Films — Live-Action
Dr. Weir: I created the Event Horizon to reach the stars... but she's gone much, much farther than that. She tore a hole in our universe, a gateway to another dimension. A dimension of pure chaos... pure evil. When she crossed over, she was just a ship. But when she came back... she was alive. Look at her, Miller. Isn't she beautiful?
Captain Miller: Your "beautiful" ship killed its crew, Doctor.
Dr. Weir: Well...now she has another crew. Now she has us.
Captain Miller: Your "beautiful" ship killed its crew, Doctor.
Dr. Weir: Well...now she has another crew. Now she has us.
Literature
Imagine a crown of thorns, twisted, dark and unreflective, grown too thickly tangled to ever rest on any human head. Put it in orbit around a failed star whose own reflected half-light does little more than throw its satellites into silhouette. Occasional bloody highlights glinted like dim embers from its twists and crannies; they only emphasized the darkness everywhere else.
Imagine an artefact that embodies the very notion of torture, something so wrenched and disfigured that even across uncounted lightyears and unimaginable differences in biology and outlook, you can't help but feel that somehow, the structure itself is in pain.
Now make it the size of a city.
Imagine an artefact that embodies the very notion of torture, something so wrenched and disfigured that even across uncounted lightyears and unimaginable differences in biology and outlook, you can't help but feel that somehow, the structure itself is in pain.
Now make it the size of a city.
One moment, nothing but stars. The next, the Outsider ship was alongside.
She was mostly empty space. I knew her population was the size of a small city, but she was much bigger because more strung out. There was a minuscule-seeming drive capsule, and there, on a pole two and a half miles long, was a light source. The rest of the ship was metal ribbons, winding in and out, swooping giddily around themselves and each other, until the ends of the tangled ribbon stopped meandering and joined the drive capsule. There were a thousand such ribbons, and each was the width of a city pedwalk.
She was mostly empty space. I knew her population was the size of a small city, but she was much bigger because more strung out. There was a minuscule-seeming drive capsule, and there, on a pole two and a half miles long, was a light source. The rest of the ship was metal ribbons, winding in and out, swooping giddily around themselves and each other, until the ends of the tangled ribbon stopped meandering and joined the drive capsule. There were a thousand such ribbons, and each was the width of a city pedwalk.
Live-Action TV
Picard: Data, what can you tell us?
Data: The ship is strangely generalized in design. There is no specific bridge or central control area, no specific engineering section — I can identify no living quarters.
Riker: Life signs?
Data: There is no indication of specific life.
Riker: Lieutenant Worf, what is its alert status?
Riker: I detect no shields, no weapons of any known design.
Data: The ship is strangely generalized in design. There is no specific bridge or central control area, no specific engineering section — I can identify no living quarters.
Riker: Life signs?
Data: There is no indication of specific life.
Riker: Lieutenant Worf, what is its alert status?
Riker: I detect no shields, no weapons of any known design.
Video Games
The Archon's presence is chilling. The "ship" has an almost organic appearance, but your ship's scanners give you no discernible information on its construction. What exactly it is you do not know, but you can feel that it is powerful.
There are elements of standard droneships within the hull structure, but they are covered by malevolently angled glacises and illogical tangles of conduit. Surely this monstrous vessel is the product of some deranged Domain naval architect, or a production chip corrupted by exposure to kilolights of faulty drive field?
A plaque on the bridge declares this ship class to be the result of "Project Ziggurat". It appears to be built on technology created in a Tri-Tachyon prototype lab unknown to the Persean Sector at-large. In addition to advanced conventional loadout, there are certain one-off components of exotic manufacture - it is possible to reverse-engineer undamaged examples and produce replacements, but the underlying operating principles do not resemble any known Domain technology and thus remain a mystery.
The Ziggurat-class ship once had a human crew; or, at least, was intended to be crewed by humans. No sign of them remains as physical evidence or in databanks. Even the cleanest Hegemony warship will have some initials and a rude word or two about the CO scratched behind a maintenance hatch. Here, nothing.
The Ziggurat-class ship once had a human crew; or, at least, was intended to be crewed by humans. No sign of them remains as physical evidence or in databanks. Even the cleanest Hegemony warship will have some initials and a rude word or two about the CO scratched behind a maintenance hatch. Here, nothing.
Other
"We saw ourselves enmeshed in these huge masses hurtling a dizzy train of planets from a dark world bound for a galaxy drowned in starry milk. We saw ourselves inside minute ether- dwelling sharks crossing seven thousand universes in one Terrene second, leaving a sound-wake freezing into a trail of hallucinatory pearls. Trains to carry away the whole of humanity; machines greater than suns wandering crazed and rusted, whimpering like dogs seeking a master. And great wings sucking the marrow of comets. And thinking wheels hidden behind meteorites, waiting, camouflaged as metallic rocks, for a drop of life to pass through those lost galactic fringes to slake thirsty tanks with psychic secretions. All this and more I wanted for Dune."
