Width (from wingtip to wingtip): Unrevealed Length: Unrevealed Weight: Unrevealed Sensors: Unrevealed Hull color: Silver History: Nothing has been revealed about the origin of this
sentient starship known as Ship. She may (or may NOT) have an origin that is much like
that of a similar-looking sentient starship (also named Ship) who exists in Reality-791
but so far we don't know enough about this Ship to make that assumption. (Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb) - BTS) - At some time in
the past, the sentient starship known as "Ship" became partners with Peter Jason Quill,
an Earthman who policed the universe as Star-Lord. Exactly how they became partners
has never been revealed but may have involved an entity known as "the Master of
the Sun." Eventually, Quill came to regard Ship as "Friend, confidant, teacher and nagging
wife, all rolled up in one sleek space cruiser." (Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb) - BTS) - For an unspecified
time, Ship and Star-Lord zipped around the cosmos righting wrongs. During one of their
adventures Star-Lord confronted a group of four-armed aliens,
some of whom he ended up shooting. (Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb)) - Eventually, Ship stumbled
upon the Fallen One, a former Herald of Galactus who, after having been rejected by his
master, now sought to avenge himself on the devourer of worlds by hunting down planets
upon which Galactus could feed and then destroying them in an attempt to starve his
former master. Overly cocky, Star-Lord rushed in and confronted the Fallen One on the
surface of his target planet and nearly got himself killed. Using
her medical abilities, Ship barely managed to keep him from dying. (Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb) - BTS) - With Star-Lord (and
Ship) out of the way, the Fallen One presumably destroyed the planet on which he and
Star-Lord had been fighting. (Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb)) - Although Star-Lord was
still in no shape to go up against the Fallen One again, he insisted on doing so and
thus he and Ship caught up with the Fallen One in a Kree fringe system where the menace
had targeted Avaleen-4, an agricultural world with a small mining operation on one of
its moons. (Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb)) - Although everything that
Star-Lord had used against the Fallen One had been useless, he insisted on dealing with
the ex-herald instead of letting "one of the cosmic big boys handle it." Accordingly,
Ship ran an analysis of the Fallen One and discovered that the life energies released
when he destroyed a world caused him pain. Ship and Star-Lord realized that if they
could channel that energy then they would stand a chance of bringing the Fallen One
down. Sadly, the only way to generate that type of energy was by killing a great many
living beings. (Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb)) - Ship died while in the
act of funneling the energy surge, leaving Star-Lord drifting in space amongst the
debris of her physical form. (Thanos#12 (fb) - BTS) - Using this method to defeat the Fallen One
resulted in 350,000 dead as collateral damage. (Thanos#11 (fb) - BTS/Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb) - BTS) -
With Ship dead and himself now a mass murderer, everything a Star-Lord shouldn't be,
Peter Quill decided that Star-Lord had to die as well. His last act as the Starlord
was to bring in the Fallen One, and turn his prisoner -- and himself -- over to the
Nova Corps. While many were divided over Quill's guilt, both he and the Fallen One
were remanded to the Kyln, a life-sentence exclusive prison. (Annihilation: Conquest - Prologue#1 - BTS) - Years later, after having
been released from the Kyln and having fought against the Annihilation Wave, Peter Quill
was on the Kree homeworld of Hala overseeing upgrades to their defensive programs. When
one of the Kree working with him, a woman named Ten-Cor, told him to get over himself
and hurry along, Quill replied, "You remind me of a ship I once knew." (Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 - BTS) - Days later, after the
Phalanx invasion of Hala and their conquest of the Kree Empire, Peter Quill was on the
Kree fringe world of Aladon Prime being restored to health by a Kree med-tech. As he
was being treated, he recalled some of his career as Starlord, his partnership with
Ship and how both had ended during the battle against the Fallen One. Comments: Created (unknowingly) by Keith Giffen, Timothy Green
and Victor Olazaba (who, at the time, thought that they were just using a character
