The Advent of the Bladeship

Have you ever created something and fallen in love with it? Well, that’s how I feel about my bladeships.

I’ll explain.

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A million years ago (it feels) in 2019, pre-Covid, I was working on my master’s degree at Western Colorado University. I had to think of a story to tell for my thesis novel. I wanted to tell a space opera tale based on the Odyssey by Homer.

I had my characters, I had my plot. I didn’t have an ending yet.

I also didn’t have a unique spaceship for my universe.

The story centers around an intergalactic war fought between two opposing sides: the rebellious Ascendancy against the tyrannical Dominion Constellar. They needed spaceships that inspired fear in the enemy and that were powerful enough to fold space.

The first iteration of this was the ur-ship:

The ur-ship

I immediately didn’t like the idea of the ur-ship. They were boring, and they looked like every other spaceship you could think of.

It took a few months, but I eventually had the idea of a vertical-type spaceship. You rarely see any of those nowadays. I came up with the idea of a “bladeship” and had a few designs commissioned by artists on Fiverr.

Bladeship Titanus v.1

This is an illustration of the Bladeship TItanus from my book Breaking Colossus:

This one served its purpose. I don’t hate it, but it wasn’t perfect.

It turns out, trying to explain what I had in my head was more difficult than I thought. I wanted them to look like blades, like daggers or swords.

A few tries later, and I still hadn’t found the right design for a bladeship.

But then…

…I discovered AI Art, and the infinite potential it has.

I realized I could use an AI to help me design my bladeships.

Like all ideas I get, I had to keep developing it and trying to make it a reality. Using AI art, I created the next iteration of the Bladeship Titanus with an aster ship leaving its docking bay:

Bladeship Titanus v. 2

As cool as this was, it wasn’t exactly what I needed.

I needed it to be more.

I wanted it to become the vision I’d had in the beginning.

That’s when AI came through for me once again. The rest is history:

Bladeship Titanus v.3

This is the design I’ve settled on and I love it. Each bladeship is different and has unique qualities. This is just one of many.

The Titanus is a non-combative bladeship, and deals with intelligence-gathering rather than fighting. Is the bladeship where Roth Soleis, my main character, begins his story as an intelligence officer.

If you’d like to take a look at a slew of bladeship concept designs I’ve created, click here and go to the bottom of the page.

Let me know what you think of them by replying to this email! I would love to hear your feedback.

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I think the moral of the story is this:

If you have a vision, don’t give up until you love it. Don’t settle. It’s your creation, so make it the best it can be.