Space Whale

5...4...3...2...1... Whalers IN SPACE.

We're whalers on the moon
We carry our harpoons...
But there ain't no whales, so we tell tall tales,

And sing our whaling tune!
—Futurama

Space Is an Ocean. This is a well-known phenomenon. For some reason, though, the ocean is pretty much devoid of fish.

But not of whales.

Somehow, at some point (probably in the 1970s), the ideas of space and whales became permanently interwoven in the collective unconscious. Why? No one really knows, but here is some wild speculation:

  • In 1971, scientists aroused interest in whalesong, which is sufficiently eerie and psychedelic. It's an otherworldly sound that combines well with visuals of galaxies and false-color nebulae.
  • Space and whales also made great blacklight posters.
  • They're already really big, so why not scale up?
  • Pictures from the deep ocean also look kind of like space. Or at least something you could describe as "alien".
  • Space Is an Ocean, after all. It'd be a damn shame not to have gigantic creatures making endless voyages through the void, wouldn't it?
  • Whales become even more interesting when they are Recycled in Space.
  • Rule of Cool.
  • Copious amounts of LSD and cannabis.

But nevermind the whys and wherefores, space and whales are just two great tastes that taste great together. Bonus points are awarded if the whale in question is also a Living Ship.

A planet-bound variant of the Space Whale is the Air Whale. Whales are basically shaped like blimps with fins anyway, so it makes visual sense (if you hate gravity, and really, who doesn't?).

See also Sapient Cetaceans, Flying Seafood Special.

Not to be confused with the Space Whale Aesop, which is something quite different.

Examples of Space Whale include:

Anime & Manga

  • Ah! My Goddess had Schroedinger's Whales, which traverse the entire space-time continuum. They are an exceedingly rare treat to see, considering the chance of one existing could only happen in a near-infinite space; naturally, they have a very hard time finding other Schroedinger's Whales with whom to breed.
  • Macross Dynamite 7 features space whales in a bizarre cross of Moby Dick and The Power of Rock.
  • In Gundam Seed, space explorer George Glenn discovers a fossilized Space Whale—with wings, yet—in orbit around Jupiter, dubbed "Evidence 01" of alien life in that universe. Live ones (or possibly ghosts) show up from time to time in various side stories.
    • Rather notable as Gundam typically has no aliens at all.
    • In Turn A Gundam A number of whales thrive in human built waterways on the moon. Turn A's connections with other Gundam universes leads me to question whether SEED's Space Whales are related.
  • Infinite Ryvius has Leviathans in the deepest depths of its "Sea of Gedult".
  • Idol Project featured the "Tropical Dimension", basically a resort/ocean planet. And yes, it had space whales.
  • Plastic Little features a crew and ship whose business is capturing exotic creatures in the 'sea of clouds' of the planet Ietta, apparently a gas giant of some kind, and selling them to collectors and zoos. In the sequence in which you get to see the exotic creatures, one of those shown is most definitely an Air Whale.
  • Mahou Sensei Negima's Magical Land has Air Whales en lieu of the usual Zeppelins from Another World. They swarm the sky of the biggest cities in excessive numbers; smaller versions are used for personal transportation; and armadas of gigantic ones are used for war.
  • The spaceships of Blue Drop, while mechanical, are clearly inspired by this trope. The main character's sentient ship (the Blue) looks like a sperm whale, complete with fins and a random whalesong whenever she moves.
  • One episode in the third season of Sailor Moon features a painting done by Michiru that is of a whale in space. This is particularly fitting for her, since she's Sailor Neptune and has ocean/water powers.
  • Kurohime one-ups this trope with a Time Whale.
  • In "Seiketsu no Hagurama" the flying whales are actually steam-punk looking ships http://www.mangafox.com/manga/seiketsu_no_haguruma/v01/c001.1/16.html designed by a literal blue-blooded Gadgeteer Genius prince who, contrary to his intentions to use his machines for peaceful purposes, were being used to eradicate the remaining red-blooded people by his father.


