Discussion Main / SpaceFighter

I think that's an awesome question and I've wondered about it as well. Presumably, somewhere, in some dusty old pulp-sci-fi work, some writer happened to give the hero a very small, one-person rocket-ship, and strapped a Ray Gun to it, creating the first ever Space Fighter. But it'd take someone with an in-depth knowledge of really old sci-fi to give a name, I think... Star Wars is the Trope Codifier, I think — it defined what the trope actually means to audiences today, but it's hard to believe it was the first ever example...

Star Wars could actually be the inventor (I'm not sure). Small one-man rockets are pretty old, but that alone doesn't make them space fighters, for that they have to be used like planetary fighters (aka strike craft. Many one-man rockets would rather be shuttles than fighters) Stars Wars otoh explicitly recreates the Battle of Midway with spaceships. At the very least, it's the first widely known example. (space fighters are less interesting in books than in film anyway) Although it beats Galactica by a single year only.

I disagree that there's any doubt about the (non-existant)viability of space fighters, but pointing out the analysis page is definitely better than yoyoing between paragraphs all the time. So put my reasons on the analysis page instead of the main page, and someone undecided could maybe write up a paragraph linking there.

I tried to add such a paragraph; hopefully it is minimally acceptable to both sides. :P I did add two more "for" reasons to the Analysis page because these were in the paragraph I deleted from the main page, and didn't seem to be mentioned clearly on the Analysis page until now. The first (manoeuvrability) isn't, I believe, a particularly strong argument; the second (hacking and the like) is a bit more interesting, I think.

Funny you should say that. I, personally, have mostly seen the term "space fighter" used on Atomic Rocket and other sites harshly critical of little manned combat ships, and relatively little in actual science fiction games/literature/etc. or discussion of such.

Regardless, why does it matter where and how the term "starfighter" came to be popular, unless you're wanting to manipulate people into using your preferred term by mandating how it looks on a popular website like TV Tropes? Because really, I can't think of any other reason why someone would raise such a fuss about it.

It's not like this sort of thing has never happened in real life. Ever wondered why the word "tank" is so commonly used for "armored fighting vehicles?" When the first combat-ready tanks of WWI were being shipped to France, Britain attempted to disguise what they really were by labeling them as mobile water tanks for Russia. The official designation the British military used at the time was "landships"—but how often do you hear that in place of "tank" nowadays?

That... doesn't respond to anything I actually said. My main question was, "is the term "starfighter" actually frequently used in science fiction?", and my main point about "space fighter" was not that it itself is a term that's often used (I can't remember where I originally picked it up, but it was before I ever saw the Atomic Rocket — I think it was a computer game or some such), but simply that the most common term is just the word "fighter", by itself, and that "space fighter" is the most natural expansion on that when it's not clear from the context (as it would be in an actual sci-fi work) that spacegoing fighters, rather than, say, jet fighters or people who fight, is what is meant.

Frankly your association of these points with some sort of hatred of this trope on my part due to my love for Atomic Rocket is starting to look to me like it's bordering on paranoia.

Paranoia? Not really.

I've seen that you reverted an edit pointing out that "starfighter" is the more common term on the grounds that "it's not necessarily more common just because Wikipedia uses the term," which would be true—except for what that editor also pointed out, that the term "starfighter" has millions of hits on a Google search compared to a few hundred thousand for "space fighter."

Granted, you didn't stubbornly contest it with a reversion, but you still complained about it here in the discussion page. So I don't think I'm paranoid at all.

In fact, regarding my mention of the term "tank," I think I've most certainly responded to what you actually said, because regardless of your motives, you are complaining about people using "starfighter" for the concept when you find "space fighter" more sensible. That's what I was trying to tell you: terminology just happens that way. I can't tell you how and why it happened, but I do have guesses as to what influenced its widespread use.

It seems to me you equate use of the term Space Fighter with Atomic Rocket, and you equate Atomic Rocket with thinking Space Fighters are Bad Writing. This is all incorrect.

