Ice Planet Siberia?

[Faefrost]

OK this is a weird tangent, but I happened to pick up a used 6973 Deep Freeze Defender this week just to add to my collection of Lego Space capital ships. Absolutely wonderful set BTW. Only 1 complaint, and that's that the ski's on the dual command pods keep falling off (and look kind of stupid).

But anyway, this was my first ever Ice Planet set. The line was deep into my dark ages, and I really know almost nothing about it. So I had some questions. Like how does the DFD actually move? Where are the engines? Hmmm? It's only propulsion seems to be clusters of small engine nacelles bolted on everywhere. Okaaay? Different, but doable. Kind of interesting. So what is going on with this theme? As near as I can figure out the Ice Planet team seems to be manning a bunch of mobile ICBM launchers in deep freezing conditions. Including one mounted on the back of the DFD. Hmmm? It dawned on me what this all reminded me of. Some Cold War era Soviet systems. I mean we have the classic multi wheeled SCUD launchers cruising around, and I don't know why but the DFD just makes me thing of those wild Russian Ekranoplan ICBM launching sea plane / boat things that the Soviets experimented with for a number of years. That whole "bolt engines on everywhere" concept.

So yeah I guess influences do come from strange places. But I will give em. As soon as you say "Ice Planet" Siberia immediately comes to mind.

[Lyichir]

Pretty sure what you see as ICBM launchers are intended to be simple mobile rocket-launching platforms. The rockets clearly feature satellites/probes on the nose which would presumably be used to try to communicate between the far-flung, desolate Ice Planet and either a more hospitable world or the astronauts' planet of origin. The shape of the Ice Planet vehicles may be based on old Soviet technology, but frankly the picture you've posted doesn't really seem that similar to me.

Besides, you don't really need to look so hard to find Soviet influences in '90s Space themes—Spyrius is practically bursting at the seams with Cold War-era espionage.

[TheLegoDr]

I never figured LEGO spaceships or spaceships in general had any realistic engine placements. Most things don't look like they'd be very good at flying, yet somehow "they stay up there."

So Ice Planet is no exception, although I did like the looks of the DFD. It is one ship I don't have in my collection. I definitely would like to add it eventually, but it can be really expensive.

Ice Planet seemed to have more ground vehicles, which is interesting. I have a few people in my LUG that build Ice Planet related MOCs.

[Faefrost]

Pretty sure what you see as ICBM launchers are intended to be simple mobile rocket-launching platforms. The rockets clearly feature satellites/probes on the nose which would presumably be used to try to communicate between the far-flung, desolate Ice Planet and either a more hospitable world or the astronauts' planet of origin. The shape of the Ice Planet vehicles may be based on old Soviet technology, but frankly the picture you've posted doesn't really seem that similar to me.

Besides, you don't really need to look so hard to find Soviet influences in '90s Space themes—Spyrius is practically bursting at the seams with Cold War-era espionage.

I was going more for that feel with those Ekranoplans of all of the clustered engine nacelles. Some of the earlier and later ones also feature a kind of forward swept wing canopy (often cloth) that gave it a general shape similar to the set. Plus that mid ship missile launcher. And that the GEV's were designed to operates meters above a fairly flat surface such as ice sheets. It just brought the whole thing to mind.

And yeah I realize that the Ice Planet dudes are launching some sort of Satellites or probes (little Sputnik shaped Satellites mind you). It just always seems strange? I mean they are running around a frozen world with these laser chainsaws, you would think they were digging for something in the ice? But nope, shoot and recover the rockets and Satellites. While hanging out in an extremely unpleasant environment. These guys were bigger spies than Spyrius.

[CP5670]

There are bits of backstory about these themes in the old catalogs and box descriptions. TLG never says what the Ice Planet rockets are for, but the "rocket technology is wanted by everyone in the universe." They "conduct their top secret research" from the Ice Planet Krysto and "their findings are coveted by the Blacktron forces and even renegades within the Space Police."

The engine placements never made much sense. I always thought of the engine parts on the bottom as stands or landing gear, not actual engines.

Besides, you don't really need to look so hard to find Soviet influences in '90s Space themes—Spyrius is practically bursting at the seams with Cold War-era espionage.

The UK names for the sets make that especially obvious, as the Spyrius boss is called Major Kartofski. I guess Spyrius doesn't care so much about the Ice Planet rockets, as they have their own rockets in 6959.

[Backgild]

I love the concept of the Deep Freeze Defender as a ground effect vehicle; its a great theory that works with both the design of the ship and the theme. Well done! I knew that the Soviets had extensively explored GEVs, but I didn't know that they had armed one with missiles, that was an interesting bit of history.

I think the intent was clearly for Ice Planet to play the role of a civilian theme. The only set I had as a kid was named Ice Sat V, clearly intended as satellite launch vehicle, but I still played out many scenarios that forced the peaceful citizens of Krysto to use their rocket technology as missiles to defend themselves against various Lego space factions.

[Lind Whisperer]

I've always thought of them in terms of the commonly-published story-line(although I have noticed the obvious resemblance to Sputnik 1), but this is a very interesting question...I would tend to think perhaps that maybe Ice Planet was supposed to be the Russian space program in the future, perhaps? I remember reading that the designers considered the megaphones and antennas to be weapons...perhaps they were aiming for something along the same lines with this, albeit slightly more peaceful?