Comic Books

  • Abraxas and the Earthman by Rick Veitch (originally serialized in Epic Illustrated, later released as a graphic novel) is all about this trope: There are space whales (which look exactly like Earth's whales, and "swim" through space with their fins and tails), and space whalers. The whalers are from a civilization based on Organic Technology; they fly in ships which look like small asteroids covered with trees—the leaves serve as "sails" with which they can reach lightspeed. And everyone can breathe in space (no explanation is even attempted for that). The Great Red Whale Abraxas = Moby Dick, of course, and Captain Rotwang = Captain Ahab.
  • Ultra Boy of the Legion of Super-Heroes originally got his powers from being swallowed by a space whale. (To make it even better/worse, his real name is Jo Nah.)
    • Still better/worse: Superboy calls him on the coincidence the first time they meet.
    • And that's not even the only space whale in Legion Of Super-Heroes. In the original continuity, Lightning Lad lost his arm to the "Super-Moby Dick of Space!"
  • In one of the Metabarons comics, the bad guys use a kind of organic spaceship that strongly resembles a whale. Background material implies that it was developed from actual whales through genetic engineering. They're also called cetacyborgs, which is kind of a dead giveaway.
  • The X-Men villains The Brood traveled in lobotomized space whales known as the Acanti.
    • You haven't lived until you've seen a whale doing a high-speed close-orbit approach of a planet to free its ancestor's soul from a citadel of evil.
    • On one occasion, Storm actually merged with one of the Acanti, as an alternative to either committing suicide or transforming into one of The Brood after being implanted with a Brood egg. Fortunately, the X-Men and Starjammers were able to free the Acanti from slavery, and the whales' thankful shaman (yes, a giant whale sorcerer) magically purged the Brood eggs from the mutants' bodies.
  • When Storm, the Last Fighter (no relation) got taken to the planet of Pandarve, he met an old whaler in a flying wooden boat (!) chasing flying whales for the pearl-like growths in their heads which have magical properties.
  • And let us not forget Lobo's "space dolphins", which as of 52 have their own religion.
  • In the Green Lantern comics, it was recently revealed that the cosmic personification of willpower, Ion, looks very much like a big green whale.
    • In one Animal Man mini (which takes place in 2024) Earth's current Green Lantern is a Blue Whale thus upgrading to this trope
  • Doug TenNapel seems fond of this one.
    • Creature Tech features Giant Space Eels with humanoid alien riders. The Mad Scientist tries to use one of these eels to destroy California.
    • In Earthboy Jacobus, the titular hero arrives on Earth in the mouth of a Space Whale.
  • In the French comic series Kookaburra has space Lamantines. They act a lot like whales though, and are hunted by whalers.
  • In Space Usagi there are space turtles. When they die, their shells are used as spacecraft hull. Not whales, but still impressive.
  • PS238 had a cyborg space kraken thing.

