See the Whites of Their Eyes: Difference between revisions

** In [[The Culture]] series of sf novels by [[Iain Banks]], this trope is deliberately [[Subverted]] and [[Playing with a Trope|played with]] in that the titular Culture, one of the most progressive and advanced interstellar societies, totally avoids the use of ground combat and traditional soldiery, and instead prefers to go to war with starships that are essentially big engines with weapon nodules at both ends, and which are capable of causing stars hundreds of light years away to go nova.

*** This strongly informs the outcomes of several of the novels, especially the first, Consider Phlebas, due to the fact that aggressor societies tend to trip all over themselves in attempting to fight the Culture on conventional terms, using starships as methods of conveyance of troops towards Culture habitats, while the Culture merely evacuates their population to a safe distance and either commandeers or detonates the enemy ships on approach.

** Averted in Joe Haldeman's ''[[The Forever War]]''. The battles take place across entire star-systems at good fractions of light-speed (and even then it can take days or weeks for a single battle to finish), and while ships do have lasers for last-ditch defense, most of the action uses drones (big missiles), with a backup of 'fighters' (though these are probably closer to motor-torpedo boats in that they require 3 crew, and can fit up to 12).

** The ''[[Honor Harrington]]'' series averts this consistently and without mercy. Starship engagements take place almost entirely at ranges that need to have the commanders looking at the little glowing maps with little explosion icons popping up for a hit. Probably a byproduct of the fact that this [[Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale|sci-fi writer is trying to demonstrate he has a sense of scale just fine]], thanks.