How To Make A Spaceship Look Terrifying
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 มี.ค. 2023
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Spacedock delves into the art of making a spaceship look suitably menacing.
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Cripple their warp drive with your first shot, shields with your immediate second and communication with an express delivery third. Let your opponent throw everything they've got at you and let them SEE its does nothing.
Do NOT communicate, TAKE!
Spacedock. Has anyone mentioned that the Shrike is almost a direct rip-off of the Vorlon Cruiser in Babylon 5 yet?
Check out the Siege Perilous class from Andromeda...
forgot another, the Cylon Raider from BSG
Cool piece of trivia about the Shrike's sound: It's actually an electronic instrument called a Blaster Beam. It was used to make the signature sound of V'ger in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and is also the sound of the seismic charges used in Attack of the Clones and Mandalorian.
I'm surprised you covered the Shadow ships without mentioning the trait that makes them stay unsettling even after we see them defeated: when destroyed, instead of blowing to pieces, Shadow ships wither and curl up like dead spiders.
Oh great point! Or the "scream" that comes with them as they fly past!
Or the fact they have no up or down, so they don't orient themselves when they come out of the dark. They just fly at their enemy, and fire from any side of themselves. They have no 'weak points' because there's no engines to kill, no weapons to blow up. you gotta kill the beast to end its threat. It's gotta be scary as hell to see those Shadow spider ships just cartwheeling out of space, or spinning 'backward' until their legs face you, or however they decide they want to fight you.
Actually he should mention Vorlon battlecruiser with 2 spikes like that ship from Picard!
Aye in space nobody can hear you scream, except if it's a shadow battle crab
That scream! 😱
Like you say, as with the Borg and the Shadows, anything can be scary if its unknown and doesn’t visibly and functional conform to how things are expected to work
Its a deep primal fear for humans, fear of the unknown
I think the shadows added to it with the way they would switch orientation when they would attack. Again, that sense that they operated under different rules.
@@harbour2118 yeah, the fear of something that doesn’t fit
Non-Euclidean geometry for the win
Not really. Anything that visibly looks like it shouldn't work...actually doesn't work. That kind of thing only works in movies and crap. And only on dumb animals. At that point it's just a bluff, and only an idiot falls for it.
For me it was the first reaver ship in Firefly ep. 1.
From its almost reanimated corpse design, to its background description and slow forboding speed was just screaming deep space horror to say the least.
@@Mitchz95 I'd agree with this, the crew reaction gives the hard sell, kudos to the actors. Although something about the Reavers never made sense to me, their description implies madness, violence and chaos, yet they manage to operate, maintain, modify and crew complicated Spacecraft.... Maybe they just remember their spacefaring skills from before they went insane? but I can't imagine them organising themselves into a functioning crew.
@@UnluckyFriedKitten I always assumed Reavers had varying degrees of madness. The almost-rational ones captain, fly, and jerry-rig the ship, while the foaming-at-the-mouth psychos stay in the hold until they're needed for a boarding action.
@@UnluckyFriedKitten They do remember. The RPG states clearly that the Reavers are crazy, not stupid.
Sound design really plays into the fear factor, that super deep infrasound rumble that reapers war-horns produce is shiver inducing
That, and the other end of the frequency spectrum, the shrill screams of the shadow vessels, especially when you learn just how fucked up the pilot's augmentations get, and how the sound is literally in people's heads as they move.
It's not just the imagined sound of the ship in flight, but the sound they make by being near them. Even in hard vacuum.
yea you have to set the mood.
And the Shadows and that nightmare screaming sound they made
The TIE fighter is not especially scarey looking, but the sound more than made up for the basic appearance.
@@garyrobbins283 Yeah, that distinct high-pitch howling is iconic.
Homeworld: Cataclysm had a fantastic idea of terrifying ships. The concept of the Beast was a lifeform that, once it got onboard, would consume and convert the crew into bioorganic circuitry mended into the working parts of the ship. Eventually, the ship's hull would turn red and gore on the sides with beam emitters, and they would start to chase you to continue spreading itself. If they got close, the beam emitters would fire and spread themselves to the next ship, almost like a virus.
See also: when the oldest, most powerful race in-universe, the Bentusi, flee in terror, you know shit's gone bad!
The mothership they grow out of the Kuun-Lan’s lower deck also has that spiky, skeletal look. And its voice… both the beacon-beast and the Naggarok talk in such an ominous way. I absolutely love Cataclysm, sucks that it didn’t get remastered.
I have nothing useful to add to this except for one single thing: I fucking love Homeworld.
The Naggarok was pretty creepy, too. If nothing else, the fact that it _literally eats your ships._
Yes, the way the beast is brought to you by the story with the sound of true horror on the ships and the infection creeping over the existing exterior.
Certainly a great force of evil that should be mentioned.
Loved how The Empire Strikes Back took that to a new level... When you see the Imperial Star Destroyer get literally shadowed by The Executor. A massive Super Star Destroyer who's main purpose is to instill fear...
Then later, just to scale things up, the Executor eventually crashes into the Death Star which absolutely dwarfs it in size.
@@StormSpotter342 While it definitely dwarfs it, the curvature should've been visible at that scale. A minor nitpick, fun thing is they actually fixed that in the Battlefront II revamp of that scene, which is very neat.
Ya scale is definitely scarry. Like no way we can deal with that. Died to 1 fighter crash. So lame design
@@Eclispestar I've never been convinced it was just the one fighter crash that did it.