Film

Literature

  • The illustrated Discworld story The Last Hero includes a sketch drawn by Leonard of Quirm of a space-dragon that resembles a whale. It's not made clear if it actually exists or not (Leonard's notes indicate that the Giant Dung Beetle does exist, and the Imaginary Hull-Borer almost certainly doesn't, but don't comment on the space dragon either way).
  • Terry Pratchett's The Dark Side of the Sun mentions several space-born species, and plot involves large creatures called "sundogs". They can be hired to perform interstellar haulage service (thus falling into Living Ship category as well), usually carrying normal spaceship. That is, if this specific individual is not stupid enough to devour ship instead - fortunately, they have recognizable names.
  • An Italian satirical science-fiction novel titled Terra! featured an extended Moby-Dick parody sequence, with metal-rich asteroids and miners.
  • Alan Dean Foster's novel Cachalot (1980), part of the Humanx Commonwealth universe. In the future, Mankind had decided to save the last survivors of the cetacean species of Earth (whales, dolphins, orcas) and transplant them to a planet almost completely covered by oceans which had no native sentient species (or so they thought, because they didn't look deep enough in the oceans). The cetaceans prospered, on a world that belonged to them and on which humans and thranx were only allowed as traders and researchers. By the time of the novel, all the cetaceans are sentient to some degree, with the toothed whales more so than the baleen whales (either due to evolution or genetic Uplifting done prior to the whale diaspora or shortly afterwards, it's not entirely clear). Some species of toothed whales have even grown more intelligent than humans and live for hundreds of years since they are no longer hunted. The book ends with the revelation that these whales have developed psionic powers like telekinesis and telepathy (since they have no hands and thus a civilizations based on song, not artifacts and tools), and with the help of these powers they can levitate their bodies from the water and travel into space.
  • Wayne D. Barlowe's Expedition not only gives us a planet with a wide variety of "Floaters", several of whom are basically Air-Whales, one of these is of human-like intelligence.
  • Timothy Zahn wrote a series of short stories in the mid 1980s which featured "Space Horses," small Space Whales that could be controlled by means of telepathy, and were the only known form of FTL-capable transportation. At least one story also featured space sharks, oversized predatory life that made a habit of eating not only the Space Horses, but also any starships that they happened to be towing.
  • Iain M. Banks
    • Consider Phlebas briefly mentions the chuy-hitsi warp animal, spacebourne creatures capable of interstellar travel.
    • A largely un-related but voluminous B Plot in the sequel Look to Windward introduces the "dirigible behemothaur": a very, very, very large Air Whale.
    • The Dwellers fit this - although they mostly live on gas planets as Air Whales, it is implied that they created a massive intergalactic network of wormholes. It is certain that at one point they used them. Their culture is intimately examined in The Algebraist. In some ways they are similar to the Affront from Excession, being gleefully violent and cruel to their offspring, and being possessed of a rather macho attitude to life. They are, however, also quite scholarly and thoughtful at times.
  • Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy featured a whale that was created randomly in the upper atmosphere of a planet, where it proceeded to fall to the ground. Questions of how it survived lack of oxygen and possibility of it burning up in the atmosphere are waived in favor of a bit of hilarious internal monologue.
    • The Hitchhiker's Guide also has space dolphins- the second most intelligent species on Earth escapes before the planet is destroyed.

So long and thanks for all the fish, so sad that it has come to this...

