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Military Science Fiction is a subgenre of both Science Fiction and Military Fiction, commonly sliding into the Space Opera territory. At its most basic, Military Science Fiction is Science Fiction that focuses on the military, but the genre has more specific nuances than that.
The Protagonist in this genre is normally part of the chain of command (or becomes part of it in progress), while an ensemble cast is The Squad. The story is usually set against the backdrop of a large-scale (space) war but war is optional. The Science Fiction part mostly manifests in futuristic weaponry and vehicles (first of all, Cool Starships), while the organization structure is mostly based upon contemporary US or Commonwealth military.
Often, the writers would cheat a little by having a Mildly Military organization instead of realistic military for the sake of good story. One particular subgenre of MSF in Video Games is A Space Marine Is You. Another that's especially particular (but by no means exclusive) to anime is the Real Robot Genre.
- Albedo Erma Felna EDF
- Aliens
- All You Need Is Kill
- Antares by Michael McCollum
- Armor by John Steakley
- Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator
- AT 43
- The Aux series, by David Gunn.
- Babylon 5 had its fair share of various nasty conflicts
- Ball Lightning
- Battlestar Galactica (Classic)
- Battle Tech
- Battle Zone 1998 and Battlezone II
- Bolo series, originally by Keith Laumer
- The Childe Cycle by Gordon R. Dickson, notably Dorsai! and Tactics of Mistake.
- The CoDominium series is the best-known of Jerry Pournelle's works, but is hardly the only example of the exquisitely well-researched military SF he writes. His bibliography also includes the lesser-known but no-less loved Janissaries series, co-authored with Roland Green.
- The Command And Conquer Tiberian Series drifts in this direction, beginning Twenty Minutes In The Future and ending with all manner of sci-fi trappings. Especially in fic; double-especially in Tiberium Wars.
- Confederation Of Valor by Tanya Huff.
- The Contra series. At first it isn't assumed to have sci-fi elements, but the plot involves an alien invasion.
- Crusade, spinoff series to Babylon Five, and whose Troubled Production is the stuff of legends.
- David Drake does quite a bit of MilSF. Like with Ringo, below, he's also written in the Honor Harrington series (Drake's Honorverse short story "A Grand Tour" influenced what became the RCN series, with the dashing Captain and his librarian from Hell friend/sidekick as the primary focus). Notable Drake series (an incomplete listing):
- Dread Empires Fall Trilogy, by Walter Jon Williams.
- Dust Five One Four, a Gaiden Game of EVE Online whose backstory has capsuleer technology applied to Powered Armor instead of starships.
- Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
- Exo Squad
- Farscape
- First Encounter Assault Recon
- The Flight Engineer
- The Forever War
- Fracture
- The Gears Of War games, books, and comics.
- G.I. Joe.
- Gundam, pretty much every incarnation of it, except G Gundam and Gundam X
- The Halo games, books, comics, anime mini-series, etc.
- Hellburner by CJ Cherryh focuses on a moderately realistic Space Fighter and its crew.
- The Helmsman Saga.
- Iji
- Kris Longknife series, by Mike Shepherd
- Tom Kratman's MilSF works, in addition to his work in Legacy Of The Aldenata:
- The Lacuna series by David Adams is basically this.
- Legend of Galactic Heroes
- The Lensman series, by EE Doc Smith, is mostly about the adventures of individual Lensmen, but it also features major military actions involving enormous starship formations (usually laden with an overexuberant description of the scale of energies being hurled back-and-forth).
- The Lost Fleet series
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha Strikers, which takes the franchise's Gundam influences to its logical conlcusion as the title character grows up to become a captain in Mid-Childa's military.
- The Man Kzin Wars novels set in Larry Niven's Known Space.