Ackbar had just told the whole rebel fleet to concentrate fire, that's a lot of capital ships blasting at once
Grievous' flagship in Episode 3 falls out of the sky after being hit by too many broadsides, so it can happen 🤷♂️
Please. The Executor’s main job was not to instill fear. It was just another command ship.
There’s a scene in the Voyager episode “Scorpion” where a fleet of Borg cubes fly past Voyager, and you get a good impression of not just their size, but also their ludicrous power level, because they absolutely scream across the screen. The things are city-sized blocks of heavy metal, and they don’t look like they should be quick, but they accelerate even faster than the Delta Flyer. The sound design also does a good job selling just how much momentum and power is behind their movements. No wonder resistance is futile
Yeah and the way their wake just throws voyager off, ignoring them entirely after a quick scan as an afterthought.
Really shows the scale of the borg. It would be interesting to see a federation borg war.
For me, you can never beat the Frankenstein cobbled together look, such as what the Borg have going on. They aren't trying to scare you, such concerns are beneath them, their ships look the way they do because of pragmatism and not ego.
And that in its own sense is a unique flavor of terror
Honestly as a guy that loves greeblies, the borg cubes are pretty beautiful to me
The Reaver ships from Firefly and the Serenity movie. Imagine being chased down by some messed up freighter decorated with human bones.
fo sho… big and pointy villain ships just seem silly to me, but something that disregards all the established conventions, like a Cube, is so unsettling.
We are Borg. Hull plating is irrelevant. You will be assimilated.
The Event Horizon is a very scary ship. Massiv in size, yet looking skeletal, with those thin but massiv wings at the back, almost like claws waiting to grasp forward. And the ominous sound scape in the rendezvous and docking scene. You can just feel that although it is a ship built by humans, there is something alien and scary about it.
It’s also in the shape of a cross which contrasts nicely with the distinctly unholy things within, (the pagan and therefore unholy origins of the crucifix symbol itself not withstanding)
Have you ever seen one of the videos that talks about the theory that Event Horizon happens in the 40k universe? Awesome stuff, good call on the Event Horizon that ship was creepy AF! 😊
@@corsayr9629 I am very familiar with the 40K fan theory. And I can totally understand how it came across.
Yes, it's partly because the Event Horizon was an FTL-capable vessel that got fucked up by eldritch influences, but also because the ship itself looked pretty cathedral-like in its design.
@@GmodPlusWoW The way hyperspace works in Event Horizon is nothing like 40k, so... however much we'd like these two connected, it's just not the case :/
That "skeletal" look is also what made the USG Ishimura look so ominous in my eyes. The protruding Hull segments make it look like a cathedral and an exposed ribcage at the same time. Brilliant.
One thing you didn’t mention about the Shadows vessels is the sound they make. Their metallic sounding scream as they fly past just adds to their menace!
I'd always interpreted that as a psychic "sound". No less unsettling. Just a personal view of it.
@@argentaegis that's not just your personal take, that sound is literally a psychic scream of the pilot. That's the pilot making that noise.
@@ShiftyMcGoggles I'd assumed it was the vessel itself, to the extent it is distinct from the pilot at that point. They're always described as having that scream, but the pilots weren't always psi. Either way, it's just creepy.
@@argentaegis Yeah. why is the nightmarish space spider ship...Screaming? What does it know? Why Is It Screaming!!?
That scream ALWAYS creeped me out even it the Shadow ship was simply flying along.
The Shivan Sathanas from Freespace 2 had the most terrifying presence I've ever saw in a spaceship. It has a vibe of a gigantic spider reaching out for its prey with its 4 forward spikes, and the Reaper-like scale and numbers. But the most terrifying thing about it was the fact that the Shivans had an incomprehensible, mysterious, and terrifying objective that you were only a small obstacle on the way towards. All you could do was to run, burning bridges behind you and praying that that nightmarish armada had no way to follow you.
Sathanas had four giant forward spikes decades before Star Trek.
Was going to post a similar thing!
And it was cemented by that one Mission where you jump in and are immediately screamed at by your wing mate to 'PULL UP! PULL UP PILOT AND HIT YOUR BURNERS!!"
Your first view is that massively huge Sathanas filling your screen. You are about to become a bug on someone's uncaring window.
That mission is enshrined in my brain as Top Jumpscare for any sci fi space game.
@@michaelmoronez5980 DIVE DIVE DIVE, HIT YOUR BURNERS PILOT!!!
Came here for the Sathanas comments.
@@Suralin0 Even just reading that comment, I got chills. Can you imagine being 1 of 4 pilots in alien space fighters, in enemy territory where the enemy clearly has enough firepower to wipe out both the Terrans and Vasudans without breaking any kind of sweat (if Shivans sweat at all)?
I always thought the Goa'uld Ha'tak was a very imposing design. It stops being impressive as the series progresses and more powerful vessels are introduced, but there's something about it that is just awe-inspiring.
The wrath of Kahn is a masterclass on how to make a spaceship look menacing. The angles used the music and tension in the scenes do most of the work while the ship itself is stout, boxy and compact compared to the enterprise's bird-like features. No silly spikes needed.
Especially given that anyone who watched DS9 will have seen miranda's get blown to bits in every major battle. Khan makes you forget you are looking at starfleet's future cannon fodder.
