History Main / TheBattlestar

* With experiments in [[MagneticWeapon naval rail guns,]] the idea of fitting these weapons to aircraft carriers has come up. Aircraft carriers often already have a gigantic power supply in the form of nuclear reactors. It wouldn't' affect the flight operations much to add such weapons (theoretically) and it would be chaper long term than launching planes and using missiles on low threat targets. Less a battleship and carrier in one than a monitor and a carrier in one.

* ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy2014'': The ''Dark Aster'', Ronan The Accuser's thee-mile wide ship that houses hundreds of necrocraft.
** Yondu's ship, The Elector would count as well.

* ''TabletopGame/{{Lancer}} Battlegroup'':

* Military starships are divided into four main types in ''Franchise/MassEffect'':
** [[TheDreadedDreadnought Dreadnoughts]], are behemoths averaging over a kilometer long. Like all ships in this universe, they have a lot of broadside batteries (the ''Kilimanjaro''-class, for example, has 26 broadside guns per deck, in three decks, on either side, for a total of 156 guns), point-defense laser turrets (GARDIAN), and torpedo tubes, but their main weapons are spinal [[MagneticWeapons mass accelerators]] running 90% of the ship's length. They're capable of taking down the shields (it spam projectiles hitting with [[HiroshimaAsAUnitOfMeasure double-digit kilotons]] every two seconds) of any ship in Citadel space.
*** As revealed in ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', any ship can be classified as a dreadnought if it's fitted with powerful enough guns. Outfitting all civilian ships (including 3 massive liveships used for all food production) with the powerful Thanix cannons counts, although the quarians claim that [[LoopholeAbuse Citadel Law]] doesn't apply to them since they were effectively kicked out of Citadel Space centuries ago. Joker, normally a very light-hearted ComicRelief character, [[OOCIsSeriousBusiness angrily points out]] how irresponsible it is to put such powerful weapons on otherwise defenseless civilian ships, making them irresistible (and indefensible) targets rather than noncombatants.
** Carriers, similar in size to Dreadnoughts but without the spinal guns, instead making room for more hangar bays for fighters (they presumably do still have the broadside guns, point-defense turrets, and torpedo tubes though). Similar to modern aircraft carriers (a well-placed shot will gut the carriers, and general strategy is to defend them at all costs). An entirely human innovation and one of many examples of HumansAreSpecial. Because Carrier construction is not limited by the Treaty of Farixen (see the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Naval_Treaty Washington Naval Treaty]]), the human [[TheFederation Systems Alliance]] [[LoopholeAbuse builds as many of them as it can]]. In this case it's more of "only HumanityIsInsane enough to ZergRush a ship with anti-fighter lasers to a point were they overheat allowing heavy bombers to come in".

** Frigates, which carry no fighters and instead operate in "wolf-pack" flotillas. They lack batteries of broadside guns and, while they do possess a spinal gun, they're too small (on average 200-ish meters) for said guns to have either the length or power generation to penetrate the shielding of bigger ships (per the codex, all ships including frigates have spinal guns that can spam the equivalent of nukes every two seconds, it's just that "nuke" [[ShownTheirWork is a rather broad range]]). As a result, their main weapons are their point-defense lasers (frigates are often deployed as anti-fighter escorts for the more heavily armed cruisers) and their torpedo tubes (which launch masses of "disruptor torpedoes", which tear apart targets on a space time molecular level via MinovskyPhysics).
** Minor military ship types include corvettes (slightly smaller frigates, mostly used for patrol and enforcement instead of fleet combat) and destroyers (only referenced once in a couple novels), but we get little information on them. The smaller Reaper varieties are classed as "destroyers", but it's unknown whether the Citadel races classed them that way because of their size (at 160 meters in length and fairly bulky, they're about the same mass as a frigate) or because of their firepower (they're noted to have cruiser-level main guns and shielding disproportionately tough for their size, but seem to lack any sort of torpedo tubes or broadsides). Or both.