who had been created 30 years earlier). The 3-page flashback at the beginning of Annihilation:
Conquest - Starlord#1 is all that has ever been published about the Ship who existed in
Reality-616 and was partnered with the Star-Lord of that reality. In order to better understand the significance of
this flashback, some background on "Ship" would be helpful. To begin with, the sentient
starship known as "Ship" first appeared in Marvel Preview#11 as Starlord's partner
and friend. Ship would also appear in that capacity in all the rest of the "classic"
Star-Lord adventures, including the last of those stories, the framing sequence in
Starlord, The Special Edition #1, which was set sometime in the late 21st Century. The
stories in Marvel Preview #14-15 revealed that Ship was actually the consciousness of
a sentient Yellow Dwarf star whose original body had been destroyed when aliens forced
her to super-nova and who, with help from the Master of the Sun, learned to manifest
in a new physical form so that Peter could more easily relate to her. Ship next appeared in the 1996 Starlord mini-series
in which, oddly, Peter Quill did not appear. Instead, this story told of how a young
telepath named Sinjin Quarrel found a crashed sentient starship which he soon learned
had been belonged to Starlord, a "legendary space hero" who had mysteriously disappeared
12 years earlier. Unfortunately, Ship's memory had been damaged and she didn't know what
had happened to Peter Quill (although she later remembered that it was an encounter with
an uncharted black hole which had caused her to crash). Circumstances soon forced Ship
and Sinjin into working together with Sinjin posing as Starlord and later, after that
first situation had been resolved, they agreed to continue working together on "this
whole Starlord thing." Ship later appeared (sort of) in the 2000 Inhumans
mini-series. Co-writers Carlos Pacheco and Rafael Marin wanted to introduce Star-Lord
into the Marvel Universe but the past continuity of Peter Quill posed a problem because
he had always been alone in his own pocket universe which seemingly had no other MU
characters in it. To get around this problem, they decided to use Peter's father, Jason,
as the Star-Lord character. Although he doesn't use that name, in this miniseries young
Prince Jason does have a "Soulship" of his own and a white version of Peter's Star-Lord
uniform (actually a formal dress uniform for Spartoi officers). Jason's role in the
mini-series ends with him being banished for his unwitting part in the attempted
assassination of Shi'ar Majestrix Lilandra. As he leaves, a precognitive has a vision
of a possible future in which Jason would eventually come to Earth where his soulship
would "effectively die" and he would meet an Earthwoman who would give him a human
child "destined to be a Lord among the stars!" In 2004 writer Keith Giffen used an adult Peter Quill
as a character in his Thanos series, totally disrupting the attempt to shift Star-Lord's
origin from the late 20th Century to the early 21st Century. As written by Giffen, Quill
was a prisoner in the Kyln who insisted that starlord was dead. It was soon revealed
that Quill had fought and defeated the Fallen One but that 350,000 people had died as
collateral damage. Ship was conspicuously absent from these stories, a fact which led
some fans (and the writer of the Star-Lord profile in the Annihilation: The Nova Corps
Files) to conclude that she and Quill had become separated while escaping the pull of
that black hole and that Quill had not sought Ship out because of all those deaths which
he had subsequently caused. However, any hope that Ship might still be out there in the
MU searching for Quill was dashed in 2007 when Giffen used the three-page flashback that
began Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord #1 to reveal that Ship had died as a result of
her helping Star-Lord to defeat the Fallen One. And so, Ship was dead, her story come to an end, and
it wasn't even the happy ending we had seen in Starlord, The Special Edition#1! However,
things changed in early 2013 when writer Brian Michael Bendis presented his "streamlined
and updated" version of Star-Lord's origin in issue #0.1 of his new Guardians of the
Galaxy series. Fans who cared about continuity quickly realized that this Bendisized
origin was essentially a re-imagining of the character, one that was so different from
the "classic" Star-Lord that it was impossible to reconcile the two versions. As a
result, some fans came to the conclusion that the only reasonable explanation was that