@@RXdash78 yeah, the FX team got REALLY lazy with the dominion war visuals. At the time there just weren't a lot of reliable federation ship models to use and CGI on a television budget was not going to cut it compared with the more traditional model shots they'd used in the show before. I remember watching it while it aired and seeing the exact same shot of two Miranda's getting destroyed while flanking the defiant that it became a running joke. The scale inconsistencies in those shots would just get worse and worse.
@@RookRiot1 In fairness to the DS9 VFX folks, Next Gen had even worse problems in that regard. While the Excelsior class's service life has just become part of Star Trek canon, for quite a while it seemed like Starfleet took an eighty year pause in ship development before they built the Galaxy class.
@@mattrobson3603 there was the enterprise-c design that I thought looked a lot better than the enterprise-d if they would have used that design aesthetic to flesh out more ships from that middle. You probably would have seen a lot of them used in the Dominion war buried in the archives there is a design called the centaur I think which is a kitbash of a few different ships using excelsior parts which looks as if it serves the same role as the Miranda/reliant. The next generation is the one that's really responsible for the magical shape-shifting bird-of-prey though.
Completely different but also scary, Swarms of ships that move together like a flock.
They have the menace of piranha, you _know_ they can just overwhelm you by their numbers because you can't shoot them all.
Just like in Star Trek: Beyond? That was a pretty good enemy force to throw against Starfleet.
- hoojiwana from Spacedock
Or the buggers from Enders Game, when they swarm its time to bring out the Little Doctor.
@@hoojiwana Honestly not a fan of them, they seem to break the rule you mentioned with the Narada vs Borg Cube. It invokes the visuals of a vast hive-like swarm, meanwhile the main bad guy is a normal (albeit genetically modified) guy and even has his own distinct ship amongst the drones. It's not necessarily writing checks it can't cash, but it's cheap that the BBEG is not a "queen bee" or "hivemind" but just a normal individual in a personalized craft when they're trying to evoke this swarm aesthetic. Felt narratively dissonant.
The Cylon battle stars
Huge armadas are really a different kind of scary. In _Doctor Who_ (2005) a first season episode revealed an entire armada of Dalek saucers just serenely spinning as they waited to strike. (Although the Murray Gold score and actors' reactions sold the menace.)
Also ... "Target the Reavers. Target the Reavers! Target everyone! SOMEBODY FIRE!"
Cylon Raider.
Also the Narada was originally a Romulan mining ship that was augmented with Borg technology so they really missed an opportunity to show us something that was initially unknown and intimidating but as we get a better look at it becomes a little more familiar.
Definitely the Shadow ship. Their shape and movement and supreme destructiveness is awe- and terror-inspiring, but the mind scream (also the waking scream) is what makes it so absolutely terrifying.
The four frontal spikes design was used by the shivan's Ravana and Sathanas classes in Freespace 2 back in 1999. It's worth noting that they are both introduced by appearing out of the fog and deleting one of your capital ships in a single volley
Man, the Shivans were nightmare fuel. Even more after playing Blue Planet
Great video as always! Sovereign emerging from the clouds during the battle of the citadel, illuminated either by some electrical storm from the Widow nebula, or some weapons fire, only to smash through the Turian ship like a bug on a wind shield is one of my favourite cinematics in all of Mass Effect. It really impresses it's scale and how formidable it truly is, which makes its subsequent destruction all the sweeter
The music really helps sell this as well- the twin bangs of the drum against a silent backdrop as sovereign's fleet arrives and unleashes their opening salvo, then straight into the crescendo as that salvo lands and decimates the citadel defence fleet.
Chef's kiss.
Babylon 5 is an interesting example, because they managed to make the Vorlon ships ALSO creepy and alien, but in a slightly different direction.
In it's defense, the Narada is kinda a mix of Romulan Philosophy and borg tech. In the lead up comic to the film, the story of how the Narada went from pokey little Romulan Mining vessel into a giant space thistle is shared. After the supernova took out Romulus, Nero went to a Tal Shiar station called the vault, a fallback point for the Romulan government where research was being done on borg tech. It was installed and started to gestate into the form we got there, revenge incarnate against the federation for their failure to act. As for the Philosophy aspect, Imperial Romulans are always looking to either win via subterfuge, or about looking tough and as a bigger threat than they really are. Dederidex warbirds look huge and imposing, but they're hollow. Wings that spread out, but are unpopulated space. Devastating weaponry, but used sparingly to avoid counters. Since the Narada can't hide, and it's literally 200 years more advanced with alien tech stolen from the scary space zombies, it does kinda work as a unknowable entity. It could have been true nightmare fuel, if the captain had a better plan than "Dig a hole with muh mining laser and drop Macguffin Juice in"
I honestly felt sorry for it.
This is very disappointing and a wasted opportunity. I had no idea of this backstory because it's simply not described in the movie, so the only impression I got is that Romulans are apparently such edgelords they made even a basic deep-space mining vessel all super-spikey and ominous. However, given that most of the ship is just empty space from all the spikes, it just comes across as overcompensating. A large, solid, beat-up brick of a ship could've been more in line with a massive mining vessel and still have been terrifying in its scale and implacability, especially when it does drill a big hole from orbit and drop the implosion juice in it.
Heck, the Ishimura from Dead Space is just a mining vessel, but it still instills dread when you realize that it's designed to literally break apart entire planets.
@@aramisdagaz9 There was a LOT that cut for time in Trek 09, apparently, when the Narada disappeared and we got to know the crew the Enterprise, It made it to Klingon space, was captured by Klingons who scanned it and kept the crew at Rure Penthe, "The frozen mine moon, where life sentences were measured in months". The crew basically tripled the output, survived the 20 years before Spock made it through to the past, broke out and blew up 47 Klingon ships on their way out. Check Memory Alpha / Beta for more info.