    • Also, the whale survived for only a few minutes. A whale could hold their breath for that long.
  • In the 1970s Robert F. Young wrote Jonathan and the Space Whale series of stories about a man who teams up with a space whale. (The stories also featured lots of complex typewriter-generated graphics, for reasons best known to the author.)
  • The Star Trek novel series The Captain's Table had one entry, called appropriately enough Where Sea Meets Sky, with a species of large, spacefaring, and even warp-capable to some degree, whale-shaped beings; their planetbound immature form is tentacled Nightmare Fuel. It gets worse: the dietary range of both forms put together is "almost anything -- people included", they're insanely hard to kill, and the space-going adults actually fire biologically-created energy beams. (Yes, they're a product of genetic engineering.)
  • It didn't take long for Star Wars Expanded Universe to invent some: the first example of a space whale species was introduced in 1984 by one of the earliest Star Wars novels. Other examples followed, eventually making their ways into cartoons (see below).
  • The Star Trek TNG novel Dark Mirror by Diane Duane has a dolphinoid ambassador aboard the Enterprise-D; he detects differences in the hyperstrings when the starship has crossed between universes. In fact it's his sense that something is different that gives them time to figure out what's going on.
  • Philip Reeve's Larklight novels subvert this trope: space is almost devoid of whales, and filled with fish. The protagonists' father is actually a biologist whose specialty is these fish. The few 'wind-whales' that do appear are clearly described to be more like jellyfish.
  • In Stephen Baxter's Xeelee universe, the Spline are giant living armored spaceships that evolved from alien whales. They live off interstellar gas and other species use them as transports and warships. In one case, the entire Qax race, which consist of cell-like vortices in any fluid (ocean, air, gas giant, star, space-time...), is transported off its homeworld when the sun goes nova.
  • In the Seafort Saga series, by David Feintuch, the allied governments of humanity are attacked by giant space goldfish we accidentally lured into our space by FTL travel; apparently it sounded just like someone calling out to them and they were exploring to find out who was out there. The protagonist kills them all at the end of the series by tricking them into the Sun.
  • The novel A Deeper Sea by Alexander Jablokov involves a whale being turned into a spacefaring cyborg to fulfill a religious prophecy of the dolphins, with whom man has learned to communicate.
  • Hinted at in the Dune series, where it claims that House Harkennon got into the Emperor's favor by 'manipulating space whale fur prices'.
    • The prequel novels Hand Wave this by simply claiming they're regular whales (with fur) from the planet Lankiveil.
  • Larry Niven's The Integral Trees has the Moby, a whalish giant creature that lives within the breatheable Smoke Ring gas torus orbiting a dead neutron star. Notable in that, by the very nature of the Smoke Ring, it's both a Space Whale and an Air Whale at the same time.
  • The Shattered World doesn't have Space Whales, but it does have Space Whalers. They sail around the air-filled Void between fragments, harpoons at the ready, and hunt dragons for their bones and hides.
  • In Espada da Gal áxia, the metalians' method of space traveling consists of putting "command bridges" and Space Folders inside Space Whales, beings made of living metal whose power source is similar to that of a star. They not only have a behavior much similar to that of loner whales, they live as long as a star tends to, and have natural force fields!
  • In 'The Man in the Maze' by Robert Silverberg, published in 1969, a race of space-travelling whale-like beings put in an appearance.
  • Michael Flynn's short story "On The High Frontier" has spacefaring creatures that resemble in part jellyfish, whales, and cattle, and are "herded" around the outer Solar System. Yes, it's a Space Western.
  • Diane Duane's Young Wizards series includes a sentient whale teleporting to the moon for a meeting in the eighth book. While the whale spends no time actually traveling through space, it probably still counts.
  • In The Dreaming Dark trilogy for the Eberron setting, the main characters are in a dimensionally-traveling orb-shaped vessel sitting in the ethereal plane, where they are rammed by something they can't see from the inside. The leader immediately panics about "orb-eating ethereal whales".
  • The Ringworld series briefly mentions these, called "starseeds". The Outsiders, a race that could easily dominate the Galaxy but is content to sell information, follow them for whatever reason.
  • In John Varley's Gaea Trilogy, the artificial planet Gaea is home to air whales. (Since Gaea itself is in orbit around Saturn, they are also, technically, in space.)
  • Cassie could be called this, or the air whale variant, albeit briefly, in at least two Animorphs books, although perhaps it's more of a falling whale...


Live Action TV

  • In Doctor Who there was a kind of whale analogue. It looked more like a giant dragonfly, but its method of gathering oxygen and then holding its breath while it flew to another planet was explicitly likened to whales.
    • In series 5, Spaceship UK's engine is in fact a captured Space Whale, almost literally (they call it a star-whale).
      • In this case it even gets the bonus points since the ship wouldn't exist/would fall apart without it.
    • The Doctor Who novel The Resurrection Casket has a variation with Krarks, which are small, very vicious space sharks.
      • Not to mention in "A Christmas Carol", when there are sharks and fish in the atmosphere.
  • It was revealed in commentary for Star Trek: The Next Generation that the Enterprise-D was planned to carry whales and dolphins to help navigation as they are more experienced moving in 3-D space.
    • According to the Enterprise blueprints, cetacean engineers actually designed much of the navigation system. That's engineers who are cetaceans. From Earth.
    • In the TNG episode "Galaxy's Child", they're under threat by a Space Whale baby who thinks the Enterprise is its mother, and is sucking the energy from the ship.
    • Likewise, there's an episode of Voyager which involves the ship getting mixed up in some sort of space whale mating ritual. The male space whales even challenged U.S.S. Voyager as a mating rival. The ship escaped by rolling over and turning blue, because that's how real ocean-going whales indicate submission.
    • TNG also had another space whale which was also a Living Ship called Gomtuu in the episode "Tin Man".
  • Farscape is set on board a Living Ship known as a Leviathan, named "Moya"; an initial conceptual design for which greatly resembled a whale, complete with eyes. The actual production version was much more "spaceshippy", though her silhouette is still suggestive of a humpback. Many of Moya's sound effects are also reminiscent of whale song.
    • Farscape also features budongs, natural creatures that can grow to the size of a small moon. In one episode Talyn gets swallowed by one.
  • Some episodes in the various Star Trek TV series occasionally feature lifeforms of deep space that resemble marine lifeforms or other tentacly things, such as a space-squid (Deep Space 9; although this was actually a changeling disguised—in the form of a space-squid species... seriously), a glowing space-jellyfish (the pilot episode of The Next Generation), a space-amoeba (ST:TOS), and finally something very close to the classic Space Whale in The Next Generation (it looked more like a nudibranch but acted like a whale).
  • Star Trek: Voyager and Farscape both had episodes set inside the stomach of a Space Whale. The former even had an Ahab-like space whaler trapped in there too. Of course none of the ships made it past the stomach.
  • The Speculative Documentary Alien Worlds: Blue Moon features Sky Whales.


