Hello everyone,
Day 9 sees a favourite appear …
We have the Millennium Falcon today. That iconic ship for the whole series of Star Wars movies and one that helped define the term Hero Ship. These aren’t the biggest ships, they’re the ones that the heroes of a show or movie depend on. The Enterprise is a hero ship, in whichever series its in, although the Enterprise is on the big size for your usual hero ship.
A hero ship is usually something smaller, which can do everything the crew need it to do but with that sense of danger that comes from being completely outgunned by the big navy ships. And they’ll usually have a decent crew on board as well to keep them running because that gives the basis for a decent amount of cast and crew to keep the series going.
Can’t talk about hero ships without mentioning Serenity, this one’s from the Firefly series which really deserved to tell a lot more of its story. This particular ship was centred around a main cast which had Captain Mal, pilot Wash, XO Zoe, Meathead Jayne (the actor is responsible for dumb attitudes and that pretty much sums up the character too) and lovely Kaylee as the savant ships engineer. Joining the crew for a fare and an escape were Shepherd Book and Simon and River Tam, with the final spot being Inara who would join for a while as a guest and ambassador.
The ship itself was a small tramp freighter, with living quarters and galley living area towards the front, with the central box section being where the cargo would be and the main engine being to the rear of the ship. Because the ship was so small, it could get into and out of places fast for … shenanigans, jobs other ships couldn’t do and the occasional bit of crimes, while still being so vulnerable that it would add in its own contribution to the drama.
If you haven’t seen Firefly and the follow on movie, Serenity, I’d massively recommend trying to catch it.
The Mass Effect series has had a collection of hero ships, starting with the SSV Normandy of the first game. This one was a small frigate, a stealth ship that could get in anywhere, go anywhere and was that game’s vehicle (literally) for getting the main character travelling between the various locations. There was another, bigger, Normandy later and the ship in the picture is the Tempest from Mass Effect Andromeda. The Tempest was more a very light scout ship with just about enough room to accommodate all of the crew.
And that’s the main role of the hero ship, it’s usually the home of the main characters of the series. It’ll tell its own part of the story. Like Serenity being a little bit unreliable at the most convenient times for the story. It’s there to enable the story to move along and to enable the main characters to get up to shenanigans.
We’ve got some more from the world of books … Like :
Trouble Dog from Gareth L Powell’s excellent Embers of War trilogy. This is a Carnivore class ex warship, which has an embodied AI which is a fully fledged and key character in the series. Trouble Dog is a quite powerful ship, although nowhere near invincible. She’s small enough to get in where the story needs to go and has her own past and personality, plus a fantastic crew to look after.
(Embers of War is another series I’d thoroughly recommend, although a little warning – it does get a bit dark and grisly)
Another I can’t go without mentioning is the Rocinante from The Expanse …
This ship is at the core of The Expanse novels starting with Leviathan Wakes. As your typical hero ship, it goes anywhere and this one fights hard too, being an ex warship. It’s a frigate, out of the box coming with 6 rapid fire guns covering all angles. But at the start, it’s outclassed by bigger ships that have railguns that can punch huge holes in other ships. The Rocinante is the home of the crew for these novels and while the ship doesn’t have an AI or distinct personality, it’s a solid and dependable core base for the main characters of the series.
Any more ? There’s a whole bunch more, like Moya from Farscape. Moya is a Leviathan class transport, a big living ship that becomes the home for Crichton, Aeryn, Dargo, Rigel, Chiana, Zhaan and Pilot with a few more characters occasionally living on board for periods.
And I think I’m running out of steam there. Let’s finish with a blast from the past …
That’s the Liberator, from Blake’s Seven and the hero ship I grew up with. The series was probably not something a 4 year old should have been watching but that was ok because I was just looking for the spaceship and couldn’t understand the absolutely nuts 70s era weird writing that was going on. We had some very odd stuff going on the telly back then and when you rewatch it now, stuff like Space 1999 (and Blake’s Seven) make you wonder what non-prescription pharmeuticals were going through the heads of the writers, aided and abetted by actors completely going ham with what they were given.
(I’ve just done the alt text for the picture – hover to see – and I think my brain is melted, I do apologise for people who depend on that for this particular crime to alt text!)
Fun to watch though and Blake’s Seven probably has the best and most nonsense hero ship for that time. It makes absolutely no sense, although that design is literally for space and only space. Like the Enterprise where it was an absolute crime seeing it being built on the ground in the Kelvin Timeline movie. NOPE. The Liberator was thought to be a derelict, found in space. Our characters get sent aboard as expendable prisoners and … manage to reactivate the ship and make off with it. The series sees them being fugitives from an overpowering Federation and … takes them from place to place enabling shenanigans along the way.
Would I recommend watching Blake’s Seven now, almost 50 years after it was made ? Maybe. If you can watch it on a streaming service or similar, go for it. It was a good series for its time, although you will wonder what on earth is going on at times. Don’t touch the Paul Darrow (RIP) book, it has the Blake’s Seven name but it’s not in the same universe. Afterlife is a far better sequel.
Back to Star Wars for the finish and that’s the Ghost from Star Wars Rebels and an advent series from a long time ago on a sofa not that far away from where I am right now.
Gotta go, brain empty, have a lovely rest of evening 🙂