@Aramis Dagaz yes the countdown comic. ( 09 ) One thing. In the movie the kelvin rammed her , but we see it 26 years later in perfect condition. ( it self repaired like a borg cube )
There is a couple of deleted scenes, the ship drifted into klingon territory, and they were taken to rurapente, and put to eork in the mines , Nero was tortured regularly the klingons wanted him to unlock the codes to control the ship , during thier incarnation the ship repaired itself. , and was guarded by a fleet of klingon warships ( 47 of them destroyed in the prison escape) mentioned by uhura.
The ship originally mined the red matter and was attacked by several reman scimitars but was saved by the enterprise.Nero also killed the preator and surviving senators. , and the spear he killed the kelvin captain. was the imperial romulan septor. . The romulan tsl shiar facility was called the vault. It seems like picard season one borrowed the idea. ( the artefact )
But there was another story ( books ) before, a borg invasion ( a couple of different versions) and a civil war. ( post nemesis) and a brief klingon war )
Bur the reason picard was chosen or trusted was because during the borg attack on the romulan empire, he lead a federation ( and allied fleet ) to assist the empire . ( federation, klingons, cardassian, breen, tolian ) that the civil war the reman issues are why the empire in such a bad state. . The supernova was discovered by donatra ( she was preator at the time ). She and her ship were destroyed , but they managed to send a warning first.
Nero was also pissed because the vulcans delayed helping. Had they not spock, the mission would have been successful . Spock had to steal the ship . ( which was built by the vulcan science academy and starfleet vorp of engineers) la forge and league brams helped build it . ( as well as the federation rescue armada) picard helped spock .
also, worf was no longer in starfleet. He was a general in the klingon fleet , he commanded the klingon fleet on the romulan border, Nero destroyed his fleet. Worf was saved by the enterprise. . Nero had spent time on the enterprise , as a guest he looked up federation history and the history of the enterprise and her captains . ( and spock) . Ncc 1701 , your history records James t kirk as a great man , future captain of the enterprise, a history I will deny you . ( lines from the movie) .
The real story is that JJ is a hack and everything was done with aesthetic and spectacle first. All the "backstory" was just convoluted justification to have his giant edgelord ship. Much like his poorly written villain and most of the rest of the film, everything about it was nonsensical and was only designed to facilitate scenes he wanted. There was no reason to throw in Borg BS other than trying to explain the appearance, which it doesn't anyway. Had the Narada actually been from some ancient alien race instead of just angryguy#23's poorly explained ride that he just happened to have, It would've been threatening. But instead all I see is someone's lame goth poser teenage fanfic.
Sound design has quite an impact. A Shadow Battle Crab wouldn't feel quite so menacing if that scream didn't seem to get into your brain through the screen.
I think that this is another aspect where inspiration can be taken from the Age of Sail.
You really just need to set up a ship with one or two striking sensory features like an intimidating paint job, iconic sound effects etc. as having a reputation that precedes it.
Love the video and the Shrike is plain awesome, but may I make a connection between her and the War of The Worlds tripods that you did not mention with the Shadow Vessels, their un-earthly scream as they travel through space. To this day Shadow Vessels are the on ship that still turns my stomach when I see and hear them. Also thanks for the video of the bird, that defiantly reinforces the Shrike and her captain.
I noticed immediately when they used the tripod horn for the Shrike, but I didn't make the connection it has the "eye" as well.
I will give a shout-out to the Shivans from Freespace series. The Enigmatic Shivans had similar yet unique style of ships and fighters that were completely Alien to me back when I was a kid. Especially when you get further into the game and actually see a Shivan up close and personal. They were the embodiment of mystery and fear since we do not know their intentions and cannot communicate with them.
this might be an unpopular opinion, but in my mind a lot of these ships (especially the shrike) look like they're screaming "look at me, i'm so scary and menacing" and if you have to scream that, it makes you a lot less threatening.
it’s almost literally (2) twirled mustaches flying through space
There's some of that.
On the other hand, it stil can work subconciously.
But there's another problem: Why would different species, with entirely different cultural backgrounds have the same emotional responce to a specific shape?
What looks menacing to one alien, might look just comical to us and vice versa.
As someone who's interested in this sort of thing, what would you put on your list and why? I'm curious to hear both sides, so I can have a better informed opinion.
@@Bird_Dog00, No matter where you come from in the universe, physics means sharp things are dangerous, we have an emotional response to that danger. I think spiky = scary is one of the few things that would be universal.
@@Bird_Dog00 100%
A species composed of chitinous zoans might look at that spikey mass of claws and be unable to stop dishoramaculating (their equivalent of laughing) because they think it looks like the Vessinaticolor from Harmonatticong (No known Human equivalent, but it is very funny to them.)
It would be interesting to have your opinion on the different vessel of warhammer 40K and how they represent the state of mind of there faction. I think 40k get the art of carrying feeling from ship design pretty good
I like how they have made Kadeshi from Homeworld look absolutely menacing, despite the fact that the very first ship you get a contact with is... smaller than your smallest vessels. They got this white, futuristic look to them, yet at the same time you know that it's not white for innocence, but rather white for the white bones of everyone that crossed into their territory. Everything from their movements to the way they spoke was screaming "danger".
