1. Literature
    Lucian   Future war: the precursor to space warfare    Space opera    Late 20th century depictions  

2. Television and film

3. Technology
    Weapons  Destruction of planets and stars 

4. Naval influences

5. See also

6. References

7. Further reading

Literature

Lucian

In his second-century satire True History, Lucian of Samosata depicts an imperial war between the king of the Sun and the king of the Moon over the right to colonise the Morning Star. It is the earliest known work of fiction to address the concept.^[3]

Future war: the precursor to space warfare

The first "future war" story was George T. Chesney's "The Battle of Dorking," a story about a British defeat after a German invasion of Britain, published in 1871 in Blackwood's Magazine. Many such stories were written prior to the outbreak of World War I. George Griffith's The Angel of the Revolution (1892) featured self-styled "Terrorists" armed with then-nonexistent arms and armour such as airships, submarines, and high explosives. The inclusion of yet-nonexistent technology became a standard part of the genre. Griffith's last "future war" story was The Lord of Labour, written in 1906 and published in 1911, which included such technology as disintegrator rays and missiles.^[4]

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 space opera. Garrett P. Serviss' 1898 newspaper serial "Edison's Conquest of Mars" was inspired by Wells and intended as a sequel to "Fighters from Mars," an un-authorized and heavily altered Edisonade version of The War of the Worlds^[6]{{full|date=November 2012}} in which the human race, led by Thomas Edison, pursues the invading Martians back to their home planet. David Pringle considers Serviss' story to be the very first space opera, although the work most widely regarded as the first space opera is E. E. "Doc" Smith's The Skylark of Space. It and its three successor novels exemplify the present form of space warfare in science fiction, as giant spaceships employ great ray guns that send bolts of energy across space to shatter planets in a war between humans and alien species.^[7][8]

Late 20th century depictions

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.^[10][11]{{clarify|reason=No explanation is given as to why Haldeman's novel is supposed to be a reaction or rebuttal to Heinlein's, or why the time dilation effect has anything to do with the main topic|date=September 2012}} Both novels have in the past been required reading at the United States Military Academy.{{citation needed|date=September 2012}}

Science fiction writers from the end of World War II onwards have examined the morality and consequences of space warfare. With Heinlein's Starship Troopers are A. E. van Vogt's "War against the Rull" (1959) and Fredric Brown's "Arena" (1944). Opposing them are Murray Leinster's "First Contact" (1945), Barry Longyear's "Enemy Mine," Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Lucky Strike," Connie Willis' "Schwarzchild Radius," and John Kessel's "Invaders."^[11]{{clarify|reason=Two opposing sides are given, but there's no mention of what either side stands for. Also, there are too many examples. Pick a couple from each side, and discuss why they are relevant|date=September 2012}} In Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, the protagonist wages war remotely, with no realization that he is doing so.

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.^[11][12]

Television and film

Early television productions such as Captain Video and His Video Rangers (1949) were severely constrained by the available special effects technology, and effect sequences were typically difficult to set up. This, combined with the fact that early shows were often live productions, meant that space action sequences were usually short and simple.^[13]

Production techniques improved throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and most programming moved to pre-recorded productions. This allowed more complex effects to be used, and increased the ability of producers to show action sequences such as space warfare. Star Trek is from this period. While the future presented in the original Star Trek series was not one of open warfare, the machinery of war was ever present, and was used in many episodes. Ships carried missiles armed with antimatter warheads, known as "photon torpedoes", and deflector shields for defense. Battles were shown on screen, but the expense and difficulty of advanced special effects meant that most battles were short and involved few craft. The costs of special effects dropped dramatically over the years, but remained high enough that larger battles showed relatively few ships firing and/or being hit.{{Citation needed|date=March 2007}} Deep Space Nine (1993) used computer graphics developed in part by Industrial Light & Magic, and could show battles between numerous classes of ships using tactics developed by military strategists.

A number of more ambitious films and television series soon followed, including ABC's Battlestar Galactica (1978). Battlestar Galactica used expensive effects influenced by those of Lucas' film and followed his lead in concentrating on battles between starfighters. It, and contemporary shows such as Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, set new standards in television space battles.^[14] The series primarily used laser-type energy weapons in defense and offence on battleships,^[15] although analogues to ballistic weaponry are present in several episodes.^[16] The 2003 "re-imagining" of Battlestar Galactica uses more conventional weaponry, such as guns and missiles mounted on the primary capital ships and starfighters, and use pure Newtonian physics to achieve a more realistic representation of how space warfare would actually appear.^[17]

James Cameron's Aliens, the 1986 sequel to the 1979 film Alien, used Starship Troopers as the basis for its futuristic military.{{citation needed|date=September 2012}} The movie involves a small unit of the United States Colonial Marine Corps who provide emergency response to a planetary colony in 2179. The film showed futuristic twists on many modern types of military vehicle and gear, including a dropship, 10x25mm caseless "Pulse" M41A1 rifles, flamethrowers and machine guns, and realistic body armor and tactical equipment.

