Why are alien ships all the same?

[Malenfant]

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?

 

[aramis]

For the K'Kree, their society is mono-cultural and xenophobic. Ships which do not conform will be constantly questioned. Besides, their psychopathology requires huge wide open flat spaces.

In this one case, it is nothing but extrapolation from the racial psych.

In the case of the Aslan, I can see reduced variation, not a total lack.

 

[Malenfant]

OK, the K'Kree is fairly understandable. But the rest?

I mean, Hivers are pretty individualistic, so you'd expect their ships to be at least as varied (if not more so) than humans'. There's no reason why the other races shouldn't have ships that are radically different from 'the norm' that is described in the books so far. Heck, humans don't even *have* a norm when it comes to ship design...

And what's to stop other races from using ships that aren't their own? There's no reason why you couldn't have Vargr corsairs in human ships. Or Hiver ships used by Aslan. Or Aslan in Droyne ships. Each bringing their own unique decorations and extra widgets to the design (and sure, some ships would need some modification, but that's not a big deal).

 

[mike wightman]

It's been mentioned that the Solomani are often influenced by Aslan hull design.

As to the rest, I agree with Mal, there should be more variety.

And I like the idea of mixed designs...

 

[Andrew Boulton]

Big spiky fins make ships look aggressive and bigger than they actually are, which would appeal to Vargr.

Aslan just seem to like curves.

IKWYM, it's a bit lazy, perhaps, but it's convenient, and there's no reason why races *can't* have their own prefered styles.

 

[bryan gibson]

Well, while its not a satisfying answer, I could point out that alien designs are, on the whole, a fraction of the ships represented in illustrations. I myself have illustrated something like over 150 individual designs of human vessel. But compared to that is maybe a dozen of aliens.

And why? Simply put, that’s what I get paid to do! When the publishers are paying for human vessels by the supplement full (Fighting Ships was nearly forty such) then you can expect to see that kind of variation. I'd attach the same sensibilities to alien vessels...but have never been hired to do so by any Traveller publisher (I turned out a mountain of illos for AOG and B5, in the late nineties and 2000, so I can say that variations are not merely possible but desirable)

Now, while I'm not trying to sound a snot, the fact is I do this for a living - meaning that the paying work always gets priority. I have done the odd alien here and there, but generally speaking if I'm drawing recreationally I'm not looking to do beucoup ship designs unless its something that catches my interest.

Most other pros tend to feel the same in my experience, and this means unless a publisher comes down the pike with a check, alien variations don't much see light of day.

That also means its probably in the hands of fans, unless someone can convince a publisher its worth money to put out a book of alien vessels (which I wouldn’t mind seeing, actually) and that’s in no way a bad thing – there’s some astounding work being done by fans – but practically speaking, I think that’s the reason for the limitation more than any single thing.

 

[sid6.7]

well i think for "gaming" its always been
a convienient "bias/laziness?" i guess...alot
of games, NOT ALL games, tend to generalize alien
ships/equipment and give more variety to
"human" ships...in early star trek times
you'll see this... all the romulans or klingons
had the same kinda ships...etc..etc..now-
adays it may be different in star trek
but back then they did that..

star wars kinda did the same thing too
the "empire" had pertty much the one
style of ship and tie fighter whereas
the "rebels" had variety of ships and fighters..

it could be also a subliminal "freedom"
VS "conformity" thing too....freedom = variety
conformity = dictatorship/status quo?


you know what i mean?

 

[archhealer]

Well, you can always make a few varied ships, and keep just a few stylistic constants. For example, human ships, in general, tend to have the "Bridge" at the front of the ship, with windows lookig out. Not all of them have that, but many do. Is there a good reason for it? Not really. They just like it.

So maybe for the Aslan, you couold keep the blobby, bulbous look but have a few which are elongated cylindrical things with bulbs on the ends, egg shaped hulls, flattened out tubes with big bulbous projections out the sides. They'd have a similiar feel, but still be varied.

As for the HIvers, I imagine most of their ships would be built primarily for function over form. Personally specific though the Hivers are, they are (Unless I'm misinterpreting the little I've read about them) Very long term goal oriented; so their ships would often be extremely utilitarian, thus the blocky structure. It's space efficient, easy to build, and keeps everything close together and easy to access. I can see this design being really useful in a wide variety of applications, and I imagine the Hivers would be in favor of using a tried and true design, to put their focus more on their other goals.

 

[The Hinterworlds Rambler]

I can see it in some cases as being sensible, at least when we talk about the early days of star travel. Building Starships at first would be a BIG undertaking for any culture. Consider how long the Space Shuttle has been in our collective attention.

Aslan ships have a traditional methodology applied to design and construction, but there are many variants of course to "Pods on Sticks" the post prominent variant is the size of the pod being varied.

Zhodani are also very traditional and have a distinct "look" to them too.

Vargr I generally apply that it must be fast/cool looking. Ostentatious but with a hint of alien sensibility. Considering thier culture, it makes a lot of sense that there would be a lot of variation, as each ship is personalized by the users.