If you will not join, then you will die. Nobody, leaves the Garden.
"If you will not join, then die. There is no withdrawal form the Garden."
@@veisssaulis6712 this sounds more sophisticated than the guy above you
I think 40k does this well in an oddly backwards way. The ships of the imperium of man being gothic almost cathedral like monoliths with hard jagged edges and compared to them many alien vessels are sleek and rounded which makes them feel oddly out of place, alien and dangerous next to the building like imperial navy
The Shivan vessels in the Freespace games (specifically Freespace 2) are menacing as they are a bit of a mystery. They also have jutting protrusions and heavily lean on red, dark brown/black and grey.
Did the guys behind that game play a lot of Magic? Any time I hear or read “Shivan” my mind goes to Dragons immediately
I feel an Imperial Star Destroyer does the terrifying thing well but in a different way. From most angles it looks like a big ship that minds his own business, but when it turns towards you and stares you down you know you're in trouble. It doesn't need to hide, it wears bright white.
It's menace also comes from being a representative of the power of the Empire.
The spiky thing words on a visceral way but with spiky ships like the Shrike I always feel like they are trying too hard.
Decades later I can still remember how terrifying the Shadows were when we were first introduced to them. The alienness. The lasers that could just cut through anything without seemingly having to try. The screaming sound. Just epic.
Everything about the Romulan ships scared me as a child. The green glow, the cloaking tech, the distinctly alien weapons and the fact that they use an artificial singularity as a reactor. The empty space inside the hull made them even more fearsome to the 11 year old me at the time. Nowadays, very little in ship design screams terrifying. I've been ruined by the countless sifi games, movies and TV shows trying to out do each other. Though, the special effects of a ship decloaking, and some character listing off every way that ship that just appeared inside weapons range can paint the galaxy with your ship's interior does get me a bit giddy.
plus, if you think about it, they are painted the color of Romulan blood.
I think a lot of people will reference this, but the way the Malevolence just cuts this silhouette over a bright red planet in the Clone Wars, and just completely decimates entire fleets like nothing, really inspired a sense of dread and awe. Especially when it just casually makes the Twilight look like a speck as it looms over it. Plus, the music, Ion Cannon, is INCREDIBLE. It’s one of my favorite soundtracks to any ship ever. It’s really straight. out of Jaws. It was a fantastic way to introduce this almost unstoppable monster of a ship, shame they knocked it out so quickly.
The Kilrathi fighters with their deliberate "Spikey Claw" appearance and especially in Wing Commander 3 the often asymmetric design, was pretty brilliant. They looked non-human, had that "feral" touch crying "dangerous".
The Shivans (particularly the Sathanas) from the Freespace series certainly tick a lot of boxes.
The Sathanas has the ominous spiky look and the organic looking design, but I think what truly seals the deal is how it's introduced in the Freespace 2 campaign. You're on the offensive, your side is winning against tge old enemy. The campaign is on a high note. And then, when you're exploring a mysterious nebula, this monstrous ship appears out of the clouds and just straight up obliterates the ship you're escorting, and from that point on you're on the defensive and retreating.
And then when you finally manage to kill the thing by throwing the biggest ship humanity has ever built at it, a whole fleet of them appears.
100% was disappointed the Sathanas didn't make this list. A pivotal moment for most 30-something yr olds today was playing through FS2. The Demon-class destroyer could arguably also be an honorable mention, it's insect-like appearance certainly contributing to the overall horror of the species. Now, DIVE! DIVE! DIVE! Hit Your Burners Pilot!
I only played Freespace dilogy for the first time a couple years ago thanks to the FSO project, and I absolutely loved it. Totally concur - the Shivans were pure distilled nightmare fuel, both in original games and in fanmade triquel
The Shrike reminds me of the Sathanas from Freespace 2. That was an amazing game and the ship designs were brilliant!
The 'Sath' doesn't bother trying to talk to you when they blast you to atoms--that's part of it's scariness. I felt many of the models for the Shivan ships were either deep sea corals or freaky sea life (the Lucifer looks like a mantis shrimp; the moloch looks like a sea cucumber)--except for the fighters: they look weirdly like the fighter craft used by the Shadows from B5.
That being said I have no idea what inspired the Sathanas.
@@nickmitsialis A sath IMO looks a lot like a spider doing a mating dance.
@@arugulatarsus That's gotta be an 'effin' ugly spider.
Depends what you mean by terrifying, there's clawed spikey ships like in the thumbnail, there's the more horror themes like the borg where the horror is the inhumanity of the design, there's just a scary weapon, there's multiple ways.
The Shadow ships are indeed iconic due to their alien wrongness. Anything that looks like a living creature thriving and being an utter menace in the vaccuum of space will always be spades in my book.
Funny you say that. I thought the shriek looks like a vorlon ship!
@@seituallen2315 it kinda does at that, doesn't it?
I think the Vanduul ships from Star Citizen are a good example of this they use lots of spines and claw looking things on their ships that make them quite menacing
What I have noticed is the eye on the Shrike looks VERY similar to the deflector of the 1701D, almost as it's possibly a shadow of Picard's past.
BSG’s Cylon fighter. I know it is small but in the first few minutes you see the basic Cylon and when you see the fighters and the eye opens and looks at the target it is good and spooky. It is like someone cut the “head” of the original Cylon and stuck it on two curved spikes and that cyclon is right angry about it and wants to take it out on you. And there are a lot of them - attacking like 🐝 angry hornets intent on removing the head of every human they find.
