History Main / UnnecessarilyLargeVessel

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* [[BigBad Ellis Billington]] in ''Literature/TheJenniferMorgue'' has a yacht called the ''Mabuse''. For a certain value of "yacht", anyway: the thing is a demilitarized former Russian Navy ''Krivak III''-class missile frigate. She basically exists to say that Billington is richer than Croesus. With the missile tubes and other armament having been removed, she has more than enough space for a luxurious suite of rooms [[spoiler:and a well-equipped occult surveillance operation]].
* The ''Moon'' (as in, Earth's actual moon) turns out to be a giant starship in ''EmpireFromTheAshes'' by DavidWeber. It's revealed to have been an [[AdvancedAncientHumans ancient human starship]], and all humans on Earth are the descendants of its crew.

* Lampshaded and called out in the ''Franchise/StarWars'' EU. When a side character gripes that if the Empire were still around, they'd be better able to handle the latest galactic crisis, Han Solo snaps and says no, the Empire would have built some humongous, gaudy superweapon with a ridiculously foreboding name, which would then have been destroyed through some glaring weakpoint.

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* The ''Tulip'' in ''{{Starhunter}}'' is a retired luxury liner repurposed as a {{bounty hunt|er}}ing vessel. Since her crew currently consists of three people and an AI, she has so much unused space that the crew hasn't even bothered to explore the entire ship. Which led to a rather weird turn of events in one episode when a HumanPopsicle in an unexplored corridor thawed out.

* Justified with the ''{{Andromeda}} Ascendant'', as it had originally a crew of several thousand. In fact, many of the hardships of the ridiculously small crew (for most of the series) are the fact that there are simply not enough people to do everything.

[[AC:TabletopGames]]
* While all Eldar vessels in ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer40000}}'' have smaller crews than the Imperial ones (which have comparable crew densities to modern warships), the Wraithships fit this trope. They are several kilometer long capital ships that might only have a single living soul on board [[hottip:*:Emphasis on ''living'', as the wraithships are piloted by the souls of dead Eldar within the ship's Infinity Circuit, with the one living being on board being the Spiritseer that helps guide the souls.]]

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* In ''Machinima/ClearSkies'', the titular ship is a Tempest-class battleship, approximately the same size as a [[StarWars Star Destroyer]]. It has a crew of less than five.

[[AC:WesternAnimation]]
* The ''Absolution'' from {{Toonami}} is incredibly huge, but it only has one operator ([=TOM=]) and a handful of assistants (The Cyldes). Considering its only used as a broadcast center, who knows what they need all that space for.
* The episode "Battle Of The Planets", from ''InvaderZim'', has ''the entire planet of Mars'' being converted into a giant spaceship, piloted by Zim. Later on, Mercury is also revealed to be a spaceship, which Dib promptly uses to fight Zim, leading to a hilarious montage of Zim and Dib bumping the planets into each other and actually ''dogfighting''. With ''planets''.

[[AC:RealLife]]
* The Titanic was deliberately built to be the largest ship in the world.

* In ''{{Alien}}'': Even allowing for lots of cargo room, the ship the movie takes place on has an astonishing number of empty corridors, service passageways, and xenomorph-sized hiding places.

** In ''HouseOfSuns'', each of the main characters has their own kilometers-long ship that they fly around in ''alone'' most of the time. One tense scene in the novel takes place in the cargo hold of a ship, which itself is akin to a vast cavern kilometers across.
* In [[StephenBaxter Stephen Baxter's]] XeeleeSequence universe: the Xeelee Nightfighter. The cockpit is small, about the size of a room, but it's ''wings'' stretch out for kilometers in either direction, like vast sails. The purpose of these wings are never made evident, as the ship itself travels via teleportation.
* Subverted/handwaved in EEDocSmith's book ''Skylark Of Valeron'': while the eponymous vessel was a sphere over 1000km in radius and has a crew of four, it needed to be that big to contain the navigational instruments necessary to cross intergalactic space.
* [[BigBad Ellis Billington]] in ''[[TheLaundrySeries The Jennifer Morgue]]'' has a yacht called the ''Mabuse''. For a certain value of "yacht", anyway: the thing is a demilitarized former Russian Navy ''Krivak III''-class missile frigate. She basically exists to say that Billington is richer than Croesus. With the missile tubes and other armament having been removed, she has more than enough space for a luxurious suite of rooms [[spoiler:and a well-equipped occult surveillance operation]].

