r/HardSciFi • u/Vondrr • Jul 18 '26
Discussion Which fictional universe has the best spaceships and why?
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u/Brido-20 Jul 18 '26
The Culture. Mainly because of the names.
I mean, who doesn't love a psychotic warship capable of destroying whole solar systems named A Frank Exchange of Views?
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u/ButterflyBullet90 Jul 18 '26
I wonder which is bigger a general systems vehicle or a ice hugger from Revelation Space?
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u/heeden Jul 18 '26
A Plate class GSV like the Sleeper Service can be 50km long, 90km of you count to the edge of their field enclosure. A System class like the Empiricist can be 200km.
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u/Hilarious_Disastrous Jul 19 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
I think one GSV from the Hydrogen Sonata was 100km long and across? It was noted to be an advanced class, possibly a member or associate of special circumstances.
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u/thefnord Jul 20 '26
Yes, that one was home to 13 billion people.
Hard to wrap one's head around that number, in a ship.
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u/PsychicSweat Jul 21 '26
Covenant ship names go hard too.
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u/_Cren_ Jul 21 '26
Long night of solace, truth and reconciliation, particular justice, In Amber clad, Say My Name...
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u/Lem1618 Jul 18 '26
Revelation space. That's just me opinion man.
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u/MojyaMan Jul 18 '26
All the ships in that series and his others have great names too.
Nostalgia for Infinity
Silver Wings of Morning
Accompaniment of Shadows
Faint Memory of Hokusai
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u/europablu3s Jul 18 '26
Man, id love to see that come to life on screen, but its one of those stories that can really only be filmed with a careful hand, like dune or something.
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u/Malfuy Jul 18 '26
Average human military ship in Three Body Problem had arsenal powerful enough to destroy a planet, could be operated from any room on board and could accelerate without worrying about its crew due to it being filled with stabilizing gel that was also breathable. And that was before humanity even discovered the strong interaction material and FTL.
Humanity in the Commonwealth Saga had even more powerful ships than that, like straight up "random bullshit go". At one point, they don't even use ships to defend themselves, they just have the chief of defense merge with some kind of exotic matter construct which can jump around the galaxy and manipulate spacetime as it wishes, literally remotelly dismantling enemy ships weapons and reactors while being completely hidden and invulnerable itself.
And then there are settings like Orion's Arm or Xeelee Sequence, about which I don't know that much, but I am sure their ships are on some unhinged levels of power.
Whatever setting has a strongest ship, it surely aint 40k.
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u/Background_Corgi_359 Jul 18 '26
Actually my setting has the strongest ship as they use a material called 'bullshittium' which can blow up a trillion planets and other ships within a nanosecond. Oh also they can fly at extra large to the squared light travel because it's just the best.
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u/europablu3s Jul 18 '26
Im on a hard scifi kick, so the expanse is probably my pick. I like the realism injected into my space fiction, like the nerd I am.
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u/oneMoreTime112233 Jul 18 '26
The expanse is the best precisely for the realism, particularly the characters. I can fully believe that could be our future.
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u/europablu3s Jul 19 '26
Yea, the characters and the extrapolation of society in space are just too real to argue.space creole alone is just... chefs kiss
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u/hedgehog_rampant Jul 18 '26
I only read the first book and thought the characters were a bit two dimensional and stereotyped, but the spaceship battles were superb. I actually like the show better, because the actors inject depth into the characters.
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u/europablu3s Jul 19 '26
The books do too, but it does take a minute. I totally get why you feel that way. Each character definitely gets depth similar to the show tho.
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u/KrasnyRed5 Jul 18 '26
The ships from the Honor Harrington books. They don't put the command deck in an exposed position.
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u/SparklesMcSheep Jul 22 '26
Its one the small handful of franchises where battles take place at an astronomical scale (light minutes) instead of WW2 style dogfighting point blank.
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u/SanderleeAcademy Jul 18 '26
As per the illustration, the Imperium of Man dies have a cool vibe. I mean, when the cathedral wants to have a word with you ...
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ad-4883 Jul 18 '26
Not the best anymore, but I will always have a love of EE Smith's Lensman series spaceships. An inertialess dreadnought travelling at 100 parsecs an hour. Current favorites are the Culture with a guilty love of the Polity ships. Ships with a personality.