Hivers only want us to think that the ships are all boxes. I try to vary them quite a bit. One that's a hoop almost in shape.

K'Kree use two variants. One, yes is a Flying Saucer, but a flying saucer with a portable ecology in it. That is a pretty cool concept. The other main design variant is concentric hulls, even transparent ones. Then there is the idea that they are all pretty huge ships.

Droyne... always consider that these are hand built ships, and hand built by aliens. So I tend to make them wierd. A PC has one (and is a Droyne to boot) and it is a TL G ship.

Sols have a NASA like sense to them by and large for me, likewise for Julians, Sword Worlders, and Vilani designs are more "flowy" as they are also steeped in design traditions.

Star Trek may have conditioned us so. To think that there is a set methodology for ships.

Considering the length of time sophonts have been in space in Traveller, and the levels of interaction, all these styles and methods would mix over time in totally new and unpredicted ways. All bets should be off with it.

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by Malenfant:
Why shouldn't the other races have as much variety as humans do?

Do we really know enough from canon to say with any certainty that they don't? The number of alien ships designs compared to human ships is very low - we have a few general guiding design principles, but the constraints they represent are pretty minimal when you think about it, with plenty of room for variety in most cases.

 

[Scarecrow]

Visual Queues. We naturally assume that all ships are human unless otherwise stated by their design. Aliens have distinctive features so that we not only recognise them as non-Solomani but also which particular species they are. Vargr have those (bloody stupid looking, comedy sci-fi, Flash Gordon style) forward swept wings. The Aslan have lion-paw looking ships. Etc etc. You can look at a ship and say, that's Droyne, that's Hiver. Otherwise you look at it and assume it's Solomaniii.

I'm actually the opposite on this. I don't want alien ships to have visual variants, I want Imperial ships (naval and Merchant) to have some sort of uniformity. Oh, and not looking like a load of old toss would help too, but enough of that.

Crow

 

[aramis]

The only thing distinctive about hiver ships IMTU is that the decks are 1.5m tall, not 3, and tend to have few sharp corners... makes them more tunnel like, and is extrapolated from the AM:Hiver description of their general trends in architecture.

Solomani ships tend to have narrower halls and smaller cabins. Plus hull mounted fixed weapons in addition to turrets on "player scale" ships. (AM Solomani, S&A) An avoidance of the Flying Saucers...

Since some droyne vessels are hand-crafted one-offs, they can vary quite a bit; the rest are adaptations of human designs made by humans.

 

[darktanwun]

Humans are something we are familar with & aliens are a mystery?

How come alien ships don't have alien technology beyond our comprehension? The things we do with electricity are pretty amazing to me, would aliens be able to do equally amazing things with light, sound, biotechnology, fluidics, time, psionics, chemistry... What about other aspects like social sciences & things we are barely have words for like awareness of self & being in harmony with the world around us?

 

[TheEngineer]

Hmm, perhaps because Traveller assumes, that the same physics are valid for everybody in the TU.
So as the aliens (if there are any real aliens) have to deal with the same physics the usablity is a bit directed here, too.
What I personally really would like to see more are perhaps results of aliens, which are more focussed on biotechnology and genetics.
BTW, do we have a bio-focussed Traveller race already ?

 

[mike wightman]

Not really, bio-tech is one of those areas that Traveller didn't really get into.

That said:

the Solomani genetically modified people and animals

the Imperium is seeding an ocean world, Nexine, in the SM with biologicall modified humans

androids in Traveller are artificial biological beings, not just anthropomorphic mechanical robots - think THS bioroid or Bladerunner replicant

some genetic experiments have appeared in a few adventures - usually as monsters out to kill the party.

I've brought the Pentapod race from T2300 into MTU.

 

[TheEngineer]

So biotech is usually reduced to manipulation of somewhat existing.

Whats the Pentapod race, Sigg ?

 

[mike wightman]

They are an aquatic, squid like, race who use a lot of bio-tech, and sell bio-tech engineered for human use.

There is a big secret to them though...

 

[TheEngineer]

Well, where could I read about the secret ?

Anybody knows John Brunners "The Crucible of Time" ?

 

[mike wightman]

Over in the playtest T2320 forum, or I could PM it...

 

[Sifu Blackirish]

Why shouldn't the other races have as much variety as humans do?

They probably do...but it's a matter of economics, as one poster put it. Since it's about getting paid, they may never see the light of day.

Just re-read (for the nth time) Trillion Credit Squadron a few days ago. Noticed that there are variants in jump/acceleration capacity, fueling options, etc. at each new build cycle. We see a great variety of human vessels because design philosophy changes frequently. Look at the development of jet aircraft, now in the sixth generation or so, and you can see conservative and radical designs.

This would be no different for alien cultures, although I do tend to extrapolate some designs across the whole spectrum...a fighter looks somewhat similar to a battlecruiser built at the same TL, but there would be other older designs, perhaps in some backwater or preserved by outcasts by necessity.

I just wish I could draw worth a tinker's damn so I could really see what I designed...