Proper Space Battles

[The Wormhole]

Can't people just watch a show to be entertained? Who cares if the space battles as seen on Trek aren't as accurate as a real space battle should be? Besides, Trek is hardly alone in this, 90% of sci-fi depicts space battles as two dimensional, with the ships typically on a flat plane in relation to each other, with fighters maneuvering exactly like WWII warplanes. And this continues even after special effects improvements allow much more freedom, take for example Star Wars Episode III in which General Grievous's flagship practically "sinks" when it's taken out of the battle. Looking cool is the priority, not being realistic.

That being said, I do agree a flawed trope in Trek space battles is the severely limited firing range. In space, the firing range should be near infinite.

 

[Arpy]

No reason to make personal comments.

Thanks, but the quote was regarding TNG choosing to refer to battles than trying to show them and failing miserably. Maybe if they'd had more budget the battles they'd show would be as forehead-smacking as DS9's or they were less cheesy and would have done a better job with them. Seeing where the Klingons started out on TNG and ended on DS9, the latter is not out of the question.

 

[Arpy]

Can't people just watch a show to be entertained? Who cares if the space battles as seen on Trek aren't as accurate as a real space battle should be? Besides, Trek is hardly alone in this, 90% of sci-fi depicts space battles as two dimensional, with the ships typically on a flat plane in relation to each other, with fighters maneuvering exactly like WWII warplanes. And this continues even after special effects improvements allow much more freedom, take for example Star Wars Episode III in which General Grievous's flagship practically "sinks" when it's taken out of the battle. Looking cool is the priority, not being realistic.

That being said, I do agree a flawed trope in Trek space battles is the severely limited firing range. In space, the firing range should be near infinite.

"Can't people just watch a show to be entertained?" Look at the site you're on. We're plenty entertained or we wouldn't be here, but we talk. And I hope in doing so get better entertainment.

I think this is especially important when entertainment starts out great but then gets lazy and cancelled maybe in part because TPTB didn't talk, either during production or when they were kids at their own version of the TrekBBS and didn't discuss things that might have made stuff they did later better.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ No amount of "talking" done on this board will change even a single line from an episode or film. So all we're really doing is leeching all the fun out of watching it.

 

[Arpy]

Leach if you're going to be a leach. Participate if you're not. Create if you're inspired.

 

[Shawnster]

But aliens my have a different type of weaponry.
Different volatiles, maybe; different fissionable materials; black hole bombs; laser warheads... things that would make different colored explosions, flameless explosions, black holes, explosions that shoot out destructive beams in a lovely flower pattern...

Same should apply for human ships.

What are considered alien? Vulcan? Andorian? The Federation isn't all the same species.

Each ship should have unique weapons based on size or purpose. It's not necessarily species limited.

 

[The Wormhole]

I think this is especially important when entertainment starts out great but then gets lazy and cancelled maybe in part because TPTB didn't talk,

Whatever else causes sci-fi shows to be cancelled, it's not a lack of proper space battles. Because, truth is everyone shows "improper" space battles, sometimes to great success.

Or, hell, look at The Expanse, where they really do have "proper" space battles with the ships vast distances from each other with mega fast missiles and point-defense cannons. It's not exactly pulling in huge ratings.

 

[Crazy Eddie]

^ I feel like its ratings would be far improved if they didn't put a year-long gap after a ten episode season, but that's just me

 

[Arpy]

Whatever else causes sci-fi shows to be cancelled, it's not a lack of proper space battles. Because, truth is everyone shows "improper" space battles, sometimes to great success.

There is no reason not to discuss how well Trek does in this area. We discuss every other. There is no reason to think that a viewer wouldn't be put off by the quality of "space battles" any less than they would the music or acting or story points.

17. (I can't believe no one mentioned this already) the lack of shield bubbles on DS9 during fleet battles.

Forbin, what kind of ECM would you come up with for a Trek-level technologically advanced universe?

 

[somebuddyX]

The space battle in Babylon' 5's 'The Long Twilight Struggle' is one of my favourites and part of it is because of the sense of scale.

 

[Arpy]

^ Yeah it was tragic to see the 'bad' guys who were once good guys winning via the use of illegal/immoral/effective/unnecessary methods. And chilling to see it presented on such a scale, uncommon in Trek -- full planetary conquest of a main series species.

Speaking of B5, one of the things I liked was how different the Vorlon/Shadow doomsday weapons were. The order-loving Vorlons created this ubership with planet-cracking superlaser and the chaotic Shadows created this cloud of nukes more like 'death by a thousand cuts.' Different species with different perspectives creating different technologies that can achieve the same goals.

 

[Forbin]

Forbin, what kind of ECM would you come up with for a Trek-level technologically advanced universe?

Even just what we have now would be nice to see - jammers that confuse and deflect incoming missiles, decoys that spoof enemy sensors and create an electronic ghost for them to chase, chaff and flares to confuse missiles and sensors. Someone above mentioned point defense - I'm sure an all-aspect phaser setup like the 1701-D has would be perfect at such a thing. Oncoming torpedoes? Zap-zap-zap-zap. Got 'em. Of course this is all talking about missile/torpedo defense. Beam weapons are a whole other ball game, and something we haven't had to address in the real world yet.