Also, again, I do not ask why the term is popular, but whether it is common in science fiction works. I do not think it is. I think the term "fighter" is far more common.

I did not revert the edit after the Google evidence was presented because I recognize that the term Starfighter being used outside of the content of sci-fi with enough frequency is still significant.

This issue annoys me, in part, because of your logic that I mentioned earlier, and because your first comment here straight out accused me of taking the name from Atomic Rocket and went on to use this as evidence that I must dislike this trope, which was untrue, and annoyed me quite a bit. Of course that's neither here nor there when it comes to the actual content of the page, which, again, is why I didn't revert the change after the Google results were mentioned as actual evidence for how popular "starfighter" is.

As an aside, I can't remember a single time the term "starfighter" was actually used in the Star Wars films, though of course there is also the Expanded Universe, and behind-the-scenes stuff and what-not. Heck, if I recall, even in The Last Starfighter (despite the page image), the term was used to refer to the people flying the ships more than to the ships themselves.

"I did not revert the edit after the Google evidence was presented because I recognize that the term Starfighter being used outside of the content of sci-fi with enough frequency is still significant."

And to repeat myself: Granted, you didn't stubbornly contest it with a reversion, but you still complained about it here in the discussion page.

"It seems to me you equate use of the term Space Fighter with Atomic Rocket, and you equate Atomic Rocket with thinking Space Fighters are Bad Writing. This is all incorrect."

And that's faulty logic of yours, too, boiling down what I've been saying into a straw man.

What I said was that I've mostly seen the term "space fighter" associated with Atomic Rocket and sites that are equally critical of the starfighter concept (e.g. Tough Guide to the Known Galaxy, the "essay" Atomic Rocket links to by Rocketpunk Manifesto). That doesn't mean I've not seen it used legitimately elsewhere.

However, I have no idea how someone can think Atomic Rocket is not claiming that starfighters are Bad Writing. His page called "Respecting Science" lays out his attitude toward people who disagree with a truckload of snark: "One-man space fighter ships are really really cool, shut up about them making no sense militarily, scientifically, or economically!" He also admits in his section on starfighters that he does not like the trope concept, and personally believes that the vast majority of people who like one-manned ships in space only do so because they think Space Is an Ocean.

I do believe we've gone over this in the past. Atomic Rocket's claims that starfighters are nonsensical/implausible fall into the definition of Bad Writing tropes like "Did Not Do The Research" and "You Fail Engineering/Physics/Economics Forever." Wasn't there a lengthy discussion between you and someone else on this trope's archived discussion refuting most of Atomic Rocket's claims?

"As an aside [...]"

I recall the Starcraft manual specifically calling them "starfighters" in the introduction for the Terran race, but never mentioning that term in the description of the Wraith itself.

I don't see how that has any bearing, however. People tend to refer to giant walking machines with the catch-all term "mechs" or "mecha" (depending on their influence), yet many of the settings featuring such machines don't call them by that name in-universe.

It may not be as drastically varied in the case of starfighters, but it still happens. Homeworld, for example, calls one-manned combat ships "strikecraft."

Naturally, all the different examples weren't all like this when they were added.

Ah, blame me <blushes>. Here's this one fan of The Last Starfighter or something. I once for lulz poked fun at the illiteracy of this tropperifficness — in book speech, with links and all. Until the poor soul descended into fit of Edit Waagh grade frenzy and began to replace everything perceived as somewhat "heretical" to more personal-fanwank-approved forms, across the whole article. Hence, it's now choke full of "starfighters", etc. Sad. =(

The fact that the text still carries the stain of this little obsession, obviously, shows how much everyone else cares.

Sounds interesting so far!

Someone started an Analysis page on starfighters here at TV Tropes a few months ago; that might be a good place to post your findings once you guys have worked it out, so more people can see it.

I don't see its use as inaccurate. While it's true that the article does not directly address the viability of small-mass ships versus large-mass ships, it does demonstrate that large-mass warships are not automatically better just because they're larger in mass.

