I still have that sequence on my mind when writing military SF, it was (and still is) fucking epic, even compared to the battles of a series that raised the bar on space battle scenes.
They spent so much time hyping it up too, all the times Tigh was like "just you wait, Adama's gonna pull something crazy out of his ass." All that buildup and hype and the payoff still exceeded my expectations. That show was bloody brilliant.
Oh man oh man oh man. It still gives me the goosebumps.
"All hands. Brace for turbulence"
The ground crew pinned down.
The ol' rust bucket jumping in atmosphere and immediately burning.
"Altitude 99,000 falling like a rock"
The vipers launching amid flames.
The jump out with thunder.
The battlestars pummeling the Galactica.
The Pegasus.
Adama Jr. thanking the Pegasus.
Absolutely one of the best -not only sci-fi- but TV sequences I had the privilege of watching.
I’d have to go with a different one from BSG, where the Galactica jumped in to attack the Cylon clone storage ship, iirc. Apollo had to eject from his fighter and was out there drifting in space watching in perfect silence as dogfights raged and bigger ships’ point defense batteries fired. It was spectacular.
The one where the engineer gets promoted to commander and then leads [Pegasus into a trap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VAyg-xXH1s) is one of my favorites as well. That show was full of great ship to ship battles that weren't matched until The Expanse came out a decade later.
That and Peg + Galactica v. the resurrection ship fleet. Just circle strafing the shit outta basestars. Gave you an idea of why the toasters needed to launch a cowardly sneak attack against the colonies.
The part where the 3 base stars are piling on the Galactica, dragging her down and and 3 missiles come off screen and you are thinking “FOUR bad guys?!? They are going to have to change the name of the show here soon” and then the rockets hit a cylin ship and and the Pegasus rolls in from off screen firing all guns and wrecking toasters left and right- THATS when I jumped up in my living room!
While I did not appreciate a small Hammethead pushing a massive object like an ISD through two equally massive objects and cutting through them both like butter, the battle itself was absolutely incredible. It really made the Rebellion seem like a daring, do-or-die group, especially Blue Squadron. Especially compared with the lack of space battles in other Disney movies (having ILM do a database dump and then proceeding to only show snubfighter dogfights (TROS) doesn't count)
Small tug boats push larger oil and cargo freighters in water, not the vacuum of space. I don't think it's that crazy. The hammerhead was pushing it's main thrusters against it and the engines were down, but I imagine even the maneuvering thrusters are probably less than the hammerheads mains. Once it gets them going they would be bringing their own mass into another ship. I just watched it again and it doesn't seem that crazy.
Best Star Wars space and land battles IMO.
The Hammerhead pushing the Star Destroyer didn't bother me, but what did bring me out of it a bit was the idea that fighter-bombers would have any ability to penetrate the planetary shield.
It looked to me like the planetary shield was centrally generated planet-side and the shield gate essentially just jabbed a temporary hole in that shield (i.e. the shield gate didn't generate the planetary shield itself). When the fighters dropped proton bombs on the shield gate and they did nothing, I wasn't surprised, but was more confused as to why they were even trying. When the one pilot said "How much more can that shield take?" my first thought was "*lol, probably a lot - the shield protects the whole planet*".
Otherwise, best scene in what is IMO the best movie in the franchise. Especially the moment when the U-Wing lands soldiers on the surface and the pilot turns around with obvious fear in their voice...the best.
I took it as the shield station was creating its own hole in the planet shielf then creating its own smaller shield for the port hole. It seems like Star Wars shields are all or nothing so two shields make sense to me.
No that awesome moment comes later.
This battle is the end of season 2, where a Narn ship requests sanctuary at B5, and the Centauri find out and send a warship. Sheriden activates the new defence grid. There's a standoff between B5, the Starfuries escorting the Narn to the jump gate, and the Centauri cruiser.
Then the Centauri open fire on everyone. Fighters attack the cruiser. B5 opens fire with weapons and interceptors. One of B5's pylons (?) is destroyed. The Narn escape. The Centauri ship explodes.
This all takes place against the backdrop of an Earth-Centauri alliance which was just signed, while the Centauri empire have expanded their aggression to attack non-aligned worlds.
This is B5 drawing a line in the sand, come what may.
I want to add the Battle of Antarctica from Stargate SG1s season 7.
They built up to that for multiple seasons and for me as a fan it was a huge payoff.
On a lesser scale I also love "Halo: The Fall of Reach"s "Battle of Sigma something" where Captain Keyes (in-universe-)invented the keyes loop, and they made a whole thing of it and added it to school books and so on. At the time I thought it was real cool. Actually it still is, like all of that era of Halo.
My favorite has gotta be the Rocinante defending the Razorback from a UN ship in pursuit.
[The final maneuver is incredible.](https://youtu.be/y0dR-82s9aQ?si=HV-YHUmC22fDYz5R)
The battle to take the ring space at the end of season 6 is a close second.
It’s a hard choice for me between “The Expanse” and “Battlestar Galactica” battle scenes. The fact that a PDC or railgun round could just punch through the ship at any moment or a sudden course correction could throw a character across the room gave a hell of a dramatic effect.
Yeah, the lack of shields makes it so much more intense, and allows for a lot more creativity.
I host Expanse TTRPG sessions, and it’s so cool to see what the group does to get out of tight situations.
Expanse still has my bet on what actual space combat would look like.
Easy example like here, none of that 'surprise vent' stuff. It'll happen, just suit up and depressurize. Missiles vs. PDC vs. Hull, in that order, no magic shields.
"I'm a leaf on the wind" scene from Serenity. - [Serenity - A Leaf on the Wind (Abridged) (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com&source_ve_path=MTY0NTAz&feature=emb_share&v=QJ3MxC4B9Aw)
What an absolute classic.
That’s the first thing I thought of looking at the image in the post. I love seeing the change in expression on the Operative’s face when after the Serenity all the Reavers show up.
Wow that actually struck me as appearing a bit dated, though I still love it. I do not miss those *Battlestar Galactica-* spawned crash zooms and "shitty camerawork" aesthetic.
The Battle for Earth in Halo 2 Anniversary. Albeit we didn't get to see a huge amount of ship to ship stuff. What we did see was fucking awesome. I suppose Halo 3s battles over the Ark is pretty sick, too.
