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The Aesthetics of Technology

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The Aesthetics of Technology	comment	The Aesthetics of Technology is a manifestation of The Coconut Effect dictating that if something looks more advanced according to the viewer's own personal standard, it is more advanced. The viewer's own standard might, in these cases, not actually map directly to the viewer's own life-experience, but might be surprisingly weighted toward Zeerust: high technology is expected to look high-technological, so a visually complex special effect implies more technology than a visually simple special effect. Robby the Robot has lots of flashing lights and moving parts, so from a retrofuturistic standpoint, he looks more advanced than Commander Data, who just looks like a plain old human with a funny skin tone. In the Digital Age, doing an image search for "technology" or "high-tech" does not result in pictures of Robby the Robot. Instead, you get mostly abstract imagery of Holographic Terminals, High-Tech Hexagons, sleek smart devices, binary code, connected dots, or Tron Lines and Extreme Graphical Representation in the form of concentric arcs/circles or printed circuit board patterns to denote that something is "advanced" or "futuristic." And it usually tends to be blue. As a more modern equivalent to the "Robby vs Data" example, a gaming PC with a sleek case with lots of RGB lights appears to be more advanced than a PC with a plain exterior but the same processor and graphics card on the inside. Visual complexity is still a key factor here; for another example, a flashy sci-fi interface with lots of animated circles and hexagons looks more advanced than graphical user interfaces found in real life, even if they are designed to perform the same function and the extra circles are only decorative. In real life, form follows function, but only up to a point; once the requirements of function are met, the rest is cosmetic. Function decrees that Gizmo-XYZ has to have an outer casing of some sort, but whether that casing is sleek and curvy like an iPod, full of straight lines and hard angles like a 1980's home computer, partly transparent to leave some of the nifty inner workings exposed to view like Robby the Robot, or made of mahogany and covered with curlicue carvings like old-fashioned radio sets (which were designed to look like attractive pieces of living room furniture) is completely arbitrary. None of those aesthetic design choices (except perhaps the transparent one) have any bearing on how advanced the tech inside the device is. For fans, this tends to come up with Long-Runners or Series Franchise, where something built to look "futuristic" by a modern design aesthetic does not look "futuristic" by the previous one. Note that this is completely inverted by Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology, where extremely advanced technology appears deceptively primitive in the form of stones, crystals, idols, monuments or ancient ruins. For reasons that ought to be obvious, this fallacy is largely absent among fans of Steampunk. See also Shiny-Looking Spaceships, Used Future, Excessive Steam Syndrome, Raygun Gothic, Everything Is An iPod In The Future and High-Tech Hexagons. See also Cosmetically-Advanced Prequel. Compare to Technology Marches On, which has to do with the substance and capabilities of technology, rather than what it looks like.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_17bfcf60	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
The Aesthetics of Technology / int_17bfcf60	comment	The original Homeworld plays with it. In terms of look, Turanic ships are the less advanced, Kushan ships look a bit more advanced, Taiidan ships looks a little more modern, and Kadeshi and Bentusi ships look much more advanced. In terms of performance, Kushan and Taiidan ships are identical to their respective counterpart (barring a better turret emplacement of some Taiidan ships and the better hangar protection of Kushan carriers and Mothership), Turanic attack ships are the worst but their capital ships are better armed and armored than the playable races, Kadeshi fighters and frigates can dish and take a lot of damage but sacrifice respectively fuel capacity and speed, and the Bentusi are implied to be powerful but tend to get into situations that are barely survivable even for them.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_1bda896e	comment	The Revelation Space universe created by Alastair Reynolds hand waves this problem with the Melding Plague which attacks nanotechnology, forcing society to revert to more primitive forms of computer interface.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_1ca82882	comment	The yellow speeder that Anakin and Obi-Wan use while chasing Zam Wesell was inspired by the yellow '32 Ford coupe from Lucas' American Graffiti. All it needed was flames painted on the side.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_2250e67e	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
The Aesthetics of Technology / int_2250e67e	comment	Star Trek: Enterprise was widely criticized for how much "more advanced" the NX-01 looked compared to its Original Series counterpart. Which is to say that the Enterprise had computer displays, exposed wiring, and all-around better special effects. Of course, the interior design of the NX-01 was inspired in part by modern NASA designs. The NX-01 is meant to look, to an early 21st century audience, about 150 years in advance of current technology. The NCC-1701 was meant to look, to a 1960s audience, about 300 years in advance of current technology. Because of the shift in design aesthetics, "300 years more advanced than 1966" looks less advanced than "150 years more advanced than 2001". But, of course, no one knows how design aesthetics will continue to shift in the future. "In a Mirror Darkly" shows the NX-01 crew encountering an Original Series-era ship, and they clearly think it looks far more advanced. The standard explanation is that the Original Series era designs show a far greater level of "comfort" with the technology, form factors simplified and exposed wires hidden away behind walls. Put another way, the NCC-1701 was the product of a sort of "Art Deco" period of starship design. A related problem was that communicators on the show were made smaller than those in the the first show, due to cell phones being much smaller. Again, it was a matter of finding some sort of balance between the "futuristic" and bulky technology of the 23rd Century and still making the modern series appear futuristic by modern standards. The NX-01 looks very similar to the Akira-class ships from the Next Generation era (first seen in First Contact), which caused a rift among the fans. In-Universe, Starfleet cannibalized and repurposed old designs for years (the Excelsior class was, at least in ship design, used for over 80 years), thus allowing the Akira to be retconned as a spin-off of the "old" NX-class design, but the fact that viewers saw it first "in the future" was all that counted. Officially, behind-the-scenes the NX was designed independently from the Akira, and the similarities were more incidental than intentional, in reality the only similarities between the designs as far as Starfleet ships go is the overhead silhouette.note The Akira has nacelles that swoop down and forward, evoking a bowlegged design and otherwise having the same type of deflector dish and phaser strips. The NX has the nacelles go upward and back, while having older-looking nacelles and deflector dish. Star Trek: The Next Generation took this even further, with the sets specifically designed to downplay the functionalist, technological aspects in favor of a livable-looking design aesthetic (in order to demonstrate the superiority of 24th century technology and because the Federation had been in peacetime for so many years); as such, the bridge of the Enterprise-D incorporates leather chairs, carpets, gently-sloping ramps and even wooden surfaces with only minor instrumentation and work stations, the entire bridge is usually populated by only 5 people. In a number of alternate timelines, and eventually in Star Trek: Generations, there are more work stations and thus more people crowding the bridge and making it feel more utilitarian. This is explained as Galaxy-class starships (like the Enterprise-D) specifically being designed not only as Starfleet's flagship class, but for long-term exploration and diplomacy missions, even carrying entire families to live onboard for years at a time. As such, they're designed to have less of a science-y feel and more of a 'home' feel. Intrepid-class ships, though, are for science (but not For Science!) & exploration, and only designed to be used by a small crew for a few weeks or months at a time, and as such less attention was paid to aesthetics, and are covered in computer screens. The Enterprise-E, a Sovereign-class starship, has a more "futuristic" appearance than the Enterprise-D, and is more of a battleship than an exploration ship. Of course, the Enterprise-D was lampshaded on TNG itself as being extremely comfortable compared to other less luxurious starships like those of the much more numerous Excelsior class. When Scotty is rescued by the Enterprise-D he is placed in standard guest quarters and remarks that not even an admiral in his own time would have received such a spacious suite aboard a starship. The same ordeal happened with Star Trek: Discovery, meant to take place after Enterprise but before TOS. Technology clearly looks more advanced than ENT, but much of its functionality is more advanced than what was shown on TOS, including tech that wasn't shown until TNG and DS9 (such as ubiquitous holo-communication, holodecks, and casual site-to-site transports). In a deviation, though, many of the handheld devices like the phasers and tricorders were translated very faithfully only using slight ergonomic design changes and more modern construction methods. This winds up being explained away as the fancy new technology not meshing well with the Enterprise, and after his experiences with Section 31's rogue AI Control subverting everything from ship systems to cybernetic prosthetics, Captain Pike decides to have some of the more sophisticated technology removed and replaced with more primitive, but more reliable and less vulnerable, alternatives. Klingon design aesthetics seem to have shifted towards the gothic, with ships that look more ornamental (one ship is literally lined with coffins of their fallen warriors) and the interior looks almost like a church. They will, apparently, go back to their boxy designs in less than a generation.