Music

  • The video for In The End by Linkin Park features a couple of space whales flying around.
  • Skyclad's album Silent Whales of Lunar Sea, although this is actually a pun and the music features no whales.
  • French metal band Gojira features the song "Flying Whales" on From Mars to Sirius.
    • The entire album deals with a quest to find the Space Whales who inhabit Sirius and get them to help revive the biologically dead Earth, long since destroyed by ecological damage dealt by humanity. Whether or not this qualifies as a Space Whale Aesop is another question.
  • The trance tune Shamu (named after the famous killer whale?) by Vincent de Moor has synthesizer sound effects that sound like whale song. The Armin van Buuren remix uses actual whale song samples.
    • "Embracing the Future" by BT and "Neo (The One)" by Slyder also have orca/whale song type sounds.
  • The lyrics Cormorant's song Hole in the Sea features one of these. Possibly.
  • The fourth They Might Be Giants album, Apollo 18, features a whale and squid in combat on the cover, set against a black void next to a lunar lander. Much of the album art, visuals in the "The Statue Got Me High" video, and some song themes and lyrics from that album - not to mention its title - are space/moon-themed. The whale only appears once, but it's huge.
  • Speaking of 1971, Pink Floyd's "Echoes" has lyrics that were originally space-themed (and later changed to ocean-themed,) plus a nice four-minute interlude in which David Gilmour makes his guitar sound like whalesong.


Other

  • During the pre-release online hype for Cloverfield, numerous Epileptic Trees abounded about what the monster would look like and where it had come from. One sketch of a multi-fluked whale with legs, which would've stood several times taller than the actual creature from the film, was widely circulated as "the real Cloverfield monster"; this spawned its own flood of debate over whether it was an unknown sea creature, a mutated sea creature, or a Space Whale.
  • In The Nineties a popular art-style for folders and binders was a dolphin or whale swimming through symmetrically-arranged coral and star clusters and sparkly purple nebulae? They were marginally darker and less diabetes-flavored than the Lisa Frank rainbow-and-unicorn kind.
  • Stop the Slaughter painting by Rodney Matthews shows Space Sailing whalers.