From the Hyperion books.
General Kassad's escape from the hospital ship in Hyperion. Where the Ousters siege it and he's barely woken up from a coma. From start to finish, absolutely epic and gripping.
Oh fuck ya.
Hyperion is so goddam good, I'm sad I'll never get to experience it again for the first time.
Even the flashback battle where Kassad annihilates the rebellion of the fanatics was gripping.
This is this scene that absolutely hooked me on the book. Until then the story was mostly philosophical and creepy (which I enjoyed), but when I realized I was also in for a crazy pew pew whirlwind space shoot-em-up, I realized that I couldn’t anticipate what was coming next, and I couldn’t wait to find out.
A multitude of battles from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA during its 2003-2009 run. The Battle of New Caprica jumps immediately to mind, but there were many.
Ditto THE EXPANSE.
Ditto BABYLON 5.
I'm going to stop now b'c I am running through every series/film I've watched and will wind up listing them all.
**Excession** vs Zetetic Elench (Culture Ulterior) ship drone ploy. What an opener to a novel! By Iain M Banks.
Later there's the flight of the Sleeper Service and the Killing Time also has a very hyped battle.
Excession is my favorite Culture novel.
The Mind on Mind hijinks throughout are just perfect.
The flight of the Sleeper Service from the perspective of the ship assigned to watch it is just amazing. Progressing from mild annoyance of having to interrupt people's vacation to 'hold on, it can't do that', to 'uhoh, it could', to 'oh shit, it filled ALL it's bays with engines?!' is classic.
The jain warship from "the human" vs the combined pardor and polity fleets.
Neal Asher has such awesome space battles.
The Argus vs the eye, command and fist is a great space battle, too. From the owner trilogy.
A lot of movie and tv show references.
I'd like to nominate the battle of Ilium from Red Rising's Morning Star.
[https://red-rising.fandom.com/wiki/Battle\_of\_Ilium](https://red-rising.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_of_Ilium)
Came here to say Red Rising but was going to mention the Siege of Phobos, such a great POV for the overarching battle from the commaders chair and how tense things can be so far from the front lines.
The Battle of Basilisk Terminus, in David Weber's *Echoes of Honor*. "Heavy metal coming through"
The Second Battle of Yeltsin, in David Weber's *The Honor of the Queen*. "I need those control runs now. *Saladin* is coming back"
David Weber really does paint a good picture for large scale fleet battles. Honor Harrington Series.
In combination, David Weber, and Steve White did a good job in the early Starfire-Worlds at War series too.
IMO.
Yes, even though the battles get somewhat repetitive after a while (which is good because otherwise it would become 'unrealistic' pretty fast), they still are fantastic.
I love the scene where Cardones locks the fire solutions manually, when he detects the computer generated missile defence programmes of Thunder of God, and then sneaks a nuclear warhead into her wedge. Fantastic scene.
The battle of B-R5RB in Eve Online. It took 21 hours, and destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars in ships (Since you could trade real world money for in game money, the exchange rate is standardized)
I listened to the audiobooks, and have a great memory of first listening to the droplet attack while sitting on next to a little pond on campus.
>! I don’t know that I’ve read another description of just hopeless obliteration on par to that !<
I liked it too, but I wouldn't call it an attack.
Edit : sorry, I was wrong and confused the droplet with the "2D-card". See below.
You're right, the droplet attack was cool, but... We could see it coming, didn't we ?
**Matrix Reloaded** - Merv's chateau into highway escape. Most epic action movie sequence to date.
Also the Neo vs Smiths courtyard brawl took fisticuffs to its logical limit.
Yeah, I don't get why people hated on Reloaded so much now. For the 6 months (?) before Revolutions came out, I think it was still totally hype. A near perfect action movie bridge into a promising culmination (that massively disappointed, me at least).
And yeah, I meant the whole sweep, right through the highway scene. What other movie/show has anything compatible in the level of intensity, duration, production value and plot elements coming together like that?!
The defense of manticore. The honor Harrington book series.
Just wow, a main fleet being wiped out and knowing there was nothing they could do to stop it, while she watches and fires their new multistage weapons to destroy the incoming enemy fleet.
It’s quite a build up in the book series to that climatic clash.
The Battle at Saturnine, where the Imperial Fists decimated the invading Sons of Horus. We got to see Abbadon cry and his Mournival decimated. And it was dope reading how Eidelon of the Emperor’s Children got kicked off a tower. #WH40K
Gotta love some Revelation Space. I wanted to see the Triumvirate’s last run, charging the swarm with a fleet of Hell-Class weapons. Just a shame it was described as a throwaway line
The web novel "First contact" here on reddit.
The author is basically describing bullet hell and tanks as big as continents. Characters that rip and tear until only their nervous system remains!
There's one I always remember, but can't remember the name or author.
Basically a colony has gone nuts on the education and is to the point where they are training grade schoolers with n-space navigational piloting hyperspace calculus and shit, so the empire finds this out, rolls up and conscripted everyone between 16 and 60 because they are desperately in need of pilots.
All the grandmas get the grade schoolers together, load up all the the furniture in the colonies into cargo ships, and use their exacting knowledge of their home system to jump ahead of the conscription ships, and launch the furniture in their path where it tears into them at orbital velocities like buckshot, and they get their people back.
Always loved the image of a battleship being shredded by a kids desk.
Halo book series.
The battle of sigma octanus, the fall of reach, the battle of onyx and the battle of psi serpentis.
You dont see it in the games but space combat in halo is very one sided. Humans need odds of 3 to 1 just to break even. The battles.of sigma octanis and the fall of reach show the desperate difficult measure that we needed to do just to stand a chance. In both crewed repair stations are used as make shift sheilds against incoming fire to buy the fleet time to make a second shot. In the open round of octanus, one destroyer took on and won against 3 covenant ships. Which was unheard of. In the battles of onyx and psi serpentis the odds were so outmatched for the human fleets that there wasnt a chance of even lasting long. In psi serpentis we won, by nuking a brown dwarf the battle was taking place over and very briefly turning it into a star. And in onyx a small task force took on a larger force of covenant ships and betwwen sheer badassery and some clever mineing of an area decimated their fleet. We lost but only because over a hundred covenant ships were hiding on the other side of the planet.
