Spaceship R & D - Mass Effect Normandy - 26.10.11

An important part of any space based program is of course the spaceship, and I thought it best to get the designs complete before I really concentrate on the story just so there are no continuity problems (despite the fact I'm not actually going to be animating the series).

I'll start off with a few images I used in my pitch to give a few examples of spaceships designs in other films / series:

This is the 'Normandy' from the 'Mass Effect' games by Bioware, it's a great example to use because the ship is human in origin (and looks like it) and the crew size is relatively similar to what I picture for the crew in the series:

Here you can see the design of the ship. Futuristic design using geometrical shapes, symmetry and an aerodynamic form. Interestingly there is no 'viewing window' from the bridge at the front of the ship, all of the piloting is done via screen.

Here is the 'mess hall' where the crew can relax, socialise and eat.

Here is the view of the bridge (straight ahead) from the communication room. The pilot sits at the front, while the captain sets destinations etc from the comms room, where there is a map of the cosmos.

An example of the crew's quarters, the rooms are small but practical much like a studio apartment.

The engine room, this is the reactor that fuels the ship.

There are a few things that I love about the ship here, firstly the crew quarters, and the overall design of the ship, but from the game the use of the 'Galactic map' to plot courses would be a great way to introduce each mission in my series.

This is the 'Galactic map' in the center of the comms room aboard the Normandy. From here the captain can plot courses anywhere in the galaxy!

Here is the comms room, including the 'Galactic map', which you can see clearly here is a hologram.

I'll definitely like to use a galactic map in my series, and use it to introduce each episode. 

I also like the idea of using an aerodynamic design, despite the fact that there is essentially no drag in space (drag is created by a solid object moving through a liquid or gas, and as there is no liquid or gas in space (aside from negligible particles) there is no drag). 

An aerodynamic design firstly looks noticeably human, and also if in one of the episodes the crew descend into a planet with an atmosphere the ship should be able to fly there.

Though for the sake of propulsion I have given up on trying to stick to real technology as the distances are simply too massive, unless the episodes were thousands of years apart. For this reason, the ship should be able to almost instantly travel through huge portions of space.

Mass Effect also has an interesting feature for that; the 'mass relay', which is essentially a portal into which a vessel flies, and is then propelled or 'fired' at incredible speed to another mass relay anywhere in the galaxy. What this implies though, is that space exploration is well enough established to have been to these places and built the relays, which isn't what we're doing with the series. A good idea, but not the one for us... Instead the ship should be capable of traveling at similar speeds without the need for the relay. Like the 'warp engine' from Star Trek. I'll look at that next!