M
Malenfant
Guest
I've noticed a tendency in Traveller (and other scifi) to say that aliens tend to have ships that either look pretty much the same, or are just variations on a theme. Yet strangely enough human ships can have all the shapes and sizes under the sun? That's a bit weird.
In traveller, take a look at the Imperial ships:
Broadsword: Big spherical thing with legs
Tigress: Bigger spherical thing with front cut out
sundry battleships: various pig-ugly escheresque blocky things
Scout ship: Triangular wedge
Far Traders: rectangular with bulges and protruding cockpits
SDB: Rectangular wedge
Cutters: Cylinders
Donosev: Rectangles and triangles with a long pole sticking out front
Lab ship: hollow ring with a central bit
Quite a bit of variety there. So why should any other race have a single design theme either like "long thing with varying number of spherical pods around one end depending on what the ship is"?
for example (and yes, I'm generalising):
Hivers: Big blocks.
Vargr: Sleek wedges with spiky fins
Aslan: blobby ships
Droyne: Wedges with wings/fins
K'Kree: big saucers
And that's pretty much it for them. Why shouldn't the other races have as much variety as humans do?
In traveller, take a look at the Imperial ships:
Broadsword: Big spherical thing with legs
Tigress: Bigger spherical thing with front cut out
sundry battleships: various pig-ugly escheresque blocky things
Scout ship: Triangular wedge
Far Traders: rectangular with bulges and protruding cockpits
SDB: Rectangular wedge
Cutters: Cylinders
Donosev: Rectangles and triangles with a long pole sticking out front
Lab ship: hollow ring with a central bit
Quite a bit of variety there. So why should any other race have a single design theme either like "long thing with varying number of spherical pods around one end depending on what the ship is"?
for example (and yes, I'm generalising):
Hivers: Big blocks.
Vargr: Sleek wedges with spiky fins
Aslan: blobby ships
Droyne: Wedges with wings/fins
K'Kree: big saucers
And that's pretty much it for them. Why shouldn't the other races have as much variety as humans do?