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_2819aebd	comment	Played with in the Mega Man (Classic) and Mega Man X series. While the hero character had a simpler-looking design than the bosses, said hero was the one who can copy bosses' weapons for his own use, supporting a wide arsenal of powers. X is literally described as having unlimited potential, and throughout his series, developed abilities that were previously seen after he picked up armor parts or health upgrades; it's like the concept of Weapon Copy was taken to its logical conclusion and turned into an Ability Copy.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_2acb12c5	comment	In the X-Universe games, aesthetics are not very reliable on how powerful the ships are. The Terran ships are by far the most advanced and powerful ships, but look essentially like sleek Space Shuttles, or in the case of their capital ships, flying white bricks - while their even more advanced AGI Task Force ships are very ornate and boxy. The Teladi, who buy or reverse-engineer all their equipment from the other races, have very cobbled-together designs (often likened to "flying junkyards"), but they are very effective and much more versatile than Terran ships. The Boron have the most aesthetically refined and elegant ships in the game, of the kind that would make you think "unbeatable awesomeness" in other games, but here their fighter craft are little more than glorified Joke Characters, and while they have extremely powerful capital ships, they are sorely lacking in flak cannons. Played straight with the Pirate clans' ships, which are often cobbled together from half a dozen ships, and show it in their stats, which are usually flat-out inferior to a new ship bought from a shipyard, though Pirate ships have a great deal of cross-compatibility with different races' weapons, such as their Brigantine-class destroyer being able to mount Boron Ion Cannons, Teladi Gauss Cannons, and the Pirates' own Incendiary Bomb Launcher.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_2c2a56e3	comment	Fans will no doubt recall that Episode I featured, among other things, chrome spaceships. While the ships of these halcyon days of the old Republic did look, in their ways, more advanced, we are reminded of the similar use of generous amounts of chrome on, say, '50s cars to make them look futuristic (George Lucas has always been a rabid car buff, so this may indeed be intentional). There is another reason for this: as the Galaxy enters the Clone Wars, the ships become more and more boxy and utilitarian in design, presumably because it would be better for the Clone Army to have something that was functional rather than something that was pretty. It was also meant to reflect that as the galaxy falls under the grip of The Empire, the only thing still spiffy and clean are the machines the military uses to keep the populace in line, and those look better when they look mean than when they look pretty.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_331e009	comment	Borderlands 2 distinguishes each gun manufacturer with different attributes, appearances and names. For example, Maliwan favors a Space-Age-y look with blue/silver stocks and glowing orange lights. They also use battery-like powerpacks instead of conventional magazines. On the other hand, Bandit-made guns are an aggressive red (or at least what you can see underneath the coat of filth and duct tape), not to mention most guns made by Bandits have jury-rigged extra-large magazines onto their guns (this throws the accuracy right off, but what do they care? They just like spraying bullets everywhere.) The other companies can be read about on the Borderlands 2 page. The idea that things that look higher-tech are automatically better is averted, though - the Jakobs corporation makes guns that look very old-fashioned, with wooden stocks and Wild West aesthetics, to the point of having pistols where fanning the hammer speeds up rate of fire. Their sniper rifles are considered the best for a dedicated sniper character, due to their massive critical hit damage bonus.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_353b7af3	comment	The same ordeal happened with Star Trek: Discovery, meant to take place after Enterprise but before TOS. Technology clearly looks more advanced than ENT, but much of its functionality is more advanced than what was shown on TOS, including tech that wasn't shown until TNG and DS9 (such as ubiquitous holo-communication, holodecks, and casual site-to-site transports). In a deviation, though, many of the handheld devices like the phasers and tricorders were translated very faithfully only using slight ergonomic design changes and more modern construction methods. This winds up being explained away as the fancy new technology not meshing well with the Enterprise, and after his experiences with Section 31's rogue AI Control subverting everything from ship systems to cybernetic prosthetics, Captain Pike decides to have some of the more sophisticated technology removed and replaced with more primitive, but more reliable and less vulnerable, alternatives. Klingon design aesthetics seem to have shifted towards the gothic, with ships that look more ornamental (one ship is literally lined with coffins of their fallen warriors) and the interior looks almost like a church. They will, apparently, go back to their boxy designs in less than a generation.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_3d24ebc	comment	In Oblivion, the people we are led to believe represent the remnants of humanity all use shiny white technology that also has a lot of moving parts, while the Scavs that are supposedly alien Planet Looters who blew up the moon have disheveled tech that appears cobbled together. This was probably intended as a big hint that it's actually the other way around. The Scavs are humans while the hero is a cloned astronaut being used by the alien entity that really blew up the moon and is sucking up the oceans.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_495f2d49	comment	One of the myriad complaints against Team Knight Rider was that the cars "did not look nearly as advanced" as KITT of the original Knight Rider — that is, they were visually different from ordinary cars only by the addition of a single multi-function computer display. The original series had described KITT's interior, by contrast, as "Darth Vader's Bathroom", a possible indication that it looked a bit Zeerust even by the standards of the time. Thing is, except for the instrument panel, the original KITT's interior was pure stock thirdgen F-Body. Knight Rider 2000 utilises a similar display to Team Knight Rider' for the Knight 4000, but retains a limited number of buttons for important functions and a separate speech indicator in the same panel, although the exterior is a unique and much more "futuristic" design for the time, due to the 20 Minutes into the Future setting. The 2008 pilot movie features a simple screen in KITT's dashboard that pulled double duty as both KITT's speech indicator and a display. In the following series, released later the same year, the screen is replaced by a spherical speech indicator mounted higher in the dashboard and multi-function holograms displayed over the windshield.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_4bf7f65	comment	In Aeon Entelechy Evangelion we have the New Earth Government Army which uses utilitarian designs for its mecha. And then we have the Loyalist Nazzadi with their sleek and smooth mecha, surpassed only by their elite with even sleeker and smoother mecha.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_50e2e357	comment	And now we have the 2009 pre-boot series. Its sets look quite modern, via Everything Is an iPod in the Future, but not particularly futuristic. This probably means it will succumb to Zeerust even faster than did Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which is one of the most visually dated of the original movie series.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_57a3683f	comment	This expectation led to a Not Always Right entry. That entry is doubly humorous considering that Macs started out as all-in-one machines and have actually returned to that basic design concept. "This is amazing, young man!"