* Lampshaded and called out in the ''StarWars'' EU. When a side character gripes that if the Empire were still around, they'd be better able to handle the latest galactic crisis, Han Solo snaps and says no, the Empire would have built some humongous, gaudy superweapon with a ridiculously foreboding name, which would then have been destroyed through some glaring weakpoint.

* May or may not be the case in AndreiLivadny's ''TheHistoryOfTheGalaxy'' series, at least according to the author's website. Flagship-class cruisers are noted as being nearly 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) long with a crew of about ''150'', and can actually run with no crew whatsoever thanks to InstantAIJustAddWater. Nowhere do the books justify ships of such size. One novel mentions that these cruisers carry a WaveMotionGun that takes up a ''fifth'' of its size but that's no justification for the rest of it. Another novel mentions a normal-sized cruiser (still over 5 kilometers) with a crew of 2000. For reference, the RealLife USS ''Nimitz'' is about 330 meters long and has a crew of 3200, and that's not even counting the air wing complement (2480).

* While all Eldar vessels in {{Warhammer40000}} have smaller crews than the Imperial ones (which have comparable crew densities to modern warships), the Wraithships fit this trope. They are several kilometer long capital ships that might only have a single living soul on board [[hottip:*:Emphasis on ''living'', as the wraithships are piloted by the souls of dead Eldar within the ship's Infinity Circuit, with the one living being on board being the Spiritseer that helps guide the souls.]]

* Referenced in ''MassEffect2'': the ''Normandy SR-2'' is considerably bigger than the first ''Normandy'', and comes equipped with a spacious Captain's cabin. Several characters comment on the fact that, while the Alliance builds its ships for efficiency, Cerberus (being a criminal organisation with no oversight) can build to impress. Also, the ''SR-2'' seemingly has fewer visible crew members than the ''SR-1''.

* Specifically averted in ''SwordOfTheStars'', where the smallest controllable ships are the destroyers, which are roughly 30 meters in length (for reference, a Space Shuttle is 56 meters long) with each subsequent class being 3 times the size. The only things smaller than destroyers are assault shuttles, boarding pods, and AttackDrones. The sequel plays it straight with the Leviathans, which are triple the size of dreadnoughts and are a ''huge'' investment of resources.

** For a close second in length, we have the ''Eclipse''-class super star destroyer from the ''DarkEmpire'' comics (17 km, and outmasses the ''Executor''-class). And by the ''NewJediOrder'' series the New Republic has a few such vessels of its own, specifically the ''Viscount''-class battleship, expressly designed as a counter to the Super Star Destroyer and its ilk.

* In Creator/TomHolt's ''Flying Dutch'', after the Flying Dutchman discovers that he's the richest person in the world, thanks to compound interest, he trades in his old ship for a used aircraft carrier. For his crew of less than a dozen.

** The Super Star Destroyer ''Executor''. It is canonically 19 kilometers long, and while it is a fully functional warship, it's purpose is clearly more symbolic of TheEmpire's vast resources. A fleet of smaller ships could easily accomplish the same thing.

* While not a starship, the Soviet "Akula"-class[[hottip:*:That class was known to NATO as the Typhoon. The sub class NATO identified as Akula was a smaller attack boat that the Russians called Shchuka ('pike').]] nuclear ballistic missile submarines qualify. Due to the massive size of the missiles it was supposed to carry, desperate Soviet engineers had no choice but to make it ridiculously big, with large empty areas - a disadvantage for a submarine. [[StarshipLuxurious They decided to fill said empty space with countless crew amenities]], which ended up making the vessel ''perfect'' for its intended purpose - hiding for months at a time under the water in case of nuclear war. The relatively large space and comfort made sure mental stability among the crew was easily maintained even in stressful situations.

