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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.
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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
carrier (of fighters, shuttles, etc.)
Examples of motherships include:
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 alien mothership in Independence Day also helped launch an invasion of Earth
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.
In the work of p-funk bands such as parliament and funkadelic, the mothership is the source of all funk. In mid-70s live shows a model mothership was lowered from the roof of the audiotorium to the stage at the climax of the song Mothership Connection.
In the MMO Space game EVE Online, Motherships are large Carriers with deployable Fighters. Motherships can also store player ships inside as well as large amounts of stores and munitions.
In the animated series of Bucky O'Hare the villainous Toad Empire possessed a number of very large motherships which carried enough ships and weaponry to invade an entire planet. While these ships made only sparodic appearances they always dwarfed any ship nearby.
It could be argued that the Super Star Destroyer class of Star Wars is a mothership since it is capable of carrying large numbers of fighters and troops and can support an entire fleet.
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See also
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