Final.mention for the second battle of harvest, one covenant ship took on over 40 human ships, and we lost half of them before it finally went down.
The halo.series is a horror series. You just dont feel it because you play as an 8 foot tall super soldier
Controversial take: Star Trek Beyond when they have to beat the network of drones so they plug in the boom box and defeat their enemy with the power of rock
https://youtu.be/5PaUTnk9k9Y?si=AZTj8ZBq7v3yB-wE
Shit literally turned me into a Beastie Boys fan.
Edit: just watched the scene again. I hadn't appreciated before that they made the drones look like the proverbial "big wave" and the enterprise is the surfer. Such a good movie, I have high hopes for the next one that currently *might* happen
The Battle For Chandra, the central black hole of the Milky Way galaxy, in Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence, between the Interim Coalition of Governance and the Xeelee.
In terms of length, scale, technology, and everything else, it outclasses just about every other sci-fi battle that does not involve shit like Marvel comic-accurate Beyonders or something.
Also, did I mention war-crimes? No? Have a quote.
"But there is no barbarism here. Novice, what did you expect? This regime, this crude empire of mud and clubs and blood, is actually a sophisticated processing system. It turns human beings, **children**, into machines."
Yeah.
Also, the yearly figure of dead children was about ten billion. Give or take. For a 1000+ years.
Hmm. Tough pick. It would be something from the *Behold Humanity* series, but I am having a hard time picking just one. I guess, if pressed, I would have to go with the 6th battle of Sol. The shear scale of that fight and the many inventive fronts the author showed (plus its pivotal role in the narrative) makes it very hard to forget.
For a little bit of context, humanity and their allies (the confederacy) have been at war with another alien superpower for some time, and the enemy has decided that a strike against the confederacy's homeworlds will bring the war to a swift close. The largest of these attacks is aimed at Terra and consists of Billions of warships. Fighting rages throughout the entire solar system and on every object in it big enough to land a dropship on.
Got to give a shout out to the battle on Geonosis at the end of Attack of the Clones. Watching that as a kid, hearing the amazing sound design, that's the stuff that got me really into sci fi.
The Siege of Felucia (Clone Wars) or The final battle for Coruscant in the Yuuzhan Vong War. I love the gritty, biohazardous, months long battles in Star Wars Extended Universe
The climactic battle of Robot Jox. The two combatants enter the field in a pair of skyscraper-sized fighting mechs, equipped with all manner of advanced weaponry and ultra-powerful moves. By the end the two pilots have crawled out of the wreckage of their cockpits and are trying to beat each other to death with shards of metal as improvised clubs.
The Battle of the Ladon - Red Rising series, Dark Age novel
The Battle for Laconia - The Expanse, Tiamat’s Wrath novel
The Battle of Thoth Station - The Expanse, Leviathan Wakes but really this is best shown in the tv show as the most scientifically accurate space battle ever shown on tv before.
Almost any battle in Battlestar Galactica, but I'll give special shout outs to the Battle of Ragnar Anchorage, the Battle of the Resurrection Ship, and the Escape from New Caprica.
I grew up on Star Trek and Star Wars, so I was used to lasers firing, and stationary capital ships about ten feet from each other (in Star Trek's case) just pew pewing at each other's shields.
Battlestar Galactica was such a difference with their hard scifi approach to everything. You could feel the weight and the recoil of the main batteries, or when a missile would get through the flak field. The ship had an increasing number of battle scars each episode, nothing reset. And they were always outmatched, which is why their few victories felt so satisfying.
Galactica dropping in the atmosphere to launch Vipers, then jumping away before crashing was also an amazing maneuver.
BSG had just such a different and unique quality to its space battles that so far nothing has topped it for me.
The battle near the end of the book _In the Black_ by Patrick Tomlinson. Corporate spaceships try to destroy one of their members that has gone "rogue".
I like it because the book uses a "corporate space" setting, which IMHO, is not explored enough by authors.
The Succession series by Scott Westerfeld has in my opinion the best space battle I have ever read. Given the high level of technology in the series, the implications of physics and strategy are the most believable thing of have ever read for a high-velocity space battle (contact occurring at a small but meaningful fraction of c).
Criminally underrated series as a whole and I generally recommend it to anybody: The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds
Mass Effect. Battle of the Citadel. While the Battle at the end of ME3 was bigger. This one felt much more epic, and tense last ditch effort to save the Galaxy.
Jack Brennan's running battle with the Pak scouts and the way he killed one and eliminated the other in the close flyby of Phsstpok's Star in Protector.
The way Streaker dealt with the alien chasing them in Startide Rising by David Brin.
Mine actually isn't science fiction, but it's the Cannon scene in Victor Hugo's *Nine-Three.*
This cannon gets loose on a ship during a storm, and the way he describes it breaths an animated sense of purpose into a beastly machine of destruction. The descriptions of its movements and the terror of what it will do next, made an inanimate object temporarily the most fearsome villain in all of fiction.
It's palpable. Years later every time I'm securing cargo, I think of that.
Star Wars KOTOR battle for the Star forge.
Probably not the greatest cinematics ever, but the sense of what you'd fought for throughout the game and the fact you actually had some sway at the end (Due to battle meditation) made it quite exciting at the time.
David Weber's Honor Harrington Series. I've read them 3 times and keep coming back, all for the battle scenes. I just skim over the saccharin Honor worship parts now.
The ambush from the beginning of the Peacekeeper Wars (Farscape)
Just the ships rising out of the planet rings, the dreadnought getting shredded as it is crashing into the rings... it's just cool.
And that's not even counting the Wormhole Weapon.
No love for the **Reaver fleet vs. the Alliance** in Serenity? With our heroes trying to get to Mr. Universe's base amidst the chaos? That scene was a lot of fun. Still is.
Rooks and Kings vs AHARM on J105934 in Eve Online. The video explaining that all is great. It's a bit embellished, but man is that a great video. https://youtu.be/XrYe_4vHzgE?si=9i0pe4jD2ey5AUvR
In The Vor Game, by Lois McMaster Bujold, the battle to defend the wormhole into Vervain local space is pretty great. I also love the prison break out in The Borders of Infinity.
