Space warfare in science fiction
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Space warfare is a main theme and central setting of science fiction that can trace its roots back to classical times, and to the "future war" novels of the 19th century. With the Modern Age, directly with franchises as Star Wars and Star Trek, it is considered one of the most popular general sub-genres and themes of science fiction.[1] An interplanetary, or more often an interstellar or intergalactic war, has become a staple plot device. Space warfare, represented in science fiction, has a predominant role, it is a central theme and at the same time it is considered parent, overlapping genre of space opera, military science fiction and Space Western.[2]
Technology
Weapons
Usually, lasers are used rather than bullets. Willy Ley claimed in 1939 that bullets would be a more effective weapon in a real space battle.[3]
Destruction of planets and stars
Destruction of planets and stars has been a frequently used aspect of interstellar warfare since the Lensman series.
Fictional space warfare tends to borrow elements from
Some fictional universes have different implementations. The
Ship types
This section possibly contains original research. (March 2024) |
Though it can differ on the IP, classes of ships are most commonly based on those of
Many science-fiction series prominently feature starfighters operating together with larger ships. Prominent examples include the
Some IPs also feature super-battleship vessels, which are massive warships several kilometers in length, dwarfing even battleships.
Development of the genre
In his second-century satire
The first "
H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds inspired many other writers to write stories of alien incursions and wars between Earth and other planets, and encouraged writers of "future war" fiction to employ wider settings than had been available for "naturalistic" fiction. Wells' several other "future war" stories included the atomic war novel The World Set Free (1914)[9] and "The Land Ironclads," which featured a prophetic description of the tank, albeit of an unfeasibly large scale.[10]
More recent depictions of space warfare departed from the jingoism of the pulp science fiction of the 1930s and 1940s. Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, was partly a response to or a rebuttal of Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers, wherein space warfare involved the effects of time dilation and resulted in the alienation of the protagonists from the human civilization on whose behalf they were fighting.[11][12][clarification needed] Both novels have in the past been required reading at the United States Military Academy.[citation needed]
Science fiction writers from the end of
Several writers in the 1980s were accused of writing fiction as part of a propaganda campaign in favour of the Strategic Defense Initiative. Ben Bova's 1985 novel Privateers has been given as an example.[12][13]
Definitions by contrast
Space opera
The modern form of space warfare in science fiction, in which mobile spaceships battle both planets and one another with destructive superweapons, appeared with the advent of
David Weber's Honorverse novels present a view of space warfare that simply transplants the naval warfare of Horatio Nelson and Horatio Hornblower into space. The space navy battle tactics in the Honorverse are much like those of Nelson, with the simple addition of a third dimension.[17]
Military science fiction
Several subsets of military science fiction overlap with space opera, concentrating on large-scale space battles with futuristic weapons. At one extreme, the genre is used to speculate about future wars involving space travel, or the effects of such a war on humans; at the other, it consists of the use of military fiction plots with some superficial science-fiction trappings. The term "military space opera" is occasionally used to denote this subgenre, as used for example by critic Sylvia Kelso when describing Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga.[18] Other examples of military space opera are the Battlestar Galactica franchise and Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 novel Starship Troopers. The key distinction of military science fiction from space opera is that the principal characters in a space opera are not military personnel, but civilians or paramilitary. Military science fiction also does not necessarily always include an outer space or multi-planetary setting like space opera.[19]
Space Western
Westerns influenced early science-fiction
See also
References
- ISBN 0-415-35169-3.
- ^
Eugene F. Mallove and Gregory L. Matloff (June 1989). The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer's Guide to Interstellar Travel. Wiley. pp. 20. ISBN 0-471-61912-4.
- ^ August 1939 Astounding Science-Fiction August 1939
- ^ See (e.g.) E. E. "Doc" Smith (1951), Grey Lensman, chapter 23
- ^ Star Wars Technical Commentaries on the Death Stars Archived November 28, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
- ISBN 978-0-313-07157-7.
- ISBN 0-671-53607-9. Images accessible at 2265-2370 Ranks. Spike's Star Trek Page Rank Chart.
- ^ Swanson, Roy Arthur: “The True, the False, and the Truly False: Lucian’s Philosophical Science Fiction”, Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 3, No. 3 (Nov. 1976), pp. 227–239
- ^ ISBN 0-521-01657-6.
- ^ Antulio J. Echevarria II. "Challenging Transformation's Clichés" (PDF). Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College. Retrieved 2007-01-31.
- ISBN 1-57003-585-7.
- ^ ISBN 0-415-93888-0.
- ISBN 0-19-506692-8.
- ^ Edison Conquest of Mars, Introduction Robert Godwin, page 6, Apoge 2005
- ISBN 0-313-30846-2.
- ISBN 0-87249-870-0.
- ISBN 1-86189-020-6.
- ISBN 0-7653-0617-4. Introduction, p. 251
- ^ "23 Best Military Science Fiction Books - The Best Sci Fi Books". 14 March 2015.
- ISBN 9780313329524.
- ^ ISBN 9780786458004.
- ^ Lilly, Nathan E. (2009-11-30). "The Emancipation of Bat Durston". Strange Horizons. Archived from the original on 2014-03-14. Retrieved 2014-03-14.
- ISBN 0786486627.
- ^ Williams, Owen (2014-07-24). "Peter Hyams Film By Film". Empire. Retrieved 2019-07-03.
- ^ Steinberg, Don (2011-07-22). "Hollywood Frontiers: Outer Space and the Wild West". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 2014-03-15.
Further reading
- Robert W. Bly (2005). "Atomic warfare". The Science In Science Fiction: 83 SF Predictions That Became Scientific Reality. BenBella Books, Inc. ISBN 1-932100-48-2.
- George Edgar Slusser and Eric S. Rabkin (1993). Fights of fancy: armed conflict in science fiction and fantasy. University of Georgia. ISBN 0-8203-1533-8.
- Martha Bartter (1999). "Young Adults, Science Fiction, and War". In Charles Wm. Sullivan (ed.). Young Adult Science Fiction. Greenwood Press. pp. 119–130. ISBN 0-313-28940-9.
- Paul Lucas (2005). "Hunters in the Great Dark, Part 1: A Hard-Science Look at Deep-Space Warfare". Strange Horizons. Retrieved 2007-01-31.
- Paul Lucas (2005). "Hunters in the Great Dark, Part 2: The Weapons of Deep-Space Warfare". Strange Horizons. Retrieved 2007-01-31.