What Starship would scare the crap outa a populace the most?

[Crossroads Inc.]

In this, we choose from Sci-Fi ships that are not simply lethal, but simply by looking upon them would make anyone immediately piss their pants and begin to pray to whatever god they have. Now we aren't just going for lethality, if we were we'd jump straight to ships like the DeathStar and those Culture ships everyone keeps talking about.

For this we want to find those special ships that simply scream "FEAR ME!"

[Shroom Man 777]

Those Independence Day city destroyers were pretty fucking scary, particularly when they made the sky catch fire.

[Captain Seafort]

Are we talking about ships within their respective universes, or if one were to appear over Earth tomorrow? If it's the latter then I'd say the Death Star (or an ISD for that matter) is iconic enough that people would have a rather strong "oh shit" reaction to it.

If it's the former then the ID4 ships probably come close - they're big buggers, and they fly very low. Nothing like a ship blocking out the sun to scare the shit out of people.

[Crossroads Inc.]

For the record let us say its a Random world of around our size and tech but has no background of whatever ship may appear.

[Gandalf]

The Shadow ships were pretty scary.

They looked like big flying monsters, which would be pretty scary to a civilisation like ours.

[Darth Ruinus]

What about those crazy WH40K demon ships that make people go insane?

[Junghalli]

The Death Star II, simply because of the sheer size of it.

[Captain Seafort]

That's only scary if you realise how big it is. If you look up and see it floating by, without anything to measure it by there's no real sense of size.

[Bilbo]

Unicron, especially if he transforms into robot form and starts smacking the planet.

[Samuel]

That's only scary if you realise how big it is. If you look up and see it floating by, without anything to measure it by there's no real sense of size.

Until it blocks out the Sun.

[Captain Seafort]

Point. And keeps getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger.

[Sky Captain]

I think anything big flying really low, blocking out the sky would be pretty scary. I`d pick SW Super Star Destroyer. Imagine that thing slowly flying few hundred meters above ground, when it appears over your house at first you see only it`s tip, as it goes over it`s getting bigger and bigger until it blocks out whole sky and turns day into night. Most people if seeing something like that would freak out and think the end of the world is coming.

[PREDATOR490]

The DSII would only really work if people knew what it was, what it could do and that it was actually there.

Having something like Independance Day ships literally hovering over you is more intimidating personnally than having some blob sitting in orbit which wont be visible to everyone all the time.

I think Shadows have the best look for making everyone collectively piss their pants. The shimmering hull combined with the look of a Spider and their screaching would do a good job of scaring anyone who saw them. Even more so when that seems to be the original premise behind their design and their apparant telepathic aura does scream 'FEAR ME'.

[Grand Lord Revan]

A SSD like the Eclipse or the Executor. According to the Tarkin Doctrine, the ISD already does this and an Eclipse is many times bigger.

Nice mentioning the ID4 ships

[Coalition]

The planetoid ships from the Fifth Imperium (one of them hid as Earth's Moon). Unicron is another good one, especially as astronomers take a look through a telescope and start estimating the width.

[Admiral Valdemar]

A cluster of Inhibitor machinery like when it's approaching a planet. A large mass of perfectly black, undetailed cubes of varying sizes, pulsing like a living being as a trunk stretches from orbit to the surface and sprouts tentacles.

For up close stuff, you can't beat that kind of thing, or the ID4 City Destroyers. Though the DSII floating in LEO, or the effects of something being seen further away (again, the Inhibitor machinery eating moons and altering Jupiter would be terrifying when being watched from Earth since seeing Jupiter ripped to pieces would be more than noticeable to even the media) is also eerie.

[Darth Fanboy]

Spaceball One.

[HolyReaperX01]

on any random planet probably a wraith hive ship one because they are about 5 or 6 times bigger than a isd and are organic and their fighters make screeching noises and they can create illusions which they use to help harvest human...on earth or any egyptian like planet...hataks from sg-1 landing on a pyrimad after blasting the others to smitherins to make room would be pretty scary...

[Batman]

Spaceball One.

I'm not sure enough of the populace would get past how ridiculous it looks and realize how fucking big it is.
I'm tentatively seconding the Shadow Battlecrab. Sure, firepower-wise it's nothing to brag about, but visually, it's scary as hell.

[open_sketchbook]

If I had just one ship, or a small number, I'll agree with what others say and go for the Independence Day craft. If I had a whole ton of them, (like, enough to stack them up in the atmosphere and go "bitches, choke on it!" I'd actually probably go for the Borg Cube. I mean, first off, it doesn't really look right floating in the air; it's a big cube, after all. Second off, it's black with internal green lighting, which scores some points on the creepy scale. Finally, they are a kilometer or more in dimensions, which isn't nothing. Besides that, once they begin doing they're thing, they become even scarier again, because they aren't just killing you... they're taking you, and making you them.

Before Voyager villain-decayed them, the Borg were a genuinely scary prospect, in my opinion.

Also, Tyranid Hiveships. Organic space insects, miles long, containing uncounted masses of things that will eat you, corrupt you and make twisted versions of you to do the same thing all over. Sounds good to me.

[Stark]

Frankly I think since Executor is a similar size to the ID4 ships and could be deployed in the same way with the same effects (plasma bow waves etc) they win out over the ID4 ships. The ship is the size of Manhattan, so park it over Manhatten = instant hysteria. Even better if you park it inverted so the city looks up into the crellenations.

[Junghalli]

The planetoid ships from the Fifth Imperium (one of them hid as Earth's Moon).

How did I forget those? Those would be even more intimidating than the DS2. Especially if you had it pass just behind the moon...

[Bluewolf]

I agree with the SSD/ID4 ships approach. YOu are going to want something that slowly looms in and comes low for all the people to see and panic. You want something very alien and strange that can scare even more. Blocking out the sun helps and the ship being extremely low is helpful as well.

[Stark]

I think all the wierd looking ships would work too, like the Super Shadow or Shadow spiders or Tyranids. Silently looming untouchable warships is just classic.

[Solauren]

Unicron.

I mean, come on, some of the official material says his 'Vehicle' mode is the size of Saturn!

In any event, all he'd have to do is eat the planet's moon(s), or transform and punch them apart.