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_5a160237	comment	Civilization: Beyond Earth has three technological affinities (Supremacy, Harmony and Purity) that the player's faction can adopt later in the game. Supremacy units have a sleek Cyberpunk look and feel, the Harmony forces have a Organic Technology vibe while Purity units have a very retro-Diesel Punk look to them. This look is intentional on the part of the Purity engineers as they are trying to recreate and honor the past glories of Earth and it doesn't mean the Purity units are any less capable or technologically advanced. The DLC adds hybrid affinities that feature different aesthetic: Harmony-Purity tends to go with the "ancient Greek god" look, Supremary-Purity is of the Everything Is An I Pod In The Future style, and Harmony-Supremacy barely even resembles anything human.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_5bfa9c98	comment	Warframe: There are different design aesthetics for each of the different factions. Corpus technology is boxy and gray, Grineer weapons are crude and industrial, and Infested weapons are biological. All Orokin technology is covered in silver and gold but still ridiculously powerful, while Tenno technology archaic and hand-made designs based off of whatever they can still figure out from the old Orokin weapons.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_5d354f8	comment	Parodied in Red Dwarf: When Kryten believes Lister to be a Mechanoid, the fact he looks perfectly human is evidence he's a less advanced version — the human-looking Mechanoids creeped actual Humans out too much, so the range was discontinued.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_5e150650	comment	In Exalted, it is mentioned that the Solars built Artifacts to be both functional and beautiful. When the Dragon-Blooded took over, they couldn't do both, so they decided to just go with the functional. Turns out, they couldn't do that quite as well either...
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_61c6b600	comment	The NX-01 looks very similar to the Akira-class ships from the Next Generation era (first seen in First Contact), which caused a rift among the fans. In-Universe, Starfleet cannibalized and repurposed old designs for years (the Excelsior class was, at least in ship design, used for over 80 years), thus allowing the Akira to be retconned as a spin-off of the "old" NX-class design, but the fact that viewers saw it first "in the future" was all that counted. Officially, behind-the-scenes the NX was designed independently from the Akira, and the similarities were more incidental than intentional, in reality the only similarities between the designs as far as Starfleet ships go is the overhead silhouette.note The Akira has nacelles that swoop down and forward, evoking a bowlegged design and otherwise having the same type of deflector dish and phaser strips. The NX has the nacelles go upward and back, while having older-looking nacelles and deflector dish.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_62aa95a6	comment	Discussed in-universe in The Lost Fleet, as recently-defrosted Human Popsicle John Geary comes to grips with just how bad things have got while he was gone:
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_670ee0cd	comment	Each faction in Endless Space 2 has a distinct aesthetic: The United Empire ships are black and red in colour with a bulky and imposing shape and a chisel-like prow, and even their non-combat ships have cosmetic missile ports. As befits your typical evil militaristic/xenophobic human empire. The Vodyani (hyper-religious space vampires) have sleek gray ships with glowing yellow highlights, and many of them have Eva Fins. The Sophons, Badass Adorable high-tech space lizard people reminiscent of the Kerbals, lean towards smooth-white ships seemingly devoid of visual intimidation. With characteristic eccentrism, Horatio ships are segmented mechanical Space Whales that slowly swim through the cosmos, covered in bronze-gold plating etched with intricate geometric patterns. Naturally, such elegant fragility pays through the nose both at the shipyard and in battle. The Cravers (very hungry mechanical Planet Looters) had to scavenge their way back into space and it shows through their ship designs; patchwork plates of brown metal barely covering rough internal sections. Exposed pipes and reactor spheres are common, suggesting a haphazard throwing-together of functional systems. The Lumeris (space mafiaso criminal types) have their ships being divided almost evenly between smooth, colorful sections of hull and exposed sections of piping or engines. This makes more sense if you consider their navy to essentially be comprised of re-purposed civilian ships. The Riftborn crew very similar ships to the Lumeris and the Sophons, but their extra-universal nature reveals itself in their floating, geometrical modules. The Unfallen vessels are vaguely biological and have leaf-like solar sails. The Unfallen themselves are a beautiful and gentle race of spacefaring tree-aliens. The Vaulters (spacefaring viking nomads) build ships that are grey and sturdy in line with the Standard Human Spaceship, although they tend to be wide where the United Empire is tall. They also have a fondness for mounting thick sheets of metal to the hull via girders which gives their ships the impression of hiding behind walls, reflecting their hardy, defensive military doctrine. The Hissho, as a highly artistic Proud Warrior Race, build ships covered in elaborate Mesoamerican-style engravings detailing past acts of valour and significant events. They kill and they look good while they do it. Their ships also have elegant wing-like fins at the back and pointed bill-like protrusions at the front, a nod to their avian ancestry.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_69d15cc0	comment	This appears in other Marvel Cinematic Universe films as well. In Captain America: Civil War, when Tony Stark talks privately with Peter Parker, he kids him on his makeshift homemade-looking Spider-Man suit (calling it a "onesie") and the fact that the only computer Peter can afford is an old Apple MacIntosh he salvaged from the trash. On the other hand he expressed admiration that Peter was able to synthesise spider silk. When Tony convinces Peter to join him in Germany against Captain America and his fugitive Avengers, he upgrades Spider-Man's suit, making it more high-tech and also more closely resembling the webspinner we all know and love.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_6bbde1c8	comment	Overwatch uses technology to subtly unify a cast of twenty-one characters who are diverse in both appearance and culture. Every last one of them has some form of wearable tech—the samurai archer has sleek metallic boots that fit his otherwise traditional outfit, the two wastelanders both have tech clearly scavenged from somewhere similar to the rest of the cast's outfits... These also serve to provide a visual explanation for most of the character's unique abilities.