Cylon Raiders are excellent. As are the Basestars.
Yea man, the entire episode "Scar", S2-ep15
Yes! And they also all had the “shut down all networked tech viruses”, so they can kill every target while they’re forced to watch helpless.
I think Lexx also had some elements that were threatening, first of course the insectoid and organic appearance but also the delay of its main weapon, the sequence that plays out, you know what is coming. And also the organic intelligence of the ship that sometimes less than predictably decided to listen to someone else who might just be a random person unaware of the consequences of their commands.
As a Lexx fan I'm just happy anyone remembers my little oddball series
Id like to point out the Chig fighters from SAAB (Space Above and Beyond), with their tri-claw shape, eerie purple glow and low humming engine noise.
As far as large scale ships are concerned, the USG Ishimura is right there, mostly due to its church like aesthetic and the general danger vibe one gets from seeing it from the Kellion the first time.
Also, pretty much every space hulk from 40k, the amalgamation of ship wrecks that form a one generally invoke some form of eldritch body horror.
6:32 IMO the pinnacle of using "wrongness" as a menacing aesthetic is the Thargoid Interceptors from Elite: Dangerous. They're just so utterly different from any human designs with their vertical octagonal layout, organic compnents, and strange weapon and drive tech that everything about them just screams "I'm a danger to you, stay away". Plus they even have a weird horn noise!
The Thargoids are excellent! Good shout
- hoojiwana from Spacedock
Plus the sound design.
It's absolutely terrifying when you are just cruising along and a Thargoid Interceptor pulls you out of Witchspace. Your ship is practically shutdown and bathed in an otherworldly green light with an ominous hum.
Seth McFarlane's team did a fantastic job with the Kaylon. I hated the route they took, making them another Ai kill people race, but the ship design is basically that of a menacing giant eye ball.
Have you watched season 3?
@@jimskywaker4345 Not all of it, I'm stuck at episode 2 I think. Haven't had the time to sit and watch it yet.
Make it huge in size paint it black/dark grey, with green or red lights
One thing you forgot to say about the Shadow ships is that scream they make as they pass by, that alone is scary...
Maybe mad max-ish like the reavers. Not only the paint, but also the skeletons tied to the outside and the spikes sticking out.
You should take a look at the Cybran Nation's aircraft from Supreme Commander. Their whole visual philosophy is a spikey scary insectoid theme, especially in the second game where it's accompanied by menacing violin and clockwork ticking, emphasizing that they are going to kill you and do it quickly. Mainly though, some of their first game aircraft look like ships mentioned in this video, such as the Corsair fighter-bomber.
Supreme Commander's designs were absolutely amazing. Shame that the series died off(well, it technically didn't as FAF multiplayer is very much alive, but no new games are coming).
@@Volthoom Sanctuary Shattered Sun is coming soon! It’s not SC3 by any means; but hopefully it will be a close resemblance and feel similar.
Also, the shape and look of the Shadow vessels meshed well with what we got to see of them.
Shadow vessels are one of the only things in sci fi that reliably give me goose bumps even all these years later. They were so masterfully built up, just rumors or blurry footage early on, or very brief appearances. But the other thing was the sound design. Obviously there isn't really sound in space, but in the show they even acknowledge this by saying that the noise Shadow ships make is actually somehow inside your head. It's somewhere between nails on a chalk board, strange animal noises and a ghost.
Narada felt like they tried to do a Shadow ship without understanding that a clear silhouette is necessary. And yes, the Shadows did it best. The scream, the backstory, etc. Borg too. Otherness is critical.
The thing with the Shadow vessels is that they took every advantage of B5's storytelling. I don't think a lot of spaceships get nearly as much build-up as the Shadow vessels had. For nearly 3 seasons, right up until the Kosh-inspired Vorlon intervention, they seemed like a nearly-invincible force.
So Tom Paris was correct and should have been allowed to put fins on the Delta Flyer ?
The Shadow Vessels had an additional creepiness aspect that wasn't obvious at first: they screamed _in your mind_ as they went past.
Some of my favourite starships come from Sins of a Solar Empire.
Some great designs there that coexist in themes really well. I'd love it if you did a breakdown of a few of them!
Vasari ships?
The Vasari Desolator has this wonderful balance of toughness and dangerous that communicates it's function really well.
So much of the rest of their fleet is just "Mantis from Conquest: Frontier Wars, but more metallic," but all their capital ships do a good job of telling you what they are and what they do entirely through shape language.
The SJ Sathanas from Freespace 2 is the single most terrifying starship I can think of, at least visually.
I love that the Shrike is often accompanied by the big sound of "The Blaster Bar," from ST: TMP. When the Klingon ships approach V'Ger and this massive, electric ::SHABOOOONNNNG!!:: sounds out, it raised every hair on my body. Hearing it was the Shrike appear sent a shiver down my spine, soooooo good!
Yep, I heard that too!
What about the Sathanas from Freespace 2? It has a similar shape to the Shrike, is absolutely massive like many other massive ships, and you spend a good part of the game taking one down, at a huge sacrifice. Then you find out there's a whole lot more than just 1.
The Shadows vessels are especially frightening when one realizes a living being is needed to activate and run the vessel! And once pulled out, you’re never the same after. 😮
Would have included the Cylon Raiders and Basestars, especially from the reboot. Probably not as menacing, but definitely predatorial and other.
There's also the Shiva from Freespace 2. What a design for Cain, Sathanas and Lucifer class ships!