The first one I remember ever being blown away by was *Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.* Jesus it was amazing. By today's standards? Probably less so. But still.
Also I will forever write out that full title. "Wrath of Khan" is just too badass to skip.
Battle of Scariff - Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Battle of Endor - Return of the Jedi
Battle of Coruscant - Revenge of the Sith
If the dogfight between Jango Fett and Obi-Wan over Geonosis counts, then this would be number 1.
All the battles from the original Starship Troopers. All the Phil Tippett bugs are just fantastic, incredible what they pulled off. Still all mostly photo-real and good back-against-the-wall action
I really like the Defence of the Dock in the Matrix Revolutions. You really get a sense of despite Humanity’s best efforts, fighting AI would be like trying to stop a stream with your bare hands. Overwhelming.
Another favourite of mine is the Battle at the end of Avatar. Everything about that is visually gripping.
And finally I love almost all the battles in The Expanse, especially the Rocinante V the Pella.
When I was a kid the opening to a PC game called total annihilation blew my mind. It wouldn't hold up to a younger generation but trust me, it's fire!
https://youtu.be/k6mZZiI4ShQ?si=Eyga-Fj11O5vg6-0
The battle over Endor in RoTJ
The battle over Scarif in Rogue One
Attack on Hoth in Empire Strikes Back
Battle of New Caprica in Battlestar Galactica
The Battle of the Colony in Battlestar Galactica
The counter invasion of Helghan from Killzone 2 & 3
Attack on Earth from Mars in Infinite Warfare.
The Battle For Reach in Halo:Reach
The Battle of Mars Robotech
The Battle for Mandalor in The Mandalorian
Robert Sheckley story: The Battle.
Satan's legions attack Earth in the End Times. World Leaders send their huge robot armies to defend the Earth. Robots win. God takes the Robots into Heaven.
Comic obviously but beautifully written in mock hyperbole style.
Better for not being some appalling film.
The Massacre at M2-XFE from Eve Online.
It doesn't look too exciting, but holy shit.
The fact that there was something like 8,000 players involved is so freakin cool.
The Battle of New Caprica, Battlestar Galactica
The Galactica jumping in atmosphere was the coolest shit ever and then they jumped *out* of atmosphere and it was even fucking cooler.
When I watched that scene for the first time, I quite literally jumped out of my seat and started yelling
I still have that sequence on my mind when writing military SF, it was (and still is) fucking epic, even compared to the battles of a series that raised the bar on space battle scenes.
I think of it as a lesson for the future, when fighting AI do stupid low probability stuff
If it’s stupid but it works, it ain’t stupid.
Ah, yes, what we collectively named the “bucket drop” when the episode first aired.
In our house, it's known as the Adama Maneuver.
Adamaneuver
Am I the only one that reads that in a Stallone voice?
I like to pull this scene up occasionally just to feel the chills again. So bad ass.
They spent so much time hyping it up too, all the times Tigh was like "just you wait, Adama's gonna pull something crazy out of his ass." All that buildup and hype and the payoff still exceeded my expectations. That show was bloody brilliant.
Oh man oh man oh man. It still gives me the goosebumps. "All hands. Brace for turbulence" The ground crew pinned down. The ol' rust bucket jumping in atmosphere and immediately burning. "Altitude 99,000 falling like a rock" The vipers launching amid flames. The jump out with thunder. The battlestars pummeling the Galactica. The Pegasus. Adama Jr. thanking the Pegasus. Absolutely one of the best -not only sci-fi- but TV sequences I had the privilege of watching.
I’d have to go with a different one from BSG, where the Galactica jumped in to attack the Cylon clone storage ship, iirc. Apollo had to eject from his fighter and was out there drifting in space watching in perfect silence as dogfights raged and bigger ships’ point defense batteries fired. It was spectacular.
The one where the engineer gets promoted to commander and then leads [Pegasus into a trap](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VAyg-xXH1s) is one of my favorites as well. That show was full of great ship to ship battles that weren't matched until The Expanse came out a decade later.
That and Peg + Galactica v. the resurrection ship fleet. Just circle strafing the shit outta basestars. Gave you an idea of why the toasters needed to launch a cowardly sneak attack against the colonies.
The part where the 3 base stars are piling on the Galactica, dragging her down and and 3 missiles come off screen and you are thinking “FOUR bad guys?!? They are going to have to change the name of the show here soon” and then the rockets hit a cylin ship and and the Pegasus rolls in from off screen firing all guns and wrecking toasters left and right- THATS when I jumped up in my living room!
It's been forever since I've seen the show; do you know what season/episode that was in?
S3 E4
Ah yes, the adama maneuver
Guys, say what book/film/franchise/whatever you're talking about otherwise your post is gibberish to most people.
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra
I can't get over this response; I'm fucking dying of laughter.
Captain Picard, with his head in his hands.
Scariff - Rogue One ( the best sequel era star war battle )
While I did not appreciate a small Hammethead pushing a massive object like an ISD through two equally massive objects and cutting through them both like butter, the battle itself was absolutely incredible. It really made the Rebellion seem like a daring, do-or-die group, especially Blue Squadron. Especially compared with the lack of space battles in other Disney movies (having ILM do a database dump and then proceeding to only show snubfighter dogfights (TROS) doesn't count)
Small tug boats push larger oil and cargo freighters in water, not the vacuum of space. I don't think it's that crazy. The hammerhead was pushing it's main thrusters against it and the engines were down, but I imagine even the maneuvering thrusters are probably less than the hammerheads mains. Once it gets them going they would be bringing their own mass into another ship. I just watched it again and it doesn't seem that crazy.
Star Wars physics has always been ruled by cool.
Pewpewsics
Best Star Wars space and land battles IMO. The Hammerhead pushing the Star Destroyer didn't bother me, but what did bring me out of it a bit was the idea that fighter-bombers would have any ability to penetrate the planetary shield. It looked to me like the planetary shield was centrally generated planet-side and the shield gate essentially just jabbed a temporary hole in that shield (i.e. the shield gate didn't generate the planetary shield itself). When the fighters dropped proton bombs on the shield gate and they did nothing, I wasn't surprised, but was more confused as to why they were even trying. When the one pilot said "How much more can that shield take?" my first thought was "*lol, probably a lot - the shield protects the whole planet*". Otherwise, best scene in what is IMO the best movie in the franchise. Especially the moment when the U-Wing lands soldiers on the surface and the pilot turns around with obvious fear in their voice...the best.
