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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. Instead, the story may focus on a Space Cadet Academy or a beleaguered garrison on a Bleak Border Base.
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. It should come as no surprise that a high percentage of MSF writers are military veterans. The important role of veterans in writing serious MSF explains why MSF differs from Space Opera, even those Space Operas that focus on huge intergalactic wars. Whereas MSF tends to have a more accurate depiction of military chains of command and strategic doctrine, in Space Opera, the depiction of battles tends to be more about visually exciting spectacle and Rule of Cool.
Often, writers 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.
The acronym MSF may also refer to Mundane Science Fiction, a generally unrelated genre of sci fi.
Tropes commonly used in MSF (in addition to most Military and Warfare Tropes):
- Airborne Aircraft Carrier
- Air Jousting
- Alien Invasion
- Apocalypse How
- Arm Cannon
- Attack Drone (rapidly becoming Truth in Television)
- Bleak Border Base (if on another planet or moon)
- Boarding Party
- Boarding Pod
- The Brigadier
- Bug War
- Clone Army
- Death Ray
- Drop Pod
- Drop Ship
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom
- Escape Pod
- Exposed Starship Bridge
- Forgotten Superweapon
- Galactic Conqueror
- Humans Are Warriors
- Humongous Mecha
- Hyperspace Arsenal
- Killer Robot
- Kill Sat
- Kinetic Weapons Are Just Better
- Magnetic Weapons
- A Mech by Any Other Name
- Military Superhero
- Mini-Mecha
- Nuke 'em
- Ye Olde Nuclear Silo
- Person of Mass Destruction
- Planet Baron
- Plasma Cannon
- Power Harness
- Powered Armor
- Proud Warrior Race Guy
- Putting on the Reich
- Real Robot Genre
- Robot Soldier
- Robot War
- Rock Beats Laser
- Sapient Tank
- Scientist vs. Soldier
- Soviet Superscience
- Space Battle
- Space Cadet
- Space Cadet Academy
- Space Fighter
- Space Marine
- A Space Marine Is You
- Space Navy
- Spider Tank
- Standard Sci-Fi Army
- Standard Sci-Fi Fleet
- Standard Starship Scuffle
- Stupid Jetpack Hitler
- Super Robot Genre
- Super-Soldier
- War from Another World
- The War of Earthly Aggression
Works with notable Military Science Fiction elements include:
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Multimedia Franchises
- The Alien/Predator/AVP franchise(s) sometimes flirt with military science fiction, depending on the movie or work.
- Although the Alien series never involves warfare in its storyline at all, as they are more like monster movies set in outer space; however soldiers still end up serving as major characters in a few installments anyways.
- Aliens started the trend, with Space Marines (a very iconic fixture of military sci-fi) showing up to try and fight the titular Alien monsters.
- Alien: Resurrection takes place on a secret military research station orbiting over Earth.
- Alien 3: The Gun
- Aliens: Extermination
- Aliens: Armageddon
- Alien: Blackout
- Aliens: Colonial Marines
- Aliens: Dark Descent
- Aliens: Fireteam Elite
- Aliens: Infestation
- Alien Trilogy
- Although the Alien series never involves warfare in its storyline at all, as they are more like monster movies set in outer space; however soldiers still end up serving as major characters in a few installments anyways.
- Avatar, in the human side of the story
- Avatar: The Way of Water
- "Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora"
- Meanwhile the Predator series is much more consistently militaristic, with the protagonists in all but the second movie consisting mostly of experienced soldiers who are pitted in combat against the titular Predators, who are deadly alien warriors that enjoy hunting and killing other warriors.
- The Assassin's Creed franchise incorporates both military and sci-fi elements in its Assassin-Templar conflict storyline. The past segments usually have plots related to conflicts or other military-related events such as the Third Crusade and the Peloponnesian War with Isu technology and temples scattered throughout the world. The present segments also incorporate sci-fi elements as well with the protagonist reliving the lives of an Assassin inside the Animus, a virtual reality machine developed by the Templar-run Abstergo Industries.
- Ghost in the Shell
- G.I. Joe
- Gundam, pretty much every incarnation of it, except G Gundam, Gundam X, Model Suit Gunpla Builders Beginning G, and Gundam Build Fighters.
- The whole Halo franchise revolves around a galactic war between humans and aliens in the distant future.
- Mass Effect
- Resident Evil
- Space Battleship Yamato and her various spinoffs and adaptations, such as the live action movie and Space Battleship Yamato 2199.
- Stargate-verse
- Starship Troopers
- 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: Deep Space Nine is the most militaristic canon series.
- 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 is obviously this; just as the title suggests, it's mostly about epic warfare in space. Many main characters are soldiers, diplomats, or both, and much attention is given to extensive battle scenes in all Star Wars movies and most other works.
