History Main / FlyingCutlerySpaceship

* In ''Literature/SingularitySky'', it's mentioned that most real space warships look like "a cubist's vision of a rabies virus crossed with a soft drink can" -- as opposed to the New Republic's sleek-looking but inferior fleet.

* ''Series/BabylonFive'' provided many early examples.

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': Her Imperious Condescension, the supreme ruler of the troll empire, known in her human guise as Betty Crocker (yes, that one), has a starship shaped like the prongs of a trident. The resemblance is deliberate, because she also [[ProngsOfPoseidon uses a trident as her weapon of choice]]. She eventually rebrands the Betty Crocker logo into the same trident, and the human race, unaware of its true significance, just assumes it's a fork.

If a ship is simply covered in SpikesOfVillainy, it's technically not this trope. This is about when enemy spaceships go way overboard on the sharp edges to [[ScaryImpracticalArmor impractical]] levels. How does a pilot climb inside such a ship without tearing their pressure suit? How could it be air-tight with all those shifting parts and gaps in the hull?

The interiors of these ships are usually [[EvilIsNotWellLit as dark and shadowy as the exterior]], with [[UnnecessarilyLargeInterior huge docking bays, long corridors and plummeting shafts]].

At first, spaceships in science fiction tended towards simple, clean shapes lined with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greeble greebles]]. With advancing technology -- especially in ComputerGeneratedImages -- TV and movie spaceships became increasingly complicated as programmers could animate smaller and smaller individual segments. This has caused an explosion in the number of sharp edges and non-functional moving parts assigned to antagonist spaceship designs, to the point where most people in fiction powerful enough to threaten a planet are seen flying around in giant metal squids with a hundred vicious claws and blades on every tentacle.

The sci-fi equivalent of [[DastardlyWhiplash a guy wearing a black hat and twirling his mustache]]. Or, rather, one thousand razor-sharp metallic mustaches twirling all at once with the energy of a thousand suns glowing beneath its armored plates.

Or, if you prefer, the BadassLongcoat of spaceships.

Obviously if a spaceship is meant for atmospheric maneuvers, too, it would make sense for it to be aerodynamic. This is not about that. Nor is it about dagger-shaped [[Franchise/StarWars Star Destroyers]]. No, this is about spaceships with way more than any practical numbers of sharp edges.

This trope describes a spaceship that ranges from a dart-like multi-pronged fighter to a gigantic armored Kraken brimming with blades, spikes, antennae, metallic claws, and for good measure a huge glowing maw at the front like some hellspawned sea creature. Unfortunately, this trope has becoming close to generic, and a new design trick when coming up with such vessels is to make them asymmetrical and thus slightly less conventional.

At first, this kind of starship design was a radical departure from what at the time was standard in film and TV, but with advancing technology, especially ComputerGeneratedImages, TV and movie spaceships became increasingly complicated as programmers could animate smaller and smaller individual segments. This has caused an explosion in the number of sharp edges and non-functional moving parts assigned to antagonist spaceship designs to the point where most people in fiction powerful enough to threaten a planet are seen flying around in giant metal squids with a hundred vicious claws and blades on every tentacle.

On the inside, these ships are usually just your standard blue-lit control centers, huge docking bays, and very long metal corridors. But the sheer number of metallic blades and tentacles just screams "Look at me, I am ''so marvelously evil''!"

While it makes sense for a small ship designed for atmospheric maneuvers to be aerodynamic and sleek, the larger "Kraken" varieties are almost always AwesomeButImpractical.

If a ship has two long, spear-like engine or weapons pods, it's technically not this trope. This is about when enemy spaceships go way overboard on the sharp edges to impractical levels. How does a pilot climb inside such a ship without tearing their pressure suit?

Compare SpikesOfVillainy, the costume version of this trope.

Also compare EldritchStarship, which can really look like anything, but utilizes mind-bending, conceptually alien principles in its design and may or may not look like a giant metallic sea urchin.

* ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock'': Of course the Klingon Bird of Prey, which debuted as the {{Villain}} Kruge's warship. Arguably this is where the trope originated. Compared to the more recent examples on this list, Kruge's Bird of Prey was actually rather tame, but it did have cool moving wings with disruptor cannons on the tips. Also, unlike most of the ships on this list, Kruge's ship was an actual physical model, not a CGI mashup.