There's a belief among certain hard sci-fi fans that:

1. Small manned combat spacecraft are nonsensical and bad science fiction.
2. Large-mass warships are the only feasible form of manned combat spacecraft.
3. Any small combat spacecraft must either be guided missiles or some sort of Attack Drone.

The stardestroyer.net article, however, discusses the problems that come with large-mass objects; you can't simply upscale a small ship's design into a battleship. The larger warship's construction requires entirely different designs, engineering methods, and structurally stronger materials, just so that the ship can withstand the stresses imposed by its own mass. This is where the bit about less cost required to build, maintain, and operate smaller ships comes in—the increase in cost and structural materials is touched on in the article considering certain case examples.

Also, bear in mind: the stardestroyer.net article isn't referenced as an attempt to discredit the idea of large-mass spacecraft. It's there to show that small-mass combat spacecraft have their own intrinsic advantages, and are therefore viable. The particulars of a setting will vary wildly beyond that, depending on the author's personal tastes.

Is that why you wrote at length about a feasible design for large-mass spacecraft? Engine placement on large warships doesn't have anything to do with this trope—speculation like that would be more fitting on another trope page's Analysis section, something dedicated to bigger warships.

Besides, distributing engines across its mass is precisely how the Death Star works, according to that very same article.

I'm not saying that large mass warships are inherently better (though they obviously have some advantages in the weapon and armor department), its just that its false to use that article as evidence of an intrinsic advantage of being small.

View it this way: I have a fighter that has an engine that puts 100 force on it. The mass is 100. (Not using any units here). Acceleration will be 1 (F=MA)

I strap two of those fighters together. The force is doubled, the mass is doubled. Same acceleration. No increase in stress, because the increase in force is the same as the increase in cross section.

You can keep strapping more fighters together. You'll keep getting a bigger ship for the same price as that number of small ships.

So you can really build a big ship using that general principle that is kinda like a 'mega fighter.' It would act much like a fighter (except turning actually would have stress problems, but thats a different issue that would only come up once you get REALLY big) but would have a lot more weapons....

Which makes it a kinda dumb design. It has no advantages.

The best way to view it would be more that for engineering reasons a big ship SHOULD be focused more on weapons and armor, as those are its advantages. Advantages that should be taken advantage of.

Similarly, a small ship would not have inherent advantages, but it could save money by trying to use mobility, force projection, and precision small weapons as its main advantages- things that the big ships sacrifice, for the most part, to take advantage of their own inherent advantages.

So really, the whole stress thing is only an issue because the article is using hollywood SF designs that, obviously, aren't very good.

And, therefore, a small ship has no intrinsic advantage, at least none presented in that article.

BTW, I totally support the use of small ships, including one man ships that would rightfully be called fighters (as well as drones of a similar sort). Not necessarily for 'devoted military' ships, but who said that space combat has to be only between devoted combat ships? Pirates can use those converted shuttles as fighters, or whatever...

Also, don't take those hard SF fans who are anti fighters too seriously. They are right about a lot of things, but those things aren't really relevant. Yes, manned ships lose some advantages over drone ships. Yes, large ships will usually beat small ships in a head to head fight. But even they don't say small manned ships are bad SF- a lot of them will say, "space fighters are ridiculous. I do see room for 3-5 man ships that are kinda similar, i call them gunships, but no fighters." The proper response is, "Great plan. But if you call it a fighter, it won't work! And trying to replace those 3 men with one man and the lower mass robotics is a BAD IDEA!"

Fact is, a good hard SF fan realizes that the distinctions are arbitrary. The way fighters are used in Hollywood might be nonsensical, but that shouldn't be taken so far that the word 'fighter' is a curse, even when you'd otherwise support the design.

Put that way, your idea almost sounds like Combining Mecha, only for starships. I've actually seen a non-combat version of this in action in the original Homeworld game, where research ships for both the Taiidan and Kushani fleets could link together to form full research stations if you've built enough of them.

Whether or not it'd make sense to develop ships that can combine to make a larger ship, I think that's largely speculative and setting-specific.

Beyond that, in response to this:

"And, therefore, a small ship has no intrinsic advantage, at least none presented in that article."

