Fictional space warfare

Last updated
Authors Peter F. Hamilton, C. J. Cherryh, Kevin J. Anderson, Orson Scott Card, Timothy Zahn, David Webber, David Drake, John Ringo, Larry Niven
Subgenres
Military science fiction
Space opera
Space Western
Related genres
Planetary Romance, Sword and Planet, Science Fantasy

Fictional space warfare is main theme and central sub-genre 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's 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's central theme and at the same time it's considered parent, overlapping genre of space opera, military science fiction and Space Western. [2]

Contents

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. [4] [ better source needed ] 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. [5] [6] 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. [7]

Fictional space warfare tends to borrow elements from naval warfare, often calling space forces as space navies or simply navies. David Weber's Honorverse series of novels portrays several of such space navies such as the Royal Manticoran Navy, which imitate themes from Napoleonic-era naval warfare. [8] [ better source needed ] [9] [ better source needed ] [10] [ better source needed ] The Federation Starfleet (Star Trek), Imperial Navy (Star Wars), Systems Alliance Navy (Mass Effect), UNSC ("Halo") 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. [11] 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 Halo universe, many of the ranks of the current-day United States Military are used in lieu of fictional ranks. In the Andromeda universe, officers of Systems Commonwealth ships follow naval ranking, but Lancers (soldiers analogous to Marines) use army ranks.

Development of the genre

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. [12]

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. [13]

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) [13] and "The Land Ironclads," which featured a prophetic description of the tank, albeit of an unfeasibly large scale. [14]

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. [15] [16] [ 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 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." [16] [ clarification needed ] 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. [16] [17]

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 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 [18] [ full citation needed ] 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. [19] [20]

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. [21]

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 . [22] Another example of military space opera would be 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 multiplanetary setting like space opera. [23]

Space Western

Westerns influenced early science-fiction pulp magazines. Writers would submit stories in both genres, [24] and science-fiction magazines sometimes mimicked Western cover art to showcase parallels. [25] In the 1930s, C. L. Moore created one of the first space Western heroes, Northwest Smith. [25] Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon were also early influences. [26] After superhero comics declined in popularity in 1940s United States, Western comics and horror comics replaced them. When horror comics became untenable with the Comics Code Authority in the mid-1950s, science-fiction themes and space Westerns grew more popular. [25] :10 By the mid-1960s, classic Western films fell out of favor and Revisionist Westerns supplanted them. Science-fiction series such as Lost in Space [27] and Star Trek presented a new frontier to be explored, and films like Westworld rejuvenated Westerns by updating them with science-fiction themes. Peter Hyams, director of Outland , said that studio heads in the 1980s were unwilling to finance a Western, so he made a space Western instead. [28] Space operas such as the Star Wars film series also took strong cues from Westerns; Boba Fett, Han Solo and the Mos Eisley cantina, in particular, were based on Western themes. These science fiction-films and television series offered the themes and morals that Westerns previously did. [29]

See also

Related Research Articles

Robert A. Heinlein American writer

Robert Anson Heinlein was an American science fiction author, aeronautical engineer, and naval officer. Sometimes called the "dean of science fiction writers", he was among the first to emphasize scientific accuracy in his fiction, and was thus a pioneer of the subgenre of hard science fiction. His published works, both fiction and non-fiction, express admiration for competence and emphasize the value of critical thinking. His plots often posed provocative situations which challenged conventional social mores. His work continues to have an influence on the science-fiction genre, and on modern culture more generally.

Science fiction Genre of speculative fiction

Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction that typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel universes, and extraterrestrial life. It has been called the "literature of ideas", and often explores the potential consequences of scientific, social, and technological innovations.

<i>Starship Troopers</i> 1959 military science fiction novel by Robert A. Heinlein

Starship Troopers is a military science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. Written in a few weeks in reaction to the U.S. suspending nuclear tests, the story was first published as a two-part serial in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction as Starship Soldier, and published as a book by G. P. Putnam's Sons in December 1959.

<i>The Puppet Masters</i> Novel by Robert A. Heinlein

The Puppet Masters is a 1951 science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein, in which American secret agents battle parasitic invaders from outer space. It was originally serialized in Galaxy Science Fiction.

