How To Decorate Your House Like A Star Trek Ship

Star Trek has the Enterprise. Star Wars has the Millenium Falcon. Battlestar Galactica has… Battlestar Galactica. Each of these ships fulfills a different purpose and so has a different design. If your work features an of import spaceship, then this is something you have to recollect about.

What Is Your Ship's FTL Propulsion Method?

It turns out infinite is large. Really big. Getting effectually ways you'll accept to massage your style by Einstein'due south rule that nothing tin can get faster than the speed of light.

Going Really, Actually Fast

Your ship just pours on the speed, never mind what physics says. Despite the talk of warping space, this is essentially the Star Expedition method. While the ship accelerates to well past the speed of light, it never leaves normal infinite. It tin still browse the area ahead,* so it won't be taken by surprise if there'south a hostile fleet lying in await. Another consequence is that going FTL is only an escape if you're faster than the other guy. They can still track you after you lot've kicked it upwardly to full throttle.

Visiting a Pocket Dimension

Since this universe won't allow united states get FTL, let'due south go to another one. This is the hyperspace of Star Wars and Babylon Five (B5). Exiting our universe completely, these ships tunnel through their own personal dimension to go where they demand to go. Usually, this means that activating the transport's FTL drive makes it safe from set on. In that location can be exceptions, but jumping to hyperspace volition usually be a moment of relief. Because information technology's such a powerful style to leave of trouble, there should be limits on when it can be used. In Star Wars, ships can't get into hyperspace within a planet's gravity well. In B5, information technology requires peculiarly constructed gates for all but the largest ships.

Teleportation

Even more extreme than the pocket dimension, there's no travel time at all with this method. The ship just disappears from one identify and reappears in another. It's almost famously seen on Battlestar Galactica (BSG), but it appears in other stories as well, such as the Solar Clipper series past Nathan Lowell.

Ships with this form of propulsion can travel truly massive distances. Fifty-fifty if the jumps they brand are relatively short, the only limiting factor is how quickly they can recharge for another one. This ways that ships can easily escape whatever kind of problem so long as their engines are working. BSG limits this with fourth dimension consuming FTL equations and a delay as the ship drives spool* up. As a side benefit, a teleportation drive means that ships often stop up olfactory organ to olfactory organ, rather than millions of miles apart.

It Doesn't Have 1

It turns out that the speed of light is a difficult speed limit to break, and authors looking for a more science-friendly story frequently stay below it. Your send can yet become enough fast with sublight engines, fast plenty to make interplanetary travel a breeze. Yous'll be limited to i solar system, sure, but await how much in that location is to explore right in our ain backyard. Limiting your transport to sublight speed will make information technology more than realistic, and let you to appoint in nitty gritty science fiction.

How Does Your Ship Motility at Sublight?

No affair what your FTL method is (if you have one), your send will however need to get around in normal space. How you practice this volition take a big influence on the level of your setting's engineering, not just how yous go from place to identify.

On a Carefully Projected Course

This is the current method for navigating our solar organization. 21st century spacecraft take very limited fuel, then they take to plan almost every bit of thrust, leaving nothing to take chances. The course that Rosetta took to rendezvous with the comet 67P, for case, is incredibly complicated, and total of complex math. When Apollo thirteen suffered a damaging explosion, they couldn't simply plow around and fly back to Earth. They had to keep going on the class they'd committed to.

Using this method will make fuel management an active part of your story. The characters won't be able to go wherever they please; they'll accept to be constantly watching their tanks. It's very limiting, just the good news is that because this is how existent spaceships work, there's plenty of reference material. This is hard scifi at its finest.

A variant is to use engines that have extremely long-lasting fuel sources but produce little dispatch. Ion engines fit the bill nicely. Ships tin go going at a good clip with a long plenty burn, but deviating from their grade volition be very difficult because of how long it takes to build up thrust.

With Impulse Engines

This is the standard for the vast bulk of space-going scifi settings. The ship employs some kind of extremely efficient reaction drives to push it where it needs to become. When Captain Picard orders his ship into orbit of a new M-class planet, he's not worried about running out of gas before they go there. Even in Firefly, when Mal does occasionally fret about running out of fuel, information technology's understood that this isn't a problem for better funded ships. When in incertitude, this is the option to go with. Information technology'due south tried and true, letting you explore your setting without much fuss.