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_70814599	comment	Stargate SG-1: The depiction of the race called the "Nox" is a subversion. Their entire culture's technology is completely salient and has been completely integrated into the surrounding environment in a manner which makes the the technology virtually indistinguishable from the natural terrain. Mind-bogglingly advanced technology (capable of resurrection), and you wouldn't have the first clue how they did it because they look and act like a hunting and gathering society; they are small tight-knit groups which exist largely in harmony with the local ecosystem. This is subverted a lot. Goa'uld technology looks like stuff out of ancient times, ancient Egypt especially (Pyramid-ships, staff-weapons, sarcophagus, ugly crystal-technology). The Asgard do have the typical "advanced" look in their technology; but the Ancients, who are at least equal to the Asgard in technology, all have angular-shaped technology which overall looks, well, ancient. The Ancients are particularly interesting, as their civilization lasted long enough to produce several substantially disparate sets of artifacts: Alteran ancients produced technology primarily in the form of high-technological devices apparently made of stone. Lantian ancients adopted an aesthetic more typical of contemporary "advanced alien" sensibilities, heavy on crystals and lucite, though on a grandiose scale. The builders of the Destiny, purportedly the earliest of the bunch, had a much more "industrial" aesthetic, including a Excessive Steam Syndrome. When Doctor Rush identifies Destiny's design as "clearly Ancient," we just have to take his word for it. Though we see comparatively little of the technology of the Ori, it seems similar in scope to Alteran technology, but with conscious minor aesthetic differences and heavy use of Light Is Not Good (their ring transporters, for example, are white marble with glowing inlays). In addition, we have Earth's gate-dialing system: Large computer consoles with seemingly random lights and buttons filling up entire rooms. The system is slow, has things constantly going wrong, and has massive power requirements. The Ancients, on the other hand, invented the DHDs, which are far smaller and streamlined and much more convenient. While the control rooms of the Goa'uld ships look basically empty except for a throne and an altar-like console, the Earth ships are chock-full of screens, buttons, and glowing lights. The contrast between the two was intentional: the set designers wanted them to be more interesting than the existing Goa'uld ships. The look of the Earth ships' interiors are also based on actual battleships and aircraft carriers. The Asgard ships are about in the middle: their exteriors are silver and streamlined, and the interiors are white and smooth, with a fair amount of screens, lights, and control interfaces. And rocks. We could mention the stargates themselves; the third generation of stargates that the Ancients used in the Pegasus Galaxy look more advanced than the ones they used in the Milky Way Galaxy. Yet they also lost some functionality because they do not have a physical moving "rotary telephone" ring, which means they cannot be manually dialed - an interesting parallel to a lot of Real Life examples where a supposedly more advanced technology is less versatile or at least resilient than what it replaced.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_755b343f	comment	Halo: The Covenant mostly have sleek, brightly colored weapons and armor, and largely fire plasma instead of bullets. Human weapons are blocky and drab (with many looking like modern-day real-life ones), and mostly fire projectiles. In-universe, standard Covenant weapons are generally considered better. Plasma melts armor and ignites clothing, and on a larger scale boils through ships and can reduce much of a planet to cinder and glass within hours (and with not all that many ships). Additionally, UNSC spaceships usually need to outnumber their Covenant counterparts by at least three-to-one in order to have even a slight chance of winning. The main thing holding the Covenant back is that they're reluctant to improve or even better understand their own technology, due to having reverse-engineered it from Forerunner tech (which they consider holy relics). That said, human tech can still hold its own in the right hands; in the beginning of Halo: Combat Evolved, one (AI-controlled) human ship takes on 12 similarly-sized CCS battlecruisers and manages to destroy four of them and cripple at least one other, though the books reveal that the Covenant were trying to board and capture the ship rather than just obliterate it. Gameplay-wise, the Covenant's weapons are simply different rather than better. For example, their plasma rifles take down shields more reliably, but usually don't have the firepower of human rifles, and the two sides' sniper weapons are basically identical. In vehicle combat, the player with the UNSC one will often have the advantage. Within the Covenant itself, Brute weapons often look ancient and scrapped-together, and tend to fire projectiles instead of plasma. Additionally, they tend to favor metal blades over plasma ones. The Brutes themselves are generally considered simple-minded primitives by the rest of the Covenant, but their weapons can hold their own against standard Covenant plasma ones. Interestingly, they also seem quite happy to use looted human weapons such as the shotgun. The M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle, better known as the Warthog or the Puma, doesn't look like it should be used in 2552, but has seemingly unpoppable tires. Also, it doesn't need gasoline; it actually runs on water. In games from Halo 4 onward, UNSC weapons, though they're still mostly blocky and projectile-based, have taken on a considerably shinier and more futuristic appearance, and it's stated that the UNSC has been able to close much of the tech gap with the Covenant, even surpassing them in some areas. This is also particularly apparent with the visual evolution of the Spartans' MJOLNIR Powered Armor; the earlier MJOLNIR favored by S-IIs and IIIs tends to be blocky and utilitarian-looking, while the current and more advanced MJOLNIR favored by Spartan-IVs tends to be smooth and rather fancy-looking. Played straight with Forerunner technology, especially from Halo 4 onward. Forerunner constructions tend to be a shiny gray-silver and highly ornate, often with glowy highlights, and their guns fire Hard Light and other exotic energies. Their technology is consistently stated to be far beyond what the current races of the galaxy have, and gameplay often reflects this, with Promethean weapons being among the most powerful in the game.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_77677ed1	comment	In Sword of the Stars, aesthetics are not always indicative of how powerful a faction's ships are. The dish-dash, slapped-together Zuul craft can be as effective or moreso than the sleek Morrigi ships.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_7988cb68	comment	A lot of things in the Mass Effect series play this trope straight. Word of God states that they wanted to deliberately invoke a clean, futuristic look, especially in the most civilized areas. On the other hand, it is averted in the seedier places (like Omega, which still has an enormously advanced level of technological development, despite being the epitome of a Wretched Hive) and by the really advanced people—consider the Collectors' ships, which look more like a chunk of rock with a spaceship engine than the sleek and cool-looking Normandy or Destiny Ascension.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_7ab10627	comment	In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the pastel aesthetics of the refit Enterprise's interior and the crew uniforms were criticised both at the time and for many years later. But now, with Everything Is an iPod in the Future, they seem ahead of their time. The uniform buckles◊ even look a bit like iPhones or iPod Touches. The aesthetics for The Motion Picture were heavily inspired by 2001, which also tied in to the more cerebral and "big concept sci-fi" themes of the plot. Unfortunately it was in development hell for so long that by the time it finally came out Star Wars was the new king of the sci-fi movie aesthetic, and TMP looked retro, fusty, and slow in comparison. Now the 2001 aesthetic has come full circle and TMP in many ways looks better than several of the 80s Star Trek movies.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_7bff7264	comment	The Covenant mostly have sleek, brightly colored weapons and armor, and largely fire plasma instead of bullets. Human weapons are blocky and drab (with many looking like modern-day real-life ones), and mostly fire projectiles. In-universe, standard Covenant weapons are generally considered better. Plasma melts armor and ignites clothing, and on a larger scale boils through ships and can reduce much of a planet to cinder and glass within hours (and with not all that many ships). Additionally, UNSC spaceships usually need to outnumber their Covenant counterparts by at least three-to-one in order to have even a slight chance of winning. The main thing holding the Covenant back is that they're reluctant to improve or even better understand their own technology, due to having reverse-engineered it from Forerunner tech (which they consider holy relics). That said, human tech can still hold its own in the right hands; in the beginning of Halo: Combat Evolved, one (AI-controlled) human ship takes on 12 similarly-sized CCS battlecruisers and manages to destroy four of them and cripple at least one other, though the books reveal that the Covenant were trying to board and capture the ship rather than just obliterate it.