looking to knock some of the meta out: Space Ship Girl

The second and third paragraphs seem to be a bit of meta/discussion that's drifted into the definition, I was planning to delete them. Any objections?

Also, should I add a paragraph that it doesn't have to be a Space Ship to qualify since it's a subtrope of Sapient Ship?

This is the exact same trope on an Airship or a sailing ship, though I can't think of any examples of the later, and only know one of the former and that was from a Spelljammer campaign. I see no reason to exclude them, but they aren't as common.

Original author here. The second paragraph was originally the first, and was meant to be an introduction. It was much shorter. Someone added the third much later, widening the gap between "ships are female" and "but never more female than when they're girls" even further, and thus an article by committee is achieved.

The problem I faced is that the trope of "a ship is like a lady" is a prerequisite for "this ship is literally a girl," but it doesn't exist separately. I tried once to garner support for splitting the woman-ship metaphor into its own trope and get it out of here, but it didn't catch on. Over the life of the trope, it has attracted much attention, muddying the point of the article as you point out, but the problem is that it is attached to another trope, not just that it exists.

It might be a good idea to try launching the ship is a woman idea now that this trope has caught on. It might help.

I did, with a YKTTW, about a year ago. It died in committee.

edited 18th Jan '11 11:40:40 PM by DarkSasami

But it's been a year. Sometimes the time just isn't right for a trope.

"It's been a year" might mean something if (according to the Wayback Machine) it hadn't been written at some point before November 2006.

I can think of an example, the Posleen War Series example on Sapient Ship (which is actually what prompted this) is an example of Space Ship Girl as all of the AI that it's done with chose female avatars.

Although, would Space Ship Girl really be a subtrope of Sapient Ship, it seems more like a Prerequisite rather than the normal sub/super trope relationship.

edited 19th Jan '11 5:07:57 AM by Deboss

You can have a Sapient Ship without having a Spaceship Girl, but you can't have a Spaceship Girl without a Sapient Ship. A Spaceship Girl is one way you can show a ship is sapient.

I was thinking of an Unusual User Interface where it's done up like a person, but isn't sapient. Hm, I don't think that counts though. Although, I'm thinking it's more that the AI chooses a female humanoid avatar that's the gist of the trope. Bah, brain is fuzzy.

Did you ever start that YKTTW? Or heck, UsefulNotes.Why Ships Are Female could use it.

I didn't. I got side tracked with other clean up projects, and I haven't had time to do the research. Sorry.

I was talking to Dark Sasami.