- The Terminator franchise's backstory involves a post-apocalyptic future conflict, in which Skynet (a rogue military computer network) triggered a global nuclear war to destroy human civilization, and then deploys an army of killer robots in a genocidal war to exterminate the last human survivors. Skynet and the Human Resistance then both make frequent use of time travel in efforts to change the pre-war past (and thus the outcome of the future war).
- Wing Commander, particularly the novels by William Forstchen, and Wing Commander Academy.
Anime and Manga
- Aldnoah.Zero
- AMAIM Warrior at the Borderline
- Argento Soma
- Argevollen
- Armored Trooper VOTOMS
- Arpeggio of Blue Steel
- Assault Lily: Bouquet
- Blue Submarine No. 6
- Flag
- Ghost in the Shell
- Grey
- Guilty Crown
- Gundam
- Gundam Evolve
- Mobile Suit Gundam
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin
- Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt
- Mobile Suit Gundam Twilight AXIS
- Mobile Suit Gundam 00
- Gundam 00: A Wakening of the Trailblazer
- Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket
- Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Stardust Memory
- Mobile Suit Gundam 0083: Rebellion
- Mobile Suit Gundam AGE
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack
- Mobile Suit Gundam École du Ciel
- Mobile Suit Gundam F91
- Mobile Suit Gundam MS IGLOO
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Astray
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Freedom
- Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team
- Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn
- Mobile Suit Gundam Wing
- Mobile Suit Gundam ZZ
- Mobile Suit Victory Gundam
- Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
- ∀ Gundam
- Gundam Sentinel
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Hathaway's Flash
- Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam
- Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans
- Gunslinger Girl
- Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, which takes the franchise's Gundam influences to its logical conclusion as the title character grows up to become a captain in Mid-Childa's military.
- Martian Successor Nadesico
- Neon Genesis Evangelion, though less so when the Alien Invasion premise began to play second fiddle to the psychology and introspection.
- Red Eyes
- Robotech
- Robotech II: The Sentinels
- Scarlet Nexus
- Str.A.In.: Strategic Armored Infantry
Comic Books
Fan Works
Film — Animated
Film — Live-Action
Literature
- 86 EIGHTY-SIX
- The Adventures of Stefón Rudel
- Aeon 14 by M.D. Cooper
- Alexis Carew by J.A. Sutherland
- All You Need Is Kill
- Antares by Michael McCollum
- Area 51 by Bob Mayer
- Armor by John Steakley
- Ashes of Empire series, but Eric Thomson.
- Ball Lightning
- Bolo series, originally by Keith Laumer
- Castle Federation by Glynn Stewart
- The Childe Cycle by Gordon R. Dickson, notably Dorsai! and Tactics of Mistake.
- Cilva
- 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 Cobra Trilogy
- Combatants Will Be Dispatched!
- Confederation of Valor by Tanya Huff.
- The Conquerors Trilogy.
- The Chronicles Of Old Guy features a society of intelligent super-tanks a la 'Bolo'' and the adventures of one amongst their number, "Old Guy".
- 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):
- Belisarius Series.
- The Citizen Series, with John Lambshead
- The General Series
- Hammer's Slammers
- Ranks of Bronze
- RCN
- Redliners
- Combat K Series
- Death's Head series by David Gunn
- Demon Four
- Dirigent Mercenary Corps by Rick Shelley
- The Dragon Never Sleeps by Glen Cook
- Dread Empire's Fall Trilogy, by Walter Jon Williams
- Embedded, by Dan Abnett
- The Ember War Saga by Richard Fox
- Encryption Straffe
- Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card
- Expeditionary Force
- The Extinction Cycle by Nicholas Sansbury Smith
- First Colony
- The Flight Engineer
- The Forever War
- The Four Horsemen Universe
- Frontlines
- Full Metal Panic!
- Galactic Marines series
- The Galaxy on Fire series, by Joe Kassabian:
- The Genesis Fleet
- Genocidal Organ
- Heavy Object
- Hellburner by C. J. Cherryh focuses on a moderately realistic Space Fighter and its crew.
- The Helmsman Saga.
- Here Be Dragons by Craig Alan
- The History of the Galaxy series by Andrey Livadny. Most books deal with fights between human governments, factions, corporations as well as against aliens. Most protagonists tend to be members of the military (usually the Confederate fleet).
- Interstellar Gunrunner
- Known Space: The Man-Kzin Wars series.
- 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.
- The Lensman series, by E. E. "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).
- Legend of the Galactic Heroes
- The Last Hunter by JN Chaney and Terry Mixon
- The Lost Fleet series
- Lucifer's Star by C.T. Phipps combines this with Space Opera — a story of The Empire's best pilot after his side loses.