* The [[PlanetSpaceShip Great Ship]] in the ''Literature/GreatShip'' universe is a massive ship larger than Jupiter which has hundreds of thousands - or millions - of massive caverns, vacuum tube trains, and with space ports large enough to fit entire worlds inside. Even with billions of paying passengers aboard, most of the ship's space is almost totally unused. Since it was discovered streaking towards the Milky Way with signs of having flown through intergalactic space for at least a ''billion'' years, with no crew or even any records, it's [[BigDumbObject original purpose is totally unknown.]]

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* In ''Film/{{Explorers}}'', the kids build a tiny spaceship -- smaller than an Apollo capsule. When they get to space, an alien spaceship takes control of it and sucks it into a docking bay. That ship is depicted with an interior big enough to get seriously lost in. Then a few scenes later, a ''much larger'' alien ship comes around and drags the first alien ship into one of ''its'' docking bays.

What happens when BiggerIsBetter is applied to ISOStandardHumanSpaceship. May overlap with StarshipLuxurious. May involve an EnormousEngine. For things that are larger and have even ''less'' use, see BigDumbObject. Compare UnnecessarilyLargeInterior, MileLongShip and AwesomeButImpractical.

What happens when BiggerIsBetter is applied to ISOStandardHumanSpaceship. May overlap with StarshipLuxurious. May involve an EnormousEngine. For things that are larger and have even ''less'' use, see BigDumbObject. Compare UnnecessarilyLargeInterior and AwesomeButImpractical.

* While not a starship, the Soviet "Akula"-class[[hottip:*:That class was known to NATO as the Typhoon.]] The sub class NATO identified as Akula was a smaller attack boat that the Russians called Shchuka ('pike') nuclear ballistic missile submarines qualify. Due to the massive size of the missiles it was supposed to carry, desperate Soviet engineers had no choice but to make it ridiculously big, with large empty areas - a disadvantage for a submarine. [[StarshipLuxurious They decided to fill said empty space with countless crew amenities]], which ended up making the vessel ''perfect'' for its intended purpose - hiding for months at a time under the water in case of nuclear war. The relatively large space and comfort made sure mental stability among the crew was easily maintained even in stressful situations.

* While all Eldar vessels in {{Warhammer40000}} have smaller crews than the Imperial ones (which have comparable crew densities to modern warships), the Hemlock-class destroyers fit this trope. They are escort ships carrying a pulse laser normally reserved for ''capital ships'', leaving precious little room for crew other than the gunners and steersmen. There's also the Wraithships, which are several kilometer long capital ships that might only have a single living soul on board [[hottip:*:Emphasis on ''living'', as the wraithships are piloted by the souls of dead Eldar within the ship's Infinity Circuit, with the one living being on board being the Spiritseer that helps guide the souls.]]

* ''Series/StargateSG1'' has Goa'uld ''Ha'tak''-class motherships that are 700 meters in length, pretty much entirely to scare the hell out of primitive cultures as it lands and/or bombards them from afar. Spacious ornate interiors predominate. And yet by the end of ''SG-1'', the ''Ha'tak'' is actually considered underpowered: the much more compact ''Prometheus''- and ''Daedalus''-class battlecruisers (195 meters and 225 meters respectively) immensely outgun it. AwesomeButImpractical is pretty much the standard Goa'uld design philosophy: as Jack O'Neill notes in "The Warrior" regarding their infantry weapons, the Goa'uld build their military technology to terrorize, whereas the Tau'ri design theirs to kill as efficiently as possible.

!Examples:

* While not a starship, the Soviet "Akula"-class[[hottip:*:That class was known to NATO as the Typhoon.]] The sub class NATO identified as Akula was a smaller attack boat that the Russians called Shchuka ('pike')]] nuclear ballistic missile submarines qualify. Due to the massive size of the missiles it was supposed to carry, desperate Soviet engineers had no choice but to make it ridiculously big, with large empty areas - a disadvantage for a submarine. [[StarshipLuxurious They decided to fill said empty space with countless crew amenities]], which ended up making the vessel ''perfect'' for its intended purpose - hiding for months at a time under the water in case of nuclear war. The relatively large space and comfort made sure mental stability among the crew was easily maintained even in stressful situations.