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_81692f99	comment	Star Trek: In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the pastel aesthetics of the refit Enterprise's interior and the crew uniforms were criticised both at the time and for many years later. But now, with Everything Is an iPod in the Future, they seem ahead of their time. The uniform buckles◊ even look a bit like iPhones or iPod Touches. The aesthetics for The Motion Picture were heavily inspired by 2001, which also tied in to the more cerebral and "big concept sci-fi" themes of the plot. Unfortunately it was in development hell for so long that by the time it finally came out Star Wars was the new king of the sci-fi movie aesthetic, and TMP looked retro, fusty, and slow in comparison. Now the 2001 aesthetic has come full circle and TMP in many ways looks better than several of the 80s Star Trek movies. And now we have the 2009 pre-boot series. Its sets look quite modern, via Everything Is an iPod in the Future, but not particularly futuristic. This probably means it will succumb to Zeerust even faster than did Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which is one of the most visually dated of the original movie series.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_834197b2	comment	Then there are Imperial weapons and equipment from the Great Crusade/ Horus Heresy era. Looking closer to Modern equipment and some relics of the armory are even more iPod like and futuristic. Mainly because they have access to stuff from the Dark Age of Technology.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_86904ab8	comment	This has actually popped up in a lot of the fandom for the Iron Man movies, where Obidiah Stane's Iron Monger suit is less "advanced" than Tony's suit since Tony fought it and won while only at 17% of power. The suit uses conventional weapons and is bigger and "clunkier" than Tony's more streamlined suit.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_9068877a	comment	The M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicle, better known as the Warthog or the Puma, doesn't look like it should be used in 2552, but has seemingly unpoppable tires. Also, it doesn't need gasoline; it actually runs on water.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_9a7088bc	comment	A related problem was that communicators on the show were made smaller than those in the the first show, due to cell phones being much smaller. Again, it was a matter of finding some sort of balance between the "futuristic" and bulky technology of the 23rd Century and still making the modern series appear futuristic by modern standards.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_9a8bf274	comment	Command & Conquer The Tiberium series uses a gradual shifting of design to emphasize how Global Defense Initiative and Brotherhood of Nod slowly diverge from the 20 Minutes into the Future (from a 90s point of view atleast) shared aesthetic of the first game, into their own vastly different design philosophies. GDI technology is made in yellows, beiges, and grays, with orange highlights. Their tech is visibly heavy with solid, blocky designs that give clear indication of their resilience and thorough design process. GDI Units are progressively iterated on tried and true designs, and favor a combination of hard-hitting conventional firearms with railguns and sonic weapons built on a solid, reliable base that can stand a beating. Nod tech on the other hand, is pitch black with red highlights with either rounded aerodynamic shapes in front and bladelike edges in the back, which at the same time appears partially alien and quite advanced, and yet often has glaring design flaws and impractical elements that show the relatively impatient design process and emphasis on form over function. Nod uses light firearms and rockets, but quickly drops them in favor of high-tech lasers, chemical weaponry, and flamethrowers equipped to fast, powerful, but often fragile or overspecialized chassis. Red Alert 3: The Allies use 20 Minutes into the Future tech, so their armed forces are mostly gunmetal gray, the Soviets green paint and rust, and the Epire tend towards Everything Is Ani Pod In The Future (although their infantry doesn't, being a combination of WWII tactics with Schizo Tech (banzai charges with beam-swords, ninja, psychic schoolgirls...).
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_9d4fbe8e	comment	Lampshaded in Freeman's Mind episode 57. After puzzling for a while over the purpose of some holograms and rotating platforms, Freeman concludes that they're just there to impress funders who expect to see lots of flashy effects and moving parts. What's funny is that according to the Real Life section, some science facilities actually do use things like smoke machines, green lights, food coloring, etc. for news crews and the like, so Freeman's hypothesis isn't far-fetched at all.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_a46565f7	comment	One fan of Cortex Command has complained that the technology isn't very advanced. The technology looks modern rather than futuristic, but considering that this is a game where humans are brains in jars that travel through space, cloning has been completely perfected, everyone has an unlimited supply of clones and robots that they can remote control, that jetpacks have been perfected, batteries can recharge themselves from thin air, that tools that can literally disintegrate dirt, but leave gold unharmed and that humans have spread themselves all across the galaxy the fan's complaints are ungrounded. In fact, the only sleeker technology at this point is the laser guns and the dummy robots. The dummy robots are cannon-fodder and the laser weapons are only effective against unarmored opponents.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_b295cab3	comment	Aeon 14: Zig-Zagged. In Building Victoria and Destiny Lost, Time Dilation due to accidentally flying through a dark energy stream sends the main protagonists forward in time from the 5th millennium to the late 9th. It's noted several times that 5th millennium ships and technology tend to be prettier than 9th millennials', which goes with the fact that a lot of 5th millennium technology is Lost Technology due to the intervening FTL Wars. On the other hand, in certain areas 9th millennium tech is more advanced: Artificial Gravity generators are much smaller and more precise, which led to advances in Deflector Shield technology and the invention of Faster-Than-Light Travel... which led to the FTL Wars.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_b3788a5d	comment	The aesthetics for The Motion Picture were heavily inspired by 2001, which also tied in to the more cerebral and "big concept sci-fi" themes of the plot. Unfortunately it was in development hell for so long that by the time it finally came out Star Wars was the new king of the sci-fi movie aesthetic, and TMP looked retro, fusty, and slow in comparison. Now the 2001 aesthetic has come full circle and TMP in many ways looks better than several of the 80s Star Trek movies.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_b9419bd1	comment	Deus Ex: Human Revolution features the "old style" mechanical enhancements. They look far more advanced than the 'newer' ones in the original games, even when taking the improved graphics into account. Part of the justification for this comes in the stated mission by the designers to give the whole game something of a cultural 'Renaissance' feeling, which also reflects in the color scheme and clothing designs.