Science 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 ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...

'' and ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'', it's considered one of the most popular general sub-genres and themes of science fiction. 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 Space opera is a subgenre of science fiction that emphasizes space warfare, with use of melodramatic, risk-taking space adventures, relationships, and chivalric romance. Set mainly or entirely in outer space, it features technological and soci ...

, military science fiction and Space Western.

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.

Destruction of planets and stars

Destruction of planets and stars has been a frequently used aspect of interstellar warfare since the ''Lensman'' series. 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. 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.

Naval influences

Fictional space warfare tends to borrow elements from

naval warfare Naval warfare is combat in and on the sea, the ocean, or any other battlespace involving a major body of water such as a large lake or wide river. Mankind has fought battles on the sea for more than 3,000 years. Even in the interior of large la ...

, often calling space forces as space

navies A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It includ ...

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 Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...

-era naval warfare. 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. 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 A frigate () is a type of warship. In different eras, the roles and capabilities of ships classified as frigates have varied somewhat. The name frigate in the 17th to early 18th centuries was given to any full-rigged ship built for speed and ...

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, manoeuvrable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against powerful short range attackers. They were originally developed in ...

sometimes serve as marker to show how the craft are assembled and their designed purpose. Some fictional universes have different implementations. The

Colonial Fleet ''Battlestar Galactica'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Glen A. Larson. The franchise began with the Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series), original television series in 1978, and was followed by a short-run sequel se ...

in ''

Battlestar Galactica ''Battlestar Galactica'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Glen A. Larson. The franchise began with the Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series), original television series in 1978, and was followed by a short-run sequel se ...

'' uses a mixture of army and navy ranks, and the ''

Stargate ''Stargate'' (often stylized in all caps) is a military science fiction media franchise based on the Stargate (film), film directed by Roland Emmerich, which he co-wrote with producer Dean Devlin. The franchise is based on the idea of an alien E ...

'' 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 ''A True Story'' ( grc, Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα, ''Alēthē diēgēmata''; or ), also translated as True History, is a long novella or short novel written in the second century AD by the Greek author Lucian of Samosata. The novel is a sa ...

'', 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 Morning Star, morning star, or Morningstar may refer to: Astronomy * Morning star, most commonly used as a name for the planet Venus when it appears in the east before sunrise ** See also Venus in culture * Morning star, a name for the star Siri ...

. It is the earliest known work of fiction to address the concept.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 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 George Griffith (1857–1906), full name George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones, was a prolific British science fiction writer and noted explorer who wrote during the late Victorian and Edwardian age. Many of his visionary tales appeared in magazin ...

's ''

The Angel of the Revolution George Griffith (1857–1906), full name George Chetwynd Griffith-Jones, was a prolific British science fiction writer and noted explorer who wrote during the late Victorian and Edwardian age. Many of his visionary tales appeared in magazin ...

'' (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. 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) and "

The Land Ironclads "The Land Ironclads" is a short story by British writer H. G. Wells, which originally appeared in the December 1903 issue of the '' Strand Magazine''. It features tank-like "land ironclads," armoured fighting vehicles that carry riflemen, engi ...

," which featured a prophetic description of the tank, albeit of an unfeasibly large scale. More recent depictions of space warfare departed from the

jingoism Jingoism is nationalism in the form of aggressive and proactive foreign policy, such as a country's advocacy for the use of threats or actual force, as opposed to peaceful relations, in efforts to safeguard what it perceives as its national inte ...

of the pulp science fiction of the 1930s and 1940s. Joe Haldeman's ''

The Forever War ''The Forever War'' (1974) is a military science fiction novel by American author Joe Haldeman, telling the contemplative story about human soldiers fighting an interstellar war against an alien civilization known as the Taurans. It won the Nebu ...

'', was partly a response to or a rebuttal of Robert A. Heinlein's ''

Starship Troopers ''Starship Troopers'' is a military science fiction novel by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. Written in a few weeks in reaction to the US suspending nuclear tests, the story was first published as a two-part serial in ''The Magazine of F ...

'', 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. Both novels have in the past been required reading at the United States Military Academy. 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 Barry B. Longyear (born May 12, 1942) is an American author who resides in New Sharon, Maine. Career Born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Longyear is known best for the Hugo- and Nebula Award–winning novella '' Enemy Mine'' (1979, ''Isaac Asimov ...

's " Enemy Mine," Kim Stanley Robinson's "The Lucky Strike," Connie Willis' "Schwarzchild Radius," and John Kessel's "Invaders." In Orson Scott Card's ''

Ender's Game ''Ender's Game'' is a 1985 military science fiction novel by American author Orson Scott Card. Set at an unspecified date in Earth's future, the novel presents an imperiled humankind after two conflicts with an insectoid alien species they dub ...

