Bioship

File:B5 shadows.jpg

A Shadow battlecrab from Babylon 5

A bioship is a type of spacecraft described in science fiction. Bioships differ from most spacecraft in that they are predominantly or totally composed of organic or biological components, rather than being constructed from metal or artificial materials. Because of this, they nearly always have a distinctively organic look.

Bioships tend to be able to absorb huge amounts of damage, and often can regenerate or heal damaged parts. Some bioships are intelligent or sentient, and some are considered to be lifeforms. It should, perhaps, be added that like most organic beings they are not entirely living in the sense that they contain large amounts of "dead" materials to keep their shape, such as the xylem in trees or bone and chitin in animals.

In fiction

• Star Trek:
  • Gomtuu, nicknamed "Tin Man", was the last member of a race of bioships which existed with a symbiotic (and probably telepathic) crew. It contemplated suicide after its crew was killed by radiation caused by a large explosion. Gomtuu was alone until Tam Elbrun, a Betazoid who could not control his telepathic abilities, attempted first contact. Both finding a kindred spirit in the other, Tam and Gomtuu left the area and have not been seen since.
  • In a variation on the basic definition of a bioship, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Emergence," features a story in which the Enterprise-D develops an artificial intelligence from the sum of the ship's experiences, for the sole purpose of creating a biological life form which is released into space.
  • Species 8472 pilot bioships capable of destroying Borg cubes and even planets.
  • Some species use biological components on their ships, such as the Breen, or Starfleet's bio-neural gel packs, as exemplified on the USS Voyager.
• Babylon 5: two of the most powerful races, the Vorlons and the Shadows, use biological vessels. The Minbari use ships with biological components of somewhat lesser sophistication.
• Farscape: most of the story takes place aboard a large, living vessel named Moya.
• Star Wars: In New Jedi Order, the Yuuzhan Vong used bioships made of a type of coral because they viewed inorganic technology as immoral and blasphemous. The living planet Zonama Sekot also had bioships.
• Tenchi Muyo!: the Jurai use ships grown from seeds. Their hulls are carved from the wood of giant trees, and protected by forcefields. In addition, it is possible that the cabbits Ryo-Ohki and Fuku could be considered bioships. Although not truly organic, they are certainly alive, and capable of limited reproduction.
• Infinite Ryvius: the Vaea project was designed to be able to leave the solar system using the gravimetric nature of the creatures (space squid) found in the Geould, a highly vioalatile sea of gas. Four were made in total; Each contains a Vital Guarder of different shape, which have high attack/defense capacity that varied from ship to ship. Each also contained a life core that was bound to a "captain", that would mentally destroy the captain if the core was destroyed. Sometimes, a dead body was used as a bio core, they are the most stable, and affect the captain least.
• Lexx: the ship LEXX is a living ship shaped like at dragonfly with no wings capable of destroying whole planets.
• Warhammer 40,000 and StarCraft: feature organic races, the Tyranids and Zerg respectively, that use fleets and swarms of living ships to travel between worlds.
• The comic books of Alejandro Jodorowsky: the sisterhood of the Shabda-Oud use enormous dolphin-like bioships aptly called CetaCyborgs.
• Bio-Booster Armor Guyver: the Creators had living ships that were grown. Also, the Guyvers themselves were biotechnological armor suits.
• seaQuest: the large submersible seaQuest DSV has an organic outer skin that can heal itself.
• Transhuman Space: the supplement Spacecraft of the Solar System describes a very experimental bioship, the Nadezhda.
• Alien: The Derelict may be a bioship.
• Earth: Final Conflict, The Taelon Mothership was a vast bioship composed of living energy that was partially self-aware. Taelons also possessed organic shuttles, warships, and buildings which grew in less than a day, all of which were subdued by their programming.
• Dirty Pair: Bioships are used for interstellar transport in the parts of the comics series authored by Adam Warren.
• Doctor Who: The TARDIS is grown from a type of "coral" and then carved. Axos (in the episode The Claws of Axos) is a bioship.
• Stargate Atlantis: the Wraith use ships that are alive, as their weapons and other devices apparently are.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures: Cudley the Cowlick and Maligna's hive.
• The Night's Dawn Trilogy: the Edenist Voidhawk and Mercenary Blackhawk are both advanced bioships (the latter being a genetic tailoring for combat of the former). Both types employ mental bonding to the captain. In the case of Voidhawks this is done by both the craft and captain gestating together and maintaining mental contact during their formative years. Blackhawks however are purchased as eggs and are bonded to the buyer who will become captain when the Blackhawk matures.
• Orion's Arm: bioships are the result of the convergence between biotech and drytech. 'Bioships'
• Battlestar Galactica: the Cylon raiders and Basestars are partly organic.
• Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic: the Syrons use a forceship that is made of a carcass of an animal.
• The novels The Genesis Quest and Second Genesis by Donald Moffitt describe a starship called Yggdrasil, made from a semi-sentient Dyson tree combined with a Bussard ramjet.
• The Marvel Comics species the Sidri and the Acanti are space-dwelling sentient starship-like species. The Brood also use bioships called Starsharks.
• In the Wild Cards anthology series, the people of Takis, including Dr. Tachyon, have domesticated a race of living starships.
• Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles shows the alien Bugs using huge "Transport Bugs" to travel between star systems.
• In G.I. Joe, the citizens of Cobra-la, introduced in G.I. Joe: the Movie, have numerous bioships, plus many vehicles and weapons, more advanced than anything possessed by the Joes but all made entirely of organic, and, indeed, mostly still-living material. The whole Cobra-la civilization was built with this sort of technology.

In computer games

• Freelancer: The main enemy in the game is an alien race called the Nomads, a race that seeks to infiltrate humanity to create internecine warfare, then destroy the remains. All their ships are light-blue bioships, with unshielded fighters and larger ships about the size of a human battleship.
• R-Type Final: A number of organic or part-organic Bydo-based fighters can be unlocked later in the game.
• Shadow the Hedgehog: the Black Arms mothership, the Black Comet, is a bioship.
• Creatures 3: The Shee starship is actually a living organism.
• Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds: the Gungan race uses organic technology. Most buildings are organic and large offensive units, such as their Air Cruisers appear to be organic bioships.
• Perfect Dark: a level is set inside a large sentient Bioship, one of a race called the Cetan. The ship rests on the floor of the Pacific ocean, where it crashed millions of years before. The ship had deliberately crashed itself there to deny anyone access to the powerful weapon it contained.
• Escape Velocity Nova: the Polaran faction of humans developed bioship technology to replace their depleted conventional fleet. Polaran bioships are significantly more powerful than the ships of other human factions, and make use of a variety of laser and particle weapons derived from specialized organs.
• X-COM: Apocalypse: all alien UFO's and buildings are made out of biomatter.
• StarCraft: all the space faring species of the Zerg faction are assumed to be bioships
• Prey: the Sphere can be considered a giant bioship (the size of a planetoid)
• Far Gate: The Nue-guyen are the living ships race.
• Haegemonia: The Darzoks' ships are the bioships
• Captain Blood: the player travels in a biological ship known as the Ark. Operations such as landing on or destroying a planet are carried out by biological probes known as OORXX.
• Half-Life 2: The Combine use "Synths" such as gunships, dropships, and other biomechanical war machines, but all examples seen so far aren't truly spaceships, and are more suited to a planetary atmosphere.
• Genesis Rising: All the ships that you control are bioships.

See also

• Astrochicken
• Dyson tree

External links

• Bioship at Memory Alpha