these origins actually had to relate to two DIFFERENT characters or, to be more precise,
two different versions of the same character who existed in different realities within
the Marvel Multiverse. This idea has been officially accepted (though it has yet to
appear in the GOTG letters page) and while the Bendis version now exists in Reality-616,
the "classic" Star-Lord and his adventures have been relegated to Reality-791. What does this mean for Ship? Well, two things. The
first is that, although the Ship from Reality-616 may be dead, the Ship that is now
from Reality-791 can still exist to one day soar off into space with both Peter and
his father, ex-Emperor Jason, aboard to continue their adventures. The second change is that all Star-Lord stories that
were published prior to Peter Quill's first confirmed "mainstream" appearance in 2004's
Thanos#8 have been retroactively determined to have happened in Reality-791. This leaves
the 616 version of Ship with just a single appearance: the flashback in Annihilation:
Conquest - Starlord#1. And that, in turn, leads to more possible changes. Since all the
stories which explored Ship's nature and origin have now been relegated to Reality-791,
that leaves open the possibility that, despite the fact that they LOOK similar, Ship-616
and Ship-791 may NOT be other-dimensional counterparts of each other. And that would
mean that Ship-616 could have a completely different origin than Ship-791. And it is for that reason that I have chosen to not
include the backstory about Ship being the consciousness of a sentient star in this
profile. That, and the fact that I have absolutely NO confidence that Brian Michael
Bendis, who is now in charge of everything Star-Lord in the "mainstream" MU, will in
any way acknowledge the events depicted in that flashback. In fact, I wouldn't be at
all surprised if, when BMB finally decides to reveal what his version of Star-Lord
experienced after the events of GotG #0.1, he chooses to completely ignore the time
that Peter spent in the Kyln interstellar prison, the reason why he was there, and
the very fact that his PQ had EVER had a sentient starship as a partner. Ship and that OTHER Ship from Reality-616 If we ignore (for the moment) the Ship who exists
in Reality-791, there is still the matter of what connection (if any) there might be
between Peter Quill's Ship and the "Soulship" associated with Prince Jason of Spartax.
Of course, the "real world" reason for their similarity is that the writers who
"created" these Ships did so inadvertently, since they believed that they were just
using the "classic" Ship in their stories. However, this truth will not work as an
"in-universe" explanation. The obvious answer is that they ARE truly connected
somehow, and the only question is how. The only two possible explanations that I can
see are that "they" are actually a single Ship but at different points in her life OR
that they were different entities who were both built to similar designs by the same
as-yet-unrevealed creator(s). So, let's examine those options. 1. First, could Ship and Soulship be the same sentient starship at
different times in her life? This theory is possible but there are two difficulties.
The first problem is that both accounts state that "Ship" stayed with her partner
until she died. This would seem to indicate that they must be two different Ships,
each with their own partner. Of course, that problem would go away if the 616 Ship
were able to recreate herself after "dying" like the 791 Ship can but that would
still leave... 2. Now let's consider the possibility that Peter's Ship and Jason's
Soulship were always two different entities. While the co-writers of that 2000 Inhumans
miniseries apparently considered the Soulship to be an earlier version of Ship, their
story doesn't actually reveal this idea directly but instead relies on merely implying
it. In the absence of any definitive statement we are left with two sentient starships
whose hulls have similar designs, who both have feminine personalities and who are both
partnered with cosmic adventurers. While the similarities between these two starships
are certainly striking, there is no proof that they are connected to each other and
so those similarities could be merely coincidental. On the other hand, although there is no evidence
supporting it, it is possible that the two starships had actually both been built to
similar designs by the same entities. Minor differences in appearance aside, the fact
that they both possessed feminine personalities would make them true "sister Ships."