* The ''Literature/NamelessWar'' A number of battleships and cruisers are hastily retrofitted to carry fighters to provide an additional layer of defense against enemy missiles. Not all officers look upon this with favor since until they are launched fueled and armed fighters are effectively bombs pressed up against their ships.

* ''VideoGame/CallOfDutyInfiniteWarfare'' features several examples, since all destroyers carry small fighting craft for self-defense or to launch limited assaults. The [[MileLongShip Olympus Mons]] is the only ship actually designated as a carrier, and is easily the most dangerous combat spacecraft in the game.

* The ''Behemoth''-class battlecruisers in ''VideoGame/StarCraft'' in ExpandedUniverse act as carriers for ''Wraith''-class fighters, dropships, and other small craft. This is not, however, shown in the game, probably because the game [[UnitsNotToScale unit scaling is way off]], showing the fighters to be a third of the size of the battlecruisers.
** In the campaign of ''VideoGame/StarcraftII'' Raynor's Raiders use a battlecruiser as their base of operations, it's shown to have at least one hangar that fits nearly every other unit in the game and is apparently where the [[MobileFactory mobile starting structures]] for each mission deploy from.

** ''VideoGame/StarcraftIILegacyOfTheVoid'' adds the arkships. Three arkships were created by the Protoss at the height of their civilization as safeguards against extinction. An arkship contains the following: a Protoss Grand Preserver who has the memories of nearly every generation of Protoss before them, an army of Templar warriors kept in stasis, factories capable of producing advanced war machines, weapons capable of cleansing life from planets, and a ''miniature sun'' to power it all. By the time ''Legacy'' rolls around, only one arkship is left, the ''Spear of Adun'', and the process used to create them is LostTechnology that baffles even the current protoss. This ship serves as the mobile base of operations during the game. By they way, these ships are '''74 kilometers long''', and it dwarfs even a ''Zerg Leviathan''.

* The ''Arcadia'' from ''Anime/CaptainHarlock'' carries a fair-sized fighter complement. In fact, it sometimes looks like at least half of her forty-one-man crew is out there.

* The four (operational) [[CoolStarship Vaia Ships]] of ''Anime/InfiniteRyvius'': the Black ''Ryvius'', Blue ''Impulse'', Crimson ''Dicastia'' and Grey ''Geshpenst''. Each comes equipped with a HumongousMecha capable of [[ArtisticLicensePhysics warping spatial reality]], multiple [[MagneticWeapons MAC guns]], and in the case of the ''Impulse'' [[ThisIsADrill a huge fuck-off]] [[spoiler:[[EarthShatteringKaboom Hyperion-destroying]]]] [[ThisIsADrill drill]].

* The aircraft carrier from ''[[VideoGame/NintendoWars Advance Wars: Dual Strike]]'' could carry two air units and had a formidable arsenal of anti-aircraft missiles (as well as the longest reach of any indirect attacker). In Days of Ruin/Dark Conflict, the carrier was reworked, replacing the menacing missile battery with a weaker close-range anti-aircraft gun, but also giving it the ability to resupply and repair air units as well as build a short range multi-role plane. Cruisers have extended into quasi-Battlestar status: initially they were an anti-submarine, anti-aircraft ship capable of transporting two helicopters, but as of Dual Strike gained the ability to attack other naval units as well.

* In the MassiveMultiplayerCrossover ''Fanfic/{{Origins}}'', one of the characters from [[ALongTimeAgoInAGalaxyFarFarAway a galaxy far, far away]] (taken quite literally -- ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends'' is far in this fanfic's past) wonders why [[Franchise/MassEffect everyone]] [[VideoGame/{{Borderlands}} else]] doesn't build these (her ''Revenant''-class [[MileLongShip Star Dreadnaught]] is 35km long and houses thousands of [[SpaceFighter starfighters]]). Turns out she just needs to look further -- [[spoiler:Franchise/{{Halo}}]] does this as per its canon. The single-purpose ships of the previous story (''Fanfic/{{Fractured}}'') come in for some verbal abuse as ''not'' being battlestars (and thus, useless in this universe where [[LensmanArmsRace battlestar-type ships are common everywhere else]]).