Lower cost of construction, operation, and deployment is an intrinsic advantage of smaller ships—at least in science fiction settings where economics and logistics are an issue. As Schlock Mercenary demonstrates, logistics can even be a problem for Sufficiently Advanced Amalgamated AIs.

Let me quote some relative parts of the article:

"In fact, even if it were a solid block of metal, it [the Executor] would still have to be made out of a material which is 700 times stronger than structural steel in order to survive the acceleration without permanent deformation!"

"The ship's ability to survive its own engine output is still its most impressive attribute (particularly during hard turns such as the one in ROTJ, which would impose bending moments on the ship's frame). It must be constructed out of impossibly strong materials or it must incorporate some sort of forcefields in order to hold it together."

"Have you ever seen the Tonka commercial where they shove a Tonka truck and real, full-size dump truck off a cliff? The Tonka truck bounces and clatters all the way down to the bottom, dented but intact. The full-size dump truck, on the other hand, crashes to the bottom as a twisted, barely recognizable pile of wreckage. The humourous subtext to the commercial was that Tonka trucks are tougher than the real thing, but the real story is as an object grows larger, its own mass becomes its worst enemy."

Note that this guy is a Star Wars fan; he's not necessarily dismissing ships from his favorite setting as nonsensical, he's using it to illustrate how much more advanced that society has to be to make these ships work. At the same time, he's also showing that, by contrast, smaller combat ships have their own advantages since they don't require that kind of technology or advanced materials just to hold together and can have the same (or better) performance characteristics without using nearly as much fuel.

It's not a case of saying "small-mass ships are superior" as it is, well—to put it in Dwight Eisenhower's words, "Logistics controls all campaigns and limits many."

"Lower cost of construction, operation, and deployment is an intrinsic advantage of smaller ships—at least in science fiction settings where economics and logistics are an issue. As Schlock Mercenary demonstrates, logistics can even be a problem for Sufficiently Advanced Amalgamated A.I.s."

True, though cost per mass could be about the same (for the hypothetical linking ship that tests the use of small ships, it would be identical). There is also the school of thought that a larger ship, even if more costly per mass, ends up being less expensive because it will just destroy all the enemy small ships. Even if it could, this way of thinking doesn't seem to understand why we don't just build a single big super mega carrier to dominate the seas, and in this one case Space Is an Ocean....

As for your points about tech, I totally agree. There is a reason all real designs for warships in space have basically been space fighters (or are just satellites with cannons, which is basically just the unmanned version), and its mostly that we'd have trouble launching anything much larger in one piece.... which is really legitimate for any hard SF setting, for any level of advancement.

So yeah, logistics is big. Force projection, too. I'll put my bet on the fleet with combined arms, personally.

By the way, did you hear about Northrop Grumman's FIRESTRIKE? That modular aspect, where you can link multiple FIRESTRIKE modules to make a stronger laser, sounds like it could make a great basis for a linking ship.

On the other hand, maybe you're paranoid, convinced that if someone says a trope is not 100% realistic that means they must hate the trope and think it's bad writing (when nothing of the sort has been said — perhaps it is you that believes that only 100% realistic science writing can possibly make for good sci-fi?), and are completely unwilling to have any speculation on the fact that this trope may be unrealistic on the page, even though you're quite happy to keep a paragraph about how it's "vindicable by science".

This page used to note that the trope might be unrealistic, and it's only an Edit War instigated by you that led me to throw up my hands in the air and accept that bit being cut out — even though as I recall, the bit that offended you was quite literally a bit saying that some writers think the trope may be unrealistic, rather than some absolute statement that it's complete nonsense (which, in fact, I myself don't really believe after earlier discussions on the subject — see the old Discussion Archives. The version that you were upset about was already much more balanced than the original YKTTW for this article).

At this point I think the entire paragraph (staring with "Despite its ubiquity in soft science fiction...") should be cut out, and no discussion on whether the trope is or is not realistic at all should take place. I thought it could be an interesting bit for the page, but if it's just going to invite Edit Wars... well, TV Tropes isn't really about whether a trope is realistic or not, is it now?