However, if they do share a common origin, there's no telling what it could be. The
Soulship's origin has never been revealed and neither has the story of how she became
Prince Jason's partner. Similarly, since being Bendisized, Ship has been severed from
her "classic" origin and backstory (which have been relegated to the 791 Ship) and so
her past is now UNrevealed, a blank slate waiting for BMB to get around to filling it
in. Unfortunately, the lack of any "facts" means that any theories which might explain
such a common origin would, again, be nothing more than mere speculation. That being the case, I am now going to indulge myself
by presenting my own (fanfic) theory about how Ship and Soulship might be connected. The
best explanation that I can come up with is that Ship and Soulship are just two of a
fleet of sentient starships created by person or persons unknown. These mysterious
benefactors want to help uphold justice throughout the universe but for some reason are
unable to do so themselves. For this reason they have created these sentient starships
to provide support for various beings whom they have chosen to act as their agents in
policing the cosmos. These "agents" (like Prince Jason of Spartax and Peter Quill of
Earth) have been selected because of their physical and mental capabilities and their
willingness to risk their lives in the cause of saving lives and righting wrongs. If
the being known as the "Master of the Sun" did actually unite Peter Quill with Ship,
then he might have been one of the shipbuilders or at least their
representatives. The
Ship who is the partner of the Star-Lord (Peter
Jason Quill) who exists in Reality-791 has appeared in several stories (Marvel
Preview#14-45) in which her origin and nature have been revealed/demonstrated. However,
since it has not yet been established that that Ship and the Ship of this profile are
other-dimensional counterparts who share a common origin, it would be
presumptuous of
me to just assume that this Ship had the same back story as that Ship. On the other
hand, I can see no harm in listing that Ship's powers/abilities in this comments
section...just in case. Ship-791 originally existed as a Yellow Dwarf star,
like that around which the planet Earth of Reality-616 orbits,
Sol. This other star was also
sentient and aware but (apparently) chose to only observe her environment without
tampering with it. After existing for at least a billion years, this star was destroyed
by an alien device, detonated in her core, which forced her to destroy herself by
consuming twenty billion years of stellar fuel in a matter of seconds. As a result,
this star's physical form (along with her eleven planets) was destroyed when she went
super-nova. However, after the destruction, the star was shocked to discover that her
consciousness had survived the death of her body. The star existed in this state for
an unspecified period of time until a seemingly-humanoid being known then as the
Master of the Sun arrived
to help her. This entity called the star "little sister" and referred to the two of
them as beings "such as we," implying that he was also a sentient star. The fact that
he was sometimes later referred to as "the Master of Earth's Sun" may indicate
that he was Reality-791's counterpart of Apalla. Whatever his true origins, it was
with his aid that the star was able to "reshape her 'self' into a physical form to
which (humans) could easily relate." This form was that of a sentient starship known
as "Ship." In her current physical form, Ship's hull is composed
of "organic steel" which she can reshape at will. Ship spends most of her time in her
standard exploratory configuration but can easily assume other, more aggressive forms
(like that of a Sikh'aar gunship) when the need arises. This reshaping can also be as
limited as extruding some of her basic mass as material for smaller objects which she
wishes to create. Ship possesses many of the features of a conventional starship,
including shields, energy blasters, advanced sensors, matter synthesizers (able to
form any kind of food, drink, or clothing), and hologram projectors. Although possessing a physical form, Ship's primal
state of being is energy and, as such, can never be destroyed. However, it is possible
for her consciousness to be so disrupted that she would no longer really be "alive" in
any sense. Additionally, Ship can subdivide her consciousness to a certain extent. The
two Widgets that act as her remote probes are extensions of her self which are animated
by her power, and on at least one occasion Ship was able to create a mechanoid form for
herself which, despite appearing to be completely human, was not actually an organic
life form. However, the act of mind-shifting (transferring part of her consciousness into
another form) can be dangerous, especially when her power levels are low. Unlike conventional starships, Ship does not appear
to contain any power generators within her nor is she known to need any fuel. Instead,
Ship's "power" is her own life-force. Although Ship's power can be drained when she
exerts herself or when her physical form is damaged, her power reserves will *somehow*
increase if she simply rests. However, when her power levels are drained, Ship can lose
some degree of her functions, like her sensors or her control over her Widgets. If her
power were to diminish too greatly, then Ship would no longer be able to animate a
physical form and her self would exist only as energy. On one occasion, during a hostile
encounter with the Lorq, Ship's starship form was so damaged that the part of her
consciousness which remained within it shifted to join the rest of her self within a
separate mechanoid form which she had created for herself, and then, when that form's
energy ran low, she shifted her reunited consciousness into Star-Lord's belt. By this
