Hive warship

The Hive warship is a class of Hive military spacecraft. These ships form part of Oryx's fleet and are found near Saturn. One of them, a prison ship, has been converted into a Crucible site.

Design
Like the Dreadnaught, Hive warships are rectangular hexahedrons, but where the Dreadnaught's dimensions are consistent along its length, Hive warships taper slightly so that the front of the vessel is narrower than the rear.

They are equipped with twelve prongs, eight of which are near the "waist". The warships are armed with eight weapons along this waist which fire tracking Solar pulses; the waist is lit with a single orange band, presumably sharing power between guns. Like the Dreadnaught they have a single engine, powered by Solar energies.

Apart from their role as destroyers these ships were utilized for other purposes, such as mobile prisons. They may have carried and launched Tombships. These ships seemed to have lost power when the Harbingers were launched, although the Dreadnaught was unaffected.

History
A fleet of twelve Hive warships and smaller Tombships accompanied the Dreadnaught during Oryx's incursion of the Solar System.

The Battle of Saturn devastated this fleet. Although the Dreadnaught made it through unscathed, the Awoken fleet destroyed many Hive warships with the aid of Harbingers. The vast majority of the fleet was ultimately the victim of friendly-fire, however; when Oryx fired the Dreadnaught's main weapon, the blast indiscriminately obliterated both Hive and Awoken vessels within a set radius of the Dreadnaught.

A portion of the Hive fleet, including some Hive warships, was outside the blast zone at the time and survived but so many ships were lost that Oryx was forced to stall his invasion of the inner system. Four are known to have survived the Dreadnaught's superweapon, one of which has been converted into a Crucible ground, The Dungeons. Two more are later seen in the skies of the Oversoul Throne during Crota, Son of Oryx's funeral, indicating they can slide between dimensions.

Trivia
Curiously, the Grimoire card shows a band of green along the waist, and a cloud emanating from the rear, in direct contrast to what is shown in the cinematics. This may be either a developer mistake or when the ship is quintessential.

List of appearances

 * Destiny
 * The Taken King