Subspace Gunship

The Subspace Gunship

The Subspace Gunship (亜空砲戦艦, Subspace Gunship) is described as the ultimate weapon of the Subspace Army. Its main cannon can fire a powerful beam which "infinitely rends space", which replicates the detonation of a Subspace Bomb at a great distance. The Gunship is the largest ship in the game by far and was commanded by Ganondorf and Bowser before its destruction at the hands of the other characters.

Appearance

The Subspace Gunship is an incredibly large ship, approximately as long as the whole of the Isle of the Ancients. It consists of a slender and mostly cylindrical forward half and a thicker back half, the entirety of which is colored a dull and steely gray. Two pointed ends reminiscent of a shark's fins come out of the bottom of the Gunship, while the sides of the back end are circular domes. A large number of vertical segments resembling skyscrapers stretch out of the Gunship's core both upwards and downwards; their purpose is unknown. The front half of the Subspace Gunship is its main cannon and is fairly simple in design. A thicker and horizontal segment houses five batteries of weapons.

The Gunship has a small elevated platform in the center of its back half where Ganondorf and Bowser command it. It is unknown how their commands are issued, as there is no apparent means of interface with the Gunship itself on this platform; it does however seem to respond to Ganondorf's gestures.

Armaments

The Subspace Gunship fires its main weapon.

The Subspace Gunship has a battery of five turrets stationed on the main cannon, on top of the Gunship. They are its main armament for engaging other ships. These turrets fire thick, orange blasts of energy. The circular sides of the Gunship house five turrets each that fire smaller green blasts. They are for blasting small ships out of the sky. The green weapon's fire appears to have a weak homing ability, judging by how the shots curve; the orange shots only fire straight, but when all turrets are firing it can literally fill the sky with projectiles. These weapons managed to destroy the Halberd but failed to destroy or even hit the four smaller ships piloted by Captain Falcon, Samus, one of the Star Fox fighters and Olimar; whether this is fault of its weaponry, the skill of the pilots, or both is unknown.

The main cannon of the Gunship comprises the entire front half of the vessel. It fires a purple and chaotic lightning-esque beam with a ground-shaking blast that replicates the detonation of a Subspace Bomb upon impact. Prior to firing, conduits around the barrel of a cannon glow with purple light while four prongs at the end of it focus white energy in front of the barrel. The blasts are said to be capable of "infinitely rending space", but it's unknown how long the Gunship must recharge between said blasts, because it only uses this cannon a single time in the only cutscene in which it appeared.

Role in The Subspace Emissary

The Gunship's command deck, with Ganondorf and Bowser on it

In the cutscene The Great Invasion in the Subspace Emissary, the Gunship emerges from the Subspace rift that replaces the former location of the Isle of the Ancients. Ganondorf and Bowser test its power on an arbitrary area of water by firing the main cannon, causing another rift to appear in the distance. Ganondorf notices a gleam of light on the horizon; the camera zooms to reveal that the Halberd is heading for the Gunship. Ganondorf waves his arm and five cannons rise from the Gunship's front end and begin firing orange blasts at the battleship. The Halberd activates its auxiliary engines and scoots under the hail of fire. Ultimately, a blast hits true and penetrates the Halberd from bow to aft. Another shot hits the port side by the center of the ship, causing it to split in half. The Halberd begins to fragment into pieces and begins falling towards the ocean before exploding violently. Heralded by the Super Smash Bros. Brawl Main Theme, four smaller ships (the Falcon Flyer, an Arwing, Samus' Gunship, and Olimar's Hocotate Ship) emerge from the Halberd's explosion and press onward. The Subspace Gunship's smaller cannons are activated as the villains fume and the small crafts skillfully weave and evade heavy fire amidst a storm of lasers. A gleam becomes visible in the distance; the camera zooms to reveal it is Kirby on the Dragoon, who uses the weapon to pierce directly through the Gunship and destroy it, suggesting that the other ships were a diversion so Kirby could launch a surprise attack to thwart the Gunship's attack. Realizing they have lost, Ganondorf and Bowser scowl and step back into Subspace as the theme begins receding. The four smaller ships and the Dragoon pursue them into the rift (with the Hocotate Ship sputtering a bit, possibly overworked by evading the Gunship's fire or simply referencing its battered nature). A last shot of the Gunship's destruction is shown.

Trophy

The trophy for the Subspace Gunship is obtained by completing Boss Battles mode with 10 different characters. The challenge for this cannot be broken by a Golden Hammer in NTSC versions. The trophy is so detailed that the game may lag if zoomed in too far, and in fact has more polygons than any other known model in the game. Despite this, it still lacks many details and features that are seen in the cutscene and is even missing its command area.

Subspace Gunship's trophy in Brawl

Subspace Gunship

Ganondorf made the Subspace Bomb factory self-destruct in order to draw this ultimate weapon out from Subspace. It's capable of infinitely rending space, and its firepower is greater than that of any weapon. It exists to draw all of this world into Subspace, but the last-ditch efforts of the fighters might prevent this.

: Super Smash Bros. Brawl

Names in other languages

Language	Name
Japanese	亜空砲戦艦
English	Subspace Gunship
French	Vaisseau subspatial
German	Subraum-Schlachtschiff
Spanish	Destructor subespacial
Italian	Astronave subspaziale
Korean	아공포전함

Trivia

• According to the Dojo!!, Tabuu intended to mass-produce the Gunship and send the mass-produced vessels out into the Subspace rift replacing the Isle of the Ancients' location. It is unknown how far along this plan got before the events of the Subspace Emissary, though presumably the destroyed Gunship was the only one operational during the time when the rift existed, as there is no evidence of others escaping through the hole and wreaking havoc while the fighters were in Subspace.
• By comparing the in-game sizes of Ganondorf and Bowser to the size of the trophy, the Subspace Gunship is estimated to be about 12 Temples long, from blastline to blastline.