History Main / TheBattlestar

** The be-all and end-all of the ''EV Nova'' battlestars is the [[GameBreaker Polaris Raven]], a 1.2 km, vaguely butterfly-shaped ship literally built around its WaveMotionGun and a fighter bay with greater capacity than anything else in the game. For the most part, it's weirdly subverted in ''Nova'' since {{space fighter}}s are fairly useless: at best, you use them as a distraction for the AI and make the kill yourself. The exception is with the Polaris, whose Manta fighter mounts a main gun worthy of a destroyer, making it a credible threat to enemy capital ships in numbers.

However, warfare largely dominated by purely automated systems can take away from importance of human characters in a war story. Thus, authors are likely to explain that missile combat didn't take for various reasons, such as abundance of electronic countermeasures to disrupt missile guidance, [[AvertedTrope accurate]] [[PointDefenseless point defenses]], or electronic warfare potentially compromising the effectiveness of remotely piloted (or automated) craft.

* 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]]).

* ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'': The ''Dark Aster'', Ronan The Accuser's thee-mile wide ship that houses hundreds of necrocraft.

* The ''Literature/{{Nameless War}}'' 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/XRebirth'' eschews the traditional ship classification of previous games, but most combat capital ships are battlestars to varying degrees, albeit using {{Drone Deployer}}s rather than {{Space Fighter}}s. The ultimate battlestar is the Arawn, a [[MileLongShip multi-kilometer long]] carrier, can carry several hundred drones and has mounting points for ''seventy'' turrets, several of which are within its cavernous interior. Cheaper, specialized ships like the Taranis eschew some drone carrying capacity in favor of bigger guns.

** ''Homeworld: Cataclysm'' also features this for the player faction's mothership ''Kuun Lan'': it's got six heavy [[MagneticWeapons mass drivers]] that are about equivalent to a ''heavy cruiser's'' gun armament, and it later upgrades them to energy cannons and acquires the [[{{WaveMotionGun}} Siege]] [[SphereOfDestruction Cannon]]. This goes some way towards balancing the fact that you can't manufacture frigates or capital ships until quite late in the campaign compared to the previous installment.

* Averted by default in ''{{O-Game}}''. Small fighters do exist but they are implied to fly alongside all the others ships in an attack fleet rather than in carriers which raises serious logistical questions.

** ''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''.

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* B) The extremely thin atmosphere and the huge amount of free space means that the range of weapons is enormous ([[ArbitraryMaximumRange or it should, anyway]]).

*** As well as catapult bombers, or alternatively equip one of the above with depth charges or bombs. This was actually surprisingly successful, as it allowed battleships and cruisers to score a number of sub kills. While a sub could normally try and fight off a lone plane, in this case surfacing in range of a battleship or cruiser with spotting assistance would be suicidal.

** HMS ''Unicorn'' A support carrier, has the distinction of being the only other carrier to carry out an artillery strike, this time on shore targets. Again the irony here is that she was poorly armed compared to many of the other examples on this page. A broadside of four four inch guns, better than "White Planes" but only equivalent to an older model destroyer.

* There are, many, many examples in ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' . Basically, any CoolShip in the saga ''has'' to be a carrier to launch titular HumongousMecha (and normal fighters) but, depending on the series, can have more or less firepower to make it a battleship.

* ''Anime/HeroicAge'''s ''Argonaut'' is a massive ship carrying numerous fighter and HumongousMecha units, bristling with guns, and outfitted with entire orchards and other facilities to allow for it to support a rather large crew effectively indefinitely. Oh, and it can also [[spoiler: turn into an enormous WaveMotionGun aptly named the "Star Blaster".]]

* The various planetoid-class Ships-of-the-Line in Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'' trilogy count (except for the ''Trosan''-class). Massive ships [[ThatsNoMoon the size of the Moon]], [[LightningBruiser capable of ridiculous speed]], mounting extensive [[BeamSpam energy]] and [[MacrossMissileMassacre missile]] batteries, and carrying a complement of parasite craft. Said parasite craft consist of separate battleships, cruisers, and two-man fighters. And the Fourth Empire had [[WeHaveReserves almost a million of them]]. [[spoiler: Just 70 of these almost completely annihilate a millions-strong AlienInvasion fleet.]]

** Although it doesn't start off as such by design, after the ''TCS Midway'' acquires the [[WaveMotionGun fleet-killing plasma cannon]] [[ImportedAlienPhlebotinum from an alien ship]] in ''Prophecy'', it fits this trope. Too bad that in one later mission, [[spoiler: it becomes a one-use-only weapon after it fires the first time, which ends up cruelly subverting the trope. In one "You've lost the game" scenario during the final mission, the ''Midway'' fires its cannon in an attempt to destroy the alien fleet warping through a gate, but ends up destroying itself in the process thanks to a power overload.]]

* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' has the ''Minotaur'' class of LAC carrier ships, and their successors. Although not intended to get directly involved in combat, the [=CLACs=] do carry some of the more traditional naval weapons in an acknowledgment of FinaglesLaw.
** The Grayson Space Navy's version of the ''Minotaur'', the ''Covington'' class, is an [[AvertedTrope aversion]], however. The [=GSN=] felt that a [=CLAC's=] odds of survival standing directly in the wall of battle were low enough that they chose to arm the ''Covington''s only with countermeasures and point-defence clusters, making them entirely dependent on their embarked LAC complement for offensive striking power, much like most RealLife aircraft carriers.

* Subverted in ''Anime/LegendOfGalacticHeroes''. While carrier-type ships do have cannons for ship-to-ship combat, they are not primary fighting units and use cannons mostly in self-defense and to protect fighters docking for resupplying. Ship-to-ship combat is mostly handled by dedicated battleships, of which the command ships are the most powerful (including Yang Wen-li's ''Hyperion'' and Reinhard von Lohengramm's ''Brunhild'').

* The various planetoid-class Ships-of-the-Line in Creator/DavidWeber's ''Literature/EmpireFromTheAshes'' trilogy count (except for the ''Trosan''-class). [[UpToEleven Massive ships]] [[ThatsNoMoon the size of the Moon]], [[LightningBruiser capable of ridiculous speed]], mounting extensive [[BeamSpam energy]] and [[MacrossMissileMassacre missile]] batteries, and carrying a complement of parasite craft. Said parasite craft consist of separate battleships, cruisers, and two-man fighters. And the Fourth Empire had [[WeHaveReserves almost a million of them]]. [[spoiler: Just 70 of these almost completely annihilate a millions-strong AlienInvasion fleet.]]

* The battleships of ''TabletopGame/StarFleetBattles'' exemplify this trope, with the greatest firepower in the game ''and'' large (for the game -- around a dozen) fighter contingents. "Historically" only the Klingons built them and [[AwesomeButImpractical they aren't very successful]], but they're [[CoolShip just so cool]] that every race gets a conjectural battleship and the Klingons get [[UpToEleven a conjectural super-battleship]] in one of the expansions.

* In ''VideoGame/StarRuler'' you can tack ship bays together with guns on any spacecraft you design, as well as construction bays to add MobileFactory ability if you wish. However, since capacity scales with ship size, you will only get useful strikecraft complements with big capships. It helps to use Quantum Compressors to make {{Clown Car}}s. [[UpToEleven Then you get into ever-larger supercapital craft that use capitals for parasite complements...]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rjwZPRnv08 Behold.]] The famous ''Galactic Armory'' mod adds two hulls meant for this; the Carrier Hull, like the name suggests, leans more to normal carriers in being relatively thin-skinned and trades some space away for having strikecraft bays integrated right into the hull, while the Mothership Hull is closer to a Battlestar, trading out some space and not having the option of extra ship bays in order to accommodate more weapons and stuff.

* ''Webcomic/Star Trek: Federation Star Defense''. The hero ship, the Intrepid, is basically built to be a heavy battleship, and it eventually becomes an starfighter carrier, too.

** The ''Odyssey''-Class Battlecarrier is a high-tech ship with an exceptional broadside ability, two flight decks, ans a plasma burn drive that allows it to rapidly enter and leave combat. It is, however, comparatively fragile once its shield is down.

* ''VideoGame/Starsector'' has a few examples:

* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'' has a few.
** In its grand tradition of never doing anything subtle, they're build in sizes that put everyone else on this page to shame, with windows alone being the size of the Empire State Building. Cannons aren't any smaller, though they notably [[WeWillUseManualLaborInTheFuture use manual labor to load the cannon shells]]. The Imperial Mars Class Battlecruiser is a pretty good example, easily 10+ kilometers long.
** ''Gloriana''-class battleships are so large, the smallest of which is still 20 kilometers long, that they are a class of their own. Only 20 were ever made, one for each Space Marine Legion during the Great Crusade, and each an AceCustom tailored to their Primarch's request, which inevitably turned them into their respective legion's flagship.
** Then there is of course the Eldar Craftworlds which are planetoid-sized Battlestars capable of launching fleets of "ordinary" Battlestars.
** Since fighter-sized vessels (not frigates) in [=WH40K=] are often not FTL-capable, they are usually launched from a nearby carrier, some of which are quite heavily armed. Also, "stand alone" battlegroups such as Space Marine Battle Barges carry their own squadrons of fighters.
** In ''Battlefleet Gothic'' game waves of bombers are powerful enough to destroy a battleship. Hence fighters are required to counter the bombers. However, the biggest carrier, the Emperor class, is still technically a battleship, and carries only marginally less weapon batteries (total; it can actually concentrate more firepower to one side due to most of it being carried in dorsal turrets) than the Retribution class, which is a dedicated "ship of the line". The difference is mostly the Emperor's lack of lances.
** It should also be noted that many [=WH40K=] races are extremely keen on boarding actions and battleships can carry varying number of boarding pods to launch at enemies.