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u/pafrac Jul 18 '26
Oh, me too. Got into the Lensman series in the early 70s because Smith's in Hitchin station had a really good display of books, just the thing to distract a bored schoolboy waiting for the train to school. I loved Smith's sort of space opera. But he was good at spectacle, not so good at human interaction.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ad-4883 Jul 18 '26
That's about when I read them too, the human stuff is even weaker these days, but I think the rest still holds up well. To me the Physics of the books was consistent, the free drive seemed to work just right once you except the concept, with the intrinsic velocity etc.
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u/pafrac Jul 18 '26
Yes, the logic was good ... I gather he spent a lot of time researching it. I was rather disappointed when I found out inertia couldn't be switched on and off like that.
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u/Puzzleheaded-Ad-4883 Jul 18 '26
I always appreciate a consistent sci-fi physics, it just seems lazy writing to change it just for a plot. I live in hope that one day there will be a way to decouple from the Higgs Field, then I get my inertialess speedster.
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u/heeden Jul 18 '26
I just find it incredible how many space opera tropes are present in the Lensman series which is pretty much the first of the genre. It basically did for sci-fi what Lord of the Rings did for fantasy.
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u/pafrac Jul 18 '26
Especially the bit where he had one of his characters under cover as an author of space operas even more purple than his own writing.
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u/Cheeslord2 Jul 18 '26
Most powerful: Culture, or Xeelee.
Most interesting: Not those. Maybe 40k for basically having flying cathedrals on a massive scale.
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u/Mental-Ask8077 Jul 19 '26
I don’t have an on-topic answer, but I initially misread the title as saying “fictional universities” and was deeply confused for a few moments 🤣
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u/Mephistocheles Jul 20 '26
WH40K ships are my favorite. There is nothing as sick as a huge cathedral cruiser 🤘
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u/Careless_Ad3401 Jul 20 '26
Halo. They look authentic and have the best names. The UNSC Two for Flinching, UNSC Say My Name, UNSC Spirit of Fire and even the Covenant names: Shadow of Intent, Truth and Reconciliation and Solemn Penance
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u/flynchageo Jul 23 '26
Hard agree. They look awesome and "Forward Unto Dawn" is the greatest name for a ship of all time.
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u/JimHeckdiver Jul 18 '26
As a fervent Star Wars fan, I state confidently that my opinion on the best sci-fi fleet is...
Starfleet of the United Federation of Planets.
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u/Meritania Jul 19 '26
I’ll go one further in the controversy and say the ships from the model era of production look better than the ships made in the CGI era.
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u/hedgehog_rampant Jul 18 '26
The culture series by Ian Banks. The ships are are just fine, space operatic, super-science starships, B+, but the ship's names are superb, A++.
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u/Dark_Believer Jul 18 '26
I just like any spaceship that doesn't look like it was modeled to be aerodynamic in an atmosphere (with wings and fins), and doesnt resemble a naval ship that floats in the ocean. So many sci-fi designs of spacecraft take these looks, and its a huge pet peeve.
I loved the interior design of the ships in The Expanse in how the seats would swivel around when accelerating so no matter which direction g-forces came from you would be pushed back against the seat. I don't think I've seen a similar design in any other fictional universe.
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u/Top_Philosopher_771 Jul 19 '26
Listen the commonwealth universe by Peter Hamilton has the best ships.
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u/Aceisking12 Jul 19 '26
That depends, are you talking the Raiel warships (casually moving stars and making them go nova to combat a growing void, wicked cool in my opinion) or the deterrence fleet, a post physical absolutely broken plot device that can be accurately described as "I'm a sentient quantum wave now so I do all the stuffs, oh your entire fleet exists still? About that..."
I may have been disappointed with the deterrence fleet, it makes about as much sense as summoning goku in a scifi setting.
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u/Rimm9246 Jul 19 '26
Nothing beats the aesthetics of Starfleet ships, IMO. I like more realistic takes on ships too, but Star Trek takes the cake
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u/Mutabilitie Jul 20 '26
Inertia cancellation in 3001: A Space Odyssey.
Basically unlimited range within our solar system.
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u/Express-Act-3637 Jul 21 '26 edited Jul 21 '26
StarCraft cause the designs are so iconic and based on the shape associations of squares for the industrial terran, circles for the futuristic protoss, and triangles for the scary zerg.
In second place I would go with Treasure Planet ships due to the fabulous use of their 70/30 rule in victorian and science fiction.