By Raising the Solar Sails

This is a quirky third option if you want to give your send more of an onetime-timey feel. Solar sails are a real technology that uses solar current of air to generate thrust. Your ship will work more than like a sailing send, and who doesn't want sailing ships in space? With a bit of handwavium, y'all can even infringe a bunch of nautical terminology to spice up your setting's jargon. Your send tin can tack beyond the port quarter and run up the mainsail.*

Practically, this method of propulsion has some caveats to consider. Ships will be slower further from the sun,* and going toward the sun will be more difficult than going away. The sheet itself is also important. It would be huge and no doubtfulness prone to damage. This is your run a risk to get an astronaut swinging through the rigging to repair meteorite impacts!

What'south the Interior Similar?

The inside of your ship is at least as important every bit the outside. Practice your characters experience at home within its hull, or is each day a strain on their nerves?

NASA Chique

If you ever take a look at the International Infinite Station, you'll discover that it'southward incredibly crowded. At that place's stuff floating everywhere considering space is at a premium. This is the await you become with if you want your send as close to modern applied science as possible. There probably wouldn't be bogus gravity. The nutrient would mostly exist slurped from bags. Using the bath would be… complicated.

This is the kind of ship one has to be very defended to serve on. It lends itself to explorers making the first push button to Mars or maybe homegrown space enthusiasts cobbling together their ain transport form whatsoever is lying around.

Military Practical/Cold and Ascetic

These two are unlike sides of the aforementioned coin and are essentially the deviation betwixt Battlestar Galactica and Battlestar Pegasus. Both are role over grade. Practicality reigns over comfort. Everything has a purpose, and nothing is wasted. The difference is that on Galactica this is reassuring. Everything is running like a well-oiled machine. On Pegasus it's unnerving. All human being comforts have been swallowed up by the unfeeling ship. On the Television receiver show, they achieve this with lighting, camera work, and music. In prose, you tin do this with positive and negative descriptors: "make clean" vs "sterile" or "disciplined" vs "controlled."

Characters on this kind of ship are most likely military or perchance loftier-level corporate types. They're hither to do a job. That won't be the merely aspect of their characters, but it will be ever-present. They'll all be part of something bigger than themselves, whether they want to or not.

Warm and Lived In

Welcome aboard either Serenity or the Millenium Falcon. These ships are homes as well as machines. Even if the characters don't necessarily want to be on board, the ship's environment will have a calming effect. This works on the audience as well, if y'all do it correct. They will beginning to feel comfortable with the ship, like slipping on an quondam sweater. They'll react viscerally if the ship is threatened by intruders. Utilise this to set up poignant stories.

This kind of ship is frequently independently owned but not e'er. Star Trek'southward Deep Infinite Nine space station fits the pecker, as does Babylon Five. It's a identify where people live as well as piece of work, and they can't assist but get out their mark.

Similar a Space Hotel

This is an odd choice pioneered by Star Trek: The Adjacent Generation. The Enterprise D is so well appointed that it often feels similar some kind of cruise send. The quarters are deluxe, anyone can have anything they want to consume whenever they want it, and the holodecks provide endless forms of entertainment. This kind of send is meant to awe the audience. To brand them think, "Wow, the futurity is amazing!"

There's nothing wrong with that, simply it tin make your characters harder to identify with. Drama loses some of its edge if the characters can render dwelling house to their cabins and gild a iii form meal while getting a deep tissue massage.

How Good Are Its Sensors?

Unless you're in very old scientific discipline fiction, your ship's going to need more than the mark one eyeball to run into with. Looking out the window but won't cut it in the cold vacuum.

Merely Blips on a Screen

This level of engineering is pretty close to what nosotros have today. Sensors will tell you lot that something's out there and perhaps its mass, only that'south it. Unless the mystery object is dissemination a betoken, you won't know anything about it. This is bully for building tension and suspense. What'south that blip out there? It'south getting closer. Should we open up burn down?

The downside is that it'due south a very involved method. Your characters can never just know what'southward going on with another ship. They'll e'er have to question their information, and the audition will desire to know how they learned it.

