IEVL Leviathan
in Deep Space

IEVL Leviathan
Living Quarters
Concept Sketch 1

CONCEPT

Interstellar Exploration Vessel Leviathan is the largest exploration starship serving in the Interstellar Exploration Corps and exists in a fictional era over a millenia from the present. It is a large, long range exploration vessel and precursor of Galactic Exploration Vessel Empyrean. The Leviathan represents the apex of star-faring technology during the era it exists in. IEC Headquarters Station is located in Earth orbit and is the home base for the Leviathan.

Interstellar Exploration Vessel Leviathan is meant to be a more rational vision of possible future faster-than-light capable starship than those portrayed in Star Trek and Star Wars. While it is conceived as an alternate to the well known USS Enterprise of the original Star Trek TV series, it has more in common with the capital ship Vespasian from the Sector General series of science fiction novels by James White. As a sober starship concept, it has a hull shape evolved from modern submarines. The rounded forms are obviously more for style than for function but perhaps real future starships will include aesthetic considerations along with functional ones. The shape of Interstellar Exploration Corps Headquarters Station is more a sculptural statement with both Star Trek and Baha'i design references.

Interstellar Exploration Vessel Ursula K LeGuin is the smallest exploration starship serving in the Interstellar Exploration Corps. It performs deep space surveys as well as scouting ahead of larger exploration vessels like the Leviathan. Up to four LeGuin class vessels accompany each Leviathan class vessel on long term exploration missions. Each LeGuin class ship carries two tiny shuttles stored in vertical drop bays in the forward section of the main hull. The LeGuin class is usually crewed by a couple of families. This vessel is named after one of my favorite science fiction authors, Ursula K. LeGuin. I deeply admire her anthropology-inspired novels, "The Dispossessed" (1974) and "The Left Hand of Darkness" (1969).

COMMENTARY

The Leviathan is a very special design for me. The amount of thought and level of detail I put into the intial version of this vessel are equaled by few others in my speculative spaceship design work. I even created a self-published book in 1996, A Visitor's Guide to Starship Leviathan, where I spent as much effort describing the society onboard the ship as I did depicting the vessel itself. I used the Baha'i model of social structure and personal interaction that emphasizes such things as integrating human diversity in a positive way, consultative group decision making, and combining the scientific and religious methods of comprehending reality when seeking a fuller understudying of truth. The text from the book has been formatted into website articles and can be accessed in the Starship Leviathan Earlier Versions Galley.

The Leviathan has a shipboard society more like a small town than a military vessel. However, the small town in my vision is not one from a homogenous culture of our past, but one from the more diverse yet unified culture that I believe will emerge in our future. The occupants of the Leviathan include children as well as adults. A sentient computer oversees the vast mechanical complexity of the vessel and consults as an equal with the human crew. Non-sentient robots controlled by the human crew and the sentient computer provide the necessary labor for particularly mundane or dangerous jobs.

The society onboard the Leviathan symbolizes for me the hope I have in my heart that when our descendants go out to explore the stars, they will represent a progressive and compassionate culture worthy of expanding itself beyond the borders of our small planet. Thus, it is as much what the Leviathan represents for me on the human level, as for its artistic aspects, that makes it one of my favorite starship designs. It also has been the favorite design of visitors to my website since I began posting my work on the Internet in 2001.

When I began designing the Leviathan in the early 1990's, the initial challenge was to decide upon a rough size for the vessel. I wanted a large vessel, but not so large as to be overwhelming when I got around to figuring out what was on each deck. Also, I felt that I needed a well-known fictional vehicle to use as a rough yardstick for people to compare my vessel to. I decided to use the USS Enterprise 1701-D from the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation as my starting point for general size. Thus, the Leviathan has roughly the same mass and internal volume as the USS Enterprise-D. Like that vessel, the Leviathan is a deep space exploration vessel capable of long-term missions and equipped with the most advanced scientific technology available to Humanity for its time period. While the two vessels perform similar roles in their respective fictional environments, the Leviathan has star-faring technology closer to that of the original USS Enterprise from the classic Star Trek series.

In the internal layout for the Leviathan, the direction of the decks is based on what is convenient for the design, not on a strict "all levels face the same direction" paradigm. With gravity control technology similar to that on Star Trek, there is no need for all the decks to stack in the same direction. Also, I am making a reference to the work of science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke in which advanced technology allows the creation of artificial environments where the direction that is supposed to be down is an arbitrary one. The earthbound object that most resembles the Leviathan in layout of floors is a modern skyscraper. If the Leviathan were placed on the ground with the bow as the top floor and the stern as the bottom floor, it would be approximately three hundred fifty stories tall. While deck heights vary, most are three meters high with a half-meter deep space for machinery between levels.

As a teenager I saw a novel about a British aircraft carrier named the Leviathan and from the start I felt this would be a good name for a gigantic exploratory ship. Later I discovered the biblical and nautical implications of the word Leviathan and this only added to my desire to use it as a name for one of my designs. Over the years, I have noticed numerous speculative spaceship designs named Leviathan. It has served in two of my fictional science fictional universes.

Many more images of my Starship Leviathan can be seen in the Starship Leviathan Earlier Versions Gallery.

Modeling - Rhino 4 and TrueSpace 6.6
Rendering - Flamingo 2.0 and TrueSpace 6.6
Textures - VBaretto and David C. Mueller
Backgrounds - Custom Photoshop 7 brushes and Photoshop plug-in Lunarcell
Running Lights - Universe Image Creator
Miscellaneous - CorelDRAW, Corel Photo-Paint and Adobe Photoshop

PRIMARY DESIGN INFLUENCES

1. Leviathan - Modern military submarines

2. Leviathan - "Mon Calarmari" Cruisers from the science fantasy film Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

3. Ursula K LeGuin - Space Station One from the Golden Key 1960's-1970's comic book Space Family Robinson: Lost in Space on Space Station One.

4. IEC HQ Station - Disney Von Braun Mars ship AE-1 from the 1950's

5. IEC HQ Station - Bespin Cloud City from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

6. IEC HQ Station - Large Starfleet station from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock