Interstellar war
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In fiction, an interstellar war is a war between combatants whose respective headquarters lie in different star systems. It is a popular plot device in science fiction, especially in the space opera subgenre. An intergalactic war refers to war between combatants of different galaxies. Interplanetary war refers to war between combatants on different planets of the same system.
The literature on planetary war is often revealing of contemporary mores at the time it was written. In general, older fiction is heavily influenced by the Cold War and is often a barely-concealed analogy of the conflict between the "free world" and the Communist states, with Earth (personified in 1950s-style American archetypes) as the "good guys" and aliens as the "bad guys". Modern fiction often uses the conflict to explore known failings in the human (especially Western) perspective.
[edit] Interplanetary war in fiction
The earliest fictional references appear to be to interplanetary, not interstellar war (e.g. H. G. Wells' The War of the Worlds). Now that the other planets of the solar system are known to be devoid of intelligent life sci-fi writers generally posit some form of faster-than-light drive in order to facilitate interstellar war, but writers such as Larry Niven have developed plausible interplanetary conflict based on human colonisation of the asteroid belt and outer planets using only technologies explicable using the laws of physics as currently understood.
[edit] Interstellar war in fiction
Here are a few well known examples of Interstellar War in fiction.
- The alien invasion depicted in the War of the Worlds (2005 film)
- The Independence Day (film) where a lot of major cities are obliterated.
- The Borg vs Starfleet in Star Trek
- The Klingons vs The Cardassians in Star Trek
- The Time Lords vs The Daleks in Doctor Who
- Earth-Romulan War in Star Trek
- Dominion War in Star Trek
- Many interstellar wars in Babylon 5, notably the Earth-Minbari War and the Shadow War.
- Idiran-Culture War (Culture)
- The Clone Wars (Star Wars)
- Galactic Civil War (Star Wars)
- Yuuzhan Vong War (Star Wars)
- The Cylon War in which the Twelve Colonies of man fight against the Cylons in Battlestar Galactica universe.
- Boskone versus the Galactic Patrol in E.E "Doc" Smith's Lensman series
- Various conflicts between the Terrans, Zerg, and Protoss in the Koprulu Sector (StarCraft)
- Multiple interestallar conflicts between the races of the Warhammer 40,000 universe.
- Many interstellar wars in Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis
- The Human-Covenant War in the Halo series
- Formic Wars in Ender's Game.
- Men-Taurans conflict in Joe Haldeman's sci-fi novel The Forever War
- The Interstellar Wars period of conflict between the First (Vilani) Imperium and the Terran Confederation in the Traveller role-playing game.
- Humankind Empire Abh and the Four Nations Alliance in Crest of the Stars
- Man-Kzin Wars (Larry Niven's Known Space series)
- The surprise relativistic attack in The Killing Star by Charles Pellegrino and George Zebrowski
- The Andalites vs the Yeerks in Animorphs
- The War between the Kushan and Tiidan in Homeworld
