#alien ships

[images © CBS/Paramount, Ex Astris Scientia, Eaglemoss Ltd., Star Trek Shipyards, Star Trek Timelines, probably others]

Cardassian Galor class

One of our favorite alien races also has a very distinct ship you can pick out easily in space. It’s quite telling that we start recognizing the Cardassians’ impressive necks even in their ship designs. The rest of the ship is just as interesting, from its sandy color to its snakelike frill to its scorpion tail. If there’s anyone’s ship that’s going to evoke lizards somehow, you knew it was going to be the Cardassians.

Cardassian Keldon class

If you’d just shown me this ship design next to the Galor class, I’d assume it was its pintsized little brother. So color me surprised that the Keldon class is of comparable size! Otherwise the look is so similar to our Cardassian hero ships that they might as well have just been the same design. Leave it to our spoon-headed friends to overcomplicate things.

Cardassian freighter

A very different Cardassian ship we see is the freighter to which a disgraced Dukat is demoted. We can definitely get the sense that it comes from the same place as the previous ships – check out its pincher face and desert camo color, but the look is more utilitarian. This is a ship that is mostly for moving goods and it’d take a true madman to turn it into a fighter. Wink.

Bajoran lightship

On the other side of the occupation, we get some good beauty shots of an ancient Bajoran design for a lightship. Like the Son’a collector we discussed last time, the sails on this thing are just impressive to watch unfurl. They’re also a similar shimmery gold, which is a funny coincidence. The various wings and sails give the look of a fragile butterfly in the middle of space, which just makes us wonder all the more how on Bajor they got it to work!

Bajoran raider

While the Bajorans can create something beautiful, they can also create something deadly, and that they accomplished quite a lot during the occupation. Their resistance craft looks basically like any earth fighter jet: small, efficient, and zippy. Even the big old thruster on the back of it reminds us of rockets of today, making it all the more appropriate for a group of Bajorans who had to scrape by with whatever they could get their hands on.

Bajoran assault vessel

The bigger guns from our wrinkle-nosed friends come later in the series when we’ve got bigger foes to fry. The Bajoran assault vessel still has that modern plane look about it, which is consistent with their raiders, but looks much more adept for deep space flying than for dogfighting in atmosphere. This one is quite sleek with interesting patterning, and cute pointy face, and some nice pale-colored accents.

Jem’Hadar fighter

Speaking of bigger foes that need frying! When we first meet the Dominion, they start utterly battering the Federation in their purple beetle ships. We don’t see a lot of purple-highlighted ships in the skies, so these are a nice change of pace that are also incredibly easy to distinguish between. And the fact that they look like scarab beetles automatically makes us start cringing.

Jem’Hadar battlecruiser

Also purple and also able to tear you up, the battlecruiser retains some of that insect look while being less rounded overall. The face of it definitely has that kind of ant mandible mouth that’s mildly offputting, and it’s deep bench of weapons makes even a single cruiser a substantial threat. Its little pontoon-shaped crescent nacelles are a little on the cute side though.

Jem’Hadar battleship

In “Valiant,” we face off with the oversized grandpappy of the Jem’Hadar fleet, which utterly wreaks pretty much all of Red Squad. This thing has a good sci-fi look that you can see reflections of all over various media: a massive weapon ship that’s somehow also stealthy. We still see some of those trademark Dominion touches which we appreciate. More purple. More pontoons. More mandibles.

Breen cruiser

Finally, the ship that changes everything. We were dubious too when we first saw the Breen and their weirdly asymmetrical ships. Maybe there just is too much symmetry in space, because this ship is such a game changer. It’s actually quite fascinating to look at because there is much order in what would otherwise be a fairly random shape – the fact that it seems balanced even though that doesn’t matter in zero gravity is fairly impressive.

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