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_bb8d2f1a	comment	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: In The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect are sent several million years into the past and end up aboard a spaceship. To Arthur the control room looks like a spaceship control room should look, to Ford it looks thoroughly antiquated.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_bcadd7cb	comment	Warhammer 40,000: The main faction is the Imperium of Man, and much of their technology features function over form for the small scale, and thus has a robust, industrialized design. As they scale upwards, the form-function ratio tends to move further towards form, but never overtakes function. Things like starships or titans are awash with Gothic ornamentation, but never lose their distinctly Imperial look. The catch is that most of the Imperium uses fairly crude technology by many sci-fi standards (even their own human standard from thousands of years ago). On the other hand Imperial tech is very reliable and durable, to the point that many items, from ships to titans to well-made small arms, being in reliable service for millennia, though in many cases the age does tend to show. On the far end of Imperial tech are recovered old technology that qualify for Clarke's Third Law or are practically Magitek for incorporating Warpspace mechanics into them. These items are usually one of a kind or very close to it in the difficulty in recreating them, or the knowledge to create and replicate them have been lost. Many assume Tau technology is more advanced than the Imperium because it looks more futuristic. The trope is actually zig-zagged. The real explanation is culture. The Tau society is like ours. They practice science. Advanced machines are mass produced, tested, and refined. They are improved according to sound engineering and scientific principles. The Tau have not quite figured out yet they live in a cosmic horror story. The average Tau's possessions and quality of life are far better than the average Imperial citizens, and when the Tau's hot new gear gets blown up, they just figure out how to make the next set better while ordering the factories to replace the destroyed gear. They behave like a modern army. Extremely rare Tau weapons are not sacred relics, but prototypes handed out to elite soldiers for testing before they go into mass production. The Imperium is like a caricature of the Dark Ages. Everything great was in the past, erected during a golden age. The top end relics from that golden age are better than what the Tau has now, but they are treasures from an ancient world and cannot be replicated today. Nor does the Imperium really have a culture of science; superstition and religion have mostly done away with it. The average Imperial citizen lives worse than the quality of life of most humans today, and the average soldier of the Imperium would be awed by Tau technology. The very lucky, very privileged few who get the awesome relics of the past - or who can get one of the knock-offs produced by rote replication of the achievements from before - have things the Tau would love to get. The elite of the Imperium have things the Tau can only dream of, but they are few, and the culture doesn't really have ways to further refine the designs. Imperial special gear tends to be relics from thousands of years ago that can't be replaced. Humanity's ancient past was a time when they would easily outstrip the Tau, but humanity has fallen. Due to Schizo Tech, the elite Imperials have things Tau would dearly love to have, but the vast bulk of humanity does not have access to it. Tau culture is forward-looking and progressive, and even in game they tend to premier new units as a "technological refinement" of their earlier units. The Imperium is forever clutching the relics of the past and stagnating. That's why the Tau look like a streamlined mix of retro and anime science fiction while the Imperium looks like gothic horror Recycled In Space - the visuals of each society tell you their relationship with technology and science. Averted with weapons. For example, plasma weapons: in the Imperium they're rare but not uncommon (which is relative - thousands of plasma guns are made each year, while trillions of lasguns are made), and hand held. Tau have hand held plasma weapons in the form of the Pulse Rifle. But are nowhere near as powerful, the closest can only be mounted on Mini Mechas or tanks and are still less powerful (but don't overheat). While a Tau's pulse rifle is less powerful shot-for-shot than an Imperial Guard or (especially) Space Marine plasma gun, the plasma gun is an over-engineered death trap quite capable of blowing up the user on a misfire, it has a slow firing rate, AND the most effective designs are long-lost. Tau pulse rifles shoot much faster, don't have the same overheating issues, and (for the Tau) are as easy to mass-produce as Imperial lasguns. Really the only reason they haven't been drafted wholesale into the Imperial Guard and Space Marines is because they're heretical Xenos tech that any member of the Imperium is obliged to destroy. Also the Adeptus Mechanicus believes everything that has ever been invented already has and work to find Standard Template Constructs (which also have the benefit of usually not being corrupted by Chaos like the Mars archives were during the Dark Age of Technology and the Horus Heresy). Making it less engineering and innovation and more a matter of archaeology instead. Then there are Imperial weapons and equipment from the Great Crusade/ Horus Heresy era. Looking closer to Modern equipment and some relics of the armory are even more iPod like and futuristic. Mainly because they have access to stuff from the Dark Age of Technology. On the other hand, Eldar stuff is inhumanly clean and elegant, and their tech is indeed more advanced than the humans'. The Necrons are the most advanced of all and are decidedly ancient and look it... basically, the rule in 40k is older=better. And THEN there are the Orks, who have the most fun with this trope: since the Orks are mainly scavengers, their technology looks like it is straight out of Mad Max, cumbersome, improvised, rusty and dirty, much like their owners. But Orks can do research as well when they bother to, and so far have invented flame throwers that double as welding torches, surprisingly elegant Death Ray artillery and a device that teleports small goblins straight to hell and literally into enemy units, or it malfunctions and plobs demonic, all-destroying slime on them instead. Ork airplanes, meanwhile, look surprisingly "normal" (if obviously super-charged). Lastly, many Ork players take the army's theme of "lootin'" to heart and build contraptions out of vehicles from other factions or wholesale new, which thus can look as crude or advanced, and as improvised or original, as they want. When given the time to re-remember their Genetic Memory, an Ork's heap of scrap metal he calls technology is actually lightyears ahead of the Eldar's sleek, physically impossible weaponry and roughly equal with the Necron's. Given they were purpose-made to fight said Necrons by the impossibly advanced Old Ones, and given their afforementioned genetically-encoded blueprints by the same, this should come as no surprise.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_c0aa8ea9	comment	The Ancients are particularly interesting, as their civilization lasted long enough to produce several substantially disparate sets of artifacts: Alteran ancients produced technology primarily in the form of high-technological devices apparently made of stone. Lantian ancients adopted an aesthetic more typical of contemporary "advanced alien" sensibilities, heavy on crystals and lucite, though on a grandiose scale. The builders of the Destiny, purportedly the earliest of the bunch, had a much more "industrial" aesthetic, including a Excessive Steam Syndrome. When Doctor Rush identifies Destiny's design as "clearly Ancient," we just have to take his word for it. Though we see comparatively little of the technology of the Ori, it seems similar in scope to Alteran technology, but with conscious minor aesthetic differences and heavy use of Light Is Not Good (their ring transporters, for example, are white marble with glowing inlays).