* ''WesternAnimation/Transformers Prime'': The ''Nemesis'', base and flagship of the Decepticons, is a MileLongShip covered in spikes and jagged bits.

The sci-fi equivalent of [[DastardlyWhiplash a guy wearing a black hat and twirling his mustache]]. Or rather, one thousand razor-sharp metallic mustaches twirling all at once with the energy of a thousand suns glowing beneath its armored plates.

Obviously if a spaceship is meant for atmospheric maneuvers too, it would make sense for it to be aerodynamic. This is not about that. Nor is it about dagger-shaped [[Franchise/StarWars Star Destroyers]]. No. This is about spaceships with way more than any practical numbers of sharp edges.

This trope describes a spaceship that ranges from a dart-like multi-pronged fighter to a gigantic armored Kraken brimming with blades, spikes, antennae, metallic claws and for good measure, a huge glowing maw at the front like some hellspawned sea creature. Unfortunately, this trope has becoming close to generic, and a new design trick when coming up with such vessels is to make them asymmetrical and thus slightly less conventional.

At first, this kind of starship design was a radical departure from what at the time was standard in film and TV, but with advancing technology, especially computer generated imaging, TV and movie spaceships became increasingly complicated as programmers could animate smaller and smaller individual segments. This has caused an explosion in the number of sharp edges and non-functional moving parts assigned to antagonist spaceship designs to the point where most people in fiction powerful enough to threaten a planet are seen flying around in giant metal squids with a hundred vicious claws and blades on every tentacle.

As a general rule, the spaceships become more squid/octopus-like as they grow in size and in the number of spikes and blades they possess. Often they possess a WaveMotionGun and for extra points, the ship has to radically and slowly transform its shape just to use it, giving the heroes enough time to disarm the superweapon.

* ''Film/GalaxyQuest'': The BigBad's ship. This was probably intentional parody though. It was really big, and it looked like a sea urchin with engines and a giant ominous maw in front.

* ''Film/StarTrek2009'': The ''Narada'', of course, arguably one of the biggest and most physically complicated examples. It ''used'' to be a simple mining vessel but getting Borg tech upgrades, an insane captain and a little while getting poked around by the Klingons all resulted in it looking like some kind of mix between a Lovecraftian squid and a whole warehouse's worth of knives.
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': The last two films, ''Film/StarTrekInsurrection'' and ''Film/StarTrekNemesis'', had plenty of villainous ships like this. ''Insurrection'' featured a number of pointy horseshoe-crab style villain ships plus a giant, spiky weapon-ship that would strip life-supporting particles from the rings of an inhabited planet. ''Nemesis'' featured an oversized warbird with an insanely impractical (and very, very spiky) transformation sequence just to fire its main weapon.

* General Zod's Black Zero in ''Film/ManOfSteel'' is jagged, roughly squid-shaped and stands on three tentacle-like legs.

* In ''Literature/SingularitySky'', it's mentioned that most real space warships look like "a cubist's vision of a rabies virus crossed with a soft drink can" - as opposed to the New Republic's sleek-looking but inferior fleet.

** The Cylon raiders fit this, being sleek, slim unmanned vessels with two huge blade-like wings containing missiles and cannons. The red eye-stripe on the "cockpit" certainly helps with the image too. Their {{mother ship}}s, the Basestars, thankfully avert this trope despite simultaneously looking like starfish.
** The Cylon "homeworld" aka The Colony, is an absolutely ''massive'' spaceship gradually built around the craft of the original five Cylons. It resembles a giant octopus more than anything, with a spherical center with giant claws jutting out in every which direction. Since it's both spacebound and FTL-capable, aerodynamics presumably isn't much of an issue.

** The jet-black Peacekeeper Prowlers look like a cross between a dart and vicious black hornet, though the most often seen example of one in the series is a stolen fighter operated by the heroes.
** In "The Peacekeeper Wars", the horseshoe crab-like Scarran fighters, Strykers, and especially the Scarran Emperor's flagship, the sleek, silver ''Decimator'', which actually carried multiple nuclear warhead launchers in its forward spines.

* WesternAnimation/Transformers Prime: The ''Nemesis'', base and flagship of the Decepticons, is a MileLongShip covered in spikes and jagged bits.

* ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': Her Imperious Condescension, the supreme ruler of the trolls, has a starship shaped like the prongs of a trident. The resemblance is deliberate, because she also [[ProngsOfPoseidon uses a trident as her weapon of choice]].