'', 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 The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), derisively nicknamed the "''Star Wars'' program", was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons (intercontinental ballistic ...

Ben Bova Benjamin William Bova (November 8, 1932November 29, 2020) was an American writer and editor. During a writing career of 60 years, he was the author of more than 120 works of science fact and fiction, an editor of '' Analog Science Fiction and F ...

's 1985 novel ''Privateers'' has been given as an example.

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

. Garrett P. Serviss' 1898 newspaper serial "

Edison's Conquest of Mars ''Edison's Conquest of Mars'' is an 1898 science fiction novel by American astronomer and writer Garrett P. Serviss. It was written as a sequel to ''Fighters from Mars'', an unauthorized and heavily altered version of H. G. Wells's 1897 story '' ...

" was inspired by Wells and intended as a sequel to "Fighters from Mars," an un-authorized and heavily altered

Edisonade "Edisonade" is a term, coined in 1993 by John Clute in his and Peter Nicholls' ''The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction'', for fictional stories about a brilliant young inventor and his inventions, many of which would now be classified as science fic ...

version of ''The War of the Worlds'' 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 ''The Skylark of Space'' is a science fiction novel by American writer Edward E. "Doc" Smith, written between 1915 and 1921 while Smith was working on his doctorate. Though the original idea for the novel was Smith's, he co-wrote the first part o ...

''. 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. David Weber's '' Honorverse'' novels present a view of space warfare that simply transplants the naval warfare of

Horatio Nelson Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte (29 September 1758 – 21 October 1805) was a British flag officer in the Royal Navy. His inspirational leadership, grasp of strategy, and unconventional tactics brought abo ...

and

Horatio Hornblower Horatio Hornblower is a fictional officer in the British Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, the protagonist of a series of novels and stories by C. S. Forester. He later became the subject of films, radio and television programmes, an ...

into space. The

space navy A space force is a military branch of a nation's armed forces that conducts military operations in outer space and space warfare. The world's first space force was the Russian Space Forces, established in 1992 as an independent military service. ...

battle tactics in the Honorverse are much like those of Nelson, with the simple addition of a third dimension.

Military science fiction

Several subsets of military science fiction overlap with

, 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''.David G. Hartwell, Kathryn Cramer, ''The Space Opera Renaissance'', Tor Books, . Introduction, p. 251 Other examples of military space opera are the ''

'' franchise and Robert A. Heinlein's 1959 novel ''

''. 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 A paramilitary is an organization whose structure, tactics, training, subculture, and (often) function are similar to those of a professional military, but is not part of a country's official or legitimate armed forces. Paramilitary units carr ...

. Military science fiction also does not necessarily always include an outer space or multiplanetary setting like space opera.

Space Western

Westerns influenced early science-fiction pulp magazines. Writers would submit stories in both genres, and science-fiction magazines sometimes mimicked Western cover art to showcase parallels. In the 1930s,

C. L. Moore Catherine Lucille Moore (January 24, 1911 – April 4, 1987) was an American science fiction and fantasy writer, who first came to prominence in the 1930s writing as C. L. Moore. She was among the first women to write in the science fiction and ...

created one of the first space Western heroes,

Northwest Smith Northwest Smith is a fictional character, and the hero of a series of stories by science fiction writer C. L. Moore. Story setting Smith is a spaceship pilot and smuggler who lives in an undisclosed future time when humanity has colonized the ...

. Buck Rogers and

Flash Gordon Flash Gordon is the protagonist of a space adventure comic strip created and originally drawn by Alex Raymond. First published January 7, 1934, the strip was inspired by, and created to compete with, the already established ''Buck Rogers'' adve ...

were also early influences. After

superhero comics Superhero comics are one of the most common genres of American comic books. The genre rose to prominence in the 1930s and became extremely popular in the 1940s and has remained the dominant form of comic book in North America since the 1960s. Su ...

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. By the mid-1960s, classic Western films fell out of favor and Revisionist Westerns supplanted them. Science-fiction series such as ''Lost in Space'' 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. Space operas such as the ''

'' film series also took strong cues from Westerns;

Boba Fett Boba Fett ( ) is a fictional character in the ''Star Wars'' franchise. First appearing in the ''Star Wars Holiday Special'' (1978), where he was voiced by Don Francks, he is an armored bounty hunter featured in both the original and prequel fi ...

, 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.