- The Mass Effect series is a mixed bag: part one is pretty clear cut, with military regulations and chain of command playing a major role in the story. In part two, however, Shepard cuts all ties to the Alliance military and goes rogue with the Cerberus, who give their agents full autonomy and only care that the job gets done—the whole "military" aspect of sci-fi quietly leaves the room. In part three, Shepard is back with the Alliance but with the Reapers attacking the galaxy, s/he is left to run around unsupervised, only occasionally reporting back to Admiral Hackett, like s/he did to the Illusive Man in the previous game.
- The Mech Warrior series, set in the same universe as BattleTech.
- Metal Gear. The series involves rogue AIs, clones, as well as the titular walking tanks of the same name.
- Metal Slug. While the series doesn't start off as sci-fi, it becomes this in later sequels, which involve alien invasions and future soldiers.
- Metroid, occasionally. Samus is established as having been in the Galactic Federation Army, and Metroid Prime 2, Prime 3, and Other M feature GF soldiers and marines as characters.
- New Kashubia Series
- Old Mans War
- Red vs. Blue
- John Ringo's writing currently spans multiple genres, but he started his literary career writing Military Science Fiction. The MilSF works:
- Resident Evil
- Rogue Trooper
- Schlock Mercenary
- Sea Quest DSV
- Section 8 series
- Shadow Ops
- Sixth Column
- Soldier
- Space Above And Beyond
- Spots The Space Marine
- StarCraft
- Stargate Verse. Not surprising given its Backed by the Pentagon nature.
- Starship Troopers
- Starsiege, and its pre-/sequels.
- Star Carrier
- Star Trek drifts in and out of the subgenre; later entries in the franchise tend to make it more explicitly military, a tendency which its original creator violently opposed.
- Star Trek Online is very militaristic, so much so that it took fan outcry to get the developers to patch diplomatic solutions into missions.
- Star Wars, obviously.
- In the EU, the "mainline" series that fits best is Black Fleet Crisis, which is very much a Tom Clancy military/political thriller IN SPACE!
- There's also the "tangential" (that is, not featuring Han, Luke, or Leia as main characters) X Wing Series, following the life, career, campaigns, and relationships within the elite starfighter squadrons of the universe.
- In the Prequel Era, there's the Republic Commando Series series, following the lives of clone commandos during the Clone Wars.
- The Star Wars themed Star Wars Conquest Game Mod for Mount And Blade.
- Many of the class' stories in Star Wars The Old Republic count, from an spy infiltrating the enemy to a smuggler making a profit from the conflict. However, it's the Republic Trooper, an elite soldier in the Republic Army, that plays this trope the straightest.
- The Sten series, written by two men who are (respectively) ex-CIA and ex-military, craft a very cool saga about a Space Marine who eventually graduates into an Ambadassador.
- Stone King
- Takeshi Kovacs series, particularly Broken Angels
- The Tau Ceti Agenda Series, by Travis S. Taylor
- Time Crisis, especially the second game which involves trying to stop a Kill Sat.
- Tour Of The Merrimack, a series by R. M. Meluch
- Traveller RPG series. A large part of it has to do with the military aspects.
- Universal Soldier
- Warhammer 40000, and most of its spin-off literature, notably Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!.
- The War Against The Chtorr novels by David Gerrold.
- David Weber's work is primarily in this genre, though he has written pure fantasy works. The MilSF works:
- Wing Commander, particularly the novels by William Forstchen, and Wing Commander Academy.
- X Wing Series
- Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold, has many elements of this, though it varies from book to book.
- Timothy Zahn has played heavily in this field. In addition to his Star Wars Expanded Universe work (his biggest claim to fame in that field probably being The Thrawn Trilogy), he's done, among others, The Cobra Trilogy and The Conquerors Trilogy.
Special mention must be made of Baen Books, which publishes Weber, Drake, Ringo, Pournelle, and Bujold, among others. Baen is probably the foremost Military Science Fiction publisher in literature. Many of Baen's authors, including Drake, Ringo, Michael Z. Williamson, and more, are former or current military.
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