Good Sci-Fi involving SPACE Fleet Battles (all forms)

Warsie · Post by **Warsie** » 2008-02-11 07:27pm

Because we all like to see warships blowing the shit out of each other:

Heroic Age is a good Anime
Outlaw Star somewhat

continue this.

Warsie · Post by **Warsie** » 2008-02-11 08:06pm

also video games count.

phongn · Post by **phongn** » 2008-02-11 08:18pm

Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars

Bob the Gunslinger · Post by **Bob the Gunslinger** » 2008-02-11 10:59pm

Do you want books, too? Or just visual media?

If you only care about visual media, then I suggest Babylon 5 (especially seasons 2, 3, and 4) and Stargate SG1 (most of the later seasons), as both series have a lot of space battles. NeoBSG has a few space battles, but most of them are anemic or annoying, with maybe one spectacular battle per season/boxed set. Obviously, there are Star Wars, Star Trek and The Last Starfighter (although that is less of a fleet).

For books, there are the Lensman novels, which are rather charmingly antiquated ("Thank goodness Einstein was wrong." etc.), but had incredibly huge fleet battles and super-weapons out the wazoo. Then there's the Honor Harrington books, but you might want to avoid the later ones... The Night's Dawn trilogy (er, sexology?) by Peter F. Hamilton has some 90's style space battles with all the biowank and non-newtonian drives and nano wank you could want. Hyperion had some good space battle scenes (just scenes), but then you'd have to read Hyperion in order to read them... Timothy Zahn has written a few books with space battles, such as the Conquerors trilogy. There's a brief but intense space battle (for the fate of the human race!) in the excellent Fire Upon the Deep. And I really enjoyed the battles in the WH40k novel Execution Hour.

What kinds of space battles are you looking for?

SylasGaunt · Post by **SylasGaunt** » 2008-02-12 12:20am

I love the Conquerer's books.. if for no other reason than I get a tickle out of us facing down aliens with unobtanium hulls human weapons can barely scratch.. unfortunately all those delicate electronics and lasing devices aren't so invulnerable so you have human ships getting vaporized by energy weapons fire and alien ships being pounded innto virtually intact shells packed with shattered sub-systems.

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2008-02-12 01:26am

Steve's Anatomy of a War has some pretty awesome space battles.

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-02-12 02:42am

SylasGaunt wrote:I love the Conquerer's books.. if for no other reason than I get a tickle out of us facing down aliens with unobtanium hulls human weapons can barely scratch.. unfortunately all those delicate electronics and lasing devices aren't so invulnerable so you have human ships getting vaporized by energy weapons fire and alien ships being pounded innto virtually intact shells packed with shattered sub-systems.

It was a pleasant surprise to read in the second book that the Zhirrzh were not so invulnerable as they seemed to the humans in the first book, and that many of their ships were effectively destroyed (and the crews liquified) even though the hulls seemed impervious.

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2008-02-12 02:56am

There have been some nifty battles in the Star Blazers/Space Battleship Yamato series.

Space Pirate Captain Harlock has several awesome space combat sequences; some with long-range one-on-one pulsar fire, and some where Arcadia charges in for a close-range slugging match, and some where Arcadia unfolds a massive blade and rams the enemy ship.

Arcadia of My Youth has a neat one-on-one duel where two opposing starships exchange close-range broadsides.

SDF Macross has a lot of starfighter combat going on if "transforming F-14s in space" is your thing.

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2008-02-12 03:22am

Star Wars. Seriously, I can't believe I'm the first to say it

.

The Culture books have a few good scenes, such as acertain pissed off ship in Excession

.

Brother-Captain Gaius · Post by **Brother-Captain Gaius** » 2008-02-12 06:45am

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:Stargate SG1 (most of the later seasons), as both series have a lot of space battles. NeoBSG has a few space battles, but most of them are anemic or annoying, with maybe one spectacular battle per season/boxed set.

I'm going to have to disagree with this. I don't know what SG-1 you watched, but nBSG blows everything SG-1 had out of the water. Apart from maybe one or two fairly involved affairs with the Ori in season 9 and 10, and maybe "Lost City" in season 7 if that counts, SG-1 has never had any space battles to write home about. BSG's are much more visceral, intricate, and IMO interesting, even the "Galactica runs into a basestar, jumps away just in time!!!! D:" shit.

Axiomatic · Post by **Axiomatic** » 2008-02-12 07:09am

phongn wrote:Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars

Let me second this.

Archaic` · Post by **Archaic`** » 2008-02-12 07:22am

Axiomatic wrote:
phongn wrote:Crest of the Stars/Banner of the Stars
Let me second this.

And I'll third it.

Jadeite · Post by **Jadeite** » 2008-02-12 07:39am

Legend of Galactic Heroes

The little dots in the backgrounds of those images? Those are warships, not stars. Ten thousand ships is considered a small fleet.

You can find it on bittorrent by Central Anime.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2008-02-12 09:15am

Children of Heaven

Accept no substitutes.

The harshness of war. The loss of human life. The devastation of interstellar battle. A seemingly hopeless struggle against annihilation.

And love?

Uraniun235 · Post by **Uraniun235** » 2008-02-12 10:49am

DEATH wrote:Star Wars. Seriously, I can't believe I'm the first to say it .

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:Obviously, there are Star Wars, Star Trek and The Last Starfighter (although that is less of a fleet).

How would you like your crow prepared?

