What I find slightly disappointing is the relative lack of vartiety -- the ships all look alike, with small variations. Maybe because this subgenre of nerddom is more SCI than FI, and rules constrain the construction of vessels?
It would be interesting to see more drastic variations on the theme -- something beyond a roughly oblong object with superficial extrusions.
More FI than SCI, I think. Possibly too much influence from the '50's. Take a look at existing spacecraft like the Voyager probes or the ISS---they're sprawling, sketchy structures with random stuff stuck all over.
that's always been an issue in sci-fi. They're all basically either literal ships that do not have a regular uncovered deck and merely mirror the bottom of the ship, or airplane/fighter jets, and finally, submarine-type vessels.
Once in a while, we throw a sphere in there, that's it.
It's really boring, and yeah, you're completely right. If you look at the picture, it's just a bunch of same looking ships aiming right. That's it.
When Iain Banks discusses the appearance of Culture ships he tends to describe them as being very boring -- a cylinder with a flattened area or whatever. This is a little odd because of all the major SF settings, the Culture has the least trouble making spacecraft and could presumably shape them any way it pleases.
Arthur C. Clarke's "Discovery" is a shielded sphere joined to nuclear propulsion systems by a long shaft -- seems pretty plausible to me. "Realistic" spacecraft are probably going to look very utilitarian until/if space travel becomes technically easy and safe. The vast majority of aircraft look pretty much alike for similar reasons.
It depends on what you consider to be the surface of the ship - Culture ships don't have rigid hulls, so the ellipsoid shape is really just the surface of its field envelope; the outline of its atmosphere, more or less. Presumably the physical structure inside is far more complex.
That's where I give Star Trek a lot of credit. There is an internal consistency of design within that universe, and it doesn't feel totally arbitrary. For example, the "warp nacelle" concept is fundamental to that universe, and at least until the newer series, it was maintained across a lot of different cultures' ships. You could tell that some thought went into the design, as opposed to just "Hey, taking a giant submarine and sticking it in space would look cool!"
In fact, Star Trek uses the warp drive as a technological benchmark by which all species and cultures are measured. Are there other methods of hyperspeed travel? Eventually, yes, those are revealed. But they are still compared to the warp theory.
It would be interesting to see more drastic variations on the theme -- something beyond a roughly oblong object with superficial extrusions.