Mother ship
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A mother ship is a vessel or aircraft that carries a smaller vessel or aircraft that operates independently from it. Examples include bombers converted to carry experimental aircraft to altitudes where they can conduct their research, or ships that carry small submarines to an area of ocean to be explored. The mothership may also recover the smaller craft, or may go its own way after releasing it.
The term mother ship dates back to the nineteenth century whaling trade when small, fast ships were used to chase and kill whales. The dead meat from several boats was then brought back to the larger, slower ship for processing and storage until the return to land. This model enabled a far more efficient method of whaling. Though whaling is much lower-scale than in earlier days, the single large storage ship model is still used extensively by fishermen. Such ships are also known as factory ships.
In science fiction and popular culture
The term has achieved prominence in science fiction and in UFO lore, which extend the idea to apply to spaceships serving as the heart of a fleet. The concept of mothership (almost always spelled as a single word) clearly implies that the other ships in the fleet are dependent on the mothership for at least some services. Typically, a mothership will take up station in an area and remain there for long periods, while smaller ships sortie to interesting destinations. Sometimes a mothership is large enough to operate alone, or is so huge that it contains a fleet in its body.
Roles played in a fleet by a mothership may include:
- in-flight construction of new, smaller ships
- supply and repair tender
- troop transport
- carrier (of fighters, shuttles, etc.)
- supplementary propulsion (i.e., multi-ship warp field, hyperdrive, etc.)
- The gigantic 3 mile wide mothership in the 1983 mini-series V co-ordinated an invasion of Earth
- Star Trek vessels, which serve as motherships to their shuttlepods and sometimes to fighter craft
- The Battlestar of Battlestar Galactica (and its 2003 remake), which is a mothership to colonial fighter craft
- The ill-fated Discovery in is the mothership to 3 service and exploration pods
- The huge mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind carried smaller scout craft
- The alien mothership in Independence Day also helped launch an invasion of Earth
- The massive Zentradi mothership in The Super Dimension Fortress Macross supported a battle fleet of 4.8 million capital ships
- The Mon Calamari cruisers of the Rebel Alliance and the Imperial Star Destroyers are some of the many motherships in the Star Wars movies, carrying fighter craft and shuttles
- The immense colony ship in Homeworld supported a constantly growing fleet of fighters and capital ships and carried thousands of people in suspended animation
- The Great Fox in Star Fox carries Arwings and Landmasters and serves as the home of Team Star Fox.
- The SDF-1 Macross super dimension fortress in The Super Dimension Fortress Macross could house and support an entire city inside its hull. It also carries several squadrons of variable fighters.
- The Goa'uld Ha'tak-class vessel in Stargate SG-1 is often referred to as a "mothership", as it carries a complement of Death Gliders; the Earth vessels USAF Prometheus and USAF Daedalus may also be considered to be "motherships" even though they are never referred to as such due to the fact that they carry a complement of F-302s.
- The P Funk Mothership, Funk-powered vehicle of Dr. Funkenstein and his instellar Afronauts, spreading stank vibes around the cosmos, and striving to achieve Funkentelechy for humankind.
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