I just don't agree with that view.   You have a fleet of ships that are docked externally to your ship.  They're not inside the ship.   We don't show them for aesthetic reasons when flying around but they're not inside.  

Players even have the option of adding additional docking bays to support more ships being docked.

You got it!

This allows us to tell a lot more stories and allows players to create and their their own alternative fan universes with each other.

How Universes work with the game:

At the start of the game, you initially have just 1 universe: Origins.   But there's an "Add Universe" button on the screen where you can add additional universes created either by us or fans.

From a lore point of view, you are able to take YOUR ship to these other universes via the multi-dimensional gateway known as an Origin. Origins were built by the Precursors long ago before they disappeared. 

Officially, Star Control has hosted 3 universes:

1. The Ur-Quan universe (Star Control 1/2)
2. The Kessari universe (Star Control 3)
3. The Prime universe (Star Control: Origins)

Each universe has its own history. 

Stardock doesn't own the universe we call the Ur-Quan Universe.  That's presumably owned by Paul and Fred who developed the first two games for Accolade.   Stardock does own the Kessari universe but...we're not planning to extend it but rather release the source code at some point to the fan community.

Now, for the Prime universe, let's use a TV analogy:

Season 1: The Scryve Conflict (this is what we will ship this year)

Season 2: Tentatively called "Inquisition".  This will ship post-release as an expansion.  It expands the 40x40 (160) parsec map to 50x50 (250) and players can expect to begin running into other aliens associated with Star Control (fans can probably guess).

Each season will introduce the player to new aliens, new characters, and new adventures as the map gets bigger and bigger.

These seasons all exist within the Prime universe.

However, we also are planning to license other universes.  Obviously, we had hoped to license the universe Paul and Fred say they own and that's not looking promising right now.   But other universes that could be licensed are like the ones you mentioned (B5, Stargate, etc.).

Docked externally is a different subject.  The SFU calls this "Mech Links", and one of the races in Sword of the Stars worked this way (my favorite SwoT race!).  The later era capital ships of my own universe have a very limited number of destroyers docked externally too the outer hull.  This can actually be a very cool thing.  This is very different then saying that they are just "in the wake of the mothership" which really has a lot of issues in my view.

Not seeing the ships docked externally isn't much more of a thing for players to forgive than a "Tardis hangar".  External docking definitely works here, and especially in an arcade game not seeing the ships docked externally is something I think players can easily "suspend disbelief" and forgive.

In an arcade game the scale creates a problem no matter how you slice it.  That is one of the points I was making.  The ship needs to be too big to work for the game for this to be done in a "realistic" way no matter what solution you go with.  I didn't like the "carried along in the wake" explanation, but external Mech Links are as good of an explanation as a hangar bay.  Those are equal in my view.  In either case, the mothership is a lot smaller than it should be but there is no way around that in an arcade game.

And with all these similarities with both SCO and my PDU borrowing from Kevin's Rifts I just can't resist...

...so if Hunam makes his own universe, we would all be in the wrong Place to understand Hunam's universe until we went through his Origin portal to experience it. 

"Oh baby!  Do you know what that's worth?"

...you tell 'em, Cindy!

Quoting Kavik_Kang,

reply 32

"Oh baby!  Do you know what that's worth?"

...you tell 'em, Cindy!

That’s Belinda I believe...

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2018/03/18/stephen-hawking-leaves-behind-breathtaking-final-multiverse/

I always assumed it was a mothership in SC2 because that is what makes the most sense.  Whether the satellite ships are carried in an internal hangar bay or docked externally too the hull.  The satellite ships are too small to be flying across the galaxy like you do in SCII so the thought that they were supposed to just be flying around as a fleet never even occurred too me.  Because it is an arcade game, the scale can't be right, so like I said before all of the options are "wrong".  When all of the options are wrong, I start looking for the one that is "least noticeably wrong".  

I think one can presume that the Scryve, Ur-Quan, Drengin, etc. exist in many different universes.

Quoting Ashog,

reply 41

Yeah sure, but imho Origins could be better off being a void without matter. It will be hard to explain the new players that Origins is a prime one because it has all these stars AND Scryve Conflict AND interuniversal wormholes system developed by something/someone. Much is not always good. Well, you and marketing team decide anyways

Origins is the hub universe for all the other universes.

So perhaps we should refer to it as the Origins universe as it is the only one, that we know of, that has the Precursor Origins in them.

I suspect that at this point there is little chance of GotP being canon with anything else, *assuming it even happens*.

I'm not convinced there was ever any actual plans to make it, but I've said as much before and there's no point starting that whole discussion up again.

Why did the Precursors in the Kessari Quadrant de-evolve instead of leaving that universe entirely?

Cool

Didn't Star Control Kessari Quadrant claim that the Precursors evolved right after the Eternal Ones took a break?