Tabletop Games

  • Dungeons & Dragons got some.
    • Space-themed Spelljammer setting had the Kindori, your basic mouthless blue whale with many eyes/headlights. Delphinids are Space Dolphins. The godlike Great Dreamers aren't quite Space Whales proper, but rather space-traveling whales, as they float in water envelopes the size of a little moon (they are up to 20 miles long themselves).
      • And, of course, the Spelljammer itself basically is a giant space manta ray.
      • Esthetics are mildly shapeshifting giant space mollusks. Usually encountered already tamed and used as Living Ship by the Reigar, but they revert to feral existence if the owner dies or goes from "Mad Artist" to plain "stark raving mad".
    • Pelins, from bestiary in Dragon magazine #52, were air whales, although they didn't look all that much like whales.
    • Air Whales appear in a 3e supplement book, too. And they're used as blimps.
    • Balaenas (later re-named "elsewhales"), an intelligent species of magical whale, can take people on trips in pockets of air it creates in its mouth.
    • One old Dragon article featured a species of large whale that could use astral projection as an inherent ability, making the Astral Plane home to Space Whales.
  • Warhammer 40,000
    • There were mentions of something called a "Void Whale". In the 5th edition rulebook, there's a picture of one. It looks like a combination of whale and an anglerfish. In SPACE. The Space Wolves codex has a short story about a mutated Void Whale. It was 12,000 miles long. The little picture of the whale using a small moon to lure stuff into its mouth is pretty much to scale.
    • The "Void-dragon", some sort of beasts fought by the Salamanders (in one meaning of that, anyway).
    • Tyranid spaceships are living organisms controlled by the Hive Mind, among the other things.
    • Void Kraken, mentioned in Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay and fully introduced in The Koronus Bestiary (picture is here). It feeds on stony asteroids and consists of a similar substance, which means usually it has no business to float in empty void, but rather lurks among the true asteroids, and that at long range it's not easily detectable as something other than one more asteroid, right until it starts moving -- giving kraken a good chance to ambush spaceships unlucky enough to approach one.
      • Also, it has smaller spiky tentacles capable of scratching itself or swatting the small craft, which implies existence of smaller vacuum-dwelling creatures that otherwise could be a problem for it. Though in the series there seems to be only Void-Fluke from The Lathe Worlds.
  • Star Fleet Battles has a race called the Alunda, which are space whales with bioelectric batteries and little plasma-enabled tentacles all over them. They really hate the Branthodon, who ride around on cybernetically-enhanced Space Dragons.
  • Eclipse Phase includes a variety of whales that are members of transhumanist society. Suryas, a genetically engineered variety, live in the corona of the sun, with light-up skin. Other uplifted types of whales can be seen in spacesuits in the vacuum of space, others in low-grav environs. The recent splatbook, Panopticon, describes cetaceans' unique 3D sensibility as an advantage for moving around in space.
  • GURPS: Spaceships has a 300,000 ton space whale that it is possible for people to survive inside of. It's womb can be modified to work as a huge bio-tech production line.
    • In Transhuman Space there probably aren't Space Whales. There are, however, "Whalers" or "Beyonders", a group of spacers-turned-cryptozoologists who say they encountered something massive and blue-black in the Deep Beyond. They're the butt of jokes in the inner system, but taken more seriously the further out you go.