time, Ship was so weak that she would have remained there but for the intervention of
a powerful alien known as the Trinity-Who-Is-One who healed her and restored her energy
so that she could create a new physical form (a duplicate of her earlier form) seemingly
out of thin air. Presumably this was accomplished by Ship transmuting some of her energy
into matter. Although Ship is known to be an energy being animating
a physical form which she can reshape at will, she also possesses instrumentation within
herself which seemingly allows her passengers to control her to some degree. This would
seem to indicate that Ship's form, instead of being simple matter, actually contains
technological mechanisms which function like those of a conventional starship. For
example, her Widgets fly by means of the gravity reversers within them and Ship once
claimed that they were "designed and built from the same scientific foundation
the Master of the Sun used when he created me." It may be that the Master of the
Sun taught
his technology to Ship so that she could use it to create her physical form. Profile by
Donald Campbell.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Additionally, Ship has no known connections to Also, it's important to note that the Star-Lord who is this Ship's
partner is the Reality-616 counterpart of (and a VERY different character from) The Avaleen system has no known connections to The "Master of the Sun" has no known connections to A group of at least six of these aliens once had a
violent encounter with Star-Lord, one which ended with the cosmic hero firing both of
his guns at them. However, it's not clear if Star-Lord was seriously trying to injure
or kill them or just trying to scare them away. Pretty much all of the information that can be known
about these aliens has to be derived from the image on the left: The aliens are
bilaterally symmetrical bipeds that are two to three times as tall as an average adult
human (i.e. 12-18 feet) and presumably correspondingly more massive. They have two sets
of arms, a larger outer pair (over 6 feet in length) attached to their shoulders and a
smaller inner pair that seem to emerge from their upper chests. Each of their four hands
have two fingers plus an opposable thumb, and all twelve digits end in sharp talons. Comments: Okay, I admit it: The only reason I gave these
aliens a sub-profile is because Star-Lord's encounters with them and with the Fallen One
are the ONLY two adventures of his (prior to his appearance in Thanos#8) of which we
readers have any knowledge. Since every other Star-Lord story has been relegated to
Reality-791, only the events depicted in the three-page flashback that started the
Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord miniseries are DEFINITELY set in Reality-616. So, I
did the best I could with what I had. --Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb) Avaleen is a Kree fringe system, a star system that
is close to Kree-controlled space. The only known inhabited planet, Avaleen-4, is an
agricultural world which is orbited by (at least) two moons, one of which had a small
mining colony on its surface. Avaleen-4 also has a Kree consulate stationed on it,
indicating that it is neither a Kree colony nor a conquered planet but an independent
world which has a diplomatic relationship with the Kree Empire. (Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb)) <An unspecified number
of years ago> - The insane ex-Herald of Galactus known only as the Fallen One came to
the Avaleen system to destroy Avaleen-4, but before he could take action Star-Lord and
Ship arrived to oppose him, having followed him from the last inhabited planet which
he had destroyed. Unfortunately, the only method they had at their disposal to stop
him was to expose him to an immense quantity of life energy so as to pain/weaken him.
In order to save the millions of lives on Avaleen-4, Ship (and Star-Lord) had no other
choice than to sacrifice thousands of lives by attacking the mining colony and
decimating its population to generate a massive release of their life energies. Ship
then funneled the resulting energy surge through her ordnance matrix at the Fallen One,
rendering him unconscious long enough for other measures to be taken to neutralize his
threat. (Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 - BTS) - Years later, Peter Quill
was on the Kree fringe world of Aladon Prime being briefed by a Kree officer, Captain
Chan-Dar, about his upcoming mission to infiltrate the Phalanx-occupied Kree homeworld
of Hala. Once the briefing was over, Captain Chan-Dar told Quill that she had been "on
Avaleen-4 when it happened." Chan-Dar then revealed that she had been assigned to the
Kree consulate there and that Star-Lord had saved her life, hers "and millions of - -"
but Quill, unwilling to be praised for anything related to his act of mass murder, cut
her off, saying "Save it for the press release." Comments: It's worth mentioning that the inhabitants
of Avaleen-4 and the mining colony have never been depicted or described. The presence
of a Kree consulate instead of a Kree Governor indicates that Avaleen-4 is not a Kree
colony but other than that there is no hint as to the nature of the inhabitants. They
could be a native lifeform which evolved to sentience on that world or they could be
(non-Kree) aliens who colonized the planet before the Kree could do so. Aside from the
fact that they had a level of technology that enabled them to establish a small mining
colony on one of their moons and that their population numbered in the millions at the
time of the Fallen One's attack, absolutely nothing is known about them. The fact that Star-Lord stated that he and
Ship "decimated" the mining colony suggests that there might have been some survivors.