Alien invasion Common theme in science fiction stories and film

The alien invasion or space invasion is a common feature in science fiction stories and film, in which extraterrestrials invade the Earth either to exterminate and supplant human life, enslave it under an intense state, harvest people for food, steal the planet's resources, or destroy the planet altogether.

Science fiction film Film genre

Science fiction is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception and time travel, along with futuristic elements such as spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, interstellar travel or other technologies. Science fiction films have often been used to focus on political or social issues, and to explore philosophical issues like the human condition.

Science fantasy Science fiction genre

Science fantasy is a mixed genre within the umbrella of speculative fiction which simultaneously draws upon or combines tropes and elements from both science fiction and fantasy. In a science fiction story, the world is presented as being scientifically possible, while a science fantasy world contains elements which violate the scientific laws of the real world. Nevertheless, the world of science fantasy is logical and often is supplied with science-like explanations of these violations.

Military science fiction

Military science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction that features the use of science fiction technology, mainly weapons, for military purposes and usually principal characters who are members of a military organization involved in military activity, usually during a war; occurring sometimes in outer space or on a different planet or planets. It exists in literature, comics, film, and video games.

Weapons in science fiction

Strange and exotic weapons are a recurring feature in science fiction. In some cases, weapons first introduced in science fiction have been made a reality; other science-fiction weapons remain purely fictional, and are often beyond the realms of known physical possibility.

Honorverse Fictional universe created by David Webber

The Honorverse is a military science fiction book series, its two subseries, two prequel series, and anthologies created by David Weber and published by Baen Books. They are centered on the space navy career of the principal protagonist Honor Harrington. The books have made The New York Times Best Seller list.

Space warfare will be combat that will take place in outer space. The scope of space warfare therefore includes ground-to-space warfare, such as attacking satellites from the Earth; space-to-space warfare, such as satellites attacking satellites; and space-to-ground warfare, such as satellites attacking Earth-based targets. Space warfare in fiction is thus sub-genre and theme of science fiction, where it's portrayed with a range of realism and plausibility.

The exploration of politics in science fiction is arguably older than the identification of the genre. One of the earliest works of modern science fiction, H. G. Wells’ The Time Machine, is an extrapolation of the class structure of the United Kingdom of his time, an extreme form of social Darwinism; during tens of thousands of years, human beings have evolved into two different species based on their social class.

In both science fiction and utopia/dystopian fiction, authors have made frequent use of the age-old idea of a global state and, accordingly, of world government.

The first Golden Age of Science Fiction, often recognized in the United States as the period from 1938 to 1946, was an era during which the science fiction genre gained wide public attention and many classic science fiction stories were published. In the history of science fiction, the Golden Age follows the "pulp era" of the 1920s and 1930s, and precedes New Wave science fiction of the 1960s and 1970s. The 1950s are a transitional period in this scheme; however, Robert Silverberg, who came of age in the 1950s, saw that decade as the true Golden Age.

History of science fiction films

The history of science fiction films parallels that of the motion picture industry as a whole, although it took several decades before the genre was taken seriously. Since the 1960s, major science fiction films have succeeded in pulling in large audience shares, and films of this genre have become a regular staple of the film industry. Science fiction films have led the way in special effects technology, and have also been used as a vehicle for social commentary.

Space Western Media genre

Space Western is a subgenre of science fiction that uses the themes and tropes of Westerns within science-fiction stories. Subtle influences may include exploration of new, lawless frontiers, while more overt influences may feature literal cowboys in outer space who use rayguns and ride robotic horses. Although initially popular, a strong backlash against perceived hack writing caused the genre to become a subtler influence until the 1980s, when it regained popularity. A further critical reappraisal occurred in the 2000s with Firefly and Cowboy Bebop.

The planetary systems of stars other than the Sun and the Solar System are a staple element in many works of the science fiction genre.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to science fiction:

Space opera Subgenre of science fiction

Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes and is part of the general thematic genre fictional space warfare with use of melodramatic adventure, interplanetary battles, chivalric romance, and risk-taking. Set mainly or entirely in outer space, it usually involves conflict between opponents possessing advanced abilities, futuristic weapons, and other sophisticated technology. The term has no relation to music, as in a traditional opera, but is instead a play on the terms "soap opera", a melodramatic television series, and "horse opera", which was coined during the 1930s to indicate a clichéd and formulaic Western movie. Space operas emerged in the 1930s and continue to be produced in literature, film, comics, television, and video games.