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_c43df4d8	comment	Doctor Who: Both because of how long the series has been running, and because of what a tight budget it was on for most of that time, it's extremely common in the original series for devices that are supposed to be insanely high-tech to look quite clunky and primitive, especially to a modern audience. The new series has consciously and lovingly embraced this, to the point where it's almost rare for a high-tech device not to look deliberately old-fashioned. For example, when Rose dismissed K9 for looking "a bit disco", and the Doctor replied that K9 was actually cutting-edge design in the year 5000. In the original series, one of the most notable instances of this was in "The Keeper of Traken". The Trakenites show Adric the Sufficiently Advanced Technology that runs their world, and he comments on how amazingly advanced it looks. It's a pile of very clunky-looking late 1970's electronic parts sitting on a cheap metal cabinet. It's both adorable and sad. "The Waters of Mars" has the Doctor using a spacesuit that's from humanity's future but doesn't look like it, making the comment from the base crew about its advanced technology rather odd. It's possible that this is because it's noticeably less bulky than the suits they're using, so of course they'd wonder where it came from. The TARDIS is kind of a subversion of this. It's obsolete by the standards of Time Lord technology, yes, but it's still an insanely powerful and infinitely reconfigurable dimensionally transcendental time (and space) machine... but it also quite often looks like it's either made of junk,◊ or at the very least fairly low-tech switches and levers and buttons.◊ Partly this is an aesthetic choice in-universe (the TARDIS can look like anything it wants and the Doctor has a vaguely retro steampunk aesthetic) and from the production team (the Doctor dramatically flipping levers and toggling switches is a lot more visually interesting than him using touch panel controls, and the visual effects are cheaper). It also avoids the situation from the classic series, where the TARDIS was supposed to look like an ultra-high-tech machine, but now often looks hilariously dated.◊
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_c72021c5	comment	A good example of this can be found in the training mission of Deus Ex, where one of the rooms is a small "museum" showing the history of artificial enhancements. The old electro-mechanical enhancements make their users look like cyborgs; but if someone is equipped with the new enhancements based in Nanomachines, they will look like pretty much any other human. In fact, a small part of the story revolves around two agents with UNATCO who have the old-style cybernetic enhancements. They are, understandably, extremely miffed about the fact that the "next generation" of augmented humans are not only superior to them in most respects, but they look human, so they don't have to deal with the stigma of looking like a science experiment Gone Horribly Wrong. There is also an ex-UNATCO bartender in New York who has some "pretty heavy augmentation" and while her customers don't seem to mind, she's a bit touchy when it's brought up.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_d5166b45	comment	Played straight with Forerunner technology, especially from Halo 4 onward. Forerunner constructions tend to be a shiny gray-silver and highly ornate, often with glowy highlights, and their guns fire Hard Light and other exotic energies. Their technology is consistently stated to be far beyond what the current races of the galaxy have, and gameplay often reflects this, with Promethean weapons being among the most powerful in the game.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_dc30219c	comment	Lancer: The game has four main armor manufacturers (aptly known as the Big Four), and their aesthetic choices reflect their general design philosophies. Inter-Planetary Shipping: Northstar (IPS-N) is a shipping MegaCorp first, mech manufacturer second, essentially selling their own anti-piracy security measures as a highly profitable sidegig and working every corner of the galaxy they can reach. Their designs are textbook Used Future: Relatively simplistic and rugged, big on heavy plating and proven mechanical anatomy, to the point their non-humanoid mechs like the Lancaster are practically Boston Robotics designs. This reflects their philosophy of highly reliable, uncomplicated and heavily armored platforms made to last. Smith-Shimano Corpro (SSC) has always been big on elegance and the perfection of the human form, and their designs reflect this: Almost everything they have is perfectly humanoid, with bright colors and sleek, soft-edged designs made for speed and acrobatics, and often carry extraneous decoration like ribbons just for style's sake. Often their mechs resemble warriors from an ancient epic more than a futuristic weapons platform - and their high emphasis on mobility and unusual technologies while forgoing armor and general ruggedness makes the comparison even more apt. Harrison Armory are remnants from the imperialist (and sometimes outright fascist) SecComm that survived as One Nation Under Copyright. Fittingly, their designs are boxy and highly militarized, war machines first and foremost that openly show their unmistakeable armaments and general power, and downplay any elegance (though they sometimes ramp up the intimidation factor). Said war machines are just as powerful as they look, packing openly lethal technologies and high-powered (and often overworked) reactors that fuel brutal weaponry to keep their wars of conquest going. HORUS is unusual in that, for a mech provider, no one is actually sure what they even are. It seems like an irreverent philosophical cult with access to ancient knowledge and hyperadvanced technology alike to the point of treating reality like a joke, but their illogical and even contradictory activities make one wonder if it's some kind of black-ops group, a terrorist cell, an esoteric hacker collective or RA or a fellow NHP doing some shenanigans. Their mechs - which are big on paracausal technology, electronic warfare and insane design ideas that wouldn't work anywhere else - reflect this in aesthetics: They're utterly chaotic with a penchant for spikes and visibly incomprehensible futuristic tech-bits, with a side of near-fantastic Lost Technology and the occasional dash of Neon Genesis Evangelion on a bad day.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_e0c93337	comment	In The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells, originally published in 1898, the narrator and main protagonist is one of the first at the scene of the fallen 'meteor' which turns out to contain a space-going artificial cylinder. To open, the cylinder slowly unscrews, the height of imagined spaceship door technology at the time, and evidence of the aliens' technological sophistication (from a late 19th Century perspective at least). Also it is mentioned earlier in the story that telescopes aimed at Mars had picked up some odd flashes of light, implying that the Martian ships had actually been launched at Earth via gigantic cannons.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_e270b7e1	comment	You can decide for yourself in Genius: The Transgression, the roleplaying game of Mad Science. Geniuses can make their Wonders look like pretty much anything they want, and 'Aesthetic' is a signature trait for most. It lists a number of sample Aesthetics, ranging from Steampunk (the currently most popular style) to Raygun Gothic to 'iPod' style. Some of them can be quite unusual, such as the Stone Age aesthetic one character has.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_e7e37776	comment	Firefly mostly revels in the Space Western aesthetic, and for the majority of the series we're only seeing what looks like run-down ships and scattered, low-tech societies and villages, with the occasional episode in a high-tech locale like "Ariel" or "Trash". What this doesn't show is the presence of background technology far, far more advanced than what is otherwise shown; e.g. large-scale terraforming technology, gravity manipulation technology, and starship engines that put out enormous amounts of power. Even the battered and old starship Serenity puts out enough energy in its drive to make the Tsar Bomba jealous.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_e80fa454	comment	The five factions of Battleborn have different aesthetics when it comes to their technology. The UPR has a modern military look to them and their tech. They are rather ulitarian as they prefer function over fashion in this regard. They're however not as advanced as factions like the LLC and the Jennerit whose tech are just as sophisticated in level as they are in appearance. The Rogues have a duct taped together look to their tech which fits in line with their principles of freedom. It's all scavenged and cobbled together from tech from other factions such as the UPR and doesn't have a real sense of uniformity. With such a look that's all over the place, their technology is likewise as such and can't exactly be considered overall advanced. The Eldrid use Organic Technology and the like that harmonizes with the natural laws of the Universe. As such their technology has a very natural and ancient looking aesthetic to it. Due to their millennia worth of history, it's actually more sophisticated than it appears to be. It's just that they refuse to exhibit their technology's sophistication in a way that clashes with nature like the other factions do. The Jennerit are one of the more high tech of the factions and are capable of using dark energies to bend the universe's laws to suit their needs. As such the aesthetic of their technology reflects how both advance and dark it is. The aesthetic's best described by Word of God as "Gothic Tron" which mixes dark foreboding Gothic art with the art visuals from TRON. The LLC are the most technology oriented of the factions. They however value fashion just as much as function in accordance of their wealth showcasing principles. Thus the aesthetic of the LLC's technology is extremely clean and shiny with a lot of Victorian inspired ornate designs decorated about. It's best described by Word of God which states that if the aesthetic of the Jennerit is "Gothic Tron" then the LLC's is "Steampunk Tron".