The verb decimate is defined as "to cause great destruction or harm to" (specifically,
it means to kill 1 out of every 10--Snood), but it does
not mean the same as annihilate which is defined as "to destroy completely." So, if
writer Keith Giffen chose to use decimate deliberately, then not all of the mining
colony's population was destroyed by Ship. On the other hand, if Giffen was just
being careless in his choice of words, then he used "decimate" when a more accurate
word for the level of death and destruction which he meant to convey would have been
"annihilate." I guess it will be up to some future writer to decide if there were
any survivors. I have to wonder how such survivors would react to Peter Quill. Would
they agree with Chan-Dar that it was something which had to be done in order to save
the lives of millions on Avaleen-4? Or would they condemn Quill for not having been able
to find another way to stop the Fallen One and/or for being too egotistical to ask "one
of the cosmic big boys" to handle the Fallen One? I'd like to see such a story. --Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb) Very little is known about this planet. Its name has
not been revealed and neither has the name of the star system in which it was located.
And while the fact that the Fallen One next attacked the planet Avaleen-4 in a Kree
fringe system could indicate that this world was close to Kree space, this is only
speculation which has not yet been confirmed. What little information is known about this planet
can be found in the image to the left. Aside from its name and location, it has also never
been revealed if the planet was inhabited when the Fallen One attacked and if those
(possibly-former) inhabitants were a native lifeform which had evolved on the planet
or the descendants of aliens who had previously colonized that world. Although it has never actually been stated that this
planet has been destroyed, it seems HIGHLY unlikely that the Fallen One would have left
the planet intact after nearly killing Star-Lord, its only known defender. --Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb) Years ago, an Earthman named Peter Jason Quill
confessed his sins to a being whom he knew as the Master of the Sun "and, as a reward,
(got) to zip around the cosmos righting wrongs" as the costumed cosmic adventurer
known as Star-Lord. More recently, days after the Phalanx conquest of
the Kree Empire, ex-Star-Lord Peter Quill was on the Kree fringe world of Aladon Prime
being treated for injuries he had received during the Phalanx invasion of Hala. As he
was being restored to health by a Kree med-tech, Quill recalled some of his career as
Starlord, including how he had confessed his sins to the Master of the Sun and been
rewarded with the ability to "zip around the cosmos." During this introspective period,
Quill mused on how he had never really thought about the whole "Master of the Sun"
thing since he had been "too swept up in high adventure and pan-galactic heroics." In
hindsight, Quill now wondered if maybe he should have asked a few questions, like
"What's my real purpose?" Note: And that's it, the only confirmed appearance (make that
NON-appearance) of the entity known as the Master of the Sun who played some part in
how the Peter Quill who exists in Reality-616 was transformed into a cosmic adventurer.
Although Quill's "mental mystery tour" is very scarce on details, the clear implication
is that it was the Master of the Sun who enabled Peter Quill to travel through space,
presumably by introducing him to the sentient starship known as Ship. And that makes
sense, because when Keith Giffen wrote that flashback he did so believing that he was
writing a story featuring the Star-Lord character who debuted in the 1970s, and in
those "classic" stories the Master of the Sun was the one responsible for all aspects
of Quill's transformation. Not only did the MOTS give the costume and title of the
"Starlord" to Quill, he also altered Quill's body so as to give him certain physical
abilities, equipped him with the Element Gun and introduced him to Ship. However, since writer Brian Michael Bendis has
"streamlined and updated" the origin of Reality-616's Star-Lord, most of Quill's
backstory is now a blank slate and what little information has been revealed is
significantly different from his classic origin. Specifically, according to his
"Bendisized" origin, Peter Quill actually inherited both his Element Gun and the
title of Star-Lord from his father, King J-Son (formerly Prince J'Son) of Spartax.
So far, BMB has not chosen to fill in any details of Peter Quill's life after his
mother's murder by Badoon, including how Quill first learned of his hereditary title
as "the Star-Lord of Spartax" and how Quill ever managed to travel into deep space
in the first place. Continuity-lovers can only hope (probably in vain) that BMB will
bother to incorporate Star-Lord's sentient starship and the events which occurred in
the Avaleen star system into Quill's newly-revised history. --mentioned in Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1 (fb) images: Other Appearances: None
First Posted: 03/02/2014 Any Additions/Corrections? please let me
know. Non-Marvel Copyright info Special Thanks to www.g-mart.com for hosting the Appendix, Master List, etc.!