The Grim Squeaker · Post by **The Grim Squeaker** » 2008-02-12 11:26am

Uraniun235 wrote:
DEATH wrote:Star Wars. Seriously, I can't believe I'm the first to say it .

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:Obviously, there are Star Wars, Star Trek and The Last Starfighter (although that is less of a fleet).
How would you like your crow prepared?

Well, obviously he said that there are wars in the stars, not The series Star wars...

Imperial Overlord · Post by **Imperial Overlord** » 2008-02-12 01:22pm

Walter John Williams's Dread Empire Falls series. Fairly hard sci-fi (except for the FTL) and lots of space battles.

The first short story in the second Warworld (set in Jerry Pournelle's Empire of Man universe) book has an awesome space battle, starting with the Sauron heavy cruiser Fomoria commanded by the legendary First Rank Galen Diettenger engaging the older battlecruiser Canada, two light cruisers, and three destroyers in an escalating engagement that ends up determining the outcome of the Secession War.

For 40K the novel Execution Hour is packed with good space battles and the space battle in Sabbat Martyr, although a small part of the book, is awesome.

The Final Reflection, the great Star Trek novel by John M. Ford has several excellent space battles between pre TOS starships.

Joviwan · Post by **Joviwan** » 2008-02-12 03:12pm

It's probably not worth the 30+ hours to get there, but the end of Mass Effect has some decent ship shoostings.

Serenity has a wildly entertaining fleet on fleet sequence.

Wing Commander, too! pleasedon'tkillmei'mjustkiddingohgodohgodIdon'twannadie

I believe Starship Troopers had some decent "we're getting blown the hell up" moments.

Anguirus · Post by **Anguirus** » 2008-02-12 03:34pm

Brother-Captain Gaius wrote:
Bob the Gunslinger wrote:Stargate SG1 (most of the later seasons), as both series have a lot of space battles. NeoBSG has a few space battles, but most of them are anemic or annoying, with maybe one spectacular battle per season/boxed set.
I'm going to have to disagree with this. I don't know what SG-1 you watched, but nBSG blows everything SG-1 had out of the water. Apart from maybe one or two fairly involved affairs with the Ori in season 9 and 10, and maybe "Lost City" in season 7 if that counts, SG-1 has never had any space battles to write home about. BSG's are much more visceral, intricate, and IMO interesting, even the "Galactica runs into a basestar, jumps away just in time!!!! D:" shit.

I will enthusiastically second this. SG-1's space battles are very dull, they'll just pull two 1-kilometer battlewagons up next to each other and one of them will have invulnerable shields and win in two seconds. The best fights are the ones with lots of F-302s but they are really brief (and one of their longest and most intricate scenes was, essentially, Trench Run Redux).

BSG, despite not really being ABOUT space battles, manages to have several good ones a season, with actual character involvement, tactics, drama, all that stuff. I think it's more an issue of some folks just really hating the overall style of the show, but I love it myself.

Starglider · Post by **Starglider** » 2008-02-12 03:51pm

Anguirus wrote:BSG, despite not really being ABOUT space battles, manages to have several good ones a season, with actual character involvement, tactics, drama, all that stuff.

BSG is a hell of a lot more space-battle-focused than SG-1, which didn't even have human-controlled ships on a regular basis until season 8. SG-1 is mostly about personal scale exploration with a fair amount of squad-level special-operations ground combat. The premise of BSG is a carrier-battleship fighting a running battle against hordes of evil androids. SG-1 space battles were originally little chunks of eye candy to make the 'big' episodes incrementally more awesome. Late in the series run, they were used more of a 'cool backdrop to the heroes doing other stuff (canonical example: Lost City)'. It's only really in Atlantis that they've started to make space battles a central part of the series, and still nowhere near as much as BSG because the main characters aren't fighter pilots and capship officers.

Trek OTOH is just pathetic. DS9 was the high point of Trek space combat, and despite being largely focused on military officers fighting a huge interstellar war the space battles are still worse than Atlantis, never mind BSG or B5.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2008-02-12 03:51pm

As silly as it is...episode "The Day of Sagittarius" of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" had some extremely entertaining space fleet combat.

Themightytom · Post by **Themightytom** » 2008-02-12 07:54pm

hmm no one said Farscape, and Serenity had a decent space battle.
Independence Day had lots of ships blowing eachother up.

David Weber's "Armageddon Inheritance (The sequel to Mutineer's moon) had a lot o well written space battles.

if you can get a copy, the fake movie "Star Wrek: In the pirkinning" had a lot of eye candy.

Babyllon 5 really owns them all in terms o combining scale, soundtrack, melee and plot, the only problem is the CGI i starting to look a bit dated

Warsie · Post by **Warsie** » 2008-02-12 09:06pm

Molyneux wrote:As silly as it is...episode "The Day of Sagittarius" of "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya" had some extremely entertaining space fleet combat.

I remember watching an AMV, something like thousands of ships fighting each other, I thought that was cool but I could not find anything about that on wiki.

Warsie · Post by **Warsie** » 2008-02-12 09:09pm

Bob the Gunslinger wrote:Do you want books, too?

Yes. And thank you, everyone.

Elessar · Post by **Elessar** » 2008-02-12 10:26pm

If we're talking about books as well, I'd like to recommend De Imperatoribus Galacticis by Her Grace.

The Grand Fleet's arrival still gives me the shivers.