* ''Videogame/Wing Commander'' series: [[ProudWarriorRace Kilrathi]] fighters often have asymmetrical designs which incorporate claw or fang-like curves and points in order to make them more intimidating.

* ''Videogame/Wing Commander'' series: [[ProudWarriorrce Kilrathi]] fighters often have asymmetrical designs which incorporate claw or fang-like curves and points in order to make them more intimidating.

Obviously if a spaceship is meant for atmospheric maneuvers too, it would make sense for it to be aerodynamic. This is not about that. Nor is it about dagger-shaped Star Destroyers. No. This is about spaceships with way more than any practical numbers of sharp edges.

The sci-fi equivalent of a guy wearing a black hat and twirling his mustache. Or rather, one thousand razor-sharp metallic mustaches twirling all at once with the energy of a thousand suns glowing beneath its armored plates.

* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003'': The Cylon raiders fit this, being sleek, slim unmanned vessels with two huge blade-like wings containing missiles and cannons. The red eye-stripe on the "cockpit" certainly helps with the image too. Their {{mother ship}}s, the Basestars, thankfully avert this trope despite simultaneously looking like starfish.

%%This list of examples has been alphabetized. Please place examples in alphabetical order.

Of, if you prefer, the BadassLongcoat of spaceships.

!!Examples

* ''Series/BattlestarGalacticaReimagined'': The Cylon raiders fit this, being sleek, slim unmanned vessels with two huge blade-like wings containing missiles and cannons. The red eye-stripe on the "cockpit" certainly helps with the image too. Their {{mother ship}}s, the Basestars, thankfully avert this trope despite simultaneously looking like starfish.

** Also from ''Series/{{Farscape}}'', from "The Peacekeeper Wars," the horseshoe crab-like Scarran fighters, Strykers, and especially the Scarran Emperor's flagship, the sleek, silver ''Decimator,'' which actually carried multiple nuclear warhead launchers in its forward spines.

* ''Film/StarTrek2009'': The ''Narada'', of course, arguably one of the biggest and most physically complicated examples. It ''used'' to be a simple mining vessel but getting Borg tech upgrades, an insane captain and a little while getting poked around by the Klingons all resulted in it looking like some kind of mix between a Lovecraftian squid and a whole warehouse's worth of knives.

* ''Film/{{Serenity}}'': The Reaver ships are covered in jagged metal spikes, looking like they were slapped together from scrap metal. The Reavers also enjoy splattering blood like paint on their hulls and stringing half-eaten corpses to their bows. In the film, when Mal has to infiltrate Reaver space, he disguises ''Serenity'' in this fashion.

* ''Film/StarTrek''. The ''Narada'', of course, arguably one of the biggest and most physically complicated examples. It ''used'' to be a simple mining vessel but getting Borg tech upgrades, an insane captain and a little while getting poked around by the Klingons all resulted in it looking like some kind of mix between a Lovecraftian squid and a whole warehouse's worth of knives.
* The BigBad's ship in ''Film/GalaxyQuest'' (another egregious example). This was probably intentional parody though. To describe it, it was really big, and it looked like a sea urchin with engines and a giant ominous maw in front.
* The ships of the villains in the last two ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' films, ''Film/StarTrekInsurrection'' and ''Film/StarTrekNemesis''. ''Insurrection'' featured a number of pointy horseshoe-crab style villain ships plus a giant, spiky weapon-ship that would strip life-supporting particles from the rings of an inhabited planet. ''Nemesis'' featured an oversized warbird with an insanely impractical (and very, very spiky) transformation sequence just to fire its main weapon.
* Of course the Klingon Bird of Prey, which debuted as the {{Villain}} Kruge's warship all the way back in ''Film/StarTrekIIITheSearchForSpock''. Arguably this is where the trope originated. Compared to the more recent examples on this list, Kruge's Bird of Prey was actually rather tame, but it did have cool moving wings with disruptor cannons on the tips. Also, unlike most of the ships on this list, Kruge's ship was an actual physical model, not a CGI mashup.
* The Reaver ships in ''Film/{{Serenity}}'' are covered in jagged metal spikes, looking like they were slapped together from scrap metal. The Reavers also enjoy splattering blood like paint on their hulls and stringing half-eaten corpses to their bows. In the film, when Mal has to infiltrate Reaver space, he disguises ''Serenity'' in this fashion.