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_ec9965ca	comment	The Culture says hello...
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_f74b5f80	comment	Babylon 5: While this is generally true with the Centauri, the Minbari, the Vorlons, several League and independent races, etc. However, Narn ships are a subversion, as background material says that the Narns deliberately try to invoke this trope with their fancy looking ships, but weapons tech captured from the Centauri aside, are not all that advanced (they don't even have gravity). One of the League races, the Brakiri, does this too, their ships are made to look like organic technology even though they aren't that much more advanced than other League races. According to the supplementary material in the B5 Wars tabletop game, they actually are one of the more advanced League races, having artificial gravity, but their government is too divided to form an effective military force, which is why they tend to be on the receiving end of any stellar butt-whuppings. Inverted and played straight among Earth ships. The Hyperion◊-class cruiser looks more advanced than the Omega◊-class destroyer, but the Omega is the de-facto replacement of both the Hyperion and its contemporary Nova-class dreadnought (from which it borrowed the hull) and has superior speed, carries heavier weapons and simulates gravity with its rotating section. Then we have the Warlock-class destroyer and the almost unknown Marathon◊-class cruiser, who both look more advanced than the Omega and are its intended replacement (the Warlock as a heavy fleet unit and the Marathon as a general-purpose fleet unit), featuring improved armour, weapons and speed and actual Artificial Gravity, eliminating the need for the rotating section. According to background material, the Warlock is actually supposed to be a one-to-one match against the dreaded Minbari Sharlin-class warcruisers, but they're still few in number (about 50). Merging of technology from different cultures tends to produce... different results. The White Star (Minbari/Vorlon hybrid) has the organic look of Vorlon ships and the fins the Minbari love so much, however, some have compared the look to that of a plucked chicken. The controls are all crystal-based. Meanwhile, the prototype Victory-class destroyers (human/Minbari/Vorlon) have the triple-finned Minbari look but are more functional in general appearance, including the typical human battleship-grey color scheme, losing the White Star's Vorlon-inspired organic look. Another attempt at marrying human and Minbari design practices has produced the butt-ugly Valen, nicknamed by one Minbari as a "flying brick". The later Valen-class cruisers have nothing in common with the original Valen and look like a sleeker version of the Minbari Sharlin. President Clark's regime has also attempted to merge some Shadow technology with human tech, producing the experimental "Advanced Omega" class, which looks like a typical Omega, but with the organic skin (and spikes) of Shadow ships.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_ff04a417	comment	In Grey Goo (2015), human technology goes in deep on the Everything Is An I Pod In The Future look: curvy and pretty, everything either hovers or flies, and all their weapons are directed plasma projectiles. The alien Beta, by contrast, use blocky and industrial-looking vehicles, ones that are coated in thick plating and get around on mechanical legs, and as one human character notes with exasperation, "they still use bullets in their guns!" The Goo are nanomachine Starfish Aliens.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_ff5835e3	comment	Downplayed examples in Fractured (SovereignGFC) and its sequel, Origins. Jakobs ships are boxy, Maliwan ships are curvy, and Hyperion ships are accused of "trying too hard" to look modern (implication: Vertical Mecha Fins... IN SPACE!) The previous installment's aesthetics continue, though Maliwan is the only faction focused on and their sleek lines are rapidly covered with Boring, but Practical armor plate.
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The Aesthetics of Technology / int_ff9ab17f	comment	Star Trek: The Next Generation took this even further, with the sets specifically designed to downplay the functionalist, technological aspects in favor of a livable-looking design aesthetic (in order to demonstrate the superiority of 24th century technology and because the Federation had been in peacetime for so many years); as such, the bridge of the Enterprise-D incorporates leather chairs, carpets, gently-sloping ramps and even wooden surfaces with only minor instrumentation and work stations, the entire bridge is usually populated by only 5 people. In a number of alternate timelines, and eventually in Star Trek: Generations, there are more work stations and thus more people crowding the bridge and making it feel more utilitarian. This is explained as Galaxy-class starships (like the Enterprise-D) specifically being designed not only as Starfleet's flagship class, but for long-term exploration and diplomacy missions, even carrying entire families to live onboard for years at a time. As such, they're designed to have less of a science-y feel and more of a 'home' feel. Intrepid-class ships, though, are for science (but not For Science!) & exploration, and only designed to be used by a small crew for a few weeks or months at a time, and as such less attention was paid to aesthetics, and are covered in computer screens. The Enterprise-E, a Sovereign-class starship, has a more "futuristic" appearance than the Enterprise-D, and is more of a battleship than an exploration ship. Of course, the Enterprise-D was lampshaded on TNG itself as being extremely comfortable compared to other less luxurious starships like those of the much more numerous Excelsior class. When Scotty is rescued by the Enterprise-D he is placed in standard guest quarters and remarks that not even an admiral in his own time would have received such a spacious suite aboard a starship.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Aesthetics of Technology	processingCategory2	Common Fan Fallacies
Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Vandread / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Enemy Ace (Comic Book) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Liberty Meadows (Comic Strip) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Aeon Entelechy Evangelion / Fan Fic / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Ant-Man / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Ant-Man / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Close Encounters of the Third Kind / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Independence Day: Resurgence / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Iron Man Films / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Star Trek: The Motion Picture / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Tomorrowland / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Zeiram / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Quatermass (Franchise) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Red Mars Trilogy / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
SporeWiki Fiction Universe / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Mega Man Megamix (Manga) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Star Army (Roleplay) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Knight Rider / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Star Trek: Discovery / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
The Flash (2014) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
The Mandalorian / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Genius: The Transgression (Tabletop Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Lancer (Tabletop Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Mage: The Ascension (Tabletop Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Rifts (Tabletop Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Ace Combat 3: Electrosphere (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Aliens: Fireteam Elite (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Battlefield 2142 (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Borderlands (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Brigador (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Civilization: Beyond Earth (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Dead or School (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Endless Space 2 (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Marathon (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Roboquest (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
The Outer Worlds (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
UED First Light (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Void Crew (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
X-COM: UFO Defense (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Battleborn (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Sequential Art (Webcomic) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Arcane / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology
Sword of the Stars (Video Game) / int_cd52fd56	type	The Aesthetics of Technology

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