Boarding Party: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

Going over to the other [[Cool Starship]] or [[Cool Boat]] in person, to capture it, rescue someone, etc.

 

 

 

Often a small shuttle is used for boarding. It's also possible to beam aboard via [[Teleporters and Transporters]] in some works.

 

[[History of Naval Warfare|Throughout history,]] and [[Naval Weapons|into current times]], this is [[Truth in Television]], particularly when dealing with maritime law enforcement agencies such as the US Coast Guard. [[Real Life]] versions can involve boats or helicopters.

 

== Anime and Manga ==

 

 

* The opening of the first ''[[Star Wars]]'' film.

* ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]'' has a classic maritime boarding by swinging rope, and a rather less conventional boarding: walking out to the ship in question.

* ''Captain Blood'' is an old pirate movie that featured rope-swinging boarding action.

* The Toralii in ''[[Lacuna]]'' tend to favour this style, even when everything seems to be going well for them in straight-out ship battles.

* Happens a few times in Bernard Cornwell's ''Saxon Chronicles''. Since the vessels in question are open longships, the resultant combat tends to be face to face and exceptionally brutal.

* The [[Star Wars Expanded Universe]] uses this with some frequency. However, more often than not, after a ship's engines have been hit and its communications destroyed, its crew doesn't put up much of a fight.

* ''The Tomorrow War'' by Alexander Zorich has both human factions doing this from the first book on. There's even a specialized assault craft. One of dirty tricks was disabling the target's [[Artificial Gravity]] early on so that proper [[Space Marine|marines]] get even greater advantage over a crew of recruits not even used to zero-gravity recoil.

== Live Action TV ==

 

* The Magog on ''[[Andromeda]]'' use Swarm Ships to punch holes in the attacked ship and swarm in.

** Babylon 5 was boarded by Earth troops invading via hull breach at the start of the Earth Alliance [[Civil War]].

** And they would be invaded via that tactic again by an unnamed alien race in "A View From The Gallery".

** The good guys use this tactic themselves to sneak aboard Babylon 4 in "War Without End".

* The [[Meaningful Name|Destiny]] was boarded by hostile aliens in ''[[Stargate Universe]]'' by cutting holes through the hull, which came into play later when the ship was overtaken by the Lucian Alliance.

* Thanks to their use of [[Teleporters and Transporters]], this should be a source of constant [[Paranoia Fuel]] in ''[[Star Trek]]'', where it is shown that transporters can drop enemy troops down right next to a target aboard another ship, be it a specific key system, or an important passenger or crew member (Captain Picard was [[Alien Abduction|abducted]] this way in "Best Of Both Worlds". Thankfully, it is shown to be relatively straightforward to shield against this tactic, assuming the enemy is unable to disable your shields in combat or via subterfuge.

 

* ''[[Star Ruler]]'' has "Boarding pods", which fire boarding pods at the enemy, allowing you to take over enemy ships if you have more soldiers than they have crew. The size of the boarding pod launcher in the ship designer determines how many soldiers are in it - it's possible to get boarding pods fitting over ten thousand soldiers.

* Players in ''[[X (video game)|X3: Terran Conflict]]'' can train marines to board enemy capital ships. The marines will do a space walk towards the targeted ship, and will cut open the hull if the shields are down. The player can also load the marines into a boarding pod and fire them at the ship like a missile, which accomplishes the same thing but makes it easier for them to cut into the hull and is less likely to result in them being gunned down in open space.

* ''[[Homeworld|Homeworld 2]]'' includes assault parties breaking into enemy ships via beaming and hull-breaching infiltrator pods.

* Being based on the ''Star Fleet Battles'' example below, ''[[Star Trek Starfleet Command]]'' had boarding parties that could destroy components or capture ships.

* All ships and stations in ''[[Star Trek Armada]]'' equipped with transporters can board the enemy as long as their shields are down. Klingons have a ship that can launch breaching pods that ignore shields. The Borg are especially adept at this, given their tendency to assimilate anything remotely useful. Assimilated ships show distinctly Borg-like characteristics (i.e. green lattice on the hull). The second game also adds a ship class specifically designed for ship capture. They fire their weapons until the target's shields are down and then immediately start transporting troops. Species 8472 can neither board nor be boarded, as all their ships have a crew of one.

* In ''[[Sword of the Stars]]'', ships equipped with boarding pods can attempt to capture enemy ships. This can get to the ridiculous extent that a single boarding pod that makes it through the point-defense fire can take over a ship full of thousands of crewmembers. The Zuul, being [[Planet Looters|scavengers]], are masters of this trope and get the technology for free when they gain access to cruisers, whereas other races must research it separately.

** Can be accomplished with [[Random Encounters]] in ''[[Buck Rogers]]: Countdown to Doomsday'' and its sequel, ''Matrix Cubed'' once an enemy ship has been disabled, either by destroying its control system or its engines. A variety of scenarios can take place once aboard the enemy ship, from the crew setting the self destruct for you to try to disable, to an ambush by a much larger ship, to the commander of the ship ordering the crew to kill all the prisoners if you get too close (which you can then rescue to help take over the ship.) Could also lead to [[Money for Nothing]] as the ships can be worth a ton of money for your salvage account, which is used for all ship repairs, plus whatever loot you get from battling the enemy crew.

** Happens again towards the end of ''Buck Rogers: Matrix Cubed'' when enemy forces take control of a living ship and begin assaulting the mining platform you are on. You are given the option of sending a single party member up to the ship to try to take it back. Better hope the random number generator is in a good mood.

** [[Halo: Combat Evolved]]'s first level involves fighting off hordes of covenant forces boarding your ship.

** [[Halo 2]]'s first level again involves fighting off multiple covenant boarding parties.

 

 

** ''Star Fleet Battles'' had rules for boarding parties, which could damage specific sections of or even capture enemy ships.

** The game ''Boarding Party'' had a team of humans blasting their way into an automated alien starship and fighting a crew of robots.

* ''[[Traveller]]'' has boarding parties as well. It is sometimes done to secure crippled ships.

* In the ''Lux Aeternum'' setting, boarding parties are the normal way to settle starship combat. Justified in that the control core of an FTL-capable starship is priceless, and a [[Beam Spam]] would probably destroy it.

* ''[[Dystopian Wars]]'' uses (too small to model at this scale) rocket-launched infantry to perform boarding actions, and they can launch from ships, landships or airships.

* ''[[Space Hulk]]'' and its [[Video Game]] derivatives (including ''Space Marine'') are all about this trope.

 

{{reflist}}