I've addressed your accusations of paranoia in my response to your complaints about the term "starfighter."

You want to know what I think? What I think is that Tropes Are Tools. Depending on how they are used, they may be realistic or not realistic, and an unrealistic use is not automatically a bad thing. You say you know Tropes Are Not Bad, but there's a reason why the people here had to make an article like that in the first place—because there are a lot of people who have the mentality that a trope is bad, an awful break from reality or at the very least cliche. In some cases, when people write examples or article introductions here, it's like they're trying to be like Intuitor—even though many tropers lack the same extensive knowledge on the subjects they're bad-talking.

I've seen it happen in many, many trope articles. For example, a while ago I reworded the High-Speed Missile Dodge article extensively because a lot of its contributors were convinced no such thing happens in Real Life, and that the only "real" defense against supposedly-inescapable seeking missiles was to have a plane that flies faster ... when in reality, combat pilots are actually taught how to dodge missiles. Yes, it doesn't look the same as in most fictional works, but they still do it—which is why I added the quote by Mike Kopack and the related video, because otherwise people wouldn't accept that it really does happen. The people who had slapped High-Speed Missile Dodge with the "this couldn't possibly happen in Real Life" attitude had also listed it as one of the "impossible/improbable feats" in Just Plane Wrong.

That's why the paragraph starting with "Despite its ubiquity in soft science fiction [...]" should stay. Regardless of what you may claim, it's not a lengthy dissertation (or, shockingly enough, a soapbox) that starfighters are always realistic. It's a short notice that, yes, this trope can be plausibly done even in "hard" science fiction, regardless of what the naysayers claim. Again: Tropes Are Not Bad.

I've mentioned what Atomic Rocket fans have done to the Old-School Dogfighting page in the past, where they mutated the trope from "small ships in space fighting at WWII gun range" into "people in small ships are bad bad bad science fiction!!1" and praised anything that "averted" it with Attack Drones or massive starships. Atomic Rocket has the same attitude toward the subject, and whenever someone tries to slip in criticisms or claims that little manned ships in space are nonsensical, a link to Atomic Rocket almost always shows up.

Quite honestly, I'm not convinced that you want the paragraph starting with "Despite its ubiquity in soft science fiction [...]" gone because "it will invite edit wars." The kind of people who take Atomic Rocket as the authoritative word on what's plausible and acceptable science fiction are still going to try and assert their beliefs whether it's there or not, and I have no doubt in my mind that if they're given a chance, they would turn this article into a lengthy "Why Starfighters Are Bad Science Fiction" soapbox as well.

It happened a while ago on the Old-School Dogfighting page, if you look at the archived discussion there—some guy named Eric DVH started changing the article entirely to assert that "small manned ships in space are nonsensical" with links to Atomic Rocket (once again). He outright stated on the same discussion page that he also views manned air-to-air combat nonsensical.

So there you go. That's my modus operandi, and I think I've made it clear that I'm not paranoid about this sort of thing.

Trying to prove that a trope is realistic, and thus should not be criticised, in order to prove that tropes don't have to be realistic to be good tools is not very logical.

The assumption that everyone who says a trope may not be realistic must be doing so because they read one particular site that you dislike (even if they do not mention it at all — the last edit you reverted didn't), and even worse, the assumption that someone saying a trope is not realistic is equivalent to them saying it is bad writing, are also not very logical. Telling people what they think or why they think it regardless of what they actually say isn't very much fun.

Anyway, again, me trying to contest all this will likely just result in another Edit War, and it's not a big enough issue either way to take it to the Trope Repair Shop of Horrors, so... I'm going to let the issue drop, unless someone else cares enough to join the argument. Otherwise I'm at risk of suffering from a bad case of Serious Business-itis...

It would be nice if you at least changed your comment to something more generic, instead of specifically calling out Atomic Rocket or accusing people who try to add one line (without deleting any of yours, to be noted) of trying to use the trope as their soapbox when you have no evidence that this was their intention.

