Futurama is a frequently inventive and subversive sci-fi comedy, poking fun at conventions of the genre while also introducing some strong takes on the genre. The show has plenty of galactic intrigue and time-hopping adventure, but it's always grounded by a blunt sense of comedy and unexpected realism.
Over the course of Futurama's seven-season run, the series featured numerous running gags. One of the most unexpected reoccurring beats of the show -- that the largest ship in the universe, the Nimbus, is relatively useless -- actually speaks to a reoccurring aspect of modern sci-fi. Sometimes, bigger isn't better, especially when it comes to spaceships in fiction.
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Any time the stakes get high enough on Futurama, it's not uncommon to see the show's perpetual blowhard, Zapp Brannigan, enter the fray. An oafish commanding officer within the intergalactic peacekeeping force known as DOOP, Brannigan frequently gets his men slaughtered in a series of heartless decisions and strategies. When things get particularly dire, it's not uncommon to see Brannigan arrive in the Nimbus -- a truly massive spaceship that serves as the flagship for DOOP forces. But despite the inherent power of the ship, it's frequently being shown as completely useless in combat missions.
Frequently through the series, the Nimbus is taken down with relative ease. In Season 4's "Taste of Freedom," it turns out to be very easy to hack into the Nimbus with the use of a single spy, who leaves the ship exposed. Season 1's "When Aliens Attack" saw the ship decimated with ease by the invading Omicronians. Season 7's "Fun on a Bun" even featured the Nimbus being brought down by a band of Neanderthals led by Fry, with a mammoth even halting the spaceship's movement and helping bring it down to ensure an end to the battle. Despite its massive size and firepower, the Nimbus is frequently shown to be a surprising weakness for DOOP forces -- playing into a long-standing trend in sci-fi films.
Across multiple stories, films and shows, it's often shown that truly massive spaceships like the Nimbus just aren't all that useful. They lack maneuverability, making for easy targets. The Star Wars series in particular is full of these, with the Moon-sized Death Star being destroyed with a single well-placed shot, while a massive flagship Star Destroyer is brought down when a single A-Wing crashes into the bridge in Return of the Jedi. Shows like Battlestar Galactica focused on the massive populations and crews necessary to keep those ships floating -- and highlighted how quickly supplies can quickly run out. When smaller ships are capable of the same leaps across space and time, there seems to be no real advantage to having a massive ship -- as they often just get hundreds killed all at once whenever they are destroyed.
The Nimbus is one of the most notable versions of this trope and a good showcase of just how flawed the idea of "massive spaceships" can really be. Throughout the series, the Nimbus is boasted to be one of the galaxy's most impressive ships -- with enough firepower to destroy satellites with ease. Despite this, poor leadership and planning always allows it to be countered by other parties and even destroyed repeatedly. In sci-fi settings, having the biggest ship in the galaxy isn't always an advantage -- something Futurama repeatedly highlighted with Zapp Brannigan's frequent follies.