In order to prevent the Fallen One from destroying Avaleen-4 and
killing its millions of inhabitants, Ship (and Star-Lord) decimated the mining colony,
sacrificing the lives of thousands in order to create an energy surge which Ship then
funneled through her ordnance matrix and used to attack the Fallen One, rendering him
unconscious for long enough for him to be turned over to the Nova Corps.
Based on a previous character created by Chris Claremont, John Byrne and Terry
Austin.
Despite the inconsistencies between this version of Jason's past and
that presented in Marvel Preview#11 and the fact that Peter Quill's birth was shifted
from 1962 to sometime after 2001, many fans accepted this story because it did firmly
connect Star-Lord to the Marvel Universe. Also, despite the lack of any direct evidence,
some fans came to the conclusion that the obvious similarities between Jason's Soulship
and Peter's Ship meant that they were actually the same entity, and that after dying on
Earth Ship would return to the planet R'Ralmis where, decades later, the Master
of the Sun would introduce her to Peter Quill. However, I don't believe this theory was ever
"officially" adopted which is a good thing because...
The second problem is how little time passes between when the Soulship
joined the banished Prince Jason in his wanderings (Inhumans IV#4) and when Peter Quill
was first seen as a prisoner in the Kyln (Thanos#8). Of course, in the real world those
two stories were published 43 months apart but that equates to only between 11 and 14
months in Marvel Time. So, if Jason was Ship's first partner, that would mean that the
following sequence of events must have happened in that time frame: Jason and his
soulship wandered among galaxies until they "eventually" arrived at Earth where the
soulship "effectively" died. Then, after being resurrected, Ship became Star-Lord's
partner and they adventured together until their encounter with the Fallen One caused
Ship to die again. While I suppose that it's possible that all of this wandering and
adventuring could have taken place in about one Marvel Year, it seems unlikely.
On the other hand, since there's nothing that really insists that
Jason knew Ship first, maybe Peter was actually her first partner? If that were the
case, then this sequence of events could have occurred: Peter becomes Star-Lord about
"10 years ago" and is partnered with Ship. They adventure together for a number of years
until Ship dies at Avaleen-4. Then, after being resurrected, Ship became Prince Jason
of Spartax's Soulship and accompanied him when he was later banished. Currently, Ship
would still be alive and wandering the galaxies with Jason. Clearly, this scenario seems
much more plausible than the previous one. The only stumbling block in the way of this
theory is that, according to Thanos#7, "the average life expectancy of a Kyln inmate is
less than three years pan-galactic standard time due to a Kyln maintenance mortality
rating of 99.999 percent." So, if Peter Quill knew Ship first, then that would mean
that, by the time Prince Jason was banished, Quill would have been in the Kyln for at
least one standard year, and that's assuming that Ship resurrected very soon after
dying and that Jason and his Soulship became as close as they were almost immediately.
In conclusion, while it seems that Ship and Soulship COULD be the
same entity, at least if she knew Peter first, it would still be a tight fit in terms
of the timing, making it problematic at best. Of course, the fact that there has never
been any direct evidence supporting this theory in any published story means that it
must remain mere speculation.
For one thing, consider their differing appearances. The Soulship
looks like the "classic" version of Ship while Peter's Ship resembles the version from
the 1996 Starlord miniseries. Of course, the Ship in both of those stories was actually
the same vessel and her differing appearances were (presumably) due to her ability to
reshape her hull, a skill which neither of the 616 starships has so far demonstrated.
Additionally, all three ships in Prince Jason's flight appeared to be of an identical
design, suggesting a common origin. So, were those three Spartoi vessels ALL sentient
Soulships? Or was Jason's Soulship a conventional Spartoi starship which had received
upgrades which made it a Soulship? Or was the Soulship not actually of Spartoi origin
at all but had been designed (or reshaped) so that she would be able to pose as a
Spartoi warship? Unfortunately, so little information has been revealed about Jason's
Soulship that any of these three explanations (or none of them) could possibly be the
true story.
