Whoever said size doesn’t matter must not have been talking about firepower when it comes to science fiction vessels, since some of these monsters are definitely heavy hitters, and some of them are more or less cities and worlds unto themselves. Talking about sheer size though it’s amazing to think of the military capabilities of some of these vessels and how many weapons they might have at their disposal at any given second, and how many commanders need to be present just to make sure that everything is working the way it needs to be. There is one thing to be said though, and that’s the fact that the dominance of two of the biggest franchises in the list, Star Wars and Star Trek, aren’t exactly the top dogs any longer since thanks to several other vessels on this list it’s easy to think that even a Super Star Destroyer would be knocked out by some of the larger vessels if they didn’t have the type of armament that could take on something far bigger. Of course, given that the Star Destroyers in Rise of Skywalker had cannons that were capable of taking out a planet, it’s fair to say that a fleet of those could do substantial damage to pretty much any contender, and with either a Death Star or a Starkiller Base to back them up, it’s fair to state that Star Wars would still be one of the heaviest hitters in pop culture since many of the ships under the Empire and First Order are usually armed to the teeth and capable of dealing out mass destruction on a level that only a few craft are capable of.
But there are failings for each craft as they get progressively larger, as a lot of these vessels absolutely need to be constructed in a space dock since attempting to get them to lift off from the ground would require far too much energy and would likely do way too much damage to the surrounding area unless there was a way to reinforce buildings and other structures. The sheer size of each craft that this clip displays are enormous, as many of them are the size of cities or bigger, and could vaporize a city with a couple of salvos quite easily. Just thinking of the raw materials that would be needed to create one ship, ANY of these ships, is astounding. That means it’s mind-boggling to understand just where the raw materials would come for a fleet of ships that wouldn’t be quite as big, but would still be sizeable enough to put craters in a world with their weaponry. On top of that, just understanding the level of engineering would be insane since figuring out how everything is meant to work and how many miles of wiring would be needed might drive a lot of people nuts from the sheer size of the project. A lot of the bigger ships house enough people to run and populate large towns and even entire cities, as the Death Star required people of all professions to operate since the logistics of an army can’t be denied, and cooks and janitors were needed as much as soldiers and officers.
Another thing about these ships is that each one of them would probably require an individual to serve for an extended period on them instead of being ferried from one ship to another. The only time this ever happens really is when the trip is of great enough importance, or the people being transported are simply that elite. Otherwise, it feels as though a lot of those stationed on ships such as these in movies and on TV are there for months, if not years at a time since the rotating shifts that might be required would be a lot to deal with. Imagine being the captain of any of the larger ships and going by the adage that the captain knows everything there is to know about their vessel. That would be kind of funny considering that Grand Moff Tarkin knew so much about the Death Star apparently, but was too arrogant to think that anyone could possibly pose a threat when the cannons couldn’t track them in smaller fighters. Of course, someone like Tarkin thought that he was smarter than everyone else and that his eyes missed nothing. It had to have come as a huge surprise to the Moff that one X-Wing could spell his doom, but that’s an argument to leave for a later date.
The huge vessels that have been created for various shows and movies in pop culture are as impressive as they are massive, and to be certain, watching them in action has been a lot of fun since some of them are fully capable of combat, while others serve a different purpose.