- The Machineries of Empire
- The Mako Saga
- Muv-Luv Alternative: Total Eclipse
- The Nameless War trilogy by Edmond Barrett
- New Kashubia Series
- Christopher Nuttall:
- The Occupation Saga: A Porn with Plot Work Com starring a human from Vichy Earth who is conscripted into the occupying aliens' Space Marine corps.
- Old Man's War
- The Osmerian Conflict
- Poor Man's Fight
- Primitive War
- Rebuild World, featuring Private Military Contractors called "Hunters" in a Cyberpunk setting.
- Remember To Always Be Brave
- Resident Evil
- John Ringo's writing currently spans multiple genres, but he started his literary career writing Military Science Fiction. The MilSF works:
- Council Wars
- Into the Looking Glass
- Prince Roger series (aka Empire of Man, co-written with David Weber)
- Legacy of the Aldenata
- Troy Rising
- Schwarzesmarken
- Seafort Saga
- Shadow Ops
- Siobhan Dunmoore
- Sixth Column
- Space Academy by C.T. Phipps is an Affectionate Parody of Space Opera and Military Science Fiction with a Ragtag Band of Misfits In Space.
- Space Force (2018) by Jeremy Robinson is an Affectionate Parody of big budget America Saves the Day movies.
- Spots the Space Marine
- Star Carrier
- Star Wars Legends: Several series in focus in particular detail on the regular militaries of the Republics and the Empire:
- The Black Fleet Crisis: The A-plot deals with a conflict between the New Republic and the Duskhan League, an alien polity on its coreward border, with the newly created NRDF Fifth Battle Group front-and-center.
- Republic Commando Series: Stars clone commandos of the Grand Army of the Republic during the clone wars, along with their Mandalorian and Jedi allies.
- The Thrawn Trilogy: Primarily the Empire, in the person of Grand Admiral Thrawn and his flag captain Gilad Pellaeon and their subordinates. The regular New Republic Defense Force is somewhat Out of Focus.
- X-Wing Series: Ten novels with New Republic starfighter pilots of two different special operations groups in the starring role.
- Starship Operators
- Solar Warden
- 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
- Theirs Not to Reason Why by Creator/Jean Johnson is a rare example with a female protagonist and an abundance of women in the supporting cast.
- Tour of the Merrimack, a series by R. M. Meluch
- Valhalla by Ari Bach features a chapter in the military of 2230 and eleven more chapters in a pseudo-military more militaristic than the main military.
- Victoria: A Novel of 4th Generation War, by military theorist William S. Lind, is a near-future example, following an ex-Marine staff officer and military consultant through several wars between various of the Divided States of America in the 2030s.
- Vorkosigan Saga, by Lois McMaster Bujold, has many elements of this, though it varies from book to book.
- Warhammer 40,000 Expanded Universe: Very much so when the Imperial Guard or Imperial Navy are the lead characters, not so much the Space Marines (who behave more as religious knights).
- Worldwar
- 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:
- Empire from the Ashes
- Hell's Gate
- Honor Harrington
- Manticore Ascendant, a Spin-Off prequel series of Honor Harrington co-written by Timothy Zahn.
- Out of the Dark
- Safehold
- The four Starfire novels with Steve White (Crusade, In Death Ground, The Shiva Option, and Insurrection).
- Who Needs Men? sees a high-tech Lady Land fighting a Vietnam-like war against guerrillas from a more normal, but primitive society.
Live-Action TV
- Babylon 5 had its fair share of various nasty conflicts:
- Crusade, spinoff series to Babylon Five, and whose Troubled Production is the stuff of legends.
- Battlestar Galactica
- "Men Against Fire", an episode of the anthology series Black Mirror.
- SeaQuest DSV
- Space: Above and Beyond
Tabletop Games
- AT-43
- BattleTech
- And by extension, the BattleTech Expanded Universe.
- Beyond the Gates of Antares
- Mutant Chronicles
- Planet Mercenary
- Traveller RPG series. A large part of it has to do with the military aspects.
- Warhammer 40,000, and most of its spin-off literature, notably Gaunt's Ghosts and Ciaphas Cain.
Video Games
- Agent Armstrong
- Arknights
- Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M.
- Artemis Spaceship Bridge Simulator
- Assault Retribution
- Azure Striker Gunvolt Series
- Battlezone (1998) and Battlezone II
- Battlefield 2142
- Biolab Wars
- Bloody Wolf
- C-12: Final Resistance
- Call of Duty: while the series is largely historical or modern, some installments feature futuristic elements like doomsday weapons (from Kill Sats to bio-engineered plagues), exosuits, fully automated robot armies, cyborgs, railguns, zombies, and even aliens
.
