History Main / TheMothership

* A gigantic disc-shaped automated mothership is encountered in one of ''TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' novels. It was created long ago by one of the [[{{Precursors}} Precursor]] races as an exploration and terraforming craft. Due to most of the galaxy being unknown to the race, they equipped the ship with powerful weapons and defenses, as well as the capability to manufacture and launch fighter drones. When the ship returned centuries later, it discovered many other ships in the systems occupied by the race. These were later models that were not designed for combat. Treating them as hostile, the ship started a war and eventually wiped them out by using its built-in ability to replicate itself given enough resources. When first encountered, the humans have trouble defeating the ship. Understandably, they're horrified to learn that there are hundreds more just like that.

* ''High Charity'' in the {{Halo}} series is actually more of a mobile space station and serves as the Covenants "Homeworld". But as the goal of the Great Journey gets very close, and the Covenant is starting to break apart at the edges, the Prophet of Truth also uses it as his flagship.

* In [[CalvinAndHobbes Calvin]]'s imagination, when Susie is a hostile alien out of a mothership, said mothership will be impersonated by... his mother.

* ''DestroyAllHumans''.

* In Mikhail Akhmanov's ''Invasion'', the Faata starship definitely fits the trope. It is massive in size and, while not possessing powerful weapons itself, is able to launch numerous "battle modules" armed with {{antimatter}} weapons. The ship's DeflectorShield can easily shrug off a nuclear barrage with a combined strength in the gigaton range. It also carries a huge army of {{Super Soldier}}s ready to invade. The second novel ''Retaliation'' shows that it is just one of many Faata ships. In fact, three more are being constructed not to far from Earth.

* ''{{Freespace}}'' has the ''SD Lucifer''. Killing it wasn't an instant-win for the good guys; the war lasted several more months as they had to clean up the remaining Shivan fleet, but background information says that the Shivans became disorganized and confused after the ''Lucifer's'' destruction. The ''SJ Sathanas'' in the sequel is set up to look like a mothership as well, but [[spoiler:it is just one of nearly one hundred the Shivans possess, in that one fleet alone.]]
* ''UFO: Aftershock'' has the Laputa, a flying city built by the Reticulans which has been converted into a mobile headquarters by the Commonwealth of Earth.

* ''{{Dune}}'''s Guild Heighliners might count as a variation. They're designed to transport hundreds of smaller ships over interstellar distances, but the smaller ships don't belong to the Heighliners as such.

* ''Anime/LegendOfTheGalacticHeroes'' has many on both sides. The [[TheFederation Free Planets Alliance]] mass-produces its own (four types have been observed: the phased-out ''[[http://gineipaedia.com/wiki/Hard_Luck Hard Luck]]'' type, the more recent but mostly phased out ''[[http://gineipaedia.com/wiki/Hyperion Hyperion]]'' type, the standard ''[[http://gineipaedia.com/wiki/Ajax_class_flagship Ajax]]''-class, and the prototype ''[[http://gineipaedia.com/wiki/Triglav Triglav]]''), while the [[TheEmpire Galactic Empire]] mostly produces [[SuperPrototype single ships with state-of-the-art technology]] that are gifted by the emperor to individual admirals (the closest thing to flagship mass-production are the ''[[http://gineipaedia.com/wiki/Forseti Forseti]]'', produced in three exemplars (with the second and the third having some light differences from the class leader), and the three-ships ''[[http://gineipaedia.com/wiki/Wilhelmina Wilhelmina]]''-class (with the ''Berlin'' modified with superior shielding, weaker weapons and large entertainment facilities due its owner being [[UpperClassTwit a nobleman too stupid to do anything but waste away, let alone actually fighting a war]])).

* [[BigBad Bodolza]]'s flagship in ''SuperDimensionFortressMacross''. TheMovie not only has an even bigger version, but TWO of them; although Bodolza quickly {{Wave Motion Gun}}s the other one on the grounds that it has [[AmazonBrigade Meltran]] crew, blowing away a chunk of his own fleet too who couldn't get away from the line of fire quickly enough.

** Super-carriers were originally called mother ships in the game before they switched to the current name. This is probably because there is a type of jovian craft in the lore known as the mothership. They are reportedly the in universe inspiration for titans, though they are much deadlier than them.

* EndersGame has at least one mothership that is hidden among the other ships, but destroying it severs the HiveMind.

* The Xenon/Terraformer CPU-ship #deca in ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X3: Terran Conflict]]''. The CPU ships are [[SapientShip sentient]] and control nearby Xenon fighter craft. They can [[TheBattleStar dock up to 50 fighters internally]], are ''[[MileLongShip massive]]'', and have a [[http://i.imgur.com/fFoMj.jpg very menacing appearance]].
** A later patch added a mission featuring #efaa, and #cafe, [[spoiler:One sentient, the other having a glitch in its attempt to gain sentience, helped along by the already sentient one.]]

** In modern whaling, the Nisshin Maru functions similarly to this.. Smaller faster vessels are needed to catch the whales, but these lack the ability to process the meat and retain their mobility. These ships instead bring it to the mothership, which does have the facilities to properly process and store the massive amount of whale meat and organs.

** In modern whaling, the Nisshin Maru functions similarly to this.. Smaller faster vessels are needed to catch the whales, but these lack the ability to process the meat and retain their mobility. These ships instead bring it to the mothership, which does have the facilities to properly process and store the massive amount of whale meat.

** In modern whaling these are still used for similar reason. Smaller faster vessels are needed to catch the whales, but these lack the ability to process the meat and retain their mobility. These ships instead bring it to the mothership, which does have the facilities to properly process and store the massive amount of whale meat.

* In Literature/{{Animorphs}}'', the Yeerk pool ships.

See also: StandardSciFiFleet, FlyingSaucer. Might overlap with TheBattlestar if it doesn't already harbor dozens of Battlestars inside it. Not to be confused with the other kind of [[{{Shipping}} ship]].

[[quoteright:350:[[CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Mothership.jpeg]]]]

* ''CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind''

* The giant enemy space ship in the final wave of the 1980 ''{{Phoenix}}'' arcade game. This may also qualify as the first instance of a "boss level" in a video game.

* The giant enemy space ship in the final wave of the 1980 ''Phoenix'' ArcadeGame. This may also qualify as the first instance of a "boss level" in a video game.

* ''{{V}}'' features multiple alien Motherships throughout the show. The reboot continues this trend and heavily featured them in the show's advertising.

* Several types of naval craft effectively serve this purpose in wartime, most famously the Aircraft carrier. In fact, in many languages, such as Chinese, Japanese and Finnish, the corresponding word for "mothership" refers to an aircraft carrier.