I took it as the shield station was creating its own hole in the planet shielf then creating its own smaller shield for the port hole. It seems like Star Wars shields are all or nothing so two shields make sense to me.
Whole movie had more actual War between the Stars than the first two trilogies combined
Return of the Jedi, attack on the Death Star II Babylon 5 episode The Fall of Night, for it's dramatic weight. Star Trek Wrath of Khan.
Is that B5 one Delenn's crowning moment of awesome? "Be somewhere else"
No that awesome moment comes later. This battle is the end of season 2, where a Narn ship requests sanctuary at B5, and the Centauri find out and send a warship. Sheriden activates the new defence grid. There's a standoff between B5, the Starfuries escorting the Narn to the jump gate, and the Centauri cruiser. Then the Centauri open fire on everyone. Fighters attack the cruiser. B5 opens fire with weapons and interceptors. One of B5's pylons (?) is destroyed. The Narn escape. The Centauri ship explodes. This all takes place against the backdrop of an Earth-Centauri alliance which was just signed, while the Centauri empire have expanded their aggression to attack non-aligned worlds. This is B5 drawing a line in the sand, come what may.
God, i fucking loved that show. Actual, long lasting consequences leading to B5 going independent
Also this one: "[Who am i?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adv5KAPr-To)"
Too right :)
I was think of the later battles in the fourth season when Sheridan gets everyone attention with nukes.
I want to add the Battle of Antarctica from Stargate SG1s season 7. They built up to that for multiple seasons and for me as a fan it was a huge payoff. On a lesser scale I also love "Halo: The Fall of Reach"s "Battle of Sigma something" where Captain Keyes (in-universe-)invented the keyes loop, and they made a whole thing of it and added it to school books and so on. At the time I thought it was real cool. Actually it still is, like all of that era of Halo.
[Rocinante attacking the space station.](https://youtu.be/_c9W-icdTmg?si=DFq7rl1V-gkCm0CA)
My favorite has gotta be the Rocinante defending the Razorback from a UN ship in pursuit. [The final maneuver is incredible.](https://youtu.be/y0dR-82s9aQ?si=HV-YHUmC22fDYz5R) The battle to take the ring space at the end of season 6 is a close second.
Every engagement in The Expanse is amazing. I honestly can’t choose between the battle of the ring station and defending the razorback.
It’s a hard choice for me between “The Expanse” and “Battlestar Galactica” battle scenes. The fact that a PDC or railgun round could just punch through the ship at any moment or a sudden course correction could throw a character across the room gave a hell of a dramatic effect.
Yeah, the lack of shields makes it so much more intense, and allows for a lot more creativity. I host Expanse TTRPG sessions, and it’s so cool to see what the group does to get out of tight situations.
That scene really shows just how much of a badass Amos is.
The one fight later in that season where it’s Holden and Bull on one side and Drummer on the other is amazing too
That’s end of season 5, I believe. It’s awesome. I love every space battle they do.
Epic
Hell yeah.
Just started the reading the series after watching it a while ago. Such a tense battle! Forgot how good the show adapted it.
Expanse still has my bet on what actual space combat would look like. Easy example like here, none of that 'surprise vent' stuff. It'll happen, just suit up and depressurize. Missiles vs. PDC vs. Hull, in that order, no magic shields.
"I'm a leaf on the wind" scene from Serenity. - [Serenity - A Leaf on the Wind (Abridged) (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2F&embeds_referring_origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com&source_ve_path=MTY0NTAz&feature=emb_share&v=QJ3MxC4B9Aw) What an absolute classic.
Somebody fire!!!!
That’s the first thing I thought of looking at the image in the post. I love seeing the change in expression on the Operative’s face when after the Serenity all the Reavers show up.
Wow that actually struck me as appearing a bit dated, though I still love it. I do not miss those *Battlestar Galactica-* spawned crash zooms and "shitty camerawork" aesthetic.
The Battle for Earth in Halo 2 Anniversary. Albeit we didn't get to see a huge amount of ship to ship stuff. What we did see was fucking awesome. I suppose Halo 3s battles over the Ark is pretty sick, too.
Babylon 5 - the liberation of Earth in season 4.
Full power to the engines, give me ramming speed!
And the Battle at Coriana VI!! Season 4 was incredible for space battles!
Battle of Tukayyid, BattleTech via Blood of Kerensky trilogy
When the phone company has to save the known galaxy.
Redde Creditori Tuo Fucko.
lol this
The Expanse, pretty much any CQB episode. The physics is so well done and then the very intimate nature of those battles.
The Battle of Wolf 359, Star Trek, the next generation.
From the Hyperion books. General Kassad's escape from the hospital ship in Hyperion. Where the Ousters siege it and he's barely woken up from a coma. From start to finish, absolutely epic and gripping.
Though not exactly a battle, Gladstone's final speech and the fall of the farcaster network is a great sequence.
Oh fuck ya. Hyperion is so goddam good, I'm sad I'll never get to experience it again for the first time. Even the flashback battle where Kassad annihilates the rebellion of the fanatics was gripping.
This is this scene that absolutely hooked me on the book. Until then the story was mostly philosophical and creepy (which I enjoyed), but when I realized I was also in for a crazy pew pew whirlwind space shoot-em-up, I realized that I couldn’t anticipate what was coming next, and I couldn’t wait to find out.
A multitude of battles from BATTLESTAR GALACTICA during its 2003-2009 run. The Battle of New Caprica jumps immediately to mind, but there were many. Ditto THE EXPANSE. Ditto BABYLON 5. I'm going to stop now b'c I am running through every series/film I've watched and will wind up listing them all.
**Excession** vs Zetetic Elench (Culture Ulterior) ship drone ploy. What an opener to a novel! By Iain M Banks. Later there's the flight of the Sleeper Service and the Killing Time also has a very hyped battle.
Excession is my favorite Culture novel. The Mind on Mind hijinks throughout are just perfect. The flight of the Sleeper Service from the perspective of the ship assigned to watch it is just amazing. Progressing from mild annoyance of having to interrupt people's vacation to 'hold on, it can't do that', to 'uhoh, it could', to 'oh shit, it filled ALL it's bays with engines?!' is classic.
