Space battle

Space warfare has served as a central theme within the science-fiction genre. One can trace its roots back to classical times, and to the "future war" novels of the nineteenth century. An interplanetary, or more often an interstellar or intergalactic war has become a staple plot device in space operas. Space warfare has a predominant role in military science fiction but is not believed to be a realistic possibility because of the distances involved and the logistical impracticalities.

In his second-century satire True History, Lucian of Samosata depicts an imperial war between the king of the Sun and the king of the Moon over the right to colonise the Morning Star. It is the earliest known work of fiction to address the concept.

The first "future war" story was George T. Chesney's "The Battle of Dorking," a story about a British defeat after a German invasion of Britain, published in 1871 in Blackwood's Magazine. Many such stories were written prior to the outbreak of World War I. George Griffith's The Angel of the Revolution (1892) featured self-styled "Terrorists" armed with then-nonexistent arms and armour such as airships, submarines, and high explosives. The inclusion of yet-nonexistent technology became a standard part of the genre. Griffith's last "future war" story was The Lord of Labour, written in 1906 and published in 1911, which included such technology as disintegrator rays and missiles.

H. G. Wells' novel The War of the Worlds inspired many other writers to write stories of alien incursions and wars between Earth and other planets, and encouraged writers of "future war" fiction to employ wider settings than had been available for "naturalistic" fiction. Wells' several other "future war" stories included the atomic war novel The World Set Free (1914) and "The Land Ironclads," which featured a prophetic description of the tank, albeit of an unfeasibly large scale.

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