GFS Ark Royal

Request for completed at last. From his fanfic, Mobile Suit Gundam Alpha, a re-imagining of the original series, the Midway-class carrier Ark Royal serves as the HQ for Amuro and co the same way the Pegasus-class White Base did. Where the mobile weapons had their histories and designs revamped and retooled to fit the setting, the Midway-class ships completely replace the Pegasus-class for the sake of giving the protagonists a true warship to sit in.

At 700 metres long, the Ark Royal is the second largest ship fielded by the Galactic Federation Star Force. With the setting spanning well beyond the solar system compared to the typical Gundam series, this ship (and other ships in the story) is also equipped with warp engines for interstellar travel. Very unlike the White Base, this thing was more armed to the teeth, with seven high yield beam cannons, single and double barreled turrets strewn all over, and other beam guns and the like added for good measure, amongst other things. This ship compared to the Pegasus-class it was based off of was a true MS carrier built for battle.

The story was inspired by JJ Abrams' take on Star Trek, and as such, I approached designing this ship with that mindset. Within the fic's description and from the author himself, I was to base the design around the Dogosse Gier and 'Pega-size' it a bit, particularly with the bridge, and move said bridge more towards the middle akin to the Macross Cannon, while adding seven Gurty Lue styled beam cannons around the bridge. As I designed the thing more, I ended up looking at other ships for inspiration, such as the Nahel Argama, the SDF-1, and a few ship designs from other artists in DA. I've scribbled and erased that thing several times, partially because parts were too deformed, partially because the ship looked like a toy. I ended up drawing the ship bigger than the paper would allow, thus you see part of it cut off. After that, I began to add a few more turrets here and there, changed up the nacelles more by mixing the SDF-1 into the Birmingham style, and the result is a ship that is a tad more back heavy.

Admittedly, the end result, while I personally like it, did deviate away from the initial description a fair bit, all because I wanted the thing to not look like merely a Dogosse Gier styled franken. Still, WZA, I hope you like it.

Here is the link to the fanfic itself: [link]

Mobile Suit Gundam is copyright of Namco/Bandai.