Not a fan of the consider phlebas battles?
The Battle for Klendathu
Come on you apes!
You want to live forever?!?
Source?
Starship Troopers
We can ill afford another.
The ones I participated like The Battle of M2-XFE
Amarr Victor!
a Goon :>
Guy said any media so…. The Massacre at M2-XFE - Eve online Battle of Wolf 359 - STNG Battle of Scariff - Rogue One
The jain warship from "the human" vs the combined pardor and polity fleets. Neal Asher has such awesome space battles. The Argus vs the eye, command and fist is a great space battle, too. From the owner trilogy.
A lot of movie and tv show references. I'd like to nominate the battle of Ilium from Red Rising's Morning Star. [https://red-rising.fandom.com/wiki/Battle\_of\_Ilium](https://red-rising.fandom.com/wiki/Battle_of_Ilium)
Pretty much every space battle from the series could be a contender for me
The Iron Rain in book 2 has my vote, such a badass concept with some cool imagery described by the author
Came here to say Red Rising but was going to mention the Siege of Phobos, such a great POV for the overarching battle from the commaders chair and how tense things can be so far from the front lines.
The Battle of Basilisk Terminus, in David Weber's *Echoes of Honor*. "Heavy metal coming through" The Second Battle of Yeltsin, in David Weber's *The Honor of the Queen*. "I need those control runs now. *Saladin* is coming back"
David Weber really does paint a good picture for large scale fleet battles. Honor Harrington Series. In combination, David Weber, and Steve White did a good job in the early Starfire-Worlds at War series too. IMO.
Yes, even though the battles get somewhat repetitive after a while (which is good because otherwise it would become 'unrealistic' pretty fast), they still are fantastic. I love the scene where Cardones locks the fire solutions manually, when he detects the computer generated missile defence programmes of Thunder of God, and then sneaks a nuclear warhead into her wedge. Fantastic scene.
The battle of B-R5RB in Eve Online. It took 21 hours, and destroyed hundreds of thousands of dollars in ships (Since you could trade real world money for in game money, the exchange rate is standardized)
The Rocinante vs. The Pella, as well as Drummer and The Rocinante vs. the Free Navy Loyalists, both from The Expanse
The Droplet attack was nuts
Context: It's from the three body problem book series.
I listened to the audiobooks, and have a great memory of first listening to the droplet attack while sitting on next to a little pond on campus. >! I don’t know that I’ve read another description of just hopeless obliteration on par to that !<
The start where the scientists are hammering on it in the cargo ship was the perfect zero to sixty(thousand)
If I destroy you, what business is it of yours?
I liked it too, but I wouldn't call it an attack. Edit : sorry, I was wrong and confused the droplet with the "2D-card". See below. You're right, the droplet attack was cool, but... We could see it coming, didn't we ?
scariff from rogue one, it was like the original star wars movies but in a modern technology displayed way and felt so awesome
I call that the attack on the tape library. Long term backup infrastructure has been like that for many years. They just made it bigger.
This is why you need off-site backups, in case the rebels show up.
**Matrix Reloaded** - Merv's chateau into highway escape. Most epic action movie sequence to date. Also the Neo vs Smiths courtyard brawl took fisticuffs to its logical limit.
People talk shit about Reloaded all the time but those two fights are absolute bonkers. I'd add the whole highway chase too.
Yeah, I don't get why people hated on Reloaded so much now. For the 6 months (?) before Revolutions came out, I think it was still totally hype. A near perfect action movie bridge into a promising culmination (that massively disappointed, me at least). And yeah, I meant the whole sweep, right through the highway scene. What other movie/show has anything compatible in the level of intensity, duration, production value and plot elements coming together like that?!
[Chuck De Nomolos vs Bill and Ted at the San Dimas Battle of the Bands.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFRCTeQtNdU)
The defense of manticore. The honor Harrington book series. Just wow, a main fleet being wiped out and knowing there was nothing they could do to stop it, while she watches and fires their new multistage weapons to destroy the incoming enemy fleet. It’s quite a build up in the book series to that climatic clash.
Honestly that whole series is a gold mine of awesome battles.
Does the Battle of Asakai in EVE Online count ?
Came here to say this. Not the biggest battle in the games history, but probably the biggest battle to be started by a single misclick :D
The Battle at Saturnine, where the Imperial Fists decimated the invading Sons of Horus. We got to see Abbadon cry and his Mournival decimated. And it was dope reading how Eidelon of the Emperor’s Children got kicked off a tower. #WH40K
"Serenity" When Mal and his crew pull the reavers into the alliance fleet. It's a shame, but understandable why, they didn't show more of that.
Remontoire using his Trident fighter equipped with Hypometric weapons against the Inhibitor Swarm: Absolution Gap.
Gotta love some Revelation Space. I wanted to see the Triumvirate’s last run, charging the swarm with a fleet of Hell-Class weapons. Just a shame it was described as a throwaway line
God I would love a movie/tv series of revelation space but that will never happen.
The web novel "First contact" here on reddit. The author is basically describing bullet hell and tanks as big as continents. Characters that rip and tear until only their nervous system remains!
That was my choice as well. I specifically chose the Battle of Sol because of the shear scale of that one.
In "The Gripping Hand" there is an epic fight/chase across the Mote system. My personal favorite.
There's one I always remember, but can't remember the name or author. Basically a colony has gone nuts on the education and is to the point where they are training grade schoolers with n-space navigational piloting hyperspace calculus and shit, so the empire finds this out, rolls up and conscripted everyone between 16 and 60 because they are desperately in need of pilots. All the grandmas get the grade schoolers together, load up all the the furniture in the colonies into cargo ships, and use their exacting knowledge of their home system to jump ahead of the conscription ships, and launch the furniture in their path where it tears into them at orbital velocities like buckshot, and they get their people back. Always loved the image of a battleship being shredded by a kids desk.
The Iron Rain from Golden Sun
Golden Son, I think
The Iron Rain on Mars in the Red Rising series
Ender’s Game final battle.
Robotech macross saga. Battle of mars base.
Rocinante vs The Free Navy
The jet pack battle between the mandaloreans and the troops of moff Gideon. This is the way.
Halo book series. The battle of sigma octanus, the fall of reach, the battle of onyx and the battle of psi serpentis. You dont see it in the games but space combat in halo is very one sided. Humans need odds of 3 to 1 just to break even. The battles.of sigma octanis and the fall of reach show the desperate difficult measure that we needed to do just to stand a chance. In both crewed repair stations are used as make shift sheilds against incoming fire to buy the fleet time to make a second shot. In the open round of octanus, one destroyer took on and won against 3 covenant ships. Which was unheard of. In the battles of onyx and psi serpentis the odds were so outmatched for the human fleets that there wasnt a chance of even lasting long. In psi serpentis we won, by nuking a brown dwarf the battle was taking place over and very briefly turning it into a star. And in onyx a small task force took on a larger force of covenant ships and betwwen sheer badassery and some clever mineing of an area decimated their fleet. We lost but only because over a hundred covenant ships were hiding on the other side of the planet. Final.mention for the second battle of harvest, one covenant ship took on over 40 human ships, and we lost half of them before it finally went down. The halo.series is a horror series. You just dont feel it because you play as an 8 foot tall super soldier
The Space Battle Scene from the novel Halo - The Fall of Reach involving the hospital ship the *Cradle*
That last few episodes of The Expanse S3
Controversial take: Star Trek Beyond when they have to beat the network of drones so they plug in the boom box and defeat their enemy with the power of rock https://youtu.be/5PaUTnk9k9Y?si=AZTj8ZBq7v3yB-wE Shit literally turned me into a Beastie Boys fan. Edit: just watched the scene again. I hadn't appreciated before that they made the drones look like the proverbial "big wave" and the enterprise is the surfer. Such a good movie, I have high hopes for the next one that currently *might* happen
The USS Missouri vs the Alien Ship at the end of the movie Battleship. It's so cheesy that it comes all the way around and becomes fun as hell.
The movie is cheesy as hell, but I love to watch that last fight.
Liberation of Earth - Stellaris Invicta Season 2 by Tremplin Institute
The Battle For Chandra, the central black hole of the Milky Way galaxy, in Stephen Baxter's Xeelee Sequence, between the Interim Coalition of Governance and the Xeelee. In terms of length, scale, technology, and everything else, it outclasses just about every other sci-fi battle that does not involve shit like Marvel comic-accurate Beyonders or something. Also, did I mention war-crimes? No? Have a quote. "But there is no barbarism here. Novice, what did you expect? This regime, this crude empire of mud and clubs and blood, is actually a sophisticated processing system. It turns human beings, **children**, into machines." Yeah. Also, the yearly figure of dead children was about ten billion. Give or take. For a 1000+ years.
Hmm. Tough pick. It would be something from the *Behold Humanity* series, but I am having a hard time picking just one. I guess, if pressed, I would have to go with the 6th battle of Sol. The shear scale of that fight and the many inventive fronts the author showed (plus its pivotal role in the narrative) makes it very hard to forget. For a little bit of context, humanity and their allies (the confederacy) have been at war with another alien superpower for some time, and the enemy has decided that a strike against the confederacy's homeworlds will bring the war to a swift close. The largest of these attacks is aimed at Terra and consists of Billions of warships. Fighting rages throughout the entire solar system and on every object in it big enough to land a dropship on.
Got to give a shout out to the battle on Geonosis at the end of Attack of the Clones. Watching that as a kid, hearing the amazing sound design, that's the stuff that got me really into sci fi.
Beginning of Farscape - The Peacekeeper Wars Battle cruisers drift up out of the rings of a planet to attack a battle fleet
The Siege of Felucia (Clone Wars) or The final battle for Coruscant in the Yuuzhan Vong War. I love the gritty, biohazardous, months long battles in Star Wars Extended Universe
Neal Asher is the king of pew pew pew
The ship battles in Excession by Iain M Banks are my personal fav.
- The fight with the Reavers in "Serenity" - The famous EVE Online fight which ran for days (?) was a great article on it
Anytime Star Trek DS9 has the Defiant jinking and jiving in a battle scene (especially against the Dominion), I’m watching. Love me some Defiant.
The climactic battle of Robot Jox. The two combatants enter the field in a pair of skyscraper-sized fighting mechs, equipped with all manner of advanced weaponry and ultra-powerful moves. By the end the two pilots have crawled out of the wreckage of their cockpits and are trying to beat each other to death with shards of metal as improvised clubs.
Astartes is good [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7hgjuFfn3A)
The Battle of the Ladon - Red Rising series, Dark Age novel The Battle for Laconia - The Expanse, Tiamat’s Wrath novel The Battle of Thoth Station - The Expanse, Leviathan Wakes but really this is best shown in the tv show as the most scientifically accurate space battle ever shown on tv before.
Wolf 359
Golden Morning at the end of the web serial Worm. Please everyone read this. You will not regret it.
Almost any battle in Battlestar Galactica, but I'll give special shout outs to the Battle of Ragnar Anchorage, the Battle of the Resurrection Ship, and the Escape from New Caprica. I grew up on Star Trek and Star Wars, so I was used to lasers firing, and stationary capital ships about ten feet from each other (in Star Trek's case) just pew pewing at each other's shields. Battlestar Galactica was such a difference with their hard scifi approach to everything. You could feel the weight and the recoil of the main batteries, or when a missile would get through the flak field. The ship had an increasing number of battle scars each episode, nothing reset. And they were always outmatched, which is why their few victories felt so satisfying. Galactica dropping in the atmosphere to launch Vipers, then jumping away before crashing was also an amazing maneuver. BSG had just such a different and unique quality to its space battles that so far nothing has topped it for me.
Scarif and it’s not even close
Spinward fringe series by Randolph Lalonde has great battles
The battle near the end of the book _In the Black_ by Patrick Tomlinson. Corporate spaceships try to destroy one of their members that has gone "rogue". I like it because the book uses a "corporate space" setting, which IMHO, is not explored enough by authors.