The 1993 television series Babylon 5 chronicled a turbulent time in galactic politics, which involved several inter-species wars. Political and humanitarian aspects were explored, such as atrocities against civilian populations, and telepathy was used as a weapon. The series made an attempt to faithfully depict the physics of combat in a vacuum, instead of using motion modelled on aeroplanes within our atmosphere.{{citation needed|date=September 2012}}

The 1995 American TV series Above and Beyond centered around the "Wildcards", a group of marines in the 2060s who serve as both infantry and fighter pilots. The show attempted to depict technology that was near-future, but based on research. It also explored the alienation of deep space warfare, the horrors of loss and survival on the battefield, the bonds that form in combat, and a fight against an enemy of which they knew little. Space: Above and Beyond differs from many other military science fiction works in that its soldiers use weapons that fire bullets, and fight in space suits in alien environments.{{citation needed|date=September 2012}}

The British TV series Doctor Who, has numerous instances of this. Frontier in Space, set in 2540, mentions a war between Earth and Draconia, fought 20 years earlier. This story involves renegade Time Lord the Master trying to start another war on behalf of the Daleks, who plan to conquer the Galaxy. The Time War is a major plot point in the revived series, during which the Time Lords, the species of the Doctor, fought the Daleks. This war seems to have ended with the destruction of the Time Lord planet Gallifrey, which the Doctor did hoping the Daleks would also be destroyed.

Technology

Weapons

Usually, lasers are used rather than bullets. An August 1939 Astounding Science-Fiction issue consisted of an article written by Willy Ley claimed that bullets would be a more effective weapon in a real space battle.

Destruction of planets and stars

Destruction of planets and stars has been a frequently used aspect of interstellar warfare since the Lensman series.^[18]{{better source|date=February 2013}} This is not a realistic capability, as it has been calculated that a force on the order of 10³² joules of energy, or roughly the total output of the sun in a week, would be required to overcome the gravity that holds together an Earth-sized planet.^[19][20] The destruction of Alderaan in Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope is estimated to require 1.0 × 10³⁸ joules of energy, millions of times more than would be necessary to break the planet apart at a slower rate.^[21]

Naval influences

Fictional space warfare tends to borrow elements from naval warfare. David Weber's Honorverse series of novels portrays several "space navies" such as the Royal Manticoran Navy, which imitate themes from Napoleonic-era naval warfare.^[22]{{better source|date=February 2013}} ^[23]{{better source|date=February 2013}} ^[24]{{better source|date=February 2013}}

The Federation Starfleet (Star Trek), Imperial Navy (Star Wars) Alliance Navy (Mass Effect) and Earthforce (Babylon 5) also use a naval-style rank-structure and hierarchy. The former is based on the United States Navy and the Royal Navy.^[25] The United Nations Space Command in Halo fully echoes all ranks of the United States armed forces, even the pay-grade system. Naval ship-classes such as frigate or destroyer sometimes serve as marker to show how the craft are assembled and their designed purpose.

Some fictional universes have different implementations. The Colonial Fleet in Battlestar Galactica uses a mixture of army and navy ranks, and the Stargate universe has military spacecraft under the control of modern air forces, and uses air-force ranks. In the Andromeda universe, officers of Systems Commonwealth ships follow naval ranking, but Lancers (soldiers analogous to Marines) use army ranks.

See also

• Military science fiction
• Weapons in science fiction
• Directed-energy weapon
• Space colonization
• Space Navy
• Space opera
• Space marines
• Dropship

References

Further reading

• {{cite book|chapter=Atomic warfare|title=The Science In Science Fiction: 83 SF Predictions That Became Scientific Reality|author=Robert W. Bly|year=2005|publisher=BenBella Books, Inc.|isbn=1-932100-48-2}}
• {{cite book|title=Fights of fancy: armed conflict in science fiction and fantasy|author=George Edgar Slusser and Eric S. Rabkin|year=1993|publisher=University of Georgia|isbn=0-8203-1533-8}}
• {{cite book|title=Young Adult Science Fiction|editor=Charles Wm. Sullivan|author=Martha Bartter|chapter=Young Adults, Science Fiction, and War|pages=119–130|year=1999|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=0-313-28940-9}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.strangehorizons.com/2005/20050606/hunter-1-a.shtml|title=Hunters in the Great Dark, Part 1: A Hard-Science Look at Deep-Space Warfare|author=Paul Lucas|year=2005|publisher=Strange Horizons|accessdate=2007-01-31}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.strangehorizons.com/2005/20050613/hunter-2-a.shtml|title=Hunters in the Great Dark, Part 2: The Weapons of Deep-Space Warfare|author=Paul Lucas|year=2005|publisher=Strange Horizons|accessdate=2007-01-31}}

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