 

[SPCTRE]

 

[Aeronnaex]

I have thought for some time that Trek needed a top-to-bottom reboot for space battles. Ship to ship warfare has changed a great deal with the advent of radar, why shouldn't space battles in Trek change when they can identify and talk to ships many light years away?

If Trek changed space battles to be more long-range affairs, they could create a LOT more drama than they do around alien encounters now. For alien encounters (where you can't talk to them), think of the movie Master and Commander - you see a ship, but won't intercept for 12 hours. The crew goes about their routine for almost a full day knowing full well they'll be in combat at the end of it. In the books, Captain Aubrey would often move meal times so the crew would be ready for combat. Can you imagine a Starfleet crew, especially the requisite greenhorn, waiting for contact with an alien ship for HOURS? Maybe they want to fight, maybe they're peaceful - hang around for a couple of duty shifts and see what happens.

For ships that are flat our hostile, long range weapons could be used in that intercept time (assuming they do want to intercept you), which lends itself to tension about if those weapons are effective, and if you'll be at close range or not......hours from first detection.

And you could vary encounters between both extremes - with the result still accomplishing Star Trek's dramatic goal of examining the human condition, while eliminating the expense of the ship facing ship combat. That frees you up for different special effects for different weapon types.

When I saw Best of Both Worlds part 1, my friends and debated what would happen (duh). My preferred outcome was that the deflector beam worked, and individual borg in zero-g then started to break down the Enterprise hull.......not that I knew how I'd get the crew out of it. Point being, it would be a totally different kind of warfare. The Romulans in Balance of Terror were great because they clearly had a different philosophy of warfare and therefore different weapons. TNG gave the Romulans green torpedoes without really making them seem different.......

So what's this long winded post mean? It means we need more creativity in Star Trek. Changing the look of the torpedoes and phasers isn't enough - we need to make the nature of combat and technology as important to the writing as the character interactions, because they're related no matter how much we pretend they're not.

 

[The Wormhole]

^ I feel like its ratings would be far improved if they didn't put a year-long gap after a ten episode season, but that's just me

Well, that's true. And it also certainly didn't help that half of the first season was available through streaming before it aired on TV, and yet the numbers from its first night airing are what's recorded.

There is no reason not to discuss how well Trek does in this area. We discuss every other. There is no reason to think that a viewer wouldn't be put off by the quality of "space battles" any less than they would the music or acting or story points.

And there's also no reason to think that a "proper space battle" would be the magic key to Making Trek Great Again.

17. (I can't believe no one mentioned this already) the lack of shield bubbles on DS9 during fleet battles.

DS9's visual FX people have answered this over the years, saying that putting shield bubbles around each individual ship in the fleet scenes really is one hella pain in the ass.

When I saw Best of Both Worlds part 1, my friends and debated what would happen (duh). My preferred outcome was that the deflector beam worked, and individual borg in zero-g then started to break down the Enterprise hull

That would have been impossible to pull off on a 1990s TV budget.

So what's this long winded post mean? It means we need more creativity in Star Trek. Changing the look of the torpedoes and phasers isn't enough - we need to make the nature of combat and technology as important to the writing as the character interactions, because they're related no matter how much we pretend they're not.

Sweet shit, even as someone who always argues that Starfleet is a military, I feel compelled to point out, that Star Trek is about exploration, not accurate portrayals of combat and tactics. Battles as seen in Trek serve the story the episode is trying to tell, and that's what's always important.

Besides, 100% realism is often detrimental to a TV show, and that includes 100% accurate combat. Seriously, I tried to watch an episode of History Channel's drama about Navy SEALs. It was as exciting as watching paint dry, which shouldn't be possible in a show about Navy SEALs.

 

[Jedman67]

I'm not quite sure how you can portray an hours-long, or even day-long contact with an enemy in an hour episode of tv?

 

[The Wormhole]

Well, I guess if it took place in real time, you could have a battle last an entire season. There are drawbacks to this idea, I think.

 

[Shawnster]

^ I feel like its ratings would be far improved if they didn't put a year-long gap after a ten episode season, but that's just me

This! I'm tired of this growing trend of 10 episode seaons

 

[Balok's Decoy]

Can't people just watch a show to be entertained? Who cares if the space battles as seen on Trek aren't as accurate as a real space battle should be? Besides, Trek is hardly alone in this, 90% of sci-fi depicts space battles as two dimensional, with the ships typically on a flat plane in relation to each other, with fighters maneuvering exactly like WWII warplanes. And this continues even after special effects improvements allow much more freedom, take for example Star Wars Episode III in which General Grievous's flagship practically "sinks" when it's taken out of the battle. Looking cool is the priority, not being realistic.

That being said, I do agree a flawed trope in Trek space battles is the severely limited firing range. In space, the firing range should be near infinite.

Yeah it would just look funny if the ships were upside down and backwards and all kinds of weird positions.

 

[uniderth]

The Expanse pulled off some good realistic space combat.