Space battles in Trek novels

[WarsTrek1993]

This may seem like an odd question, so forgive me, but when you read a ST novel with lots of space action, how do you prefer it to be written?

1. Strictly from a bridge perspective: Meaning all of the action is detailed as if you were looking through the viewscreen as everything went down.

2. Strictly outside the ships: Meaning the action is detailed with descriptions of ships banking, firing, turning, etc.

 

[Biffette]

The first option, because that would most likely be written from the bridge crew's perspective, and I find the character's thoughts an perceptions a lot more interesting than the space battles themselves.

 

[Mysterion]

A combination of the two.

 

[WarsTrek1993]

^ I like it that way too. Kinda what they did in "The Return"

 

[captcalhoun]

yeah, both

 

[Christopher]

I'm not sure option #2 is really doable. The convention for writing prose fiction -- and it's a convention that Trek Lit tends to adhere to pretty consistently -- is to write every scene from some character's point of view. It's not just neutral description from an omniscient observer, it's what somebody is experiencing and thinking and feeling. It's not just telling what happens, but what it means to somebody. That makes it more meaningful to the reader.

Which really means it's neither #1 or #2. It's not a "bridge perspective," but the perspective of someone on the bridge -- or in sickbay or in engineering or wherever.

 

[JonLuck Pickerd]

I'm not sure option #2 is really doable. The convention for writing prose fiction -- and it's a convention that Trek Lit tends to adhere to pretty consistently -- is to write every scene from some character's point of view. It's not just neutral description from an omniscient observer, it's what somebody is experiencing and thinking and feeling. It's not just telling what happens, but what it means to somebody. That makes it more meaningful to the reader.

Which really means it's neither #1 or #2. It's not a "bridge perspective," but the perspective of someone on the bridge -- or in sickbay or in engineering or wherever.

Swallow did a great job of outside battle in Cast o Shadow.

 

[David cgc]

I don't think it's possible to do #2. I mean, a lot of the books get close, slipping into an omniscient narration and describing what's going on outside for a few sentences (or even a few paragraphs, like when the Reeves-Stevenses do one of their clever space-battle tactic scenes), but strictly? The only way I could see that working is if it was some kind of massive fleet battle, where there would just be too many characters and crews and ships to jump from one to the other individually without it becoming a jumble.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I'm always annoyed when writers get the colour of phaser beams wrong. There was one book, I can't remember which one, that kept referring to Voyager's BLUE beams. I know it's such a minor thing (especially in light of TOS, where beams were red, blue, yellow and orange - and there's probably a colour picker on the tactical console) but it screams to me "Have you even watched the show?" Voyager always fired orange phaser beams. And it fired them a lot.

 

[Christopher]

Realistically, phaser beams would probably be invisible in vacuum anyway, so the depiction of colored beams would be figurative representations for the audience's benefit -- or false-color depictions on the viewscreen for clarity. So it shouldn't really matter what color they're described as.

 

[David cgc]

Maybe so, but there's a certain obligation towards even the foolish consistencies. It's like mentioning that Worf speaks english with a guttural klingon accent (or his lips never match what he's saying because of the universal translator). It makes more sense than the convention we're used to on screen... but we're used to the convention.

 

[WarsTrek1993]

I'm always annoyed when writers get the colour of phaser beams wrong. There was one book, I can't remember which one, that kept referring to Voyager's BLUE beams. I know it's such a minor thing (especially in light of TOS, where beams were red, blue, yellow and orange - and there's probably a colour picker on the tactical console) but it screams to me "Have you even watched the show?" Voyager always fired orange phaser beams. And it fired them a lot.

I must agree here. It's kinda ridiculous that they sometimes write TNG phasers as BLUE!

And I think the novel you're referring to is "Spectre."

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Bridge

 

[JD]

Bridge

I prefer to see them from characters perspectives. While it might not give us all of the tactical details all the time, it does give us the emotional impact, and that's what I'm after when I read.

 

[Stevil2001]

I always misremember photon torpedoes as blue because of hours of playing Interplay's 25th Anniversary for the PC.

 

[Greg Cox]

I made the phasers blue in my new TOS book, mostly because I just liked the sound of "sapphire beams."

 

[WarsTrek1993]

^ "Sapphire beams". That sounds catchy and awesome.

 

[captcalhoun]

good name for a rock band...

 

[Dr. Crusher]

I like a combination of the two, especially if there is something about the battle that is particularly significant to be "seen" outside of the ship or ships interior perspective(s). For example, this was done well a few times in "Before Dishonor," which I recently read. There were also points in the novel where a number of the battle scenes were very difficult to picture because there was literally too much going on that was significant--almost none of it can be described well under those circumstances.

I'd prefer that authors plan the size of their Trek lit. battles accordingly. Occasionally, there are battles that are way too large for the circumstances, and others that are seemingly too small. Sometimes it is better to pinpoint different scenes that correspond to particularly important people, ships, settings, etc. in the battle, and that is a technique I've seen in many authors, although sometimes it is done well and other times it seems a bit too much.

 

[Therin of Andor]

Occasionally, there are battles that are way too large for the circumstances...

Sometimes the authors have been known to switch to a widescreen monitor when typing such scenes.