History Main / CoolStarship

* [[http://scifiwire.com/assets_c/2009/02/StarTrek_enterprise_wall01_1280-thumb-550x293.jpg NCC-1701 Enterprise]] from the 2009 Film/StarTrek film. That ship [[BigDamnGunship demonstrated]] how BeamSpam is meant to be done.

** Arguably, any of the "home base" ships from the series qualify, if only because [[StarWars Luke Motherf* cking Skywalker]] is flying off of them. The only possible exception is the ''TCS Lexington'' from the beginning of [=WC4=], once [[spoiler: Blair defects]]. For the non-base options, there's the ''Vesuvius'' class of supercarriers (one of which gets a BigDamnGunship moment, under the command of Captain William Eisen), from [=WC4=], and the ''Bannockburn'', a converted transport with a [[InvisibilityCloak cloaking device]], used by James "Paladin" Taggart, in the novel ''Fleet Action'' to sniff out the Kilrathi Hakagas being built deep in kat space.

*** Bonus points however for serving as a BigDamnGunship for the final battle in ItsWalky, ''even though it's not even from that webcomic''.

** In ''Excession'' one GSV reconfigures itself into mostly engines, getting up to the sort of speed that would have got it to the Andromeda galaxy in about 2 years. It did this in order to give it some ramming speed. Do the physics, how big a bang would something that massive going at hundreds if not thousands of times the speed of light produce?

**** [[spoiler: It looks like a ship, can be used like a ship, and is treated like a ship. There's no practical difference between Sovereign]] and any other manufactured spacefaring AI warship other than tech-levels. And the NightmareFuel.

**** Perhaps a more appropriate name would be the [[TakeThat Starship]] MarySue.

** The ''Normandy'' [=SR2=] built by Cerberus in the second game [[spoiler: to replace the [=SR1=] after it got blown up]] is even cooler. Everything from the original design was amped up, including the luxury; Joker likes the new leather seats. And an Artificial Intelligence that eventually [[spoiler: takes total control over the entire ship, and describes the ship as being her body]]. Yeah, the SR2 is pretty much the definition of Cool Ship.

**** [[spoiler: It looks like a ship, can be used like a ship, and is treated like a ship. There's no practical difference between Sovereign and any other manufactured spacefaring AI warship other than tech-levels.]]

*** In the EU, the TIE line of ships eventually gets to the TIE Defender, which is more heavily armed, more heavily shielded, and faster than Vader's TIE Advanced model. These are, at the time they are first built, pretty much the best starfighters in the galaxy in every measure.

* The ''[[StarWars TIE Fighter]]'' series of games featured the TIE Defender, which was the fastest starfighter in the galaxy; as well-armed as some bombers; shielded (unusual for [=TIEs=]); equipped with hyperdrive; and some models had a ''tractor beam''. It cost about the same as half a squad of TIE/ln starfighters. "Trips", as the Rebels call them, made it into EU material outside of the games and in the early days of the [[TheAlliance Alliance]]/[[EvilEmpire Empire]] war were generally considered a failure due to the massive pricetag, although the handful of times they saw deployment they certainly fit the criteria. As production became less expensive and the Imperials' military philosophies had to change with their shrinking territory, the Defender became more common.

*** It's the only one we see in the new series because it's the last TARDIS in existence - in the original series we see plenty of other TARDISes as far back as the 1960s, and even the Daleks manage to build their own TARDIS-like dimensionally transcendental time machine at one point.

* {{Alastair Reynolds}}' ''RevelationSpace'' mostly takes place on the "Nostalgia of Infinity," one of only a handful of light-hugger starships in existence. Nostalgia is so complex that it redesigns itself over time. It is vast, labyrinthine, and mostly deserted, owned only by a triumvirate of mercenary/pirate spacefarers. The ship carries an arsenal of single-shot Hell-class weapons that were recovered in space. They have varying yields, from "blast another ship with a neutronium slug", to "destroy a star with a gravity beam". At the end of Revelation Space, [[spoiler: Captain John Brannigan's variant of the Melding Plague (a cybernetic virus) is allowed to take over the ship, rendering TheCaptain into a LivingShip.]]

** The General System Vehicles are 200 kilometer long ships with force fields used as hulls, housing millions if not billions of denizens, ruled by sentient "[[DeusEstMachina Minds]]" (AI) and able to turn into overpowered warships when the need arise. Less than 1% of the Culture population lives on planets, because the culture consider ??uncool'' to {{Terraform}} worlds, and because [=GSVs=] are part of the Culture PR policies: you don't need to go to one of the Culture's homeworlds when you see near your own world a nomadic self-sufficient sentient {{Metropolis}} that can kick a star out of its own solar system showing how advanced the Culture is and what [[BewareTheNiceOnes awaits you if you make the very deadly mistake of pissing off their Minds and/or their denizens.]]

*** Note that because of the Culture ships' sense of humour, these ships are likely to call themselves something like the ''Cutie-Pie'', or something about [[RunningGag the lack of gravitas in their names]].

* Marvel's Guardians Of The Galaxy had two cool ships and a mobile, time-travelling space station.
** And currently live in the severed head of a robot alien. SoYeah.

** The Vulcan High Command ringships from StarTrekEnterprise; particularly the ''D'Kyr''-class Combat Cruiser, but also the ''Surak''-class ships and the larger ''Suurok''-class vessels like ''Sh'raan''.

** What, no love for the aliens of the Trek movies? No [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Valdore.jpg Valdore?]] No [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Sona_command_ship.jpg Ru'afo's ship?]] No [[http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/File:Scimitar.jpg freakin' Scimitar?]]

* No love for the TIE Phantom from Rebel Assault II? "No ship that small has a cloaking device," indeed.

** No love for Hiigaran Battlecruiser and Interceptor from the second game?

* What? No love for the ships from ''InvaderZim''?

** No. [[FlyingBrick No love]].

** And the Eldar Craftworlds. So big they have in fact been mistaken for planetary bodies, and are able to carry an entire Eldar FLEET (up to and including a couple of their battlecruiser equivalents) in their docking bay... come to think of it most of the Eldar ships are pretty cool :)

* Anything built by a private company. Notice the [[http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/09/09/hachune-miku-heads-into-space/ Miku]] variant.

** The Scaled Composites [=SpaceShipOne=] was an awesome little white epoxy rocketplane with blue star decals, a unique movable tail/wings combo and blue star decals. The still-being-constructed [=SpaceShipTwo=] ups the ante by being silver and black.