Video Games

  • X3: Terran Conflict has spaceflies, which are basically tiny Space Whales, except in bug form.
  • What exemplifies this trope more than the Darius series' Great Thing? Nothing, that's what.
    • ...except, perhaps, for its little-known relative, Great Force.
  • The Gnosis Cathedral Ships in Xenosaga appear as giant alien whales.
  • The Star Fox Nintendo Power comic (based on the game) had the main character encountering the ghost of his dead father speaking to him in the form of a spectral space whale.
    • There was also a space whale in the Sector Y level of the game, though it had to be encountered in a special way. Shoot all the small stingrays in the level 'till they turn blue, and the whale shows up near the end and drops lots of powerups for you.
  • The Wind Fish from The Legend of Zelda Links Awakening was a trapped interdimensional being that did indeed look more whale than fish.
    • It's explicitly stated that it's neither fish nor bird in one inscription. Now think about what whales are...
  • In Kingdom Hearts, Pinocchio's Monstro was, again, a whale that swam through the void.
  • In Final Fantasy IV, the only way to get to the moon is by riding a whale-shaped spaceship called the Big Whale.
    • And in the GBA version, to make it more relevant to the moon and space, they name it Lunar Whale.
  • Final Fantasy X revolves around the destructive monstrosity called Sin, which is a huge whale .. it also grows wings during one of your fights against it.
  • In Beyond Good and Evil, during the space jaunt from Hillys to its moon for the final showdown, the player can use the ship's laser to blow up a floating chunk of ice that contains a still-living space whale. It's one of the life forms you need pictures of for the animal side quest, and it appears in the catalog as Megaptera Anaerobia, or "whale that doesn't breathe".
  • The oceans in the world of Baten Kaitos were originally created by a great whale, but the whale and the oceans were swallowed by the ancient evil Malpercio.
  • There's a full-sized Space Whale inside the ship in the Galaxy Angel Game Verse, as well as a small one that lives on land with Chromier. They're psychic, giving the in-game excuse to read the Angels' affection meters.
  • Ecco the Dolphin had dolphins in space.
    • Also the flying psychic dolphins from the future.
  • The Visual Novel Ever 17 doesn't feature any actual space whales, but its aquatic theme park does have a "Cosmic Whale Room," with a lifelike animatronic whale suspended in a room painted to look like outer space.
  • While no space whales are found in Super Robot Wars, there is a space Flounder, and its Space Flounder spawns which all look like tadpoles with a guys face on it.
  • Arcwhales in Skies of Arcadia—of course, everything flies there, including all the fish and landmasses. In particular is Rhaknam, a whale whom Drachma is hunting down and is actually the Purple Gigas.
    • Given the way Vyse and Aika react when they first encounter Rhaknam, and the fact that you never see any other arcwhales through the course of the game in spite of traversing the entire world, it's reasonable to assume that arcwhales are incredibly rare and seeing one is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Or they don't exist.
    • It is not likely that they do not exist, as Rhaknam was mentioned to be an existing creature that was modified, rather than constructed from scratch. Rhaknam may be the last one though.
  • Grandia III has a whale floating above the clouds. It's surprised to see humans there when you approach it. It seems all the airplanes in that world don't like to go that high.
  • Starscape had space fire dragon-things...
  • The reason the Zerg can survive in space, according to StarCraft Backstory, is that they absorbed a flock of Space Whales that got too close to their homeworld. Also, some of their air units, such as the Guardian and Overlord, certainly fit the trope.
    • That's because the Overlords are mutated versions of said Space Whales.
    • On the tournament version of the StarCraft II map ESV Cloud Kingdom, there is a Space Shark in floating about in the center.
  • In the 1994 PC game Commander Blood, 'Ma' is a genetically modified, unique captive Space Whale who births Organic Technology, 'dolphin'-like communication probes called Orxx.
  • Jumping Flash has air whales in World 3-2. Uniquely for the game, they aren't trying to kill you, and just sort of float there, wiggling their flukes, and letting you use them as platforms.
  • Kirby Air Ride, of all things, features big flying whale-like things on the Frozen Hillside stage.
  • Spore has the ability to easily make any vehicle you want. A good number of the Featured creations are spaceships shaped sea creatures. Including one of a whale and a giant squid fighting.
  • Let's not forget the Liir of Sword of the Stars. Some peculiar cross between Space Whales and Space Dolphins, the eldest members of the Liir are literal whales, albeit whales with immense Psychic Powers and an intelligence several times that of a human. All Liir who ever set their flippers into space are murderously insane... At least by Liir standards, as they're actually willing to harm other beings. Though they can't survive vacuum and use starships.
    • Now, with SotS 2, we finally know that the Suul'ka are actually Liir who have grown so large that, normally, the Square-Cube Law would cause them to die underwater. Instead, they choose to teleport themselves into space using their immense Psychic Powers and go mad with power. Screenshots reveal that they are, in fact, several times larger than the new Leviathan-class warships (which are about 800 meters long).
  • The exact species of Tanzer in SaGa Frontier is not ever revealed, but it's a giant space something or other that devours ships and has a colony of people living in its innards.
  • A Space Whale figures prominently in Tales of Hearts as the deity of the Valeia Church. It turns out to be an ark of The Precursors which the villain's been trying to reactivate so he can unseal a Cosmic Horror.
  • In the 1993 Amiga-Game Whale's Voyage http://hol.abime.net/1692 you're cruising around in a spaceship shaped like, well, a whale.
  • Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction has what appear to be space whales or sharks in two of its Space Pirate levels (though the first of which is on a planet with an atmosphere). Also, Stratus City has floating jellyfish. Additionally, there are the Basilisk Leviathian enemies (space serpents) in two levels and Quest for Booty had Pythors (space python-thingies).
  • In the Rance universe, a Space Whale created all of existence so that it could watch humans fight amongst themselves and cause chaos for as long as they exist.
  • Guppy from Super Mario Galaxy.
  • Comorro in OtherSpace, who also acts as a massive living ship. Characters reside in various internal ducts and passages, and park their ships in her landing bay.
  • One mission in Haegemonia: Legions of Iron involves defending your colonies against ship-sized space jellyfish, which can shoot back. They are never mentioned again.
  • Nexus the Jupiter Incident has the Locust Queen, a massive spaceborne creature capable of "launching" waves of insect-like drones.
  • The second stage of Child of Eden has space whales as well as space manta rays and a space phoenix.
  • Not exactly an example, but related. Metroid: Other M introduces an enemy known as Gigafraug, which is essentially (despite the misleading name) a walking whale with antlers.
    • The boss Vorash is basically a lava whale.
  • Solatorobo has the Master of the Clouds, a giant Air Whale who is used to travel from the Shepherd Republic to Earth.
  • While not quite in space all the time, Gohma Vlitra from Asura's Wrath gives off this vibe and shares the look, as it comes up from the earth and fights Shinkoku ships by piercing beyond the earth's atmosphere to do so.
  • The early 90s Amiga game "Eye of the Storm" features peaceful Space Whales roaming around the atmosphere of Jupiter.
  • The Wahrk in Uru is a strange, man-eating whale-shark-walrus hybrid thing that falls to Earth through the star fissure from Riven.


