Military science fiction
Military science fiction is a subgenre of science fiction and military fiction that depicts the use of science fiction technology, including spaceships and weapons, for military purposes and usually principal characters who are members of a military organization, usually during a war; occurring sometimes in outer space or on a different planet or planets. It exists in a range of media, including literature, comics, film, television and video games.
A detailed description of the conflict, belligerents (which may involve extraterrestrials), tactics and weapons used for it, and the role of a military service and the individual members of that military organization form the basis for a typical work of military science fiction. The stories often use features of actual past or current Earth conflicts, with countries being replaced by planets or galaxies with similar characteristics, battleships replaced by space battleships, small arms and artillery replaced by lasers, soldiers replaced by space marines, and certain events changed so the author can extrapolate what might have occurred.
Practical applications by military[edit]
In 1980 and 1981, two science fiction authors inspired President Ronald Reagan's vision for a Strategic Defense Initiative in which satellites would be set up to shoot at nuclear missiles.[13] The two authors were Larry Niven, the author of the Ringworld series, and Jerry Pournelle. Along with like-minded colleagues, they formed a committee to lobby the United States on space issues and influence Reagan's space policies. Pournelle advocated a "robust, technocratic military state".[13] In addition to Pournelle's science fiction writing, he wrote a "paper for the Air Force on stability's role in national security".
President Reagan read the space advice that Niven, Pournelle, and their colleagues prepared, which influenced Reagan's 1983 Strategic Defense Initiative.[13] "Niven and Pournelle saw an opportunity to shape the great void in their political image, and Reagan viewed space as yet another tool to defend America against the communist superpower...". Science fiction authors such as Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov criticized the Strategic Defense Initiative.[13]
After the 9/11 terrorism attacks, a group of sci-fi authors called Sigma, including Pournelle and Niven, advised the "Department of Homeland Security on technological strategies for defeating terrorist threats."[13]
In 2021, Worldcrunch reported that the French military has hired fiction writers to develop futuristic warfare scenarios, including situations that the military cannot directly study for "ethical reasons, such as Autonomous Lethality Weapon Systems (ALWS), or augmented humans."[14] The French military says the authors are asked to imagine warfare situations that "destabilize us, scare us, blame, or even beat us", in order to provide the army with a "fresh set of practice scenarios".[14] Military planners use the science fiction authors' scenarios to "prepare for previously unthought of situations", "boos[t] creativity" and help the military become "more resourceful."[14]
The German military is also using science fiction to help its military but in its approach, they do not hire science fiction writers to develop scenarios. Instead, they "use existing science fiction" to help the army "predict the "world's next potential conflict."[14]
The UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) hired two science fiction writers to pen short stories about "what the wars of tomorrow will look like."[15]
The MOD hired Peter Warren Singer and August Cole to write eight short stories about threats from "emerging technologies" including "artificial intelligence (AI), data modeling, drone swarms, quantum computing and human enhancement" in a battlefield context.[15]
The MOD hired sci-fi writers because they have a "unique ability to imagine the unimaginable." As well, both authors know about "security subjects and modern warfare."[15]
They advocate the use of "Fictional Intelligence" ("FicInt"), which they define as "useful fictions". FicInt, a concept developed by Cole in 2015, combines "fiction writing with intelligence to imagine future scenarios in ways grounded in reality."[15]