Is it just me, or is the secondary bull on the Shrike very reminiscent of the ones on Galaxy/Nebula classes?
Definitely not just you. It’s basically identical, including the upper “eyelid” sticking out more than the lower one
The ferengi ship has forward swept nacelles, doesn’t feel as threatening though, but that could be because you know it is ferengi.
I always feel threatened by ferengi, both in TV and real life.
Isn't the entire rear edge of the ship an array of warp engines?
No Shivan ships?! (Freespace 1&2 ) The SD Ravana & SJ Sathanas were certainly menacing enough despite the limitations of the graphics at the time.
Shivan ships have all the necessary spiky bits and insectoid inspiration, but the game's mission design and the Shivan doctrine also enhance the sheer terror.
• Shivans are introduced as a mysterious, untargetable, near-invincible threat. Alpha 1 & friends only gets the tools to combat them _several_ missions after their first introduction.
• So much of Freespace 1 & 2 is spent retreating from oncoming Shivans. There are several story points that your fleet is engaged in a backward retreat, and then you're either escorting an escaping convoy, or need to evacuate yourself because Shivans just swarmed in and deleted the flagship you were tasked with protecting.
• Shivans utilize shock-jump tactics, effectively a capital-ship sized jumpscare. They will warp in, instantly one-shot their largest target with an array of front-loaded beam weapons, and the remaining targets won't have the firepower to respond.
With the inclusion of the changelings in Picard’s 3rd season, I’m surprised nobody has drawn on the similarities between the Shrike’s long curving forward engine “arms” configured in an X-like pattern and the shape of the larger Jem'Hadar ships we saw in DS9.
Although the Dominion ships often featured 2 larger and 2 smaller engines, it was one of the first ships in Star Trek canon that the Shrike reminded me of.
Vorlon ships are definitaly some of the scariest! Not only are the forward facing "spikes" more like living tentacles, but they are almost god-like in their power and level of technology!
Captain Harlocks ship the Arcadia would be a good add. that thing would be pretty freaky and cool to see in person.
Freespace 2 and the Shivans. Goddamn those massive Shivan cruisers, which have ability to make a star go nova, those are a real threath. Huge plus for the Shadows as well, even the race themselves looks almost torn from nightmares.
Surprised you didn't mention the 2003 BSG's Cylon Raider, especially when the Shrike literally looks like two of them glued together.
The scariest looking ships are the ones that make the least sense from a design perspective, yet are still somehow keeping up with you: it means they are not bound by the principles you are.
The best way to make a ship menacing is to have the MCs have a lot of trouble with a single one of that ship and have it's class constantly appear over the course of a season/story without saying what purpose it holds in the wider fleet.
And then show that there are a lot of them in the bad guys fleet by showing an event at the enemies starbase. (AKA: make the enemy seem actually competent and their ships formidable)
@BigFormula93
Yeah, that's how you do it wrong. The idea is to make the ships terrifying like a Borg Cube.
Making the ship scary based on its reputation, not how it looks.
Think of it less as one of the minibosses that become cannon fire by the end of the game and more those Gorillas from Metal Gear Rising that always get a few kills/game overs on you when they show up.
*And Then Show That The Enemy Has The Brains To Back Up Their Brawn.*
I absolutely love how the “eye” seems to follow you even when on a profile view.
That Picard ship looks like a reskinned Polaris Arachnid from EV Nova. That’s a game/series that deserves more love.
I'm sort of hung-up on this, but the Shrike's deflector array *really* looks like it was salvaged from a Galaxy-class ship... that's not a complaint, it's just something I sort of hope might come into play later; more likely it's just a nice easter-egg the art department added, but I can hope!.
While not so much terrifying as more ominous, but the Turn X from Turn A Gundam is a favorite of mine. The way that thinks just looks alien and weird compared to how the series usually does things just makes it look like a true villain vehicle. Syd Mead really knocked it out of the park with that design.
The Gundam Pharact from Witch from Mercury is another good one that fits the more ominous label rather than outright terrifying.
The Hive Dreadnought from Destiny The Taken King is an insanely huge terrifying looking ship, that is so menacing and deadly... The fact that it is 5000 km in size is just wow... First time I saw the Dreadnought I was just speechless... It is one of the biggest ships in Sci-fi... Dang Bungie knows how to make cool and menacing stuff...
For me one of the most scary sci-fi designs are the spaceships and aliens from Arrival because they were jus so otherworldly and unknown + honarable mention goes to cylon centurions and that red eye going from side to side with a menacing swoosh.
This ship remind me the vorlon dreadnought from Babylon 5 🤔
I'm glad you included the bit about sound design, because that was absolutely a significant part of the shadows being terrifying was the mind scream. Similar but different is the musical score in TNG with the borg or upon the appearance of Cmd. Tomalak's warbirds, the music helped lead your feelings.
I'm always happy when Babylon 5, specifically the freaking Shadows gets a shout-out!
I thought the Shrike looked more like a Vorlon ship though. And that's a good thing, a Lovecraftian aesthetic wouldn't work for the Shrike.
3:27 I also made the connection to the War of the Worlds tripods. Great video!
The USS Vengeance.
"If you think you're safe at warp... you're wrong." - Khan
From the appearance of the massive Dreadnought to it chasing the Enterprise and knocking it out of warp... not to mention the sound it makes while in warp... chills.
