A realistic space battle might include no space battle at all, with forces jamming each others computers from great distances and venting one another into space being the main action. However, realistic doesn’t always mean entertaining or engaging, this is after all science fiction, so what makes a space battle engaging? I wrote a short list in the previous post about my personal feelings, and in this post I’d like to investigate those claims a bit further with the help of another blog post. I found an article from 2018 talking about how to write engaging space combat, (it’s a great read, can be found here :https://mythcreants.com/blog/five-tips-for-creating-an-engaging-space-battle/) and here I’ll go through some of it’s main points with some of my personal opinions mixed in.

1. Characters are important. Characters can be the ones piloting the ships, or they can be the ships themselves. Take Star Trek, in most of their engagements with the klingons and their “Birds of Prey,” you rarely see inside the klingon ships. They are allowed to be some unknown enemy, though you know that they’re in there. So in this case the crew of the Enterprise are individual characters, while the klingon ship itself is a character. This adds another layer though because Kirk never himself pilots the enterprise, he simply gives commands. Compare this to Luke piloting his X-Wing, the difference is subtle but it’s the difference between a character being in direct control and not. In wide shots of the trench run, you see the X-Wing and think “That’s Luke” but you (or at least I) never see the Enterprise and think “That’s Kirk.” Ships on the screen should be limited to a number the viewer can understand, and we should always be able to tell who is who, who’s in danger, and even the names of the main ships in the fight.
2. Environment adds realism, it also adds novelty and mystery.  Space combat is entirely different than ground, air, or sea fighting so show the differences. For example, a tactic used in Battlestar Galactica by the Viper pilots is to cut their main engines and rotate 180 degrees to check their 6 o’clock while continuing to move in the same direction they were originally going (i.e. flying backwards). This kind of move is impossible to do in an aircraft, but totally possible in space given inertia. This kind of thing should be a part of the battle, making it more visually interesting than just “planes in space.”
3.   Damage! Spaceships are incredible intricate things with life support systems and vulnerable parts. Damage should be a huge deal, venting to space should be a constant threat, and there should always be a clear danger to those inside the vessel. This is where I personally feel Star Trek comes up shorter than other shows/movies.  Most of the combat in the show is slow, dialogue driven, and limited to characters yelling novums and numbers, but more than anything else I have never felt while watching the show that the Enterprise and its crew were in any real personal danger during a fight (and yes yes the Enterprise does get destroyed, and sometimes the characters are in one-on-one fights where they are injured, but I’m talking about the average Star Trek space battle in an average episode). A large culprit here is the idea of “shields,” a novum which has found it’s way into a countless number of SF space battles. Interestingly, the main benefit of having shields on your SF ship was that, when it took damage, no one had to ruin the only $6,000 model you have to film with. Shields, in my opinion, ruin tension. A part flying off a ship and the crew rushing to close airlocks is, I believe, more tense and human than someone shouting “Shields at 60%!”

In my research I found that what makes a space battle realistic won’t necessarily make it great, though there are aspects of space that can be used to make the fight more dynamic and engaging. My main takeaway is a suspicion I had form the beginning: for a battle to be engaging it should be a story about people. I’m not a writer, but learning about engaging space battles has both given me a greater appreciation for those who write them well, and even made me want to try writing some of my own.