** The CoolShip Ptolemaiosfrom ''[[Anime/MobileSuitGundam00 Gundam 00]]'' is clearly more of a carrier since it can barely defend itself without Gundams. But its replace Ptolemaios 2 is massive up-armed and gets even further upgraded in the movie pretty much making it an independant battleship. The Spaceships used by the Earth nations in S1, Virginia and Laohu classes were pretty much MS comtainers with thrusters but with the intrduction of GN Tau Drives Volga-class is created with can back up its own MS with beams and missiles and is later upgraded to the Volga-class and supplemented by the Nile-class.

*** The Jupiter-class (''Galactica''[='s=] ship class) was big, armored and could lay down flak suppression barrages to defend itself from enemy missiles. A full-strength Jupiter battlestar had a crew of 5,000 plus onboard Marines and could carry around 80 Vipers. Due to Cylon infiltration of computer systems, Jupiter classes did not have networked computers and relied on manual operation for many ship functions, such as Viper landings and weapons control. Despite its age, Jupiter classes proved to be incredibly resilient and durable. Despite the fact that it was about to be decommissioned, the ''Galactica'' was able to hold the Colonial fleet together throughout the second war.
*** The Mercury-class (''Pegasus''[='=] ship class) was the top of the line at the time of the Fall of the Twelve Colonies. Substantially larger than the Jupiter-class (coming in at 5780 feet long, while the Jupiter was 4700 feet long) but having half the crew at 2,500, the Mercury relied more heavily on automation and computer control than the earlier Jupiter classes, allowing for a smaller crew complement. It relied so much so that Mercury-class battlestars utilized ECM jamming to protect from missile attacks (as evidenced by Pegasus lacking dorsal and ventral batteries like Galactica) but made up for that with a far larger Viper complement of 200. ''Pegasus'' survived the Fall mostly by pure luck, but was very powerful once they were ready for the Cylons' tactics again.
*** The Valkyrie-class battlestar was one of the smallest ship classes in Colonial service, yet made up the majority of the pre-Fall Colonial Fleet. 1/3 the size of a Jupiter-class, the Valkyrie nonetheless had significant firepower and could deploy Vipers at a far more rapid pace than other battlestars because its launch tubes faced forwards rather than to the sides as with the Mercury and Jupiter-classes.

* Battleship carrying fighters. This is essentially a capital ship with the primary offensive options being its own big guns, with the fighters to serve as interceptors against incoming enemy strikes or to provide utility and ability for surgical strikes when main cannons are too blunt of an instrument. The Battlestar ''Galactica'' is the epitome of this, along with the Anime/SpaceBattleshipYamato and [[Franchise/StarWars Imperial Star Destroyers]].
* Carrier with extra guns and armor. This ship essentially behaves like a real life aircraft carrier, in that the primary offensive option is its embarked fighter wing, and the guns and armor lean more towards self defense options. The [[VideoGame/WingCommander TCS]] ''[[VideoGame/WingCommander Tiger Claw]]'' are excellent examples of this
* The ship is not a war vessel ''per se''; rather, it is an exploration or colony craft, armed out of necessity to have the widest array of available options. Its guns and air wing may very well have applications outside of combat, such as exploration, landing and dealing with the occasional NegativeSpaceWedgie. [[Manga/KnightsOfSidonia The Sidonia]] matches this type, as does the ''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Enterprise]]''[[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration -D]].

* In the ''StarWars'' game ''Empire at War'', this is TheEmpire's [[PlanetOfHats hat]]: Any Imperial ship bigger than a corvette has several free fighter compliments. The logical conclusion is the ''Executor'', from the expansion, which can launch a squadron every few seconds, on top of being the biggest ship in the game.

* Every ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' game, virtually every mission, has you launching from some battleship or other. They both join in the fray as lumbering, slow (but rather durable) ships of the line, and provide a place for weakened mechs to dock and repair/refuel. The above examples from ''Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' and ''Anime/{{Macross}}'' are common, as well as originals such as the ''Hagane'' and ''Shirogane''. The ''Kurogane'' even has a giant ''[[ThisIsADrill drill]]'' on the front to ''[[RammingAlwaysWorks ram things]]''. Also, if any of these are shot down, it's instant GameOver for you.
** W's Valstork goes the extra mile by attaching one of its robot contingent, the Valhawk, to its WaveMotionGun to amplify its power, and later actually combining with the Valhawk to form the giant ship-robot Valguard.
** And then there's the Iron Gear from ''Anime/{{Xabungle}}'', which in addition to packing an eight-inch gun, can just turn into a hundred-meter-tall robot and ''step on you''.

** Specifically, the ''Graf Zeppelin'' would have mounted a total of ''sixteen'' 15 cm guns, each of the same type that comprised the secondary armament of both the ''Bismarck''- and ''Scharnhorst''-class battleships, as well as the ''Deutschland''-class "pocket battleships"... none of which mounted more than twelve such weapons.