The way the shadows moved in B5 is what always got me
For me I'd have to go with the Dark Aster in the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie. It's intimidating in all the right ways, it is a flying monolith with eternally moving sides, like engines or a Whale's taile, perpetually moving forward. It perfectly encapsulates Ronan's personallity, a megalomaniac absolutely sure of his own righteousness. During the Battle of Xandar it simply moved forward, firing its weapons and launching its fighters, but darkening the sky above with it's massive body. Not even the might of the entire Nova Corp could really stops its perpetual movement, it was a force of nature.
The Dark Aster in that fight is such a boss that one has to wonder why Ronan didn't attack Xandar straight up instead of trying to deal with Thanos. Or why the Kree ever signed a treaty with Xandar to begin with.
I know you're primarily covering visual design, and I think you've done a great job there, but an additional factor in what made the Shadow vessels so terrifying was the sound effect "screech" when they appeared. It was reminiscent of a hawk crying out as it dove for its prey, but with almost the added sense that the vessel itself was terrified. It was fear given shape.
I think a shout out should go to the OG Klingon Bird of Prey (what we would come to know as the B’rel class). When it debuted in The Search for Spock in 1984, it had that same, forward swept, downward angled aesthetic that villain ships have been copying ever since. Add to it that the audience is introduced to it de-cloaking (with an ominous SFX) in a position where it is almost clutching the small ship it would eventually destroy moments later, and that’s a great entrance. There’s a reason it’s been a staple of Trek lore for nearly 40 years.
Without the Bird of Prey, none of the other “predator” looking ships would have come along.
The design idea came from Leonard Nemoy. With the outstretched neck from the older Klingon design, and the wings swept forward like an eagle just before it grabs its prey.
Great work by the model makers to turn that into a great looking design.
They ripped that design straight from "Freespace 2" lore. It screams Sathanas all over itself, mate.
And that ship was scary as hell. It still is.
Another I’d put on there was the Magog world ship from Andromeda. Especially with how it was introduced, you come away seeing this unstoppable impossibly big thing filled to the brim with monsters coming at you.
That's a good choice. Sigh, that show had such potential but they really dropped the ball. Especially the world ship that went from an imminent and terrifying threat to an after thought.
@@truefanforum3273 I know :( Somehow even its last appearance where they were overwhelmed by it didn't work because of how it turned out
Don't forget the SJ Santhanas from Freespace 2! That thing gave me absolute chills when it first appeared in the Campaign.
One thing I find memorable about the Sathanas is that they are very dark, which makes it hard to get a good look of their shape, and also stupidly gigantic, which means by the time you're close enough to make out details you can only see a small section of it at a time.
Scar from Battlestar Galactica. Great combo of music, visual design, and plot coming together to make him an extremely threatening enemy ace fighter. The first scene you see him is awesome. Also a contrast to all these "world ender" craft and capital ships - the equivalent of a one-man fighter can be terrifying if done correclty.
The common trick used in the design of the Shrike, Shadow Vessels, and Sovereign are the biomorpohic form and behavior. The Shrike moves like a lunging spider, with forelegs extended and raised to grab its prey. Even the escape maneuver mimics and tarantula or trapdoor spider retreating into its burrow. The Sovereign similarly draws from octopus or squid behavior, particularly the probing and entangling prey in its tentacles.
Brilliant synopsis!
Top video.
Also, +1 for another B5 reference.
Another excellent topic.
SINI-STAR! Making a ship a character with some hint of menacing expression is a great way to get into the human psyche, but sometimes you need to throw subtle to the wind and just go ham. A giant metal skull wooshing through space screaming "BEWARE! I LIVE!" has a horror and charm all of it's own.
The Sojourn stuff teased at the start is absolutely worth checking out btw
I loved the Vorlon Warship redesign.
What else made Sovereign in Mass Effect menacing was a line of dialogue, "Commander, that ship, Sovereign? I don't know what you did down there but that thing pulled a turn that would sheer any of our ships in half. It's comin' at you and it's comin' hard!"
This isn’t viable for hard sci settings, but there is an aspect to some of these threatening ships that you seemed to miss - sound design. Sure there’s no sound in space, but even a lot of hard sci fi stories tend to ditch that aspect for dramatic effect (even the ships from the tv adaptation of the Expansion have that deep crackling rumble of their engines, which sounds fucking awesome I might add).
I don’t even have to pull up other examples of how sound can affect the feelings a ship evokes - you already have great examples in this video. The shadow ships look utterly alien, but they have one eerily human element - their engines sound like a distorted human scream, which also acts as great foreshadowing considering some of the details we eventually learn about who is actually flying them.
The Mass Effect reapers are another great example - they have that deep, mechanical horn that echoes across the cities they burn down, sounding halfway between a machine and some lovecratian monster.
For myself though, I’m biased towards one sound in particular because it literally haunted my nightmares as a kid - the tripod horn. I saw War of the Worlds when I was DEFINITELY too young, and it left quite the impression on me. Everything about the tripod design is meant to be imposing and alien - like giant tentacled nightmares towering above the humans they relentlessly hunt down and exterminate. But whenever they find someone, they don’t let off their lasers without warning, or swing tentacles down from the darkness to catch you by surprise to be dragged up and converted into fertilizer - no, they let out that deep bellowing horn. It’s loud as hell and can be heard from miles away, but it doesn’t matter - if you hear that horn, you’re probably already dead because they’ve seen you, and now they’re coming for you.
A good, threatening sound can really elevate already effective visual designs.
@@BigFormula93 good point