SLV Wallfish

Concepts by Pablo Dominguez
Client: Christopher Paolini - To Sleep in a Sea of Stars
Creative Direction: Finnian MacManus

We had a fantastic time working with celebrated author Christopher Paolini (of the Eragon series) to bring his new book, To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, to life with some worldbuilding ! This is our design for the Wallfish, one of the main spaceships in the novel.

“The Wallfish was an old fish. That much Kira was able to determine from the ship’s records. What was left of them. Half seemed corrupted; the other half seemed to have been deliberately deleted. And the most recent ones were crew access only.

Still, she was able to learn a few things. The SLV Wallfish had started its life as an E-class cargo transport in the Alpha Centauri system, nearly a hundred years ago, when the colonies on Stewart’s World were still struggling to establish themselves. Originally the ship had been outfitted with a low-powered fission drive, which meant it spent most of its time coasting in free-fall (she had been right about the rotating hab section). Later the ship had been retrofitted with a more efficient fusion drive, and it was at that point that the records became too spotty to follow.

Whatever the ship had been used for, Kira doubted that it was entirely legal.

One thing she was able to discover; the Wallfish had a weapon: a mining laser mounted at the prow. It wasn’t much, but regardless, she felt better knowing the old tub had some means of defending itself.”

– To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, deleted scene