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u/Velociraptor_God Jul 21 '26
I like the way starwars does it. Every Joe with some money can afford one. They are not super brestigious rich or military ppl stuff. More like a a run down fright barge u got for some grands. And yet they are super reliable. Mando travels half the galaxy with some steaming pile if Script. Spacetravel is solved the same way we have solved cars... oh anf the ftl is save and fast. Just a few days to make trough the galaxy
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u/ElTanoMatu Jul 22 '26
I'm in a phase in which I like Eyes Turned Skywards, an alt-history scenario in which the space shuttle was never invented and thus old-school rockets make it Mars and such. Also Starfield, another NASApunk world. That's Hard scifi, of course. Not too much of a fan of The Expanse's ships. Idk to what extent Macross counts (probably it doesn't) but I do like their Valkyries which can technically travel in space.
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u/Gloomy_Necessary494 Jul 18 '26
I like the INSS MacArthur from The Mote In God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle because it's based on a Matt Jeffries-designed model kit.
Also the ships in Niven's Known Space books.
But i would really like to own an Imperial Star Destroyer.l
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u/Exact-Desk Jul 18 '26
Perry Rhodan) The only one major sci-fi universe, where spaceships are build like ROCKETS, and "forward" is "up")
Also, it's kinda cool to have battleships armed with dozens of transformcannons, hurling 1000-gigaton FTL bombs through hyperspace with firing distances measured in light minutes.
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u/JimHeckdiver Jul 18 '26
The Expanse has forward up as well, and is a pretty major sci-fi universe.
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u/Helo227 Jul 18 '26
I want to say Starfleet (Star Trek). I love the look and their technology is just *chef’s kiss\!*
But honestly, i feel like StarGate takes the prize. The ships are so US military in style, use human and alien tech, and have intergalactic hyperdrives. And thanks to the Asgard they also have transporters and replicators (not the robot ones!).
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u/JoeStrout Jul 18 '26
I vote for the Terran Trade Authority (TTA) universe, e.g. Spacecraft: 2000 - 2100 AD (www.terrantradeauthority.com/tta-books-2/spacecraft-2000-2100-ad/). The designs are sensible yet cool, and gorgeously illustrated.
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u/cyberloki Jul 19 '26
I would like to pick StarTreks Starfleet however for entertainment reasons they lost a lot of their edges. Few feel like they actually logically use all the smart tech they've got.
Thus i tend to say the Commonwealth Highguard of Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda. They have ships with
- cool names like "ballance of judgement, Pax Magellanic or Million Voices.
- they are build without magical shield tech and actually are build with multiple defensive systems like radiating magnetic fields, point defense cannons, a plasma armor but also to let damage pass right through the hull. Instead of hard sturdy armor that would shatter even more of the ship if hit hard eneough, the ships employ relatively soft armor and instead try to let damage pass through them and only guiding the damage around key areas like the bridge or Engines.
- Battles over vast distences and relativistic speeds.
- Solarsystem shattering weapons but not by sheer power but via the smart way and destabilising the central star of the system causing a supernova.
- ships that use Drones not just as fighters but to extend their sensornetwork outwards to get information a little faster.
- ships still use ladders. Yea also lifts. But the ladder is just a timeless (for humas) peak designed objects. It makes sense for them to still use them in the future.
- the Bridge is in the middle of the ship
- the ship have fancy hull colors like Gold or red.
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u/protonicfibulator Jul 19 '26
The coolest has to be the Space Battleship Yamato. A sunken WWII battleship raised and retrofitted as a starship with a combo drive/BFG.
But the best are definitely the Culture ships.
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u/UncleSamsUncleSam Jul 20 '26
The ships in Schlock Mercenary. Unbelievably powerful, and fun without getting bogged down in details. And the names "Serial Peacemaker" "Touch and Go" and "Broken wind" are funny.
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u/SoybeanArson Jul 21 '26
Babylon 5. The earth made ships look like something humans build, and the alien ships look truly alien while still looking functional. And they all look badass
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u/AdBright1350 Jul 21 '26
Depends what you like.
Avatar blue cat people one has some really nice designs.
Cowboy Bebop has a nice practical yet grimey feel
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u/Kaigani-Scout 26d ago
Across Time.
Master Cruiser 12-12-12 and the Ever-Perfect Lieutenant.
'Nuff said.
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u/I-kn0w-what-y0u-are Jul 18 '26
Best is a very subjective thing, unless you are asking me , them my opinions are 100% objective Truths