Similar Long Range Optics

The next step up are sensors that give you most the same information as a visual examination of whatever's being scanned. Y'all tin can tell that little blip is a Necktie fighter, that information technology has Imperial markings, but non that information technology'south carrying Lord Vader. This method provides a decent balance, allowing you to hands describe what's happening around your send without giving too much data to the audience. It works specially well for a setting like Star Wars, in which the space battles are clearly analogous to historical naval combat when visual range encounters were common.

They Give a Full Spectrum Scan

Star Trek sensors can tell you what an approaching ship is made of, how many people are on board, and how many of them own cats. In that location is seemingly no finish to the pinpoint information these scanners tin can produce from remarkably far abroad. This is another example of wowing your audience with the wonders of the future. It too allows you to put on dazzling displays of description every bit the characters larn absolutely everything about what they're looking at. Of grade, you take to be good at description in order for that to work.

The drawback to having such powerful sensors is that sometimes drama depends on the characters not having certain information. Many an episode of Expedition features the previously all-seeing scanners inexplicably not noticing that a hostile transport was charging weapons. You lot tin sometimes explicate this by saying there'southward some kind of interference or some other, but that excuse will get tired if you lot aren't conscientious.

How Does It Fight?

Space battles are an e'er-present element of scientific discipline fiction, and chances are if there'south a send in your story, it will somewhen be attacked. How does it defend itself? Or, if its crew is a bit more proactive, how does it attack other ships?

Information technology Doesn't

One of the novel things about Firefly was that, as Jayne and then eloquently put it, "A send ship own't got no guns on information technology." Serenity was completely unarmed, which made things interesting when it ran into hostile vessels that weren't. If your ship has no weapons, your characters will have to be more than inventive. They can't just blow the attacking space pirates out of the sky. They have to run and hide or cobble some kind of weapon together. It limits your options, but it tin exist engaging.

With Directed Free energy

Whether information technology's a uncomplicated laser or something more complicated, this is a beam of free energy projected beyond space at the speed of low-cal. Information technology has very long range. Information technology'south precise and authentic. If y'all tin see something, you can hitting it with this weapon. Infinite battles with such a weapon will be short, every bit at that place isn't a lot of maneuvering to be done when incoming fire is moving at the speed of lite. This is adept news if you lot're in a visual medium with a limited budget, just perhaps bad news if yous desire to film the Battle of Britain in Space. Early Star Trek used this kind of weapon a lot, before Deep Space Nine (DS9) took things in a more WWII type direction.

Using Space Guns

These are whatever weapons that operate more or less the way modern firearms do. BSG has bodily space guns – that is, shells propelled past explosive chemicals. Star Wars has space guns disguised as directed energy weapons. They call them lasers or blasters, but they clearly operate more like battleship cannons. The biggest reward to this mode of weaponry is that edifice dramatic space battles is easy. You simply have your inspiration from historical naval battles, particularly WWII. Yous can have behemothic capital ships slugging it out broadside to broadside while fighters dogfight around them.

The downside is that you aren't taking full advantage of being in space. Space is a completely conflicting environment, and it'due south limiting to focus exclusively on how battles used to be fought.

By Lobbing Missiles

As mentioned, infinite is actually big. Your ships volition oftentimes exist and so far apart that light volition take several minutes to cross the gulf between them. At that range, even a laser is useless. Instead, your ship could utilize guided, self propelled projectiles that can travel to the target and adjust their grade to ensure a hit. This type of weaponry is seen in the Honor Harrington series, where information technology introduces a completely unlike dynamic to space combat.

Battles go tense waiting games as enemy missiles come burning in. The fire-and-forget nature of these weapons means that once they are launched, the characters tin can only watch and hope for a hit. The chief action of combat focuses around using countermeasures against incoming fire. It requires a different mindset than the more than fast paced battles with infinite guns, but information technology has an appeal all its ain.

It Sends Out Fighters

From X-Wings to Vipers to Star Furies, fighters are a mainstay of space combat. If your ship is large enough, it may fight primarily by launching smaller craft to set on the enemy. This allows for some fantabulous drama. Dogfights between fighters are perfect for moments of private heroism, and fighter pilots will always be popular as main characters. Plus, removing your characters from the safety of their mothership is a great way to ratchet up the danger.

