Question about enemy ships

[CaptainC]

Hello! This may be a stupid question, because I am very new to modding.

I had the idea to create a hostile space whale as an enemy ship in a nebula. At a certain hull point value, the game would intend to use the ship's surrender event, which would reveal that the space whale was actually mechanical. Is it possible to, mid-battle, replace the shipBlueprint "img" attribute used for an enemy ship? Could I replace the image of an intact space whale with a space whale with mechanical parts?

I was hoping that if this were possible, I could also maybe manipulate the crewBlueprint "colorList" attribute in an event as well. I'm more concerned about the shipBlueprint first, though.