Mothership

Mothership is a large alien ship dedicated to study species and generally located in space. It houses an entire crew of aliens and is commanded by a captain. The overall shape of the ship resembles a colossal saucer with another small disc-shaped section attached to the bottom.

Background
Many years before the Industrial Revolution, a mothership named "Zeta" was sent to or came across Earth, and it began to observe the planet and to abduct the Earth's species for experimentation. In 2277, for over 1600 years, Zeta is still hovering above Earth, continuing its study of the Earth species. Some times later, it sent a radio signal, the Recon Craft Theta Beacon, to the crashed recon craft Theta in the Capital Wasteland, in order to abduct anyone who approaches the ship, this may be due to lack of experimental subjects.

In 2278, the Lone Wanderer was kidnapped and became the subject of an alien experimentation. But before undergoing more experimentation, he/she escaped from the cells with Somah, saved and joined forces with an atypical group of survivors, and took control of the ship. After the killing of the Zeta's captain and the capture of the Zeta's bridge by the Lone Wanderer, a second mothership, seems to be near to the Earth came after Zeta and began hostilities. After an exchange of shots with their respective Death rays, the second mothership was destroyed and no other motherships arrived, stopping the aliens menace for a while.

Layout and technology
Traversing in a mothership is possible through teleportation matrices on the observation deck and bridge in the upper portion which connects to its counterparts in the lower parts of the engineering core. There are also a number of healing archways on the ship that will heal anyone by walking through them.

A mothership possesses both offensive and defensive capabilities. It is protected by shield technology and its main weapon is a powerful raygun cannon named the death ray, which connects to the lower section and can be used for both orbital strikes on a planet and combat against other space vehicles.

A mothership also contains various laboratories for experimentation on living beings and technology such as biological research, experimentation labs or research labs. There is also a vast number of storage facilities in which items retrieved from a planet below are stockpiled, and abducted species are kept alive or are frozen for preservation, used for for experimentations or targets for weapons.

Aside from living quarters for the crew and the bridge, the remainder of the vessel is dedicated to the ship's basic functions. The engineering core in the lower part of the ship provides access to most of the maintenance sections like the maintenance level, engine room or waste disposal. In the robot assembly, the various alien drones are produced and repaired. Death ray control and death ray hub are dedicated to the controlling the mothership's main weapon. A mothership also features its own hangar in which smaller other alien ship can be stored and maintained.

Appearances
Motherships appears in the Fallout 3 add-on Mothership Zeta.