I can't believe I almost forgot Marjorie Monaghan as Jojo Thorsen from Space Rangers: Valley Forge. To a 13 year old, she was hottest space pilot around.
Uh... where is Commander Susan Ivanova? She was the baddest StarFury pilot in all of Earth Alliance, and she road fire with the best of them.
Besides that, who else could scare an enemy force even more with her words then the fleet of super-advanced warships she is commanding against them?
"Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander, daughter of Andrei and Sophie
Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance, and the boot that is going to
kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth. I am Death incarnate, and
the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me."
@Cash907Censored: Yeah, but when did we actually see her pilot a StarFury? I searched and searched and couldn't find it. To be fair, my memories of this series are seriously blurry... but all the bad-ass Ivanova moments I remember involve her in the command chair.
In the Hugo Award-winning episode "Severed Dreams" from season 3, Ivanova asks to be placed in command of the fighter squadrons, as she feels the presence of a command-level officer is necessary for moral, seeing how they will be going up against their fellow Earth Alliance forces for the first time. She's been in the cockpit before, but this was the first time we get a chance to see just how much of a badass pilot she really is.
It's one of my favorite episodes in the series, and my third favorite space battle. Here's the best youtube video I could find of the battle. The author had to change the music during the fight, because of some copyright restrictions youtube put on him.
of course there are many badass females who weren't primarily pilots. James Schmidtz's Trigger Argee comes to mind, ignoring all his other strong female characters. Skade of the Conjoiners in Reynolds' Revelation Space. I don't recall whether she was specialized as a pilot, but perhaps the female astronaut in Baxter's Titan deserves mention.
Whilst Ivanova didn't do a lot of flying, she single-handedly blasted her way through a whole Raider squadron in 'Believers' to give the starliner Asimov a chance to escape. That was pretty badass and earns her a place on the list, surely?
Interesting that STAR TREK doesn't have any immediately-obvious candidates. Dax and Kira piloted runabouts a fair bit and commanded the Defiant many times, but other than that TREK is lacking in female piloting skillz.
Jaina Solo from the STAR WARS novels should probably get a mention for being pretty cool though. Probably gets it from her dad ;)
I was also going to mention Syrinx from PF Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy until I remembered that her ship is sentient and mostly pilots itself, so fair enough.
Ana Khouri wasn't actually a pilot; She was a former soldier from Sky's Edge accidentally transferred to Yellowstone and also the Nostalgia For Infinity's newest gunnery officer.
After being hired to kill Dan Sylveste, a resident of the planet Resurgam, her employer saw that the Nostalgia was on it's way there to snatch Dan so he could fix their real captain. Khouri was kind of shanghai'd along the way and became the gunnery officer.
Solid list overall, though. I still wish it had included Miriya from Macross and Ivanova for all us B5 geeks!
As much as I love Aeryn Sun and Susan Ivanova doesn't technically pilot a ship for most of Babylon 5. I'd vote her in for badass after this line from Season 4 when she was commanding the White Star fleet.
"Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander. Daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am death incarnate, and the last living thing that you will ever see. God sent me."
Too bad I can't find a clip of that scene. It's awesome.
07/11/09
I can't believe I almost forgot Marjorie Monaghan as Jojo Thorsen from Space Rangers: Valley Forge. To a 13 year old, she was hottest space pilot around.
07/11/09
07/11/09
07/11/09
Ahh the innocent 70s
07/11/09
07/11/09
First off he wasn't an android he was a robot, and he wasn't being mean he was trying to help his only friend live his dream!
So There!
07/11/09
Besides that, who else could scare an enemy force even more with her words then the fleet of super-advanced warships she is commanding against them?
"Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander, daughter of Andrei and Sophie
Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance, and the boot that is going to
kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth. I am Death incarnate, and
the last living thing that you are ever going to see. God sent me."
07/11/09
07/11/09
In the Hugo Award-winning episode "Severed Dreams" from season 3, Ivanova asks to be placed in command of the fighter squadrons, as she feels the presence of a command-level officer is necessary for moral, seeing how they will be going up against their fellow Earth Alliance forces for the first time. She's been in the cockpit before, but this was the first time we get a chance to see just how much of a badass pilot she really is.
It's one of my favorite episodes in the series, and my third favorite space battle. Here's the best youtube video I could find of the battle. The author had to change the music during the fight, because of some copyright restrictions youtube put on him.
07/10/09
Oh, sorry. I know It hates that name.
07/10/09
07/10/09
No mention of Rigel, Athena, Lieutenants Sheba and Dietra, Serena and Brie?
No mention of Robotech/Macross' pilots?
07/10/09
Interesting that STAR TREK doesn't have any immediately-obvious candidates. Dax and Kira piloted runabouts a fair bit and commanded the Defiant many times, but other than that TREK is lacking in female piloting skillz.
Jaina Solo from the STAR WARS novels should probably get a mention for being pretty cool though. Probably gets it from her dad ;)
I was also going to mention Syrinx from PF Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy until I remembered that her ship is sentient and mostly pilots itself, so fair enough.
07/10/09
After being hired to kill Dan Sylveste, a resident of the planet Resurgam, her employer saw that the Nostalgia was on it's way there to snatch Dan so he could fix their real captain. Khouri was kind of shanghai'd along the way and became the gunnery officer.
Solid list overall, though. I still wish it had included Miriya from Macross and Ivanova for all us B5 geeks!
07/10/09
07/10/09
That said-- no Miriya Sterling from Robotech/Macross? For shame. . .
07/10/09
"Who am I? I am Susan Ivanova, Commander. Daughter of Andre and Sophie Ivanov. I am the right hand of vengeance and the boot that is going to kick your sorry ass all the way back to Earth, sweetheart! I am death incarnate, and the last living thing that you will ever see. God sent me."
Too bad I can't find a clip of that scene. It's awesome.
07/10/09