Re: Artists, Shipset designers, and other creative types, please read.
There's a very simple explanation for wings, bridges, turbines, and all sorts of other things on these spaceships: tradition! And no, I don't mean sci-fi shows, I mean that oceangoing vessels, land-based vessels, and even airborne vessels all have some kind of bridge, and some have turbines; airships (and some oceangoing vessels) have wings; and so on. So each race, as it develops spaceships, naturally follows the old pattern of vessel design. That's why good shipsets have a distinctive pattern: it shows the character of the race.
Also: to bring up an older post, in Star Fleet Battles (at least the old tabletop Version I played in college) the Lyrans used catamaran (and, on larger ships, trimaran) hulls. Made for some neat-looking ships...
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