As the proverb goes, “necessity is the mother of invention,” and nothing produces necessity like war. For better or for worse—mostly for worse—war and military conflict have played a large role in technological progress throughout the history of humankind. While we seem to finally be calming down a little bit as a species in some regards, it is obvious that war is not over and will probably be around for many years to come. And, of course, no one wants to be the country that got left behind in the arms race, right? Still, when you see some of the predictions about the future of aircraft carriers from this Chinese news site, you might wonder if they haven’t mistaken “possible future” with “science fiction TV show.”
▼One imagined aircraft carrier from Chinet.
According to the Japanese version of Chinet, a Chinese news website, there are four major tendencies that future aircraft carriers will likely conform to. They are: automation, more stealth planes, electromagnetic catapults, and improvement of missile defenses.
If we’re being completely honest, though, there’s nothing really surprising here. As drones become cheaper and easier to deploy, it would make sense for aircraft carriers to use them more. The same goes for increasing holding and launching capacity of stealth planes through catapults and better missile defenses.
But that’s not what really caught the attention of Japanese Internet users.
▼ Look at that terrifying beast!
No, it was Chinet’s insane illustrations of monstrous ships that got netizens talking.
This is so anime-like!
I think they watched Macross too much.
Not matter how you look at it, they’re just like a resort in Dubai! I wonder if that’s okay…
Someone watches too much anime. LOL
It’s good to have dreams. They should do manga.
One commenter couldn’t help noticing a certain similarity to a popular American TV show—Battlestar Galactica!
▼ Is that ZOIC? As in the VFX studio who did work for Battlestar Galactica?
Even more baffling is the comment from another user pointing out that the other “aircraft carrier” is actually an older project mock-up called Lilypads.
While it’s hard to argue with their projections on the future of aircraft carriers, it might have helped if they’d used images that were a bit more relevant. There’s obviously nothing wrong with using unrelated photos for illustrative purposes–but why didn’t they just use photos of contemporary aircraft carriers?