A while ago I created possibly the weirdest spaceship I've ever seen, a castle complete with trebuchets, heroic knights and magic dragon-powered engines. Justin and I had a discussion on how the 'castlepunk' ship worked. Eventually we agreed that these ships were designed to be the forward bases of their conquest of other planets. The ship has ultimately only one use before it is forever rendered immobile, unless it goes into space combat. This ship is designed to crash-land on other planets, destroying the lower engine sections of the vessel. From there, land invasions take place. It taked many such ships to conquer a planet, but having a couple of dragons on their side does help quicken the process. :D

Anyway, here is the castle ship at 'landing' stage, still glowing red from re-entry. It has a dedicated team of warlocks preserving structural integrity, temperature and air pressure, of course. Once the dust and smoke clears, the invasion begins.