big bike wheel in space)


Starship - Neg'var (just look at it, would you mess with it?)


Fighter - Gotta be these babies from battlestar.

[Nesacat]

The Tardis first of all. I've had a thing for phone booths since I first saw one and here this thing that looks like one and is something else on the inside and travels in time to boot. Love at first sight it was.

The other would be the Vorlon and Shadow ships from Babylon 5. They are simply beautiful.

[C Of K]

Steve coolhand tyler has some awesome stuff to show off in the way of space ships. Here's a link to his gallery, I couldn't pick which ships I liked the best.

[ratsy]

Serenity would be up there for sure.

[ceder tree]

the living space vessles or just space being (cosmozoans) have fascinated me recently. there are only a few but my favorite is the shawdow batle crab. its striking to look at and scarry to face. it has all the suble personality quailities of a phycotic killer and is as soft as and nice as rock coral only with more jaged edges and the delicate touch of a nuclear bomb. yup its the shadow vessel for me!