Of course, this method isn't e'er practical. You need a ship big enough to carry fighters, for ane thing. For some other, space fighters aren't terribly realistic. Targeting systems would probably be too accurate for dodging and weaving to be an effective defense. Fighters also imply your ship is purpose-congenital for combat, which won't work in many stories.

It Uses a Mix

Chances are very good that your ship will use some combination of the above options. Galactica has both fighters and space guns. The Enterprise has directed free energy weapons with its phasers, while photon torpedoes are much more like missiles. The fundamental is to remember what each kind of weapon means for your story.

How Do Characters Become Off It?

No matter how cool your spaceship is, eventually the characters will accept to get out information technology. How do they do that?

Past Landing and Docking

If your spaceship is on the smaller side, it may let people off direct, whether that means landing on a planet's surface or docking with a space station. Larger ships can do this too, but it starts to get impractical, especially with landing. Having this exist your transport's primary means of egress puts a major limit on your characters' freedom of move. They can only go where the ship goes. It as well means that if the ship is damaged, getting off information technology will be more than hard, which is great for drama.

On Shuttles

The most practical method, especially for larger vessels, this ways your ship carries a number of smaller arts and crafts that are fully functional spaceships in their own correct. They take a express range of grade, but they'll get you to the footing and back. This increases your characters' freedom of movement, assuasive some to visit the big city while others explore mysterious conflicting ruins. It too opens the possibility of a story with i or more characters trapped and isolated on a damaged shuttle.

The important thing to remember is that the ship breaking doesn't mean the shuttles are broken. If the ship has a power failure, the audition will immediately enquire why the characters don't divert power from the independent shuttle engines.

Via Teleportation

While transporters were originally a way for Gene Roddenberry to save coin on landing sequences, they take since carved out a place for themselves in scientific discipline fiction. These are devices that motion a character from one place to some other instantaneously. They can work via matter free energy conversion, micro-wormholes, or anything else that sounds reasonably scientific. They offer unparalleled liberty of motion, getting your characters into places they'd have no other style of reaching. Y'all no longer have to spend time on travel sequences or explicate how the characters arrived and then apace.

The drawback is that sometimes you'll have stories that merely work if your characters can't get somewhere. Teleportation is such a powerful mode of getting around that you may have trouble writing it properly. If you're going to use this method, establish early what tin can and can't exist teleported through, and then stick with it.

How Does It Wait?

In this terminal section, we consider your send's physical appearance. We're looking at broad strokes rather than specific details. Decide on the shape and paint task one time you've considered some broader themes.

Old and Beat out Up

Every bit seen with Tranquillity, the Millenium Falcon, and every other contained trading vessel always featured in a science fiction story. This is the expect of the underdog. It'south a scrappy ship that's got heart. In other words, something we volition always root for. It's great for communicating how outmatched and poorly equipped the main characters are, which is something the audience will love.

Big and Mean

This ship means business. If it's not bristling with weapons, information technology'south some kind of mega cargo carrier that can fit a dozen lesser ships inside it. This look projects power. It is imposing, and communicates a level of seriousness to your story. Yous don't want to use this look for a lighthearted romp through the solar system, only it'south perfect for an epic war with evil robots. Note that the ship doesn't actually take to be large. DS9'south Defiant is a pocket-sized send, only it'south definitely Big and Hateful.

Sleek and Sexy

The true ship of the futurity, a triumph of technology and engineering. This ship will dazzle the audition with all its swanky pattern features. Pair this with a Hotel in Space look for the interior, and yous have the Enterprise D. Ships like this work all-time in optimistic settings, where they portray the awesome heights humanity tin reach. Your protagonist may come off equally something of a tool if they're flight one of these in a gritty, realistic setting where people have to scrounge for survival.

By now you should accept a pretty good thought what your spaceship is like, at least in terms of the large picture. The rest can exist added as you go. These steps volition get you a skeleton, simply you'll still have to fill in the residuum. How comfortable is the captain'due south chair? What kind of noise do the engines make? These smaller scale questions should be addressed equally they come upwards, but now you have a solid foundation to base of operations them on.

Source: https://mythcreants.com/blog/designing-your-spaceship/

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