Three comments. First, if this sounds similar to how, in a Different
Cosmos, the Guardians of the Universe chose the members of the Green Lantern Corps and
provided them with their power rings, well, then you would be right. What can I say?
When considering an interstellar police force, the Green Lantern Corps is probably the
best-known example.
Second, part of the appeal of this theory is that it reminds me that
Starlord was not meant to be a unique entity. Even in Marvel Preview#4, the
Master of the Sun refers to Quill having been selected "to become a Starlord" and that such an
opportunity is rarely offered. Later, in Marvel Spotlight II#6, the Master mentioned
that it had been his plan to create an entire legion of Star-Lords to ensure peace and
seek justice throughout the vast cosmos. While that particular Master and his motivation
has been relegated to Reality-791, I'd like to think that there was someone with a
similar agenda in Reality-616 as well.
Three, if there are a large number of sentient starships out there in
the universe, then that increases the chances that (at least) one of them might show up
in a future MU story. Ideally, I'd like to see a story in which Star-Lord meets up with
Prince Jason and his Soulships and the truth behind the origin of the sentient starships
is revealed. However, to be done properly it would require a writer who cares a great
deal about continuity and they seem to be in short supply at Marvel nowadays.
This particular "Ship" character is definitely a DIFFERENT entity from
and is PROBABLY a different entity from
Their skin appears to be armored and scaly with protruding spikes
visible at various points on their bodies, including along their spines, arms and legs.
They also have what appear to be external ribcages visible on their backs.
Their heads appear to be rather expressionless, with features that
are mostly fixed (somewhat like birds). They have two large protruding eyes which are
yellow with slits for irises. They have no visible ear structures and the "nose" between
their eyes seems to lack nostrils. Their mouths are usually open and can gape widely,
displaying the large pointed tongues within. They can spit some greenish fluid from
their mouths, possibly as a means of attack.
The planet (or moon) upon which Star-Lord encountered these aliens is
orbiting in close proximity to two or three other bodies which are either moons of that
planet or nearby planets. It has not been revealed if that particular body was their
homeworld or not.
Nothing has been revealed about the intelligence of these beings.
Their lack of weapons and clothing suggests that they are non-sentient animals (but
they could also be intelligent beings with criminal tendencies who happen to be
nudists who favor hand-to-hand combat). Similarly, nothing has been revealed about the
reason for their violent confrontation with Star-Lord. If they are animals, then they
could be a pack of carnivores who attacked Star-Lord when he stumbled onto their
territory or he could have been hunting them down specifically, perhaps in response to
an attack by them on some unspecified sentients.
Ship died in the act of funneling the life energies of the 350,000
people on the mining colony whom she had killed, but the millions of inhabitants of
Avaleen-4 were saved by her actions.
1. The planet had (at least) two moons.
2. The fact that the Fallen One attacked it meant that it was a planet upon which
Galactus could feed which in turn meant that it possessed those certain unknown energies
which gave it the ability to support life.
3. The presence of the buildings visible in the background means that the planet was
inhabited at some point.
4. The fact that the buildings seemed to be in a state of disrepair could indicate that
the civilization of the builders had collapsed. Alternatively, the builders' species
could have become extinct or decided to leave the planet sometime before the Fallen One
arrived. Or maybe Star-Lord's confrontation with the Fallen One just happened to take
place in a part of a city that was old and had been abandoned by its residents.
Annihilation: Conquest - Starlord#1, page 2, panel 3 (main image)
page 3, panel 3 (Star-Lord in medical bay)
page 4, panel 2 (decimating mining colony)
page 4, panel 3 (Star-Lord amidst debris)
page 2, panel 2 (4-armed aliens)
page 3, panel 4 (graphic of Avaleen-4)
page 4, panel 1 (colony being attacked)
page 3, panel 2 (Fallen One's previous target
planet)
Last updated: 03/01/2014
All other characters
mentioned or pictured are ? and ? 1941-2099 Marvel Characters, Inc. All
Rights Reserved. If you like this stuff, you should check out the real thing!
Please visit The Marvel Official Site at: http://www.marvel.com