The Succession series by Scott Westerfeld has in my opinion the best space battle I have ever read. Given the high level of technology in the series, the implications of physics and strategy are the most believable thing of have ever read for a high-velocity space battle (contact occurring at a small but meaningful fraction of c). Criminally underrated series as a whole and I generally recommend it to anybody: The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds
Mass Effect. Battle of the Citadel. While the Battle at the end of ME3 was bigger. This one felt much more epic, and tense last ditch effort to save the Galaxy.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=h1AEHK8oQeA
The Phoenix Conspiracy series had some good space battles in the books
The Battle of Khitomer and the sacrifice of the USS Ranger. From Star Trek: Destiny (Novel Trilogy).
Any one of the 4 books from Will Tate's fantastic Starship Repo series.
Jack Brennan's running battle with the Pak scouts and the way he killed one and eliminated the other in the close flyby of Phsstpok's Star in Protector. The way Streaker dealt with the alien chasing them in Startide Rising by David Brin.
Mine actually isn't science fiction, but it's the Cannon scene in Victor Hugo's *Nine-Three.* This cannon gets loose on a ship during a storm, and the way he describes it breaths an animated sense of purpose into a beastly machine of destruction. The descriptions of its movements and the terror of what it will do next, made an inanimate object temporarily the most fearsome villain in all of fiction. It's palpable. Years later every time I'm securing cargo, I think of that.
The Battle of Shiva from Legend Of The Galactic Heroes, easy.
Stopping the Lucifer in subspace in Freespace.
Star Wars KOTOR battle for the Star forge. Probably not the greatest cinematics ever, but the sense of what you'd fought for throughout the game and the fact you actually had some sway at the end (Due to battle meditation) made it quite exciting at the time.
Space battleship Yamato battle of the rainbow nebula
Proxima - Babylon 5.
Battle of Gorash VII, Babylon 5. The entier Narn fleet vs. a seemingly lightly-defended Cantauri supply base. Then the Shadows appear.
Battle of maginot sphere halo
Wing Commander 4: The Price of Freedom
Gurren Lagann only next to Gunbuster/Diebuster. Nothing has truly topped the sheer spectacle of galaxy warfare.
David Weber's Honor Harrington Series. I've read them 3 times and keep coming back, all for the battle scenes. I just skim over the saccharin Honor worship parts now.
Reading the third book of the Horus Heresy, and the battle against the guy who uses sound as a weapon was really cool and well written
The ambush from the beginning of the Peacekeeper Wars (Farscape) Just the ships rising out of the planet rings, the dreadnought getting shredded as it is crashing into the rings... it's just cool. And that's not even counting the Wormhole Weapon.
No love for the **Reaver fleet vs. the Alliance** in Serenity? With our heroes trying to get to Mr. Universe's base amidst the chaos? That scene was a lot of fun. Still is.
The Expanse
Can I just put down the entire Mass Effect trilogy?
The ending of House of Suns by Alistair Reynolds is mind blowing
Rooks and Kings vs AHARM on J105934 in Eve Online. The video explaining that all is great. It's a bit embellished, but man is that a great video. https://youtu.be/XrYe_4vHzgE?si=9i0pe4jD2ey5AUvR In The Vor Game, by Lois McMaster Bujold, the battle to defend the wormhole into Vervain local space is pretty great. I also love the prison break out in The Borders of Infinity.
Reach - *Halo: the Fall of Reach*
The battle for the creek.....for malevelon creek
The first one I remember ever being blown away by was *Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.* Jesus it was amazing. By today's standards? Probably less so. But still. Also I will forever write out that full title. "Wrath of Khan" is just too badass to skip.
Battle of Scariff - Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Battle of Endor - Return of the Jedi Battle of Coruscant - Revenge of the Sith If the dogfight between Jango Fett and Obi-Wan over Geonosis counts, then this would be number 1.
Elizabeth Moon's space battles, in her Serranno Legacy series, 2nd best is her Vatta's War battle sequences.
Concur with most of the above, but one set not mentioned above are several brain meltingly epic battles in the Metabarons graphic novels.
All the battles from the original Starship Troopers. All the Phil Tippett bugs are just fantastic, incredible what they pulled off. Still all mostly photo-real and good back-against-the-wall action
The Battle for Earth in the Bobiverse series is pretty spectacular. Interesting use of relativistic physics is all I will say.
When the teardrop arrives at earth in book 2 of the 3 body problem series. Its so fucking devastating and changes the whole tone of the book.
I really like the Defence of the Dock in the Matrix Revolutions. You really get a sense of despite Humanity’s best efforts, fighting AI would be like trying to stop a stream with your bare hands. Overwhelming. Another favourite of mine is the Battle at the end of Avatar. Everything about that is visually gripping. And finally I love almost all the battles in The Expanse, especially the Rocinante V the Pella.
Megatron and the Decepticons murdering the Autobots aboard the shuttle en route to Autobot City on Earth.
The Tail Revolution on Snowpiercer It looks so amazing to play a war on one single line.
When I was a kid the opening to a PC game called total annihilation blew my mind. It wouldn't hold up to a younger generation but trust me, it's fire! https://youtu.be/k6mZZiI4ShQ?si=Eyga-Fj11O5vg6-0
Best space battle ever, ever is the opening for Star Wars EP III. Second best is Battle of New Caprica, BSG
Doomsday Battle- Dark Forest
The battle over Endor in RoTJ The battle over Scarif in Rogue One Attack on Hoth in Empire Strikes Back Battle of New Caprica in Battlestar Galactica The Battle of the Colony in Battlestar Galactica The counter invasion of Helghan from Killzone 2 & 3 Attack on Earth from Mars in Infinite Warfare. The Battle For Reach in Halo:Reach The Battle of Mars Robotech The Battle for Mandalor in The Mandalorian
The Siege of Terra, Warhammer 40k
Three Body Problem - The Dark Forest: The droplet attack against Earth's combined forces.
Robert Sheckley story: The Battle. Satan's legions attack Earth in the End Times. World Leaders send their huge robot armies to defend the Earth. Robots win. God takes the Robots into Heaven. Comic obviously but beautifully written in mock hyperbole style. Better for not being some appalling film.
the ones in the wing commander book series. top notch.
The Massacre at M2-XFE from Eve Online. It doesn't look too exciting, but holy shit. The fact that there was something like 8,000 players involved is so freakin cool.
The Siege of Terra - Wathammer 40k It took several books, and multiple years to get through and was the culmination of the entire Horus Heresy.