Web Animation

  • Homestar Runner had a recent Strong Bad Email that reveals Strong Bad's ideal career choice as "2nd 2nd Assistant Space Whale Scrubber". In an earlier email, he put up a motivational poster of "some kinda whale...in space...".
    • And the last thing the Drive-Thru Whale does in the cartoon "Drive-Thru" is blast off into orbit after eating a Europa-pean Space Lobster. "Sever your leg, please. It's the greatest day."


Web Comics

Western Animation

  • "Space Moby", an episode of the Space Western cartoon series Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers, featured a species of space-whales that was being hunted to extinction. And an environmental group with the anvilicious name of "Greenspace" that was trying to save them.
  • The animated series Bounty Hamster has enormous purple space whales that act as long-haul truckers, carrying cargo from planet to planet.
  • The '80s cartoon Blackstar has an episode not only featuring one variation of this trope, but titled after it: "The Air Whales of Anchar".
  • In the series MTV's Oddities: The Maxx, the Air Whales of Pangea appear as blimps (or technically, dirigibles) to the eyes of Mundanes in the city back in the Real World... although, as Mr. Gone claims, the Real World is a mere fantasy world, a shadow of Pangea, so who knows which version is true.
    • The same juxtaposition is also explored in the original The Maxx comics. There are also the Earth Whales (whales which swim in earth and breathe water) in another Outback, but their "real counterpart" was never shown.
  • An episode of X-Men featured the Acanti, mentioned above.
  • Though Futurama lacked any actual Space Whales, theme park-employed "Fungineers" concluded that the moon was first visited by Space Whalers. They proceeded to create a theme-park ride based on this "fact".
    • Notably the next line after the ones included in the page quote is 'But there ain't no whales, so we tell tales and sing our whaling tunes'.
    • The Encyclopod of the 4th movie, Into The Wild Green Yonder, is a space manta ray.
    • And finally, the episode "Möbius Dick" introduces a Space Whale. A four-dimensional one that spouts fractals, has a Moebius strip colon, and "breathes" the vacuum of space.
  • In an episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog, a Space Whale is seen trying to eat two Space Squids, in the manner similar to a black hole.
  • Subverted in South Park when after being shot into space, a whale is shown to have landed on The Moon, and is very dead.
  • A squadron of starfighters in Star Wars: The Clone Wars is almost destroyed when they fly through a nebula that happens to be inhabited by Space Whales.
  • Care-a-Lot in the latest Care Bears series is visited every year by the Thunder Whales, flying whales who spout storm clouds.
  • In one episode of Rocket Power, a whale is shown being kidnapped by a flying saucer in the background of one scene.
  • The 1983 British animated short, Skywhales.


Real Life

  • The constellation Cetus is the closest thing you can get to a Real Life Space Whale. Originally described as a "sea monster" constellation, it's now referred to as "the whale" today.
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