Naval warfare, particularly way-back-when in the 17th Century or so, was rather stringent and refined. That’s also likely the reason why the branch of the military that deals with spaceships in fiction is very commonly called the Navy. As such, naval terminology entered the lexicon very quickly, and as a result space ships are classified by similar naval systems. When science fiction writers were exploring space they drew a natural comparison between space travel and the maritime Age of Sail both feature long voyages on large vessels through “alien” terrain that human beings can’t freely traverse.
Because knowledge is power.īefore we get to the meat of the topic let’s look at a bit of history.
So like any good geek I did research and actually enjoyed doing it! And the knowledge I’ve gained I want to spread for anyone who is interested, whether that be due to simple curiosity or you’re developing a story or RPG setting. How is a battleship different from a battlecruiser? Is there any difference between a star cruiser and an assault cruiser, and if so what is it? If you had shown me two ships and claimed one was a destroyer and one was a cruiser I wouldn’t have really understood what that actually means and what roles they employ in a battle. But something that always confused me is exactly what the differences are between them. You have your cruisers, your destroyers, your frigates and corvettes, your dreadnoughts, and all sorts of other roles. I’m talking about classification of ship roles or ship types. There are lots of different ship classes in science fiction, and I’m not talking about the designated name for a particular frame (like Victory-class or Firefly-class). In case you were actually wondering (I bet you weren’t).
I’m a huge nerd who thinks of things in my free time like “if I were a shinigami what kind of Zanpakutō would I have?” and “I wonder if I’d rather be a ranger or a mage” and “if I were a Jedi in the New Jedi Order, what kind of ship would I have?” And alongside that sort of inane theorycrafting and imagination comes obvious questions, like “would I want to captain a cruiser or a carrier?” But then, what exactly is the difference? It would be a stolen and recommissioned Imperial II-class Star Destroyer named Sanguine, by the way.
Between Star Citizen, the new Halo, the new Star Wars, a couple of key mods for Sins of a Solar Empire that I keep up with and have done some voice work on, and Destiny, my mind has been buzzing with them.