Marko Kloos is a German author of military science fiction and high fantasy. Born in Germany, Kloos lives and works in the United States.

References

  1. ↑ Andrew M. Butler (2005). "Philip K. Dick. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?". In David Johnson (ed.). The Popular And The Canonical: Debating Twentieth-century Literature 1940–2000. Routledge (UK). p. 113. ISBN   0-415-35169-3.
  2. ↑ 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.
  3. ↑ August 1939 Astounding Science-Fiction August 1939
  4. ↑ See (e.g.) E. E. "Doc" Smith (1951), Grey Lensman, chapter 23
  5. ↑ Uses the Death Star as an exercise in calculus
  6. ↑ A page on "How to Destroy the Earth."
  7. ↑ Star Wars Technical Commentaries on the Death Stars Archived November 28, 2006, at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ On Basilisk Station (1993)
  9. ↑ The Honor of the Queen (1993 ISBN   0-671-57864-2)
  10. ↑ The Short Victorious War (1994)
  11. ↑ Okuda, Michael & Denise (1997). The Star Trek Encyclopedia. New York City: Pocket Books. ISBN   0-671-53607-9. Images accessible at 2265-2370 Ranks. Spike's Star Trek Page Rank Chart.
  12. ↑ 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
  13. 1 2 Brian Stableford (2003-12-08). "Science fiction before the genre". In Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction . Cambridge University Press. pp.  20–21. ISBN   0-521-01657-6.
  14. ↑ Antulio J. Echevarria II. "Challenging Transformation's Clichés" (PDF). Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College. Retrieved 2007-01-31.
  15. ↑ Darren Harris-Fain. "After the New Wave, 1970–1976". Understanding contemporary American science fiction: the age of maturity, 1970-2000. Univ of South Carolina Press. pp. 55–57. ISBN   1-57003-585-7.
  16. 1 2 3 Brooks Landon (2002). "From the Steam Man to the Stars". Science Fiction After 1900: From the Steam Man to the Stars. Routledge (UK). p. 70. ISBN   0-415-93888-0.
  17. ↑ H. Bruce Franklin (1990). War Stars: The Superweapon and the American Imagination. Oxford University Press. p. 200. ISBN   0-19-506692-8.
  18. ↑ Edison Conquest of Mars, Introduction Robert Godwin, page 6, Apoge 2005
  19. ↑ David Pringle (2000-01-30). "What is this thing called space opera?". In Gary Westfahl (ed.). Space and Beyond: The Frontier Theme in Science Fiction. Greenwood Press. pp. 40–41. ISBN   0-313-30846-2.
  20. ↑ Thomas D. Clareson (December 1992). Understanding Contemporary American Science Fiction: The Formative Period, (1926-1970). University of South Carolina Press. pp. 17–18. ISBN   0-87249-870-0.
  21. ↑ Jas Elsner, Joan-Pau Ribiés (1999). Voyages and Visions: Towards a Cultural History of Travel. Reaktion Books. p. 264. ISBN   1-86189-020-6.
  22. ↑ David G. Hartwell, Kathryn Cramer, The Space Opera Renaissance, Tor Books, ISBN   0-7653-0617-4. Introduction, p. 251
  23. ↑ "23 Best Military Science Fiction Books - The Best Sci Fi Books". 14 March 2015.
  24. ↑ Westfahl, Gary, ed. (2005). The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 888. ISBN   9780313329524.
  25. 1 2 3 Green, Paul (2009). Encyclopedia of Weird Westerns. McFarland Publishing. ISBN   9780786458004.
  26. ↑ 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.
  27. ↑ Abbott, Jon (2006). Irwin Allen Television Productions, 1964-1970: A Critical History of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Lost in Space, The Time Tunnel and Land of the Giants. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland Publishing. p. 131. ISBN   0786486627.
  28. ↑ Williams, Owen (2014-07-24). "Peter Hyams Film By Film". Empire . Retrieved 2019-07-03.
  29. ↑ Steinberg, Don (2011-07-22). "Hollywood Frontiers: Outer Space and the Wild West". The Wall Street Journal . Retrieved 2014-03-15.

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