- Call of Duty: Black Ops II
- Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
- Call of Duty: Black Ops III: also an example of Cyberpunk.
- Call of Duty: Ghosts
- Call Of Duty Infinite Warfare: the best example of these, as it has all of the above plus space warfare with the plot concerning a war between human-colonized Mars and Earth.
- Cloud Cutter
- Command & Conquer:
- The Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series drifts in this direction, beginning 20 Minutes in the Future and ending with all manner of sci-fi trappings.
- The Command & Conquer: Red Alert Series is Denser and Wackier than Tiberian, focusing on a world altered by time traveling.
- The Contra series. At first it isn't assumed to have sci-fi elements, but the plot involves an alien invasion.
- Counter Side
- Crysis
- Defenders Of Ekron
- Demon Front
- Dolphin Blue
- DUST 514, a Gaiden Game of EVE Online whose backstory has capsuleer technology applied to Powered Armor instead of starships.
- Einhänder
- Empire Earth, in the later epochs.
- Fallout
- First Encounter Assault Recon
- Fracture
- Front Mission
- The Gears of War games, books, and comics.
- Ghost in the Shell: First Assault Online
- Girl Café Gun
- Girls' Frontline
- Goddess of Victory: NIKKE
- Gun Force
- Halo
- Hard Edge
- Heavy Weapon is a more humorous, cartoony take on the genre.
- Helldivers
- Helldivers II
- Honkai Impact 3rd
- Iji
- Instinct
- Intrusion 2
- Iron Meat
- Iron Marines
- Killzone
- Kreed
- The BattleTech video game series:
- Mass Effect
- Mercs of Boom
- Metal Gear is a series of stealth-action games that revolve around military espionage and geopolitical conflicts in modern-day Earth, so there are no aliens or spaceships. But it does involve genetically-engineered clones and mutant/cyborg soldiers, rogue computers and weaponized robots, oh and of course the titular bipedal 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.
- Metal Slug Code J — 2021 3D-remake of the above
- Metroid, occasionally. Samus is established as having been in the Galactic Federation Army, and Metroid Prime, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and Metroid: Other M feature GF soldiers and marines as characters.
- Onslaught
- Operation: Matriarchy
- Out Zone
- Project Nimbus
- Quake
- Resistance
- Scarlet Nexus
- Section 8 series
- Shadow Complex
- Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, while still a JRPG like the rest of the series, ditches the Urban Fantasy and Coming of Age elements in favor of Space Marines from 20 Minutes into the Future exploring an alternate dimension infested with angels and demons.
- Snowbreak: Containment Zone
- Space Beast Terror Fright
- Space Debris
- StarCraft
- Star Wars video games
- Star Wars: Battlefront (and sequels/reboots)
- Star Wars: Empire at War
- Star Wars: Republic Commando
- Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
- Star Wars: X-Wing (and sequels)
- Starsiege, and its pre-/sequels.
- Starship Troopers: Terran Command
- Star Citizen, chiefly the "Squadron 42" storyline section.
- Steel Battalion
- Steel Harbinger
- Super Cyborg
- Templar Battleforce
- Time Crisis, especially the second game which involves trying to stop a Kill Sat.
- Titanfall
- Ubersoldier
- Universe at War
- Vivisector: Beast Within
- War Front: Turning Point, Alternate History World War II with futuristic weapons
- WarGames Defcon 1
- The X-COM series, which has you commanding a multinational military force to combat alien invaders.
- Xenonauts
Web Animation
- Red vs. Blue
- Space King
- Starship Regulars is an Affectionate Parody of the genre.
Webcomics
- Schlock Mercenary; while the main cast is a complement of Mercenaries, they tend to become more organized as the stories progress and move away from the Gag-A-Day format. Also, various governmental militaries have been featured, either as background/secondary characters, or as the people hiring the main characters.
- Star Fighter is an erotic romance between soldiers on a Space Navy, who are engaged in a war against the Insectoid Aliens the Colterons. In addition to the romance plot, the story also deals with the tide of war and political machinations within the miliatary hierarchy.
- XRS A military sci fi webcomic about a deadly new super-weapon.
Western Animation
- Beast Wars
- Exo Squad
- Evil Con Carne
- "War Is the H-Word" is an episode of Futurama that parodies various war movie tropes, with Fry and Bender joining Earth's military just to get a store discount on chewing gum, only to be deployed to another planet to fight a pointless war against a species of ball-shaped aliens.
- Any episode with General Zapp Brannigan will involve some sort of humorous militaristic misadventures in space. And the overall Futurama show really likes to parody both Star Trek and Star Wars.
- Invasion America
- Lightyear
- Some episodes of Love, Death & Robots, such as:
- Robotech: The Shadow Chronicles
- Shadow Raiders
