Possibly worth re-approaching this topic in a less heated manner? It seems like several recent examples are mostly about ships which appear creepy and alien without the smooth lines of Standard Alien Spaceship or jaggedness of Flying Cutlery Spaceship. I agree that that could be tropeworthy and possibly separate from Living Ship / Organic Technology, but the visual elements aren't necessarily the same as what's being described here.
The distinction drawn back during the TLP discussion for Flying Cutlery Spaceship was that this was the [starship/time machine/other conveyance]-based equivalent of Eldritch Location. Rather than being about appearance, it was about how time/space/perception/thought/the ship itself/etc behaved strangely, whether it looked bizarre and alien or entirely mundane (like the titular Event Horizon or some incarnations of the TARDIS).
Could be worth renaming/splitting? The name Eldritch Starship does make it sound like it should be the eldritch horror equivalent of Standard Human Spaceship / Standard Alien Spaceship / etc, which are primarily visual tropes. The recurring visual/aesthetic trope here which might not be directly covered elsewhere could be separated from the more... conceptual aspects?
Edited by Unsung
it's a living
I'd like to suggest a few edits to the description, now that we have Standard Alien Starship and Flying Cutlerly Spaceship, based on the discussion threads for both TLPs:
The polar opposite of the blocky, gray Standard Human Spaceship, and alien beyond even the smooth lines and flashy colors of the Standard Alien Spaceship, these are spacecraft, time machines, and/or interdimensional vehicles whose weirdness goes beyond Living Ship and possibly into Alien Geometries or a mobile version of the Eldritch Location. Take note, however, that this trope primarily a matter of function rather than appearance. Even a ship that superficially looks like a Flying Cutlery Spaceship, a Lovecraftian mass of antennae, spines, blades, metallic tentacles and other parts of uncertain function, can still ultimately be a ship is physically possible, with engines, a bridge, etc.
The milder form of this usually begins with Bigger on the Inside or dimensionally transcendent in some way other than bog-standard Faster-Than-Light Travel (the Trope Codifier here likely being the TARDIS, which looks like a perfectly earthly telephone box from the outside), and it only grows weirder from that point on.
They might be constructed from unconventional materials, powered by unconventional power sources, be dimensionally transcendent, or have an Unusual User Interface. Their interiors may even look like they were designed by M. C. Escher, incorporating Alien Geometries that the human mind struggles to comprehend. There's no guarantee that the crew or the ship itself won't change its interiors (or even its exterior) from time to time. Frequently they are a Genius Loci or function as a Setting as a Character. They are always surreal in some way that a typical spaceship in fiction just isn't.
These are, in essence, "Starfish" Starships — as in Starfish Alien, only for technology — spacecraft whose very conceptual design, let alone its performance, seems to defy the laws of physics both in-universe and in Real Life.
May result in perceived or actual Body Horror, or invoke elements of Cosmic Horror Story. For other Lovecraftian perversions of metallurgy, see Mechanical Abomination, with which this trope is known to overlap.
- In Men in Black, Alpha lands on Antarctica to unearth a massive organic alien warship.
I removed this example because "large and organic" does not fit the specific criteria of this trope. If someone would like to elaborate how the massive organic warship counts as an Eldritch Starship, we can re-add it later, but right now I am removing it from the examples.
Forum politics are BS. Also, I want to be a Barbarian... at the gates of Rome.
Deputy Director, Space-Time Gradient LV-114
Jesus, why the Narada? Why not something really weird? Narada is just a "Look at my spiky evil spaceship" gag. We can be better, more creative, more intelligent than that. Take the Narada down and put a real improbable starship up in its place.
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It was discussed here
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And for a lot of people it does look Eldritch.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
A lot of people have NO imagination, Septimus. I will not settle for the bottom line, even if you will.
Previous Trope Repair Shop thread: Misused
, started by fulltimeD on May 14th 2014 at 1:19:03 AM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman Hide / Show Replies