I decided that I would probably be a transporter of sorts, like an interstellar bus/truck driver (not a smuggler, that's illegal, wink)... But in order to do it right, I'd want to design my own ship... So here's how my ship would be designed.
It would look like the USS Defiant from Star Trek, but would be approximately the same size as the Millennium Falcon.
I'm a big fan of things that serve multiple purposes, so the nose section would be the cockpit, but would double as a detachable air speeder. The blue grill on the front would be a small cargo compartment that is accessible through a hatch in the dash board, as well as through the blue grill on the exterior. I'd probably store a couple of probe droids (not imperial probe droids) that double as speeder bikes.
Behind the cockpit would be a hallway, that doubles as a loading ramp, and to either side would be crew/passenger lounges, each with a full galley, and a large transparisteel view port (the dark grey panels in the picture below).
Outboard of the lounges, you'll find my missile launching bays, housed behind pop-out wedge shaped panels. I'd equip them with a variety of armaments, such as concussion missiles and proton torpedoes, to defend my passengers against assailants.
Behind the lounges and weapons bays, there is a hallway that extends the width of the saucer, connecting the cockpit hallway to the detachable cargo bays, located where the USS Defiant would have Warp Nacelles. Again, the blue grills in the photo below represent force field protected cargo doors, and the steel beam dissecting each door would not only slide out of the way, and would contain a pop-out laser cannon, which could be controlled remotely from the cockpit or by someone standing in the cargo container. Each cargo container is actually large enough to hold the cockpit/air speeder, if you wish to make it look like no one is home, when you really are.
In the center of the saucer, much like the Millennium Falcon, I'd have a ladder to each quad laser cannon, mounted on top and bottom of the ship, and a pair of hallways would extend the length of the ship, on either side. These hallways would be lined with transitional transparisteel privacy doors. Meaning, with the flick of a switch, the molecules of the doors can be rearranged to make them appear opaque/metallic or transparent, like glass. Inside each door, would be a small closet, with a padded wall on one side and a blanket hanging on the opposite wall. The third wall would contain a control panel, which would turn the artificial gravity in the closet 90 degrees, making you rest on the padded wall and dropping the blanket on top of you. These closet/bunks would be air-tight and climate controlled, so you could individually flood them with knock-out gas or becta-tank fluid, alternatively using them as prisoner cells or med bays... Also, each bunk could be ejected as an escape pod.
That's 5 different purposes for each tiny closet (escape pod, becta-tank, prisoner cell, crew/passenger bunk, storage locker)! Maybe I could make them trash compactors/execution chambers, too!
On top of the ship, you may notice 8 identical circles. Those would be my shield generators, each protecting 120 degrees of the ship, overlapping for redundancy. They would automatically rotate to adjust coverage in the event of failures, so regardless of which half of them failed, the ship would still be 100% shielded.
The tail of the ship would actually be an articulating engine room with an additionally articulating propulsion unit, for maximum maneuverability. The hallway accessing the engine room would be flexible, like one of those buses that bends in the middle.
Also, unlike Han Solo, I'd have an appetite for acquiring droids... They'd be everywhere, doing everything, from routine to emergency maintenance, cooking, cleaning, etc... If I could acquire them, I'd really like to have a couple of destroyer droids stored in a hidden compartment, somewhere... Just in case.
Oh, and I had an awesome idea for access hatches and space suits. Instead of having airlocks, that take up valuable cargo/living space inside the ship, I'd invent the technology to sandwich an airlock in between an interior and exterior door...
Step 1: Open the inner access hatch and affix a space suit to the hatch frame.
Step 2: Open the outer access hatch and climb into the space suit, which has inflated on the exterior of the ship.
Step 3: Seal the inner access hatch, which simultaneously seals your space suit and detaches it from the hatch frame.
Step 4: Close the outer access hatch, so the next person can repeat the process (optional, possibly remote controlled or automated).
I may have stolen the space suit/access hatch idea from a proposed NASA space suit concept I read on the interwebs. I also thought it might be possible to improve that idea, by having a couple of layers in between the inner and outer access hatches... The first layer would be a membrane that envelops any solids that travel through it, like some kind of awesome combination of shrink wrapping and spandex, followed by a second layer, which would be a woven material to prevent the first layer from getting punctured, like a carbon fiber or steel mesh, for instance... The second layer would be woven by a machine embedded in the access hatch, so as you pass through, you are instantly fitted for a custom space suit. You'd have to put on a facemask and breathing apparatus first, and the machine would have to detect the mask and somehow affix the membrane and woven material to the mask, so you could still see through it, and it would have to seal up behind you, as well, to prevent the ship from depressurizing... Sounds more complicated, but surely the technology is possible.
