I literally mean to roleplay a ship. Sort-of like an NRP, you have 3 or 4 important people you actually RP, and the rest are abstracted. You can also have the ship perform actions itself while abstracting most of the crew, like moving somewhere or firing some lasers. But, who doesn't want to hear your captain shout "Fire!" with steel in their eyes before pretty beams of sparkly death shoot across space?

As for the everyone-in-one-ship idea, that's a valid way to do it, but not what I was imagining.