"Trying to prove that a trope is realistic, and thus should not be criticised, in order to prove that tropes don't have to be realistic to be good tools is not very logical."

Didn't I just say that I was not trying to prove that this trope is always realistic? I'm pretty sure I did:

"Regardless of what you may claim, it's not a lengthy dissertation (or, shockingly enough, a soapbox) that starfighters are always realistic. It's a short notice that, yes, this trope can be plausibly done even in "hard" science fiction, regardless of what the naysayers claim. Again: Tropes Are Not Bad."

There's a miles-wide difference between what you said I was saying, and what I actually said.

"It would be nice if you at least changed your comment to something more generic, instead of specifically calling out Atomic Rocket or accusing people who try to add one line (without deleting any of yours, to be noted) of trying to use the trope as their soapbox when you have no evidence that this was their intention."

I may do that, then, since Atomic Rocket is just one in a group of interlinking sites making such claims.

However, given what has happened on this trope page since you launched it, what happened on the Old-School Dogfighting page long before, and the general attitude Atomic Rocket takes toward this trope, I think I have more than adequate reason to suspect their intentions when people make edits like that.

I've, uh, played a bit of Oolite... :P But yes, I totally forgot that. It should be the earliest example of first-person space fighter simulation.

... If I am not mistaken though, only some ships in it were really fighters; most were like bulky space traders, right?

IIRC in Elite the ship(s) you could actually fly were ( had to be ) both. In Elite II / Frontier you could actually get pretty much anything from the non-hyperspace-capable tiny fighter to huge, bulky monstrosities you could equip as freighters, destroyers, whatever. I remember with ships from a certain size up it was more effective to invest in shields instead of guns and simply lock the autopilot on one pirate ship after the other and take them out by bumping into them. Really big ones had turrets too, which made guns useful again. Btw. I seem to remember that the 2nd lowest rank ( after 'harmless' ) was 'mostly harmless'

I'm the person who launched (and wrote) the YKTTW. Yes, I got some stuff from Atomic Rocket (I love that site), but I think you go too far in the other direction. Your re-write now says that space fighters are definitely a great idea, and absolutely make sense. I'm gonna find some way to re-write that so it doesn't take either side. I admit I've been convinced somewhat that they might make sense since I wrote the page, but saying that some un-invented, never-seen piece of technology will *definitely* make sense in the future is just as silly (probably sillier) as saying that it definitely would not.

Also, no, I did not get the name from Atomic Rocket. It's just a generic name that for me was more intuitive than "starfighter." Why "starfighter," anyway? Most aren't capable of interstellar travel. They don't usually fight in interstellar space, but within a planetary system. "Space fighter" just makes more sense, to me, and "starfighter" seems a needlessly flowery name. However, it is used often — which is why as soon as I launched the YKTTW, I made a redirect from "Starfighter," and why I had a note about this at the very start of the article from the beginning. I think I got the term "space fighter" from one of the many Space Sim games I've played — games rarely use the term "starfighter", I've noticed...

"Starfighter" seems to be used more frequently in Space Opera, anyway.

Well, okay, if Atomic Rocket wasn't your inspiration for naming this trope, then I'm sorry that I misjudged you—but, I've reverted some of the changes you've made, because in some cases you made things unnecessarily wordy or talking against the additions and edits of others—you removed my last sentence on Atomic Rocket's example, calling it "natter," while adding much more natter of your own, not to mention all the Wiki Schizophrenia Natter you stuffed into the introduction.

Consider this: In a work set during The Singularity where humans upload their consciousness uploaded to copmputer networks, just how different would a weapon system housing a soldier's digital brain differ from the same weapon system housing an AI? They're both controlled by digital (or future equivalent) pilot, not one of flesh and blood. The differences would be more nuanced, depending on the AI used in comparison. (In fact, there's a game whose backstory involves this: Total Annihilation.) At that point, it'd be rather trivial, more akin to asking who is piloting the fighter than what is.

In the case of your use of "disproportionate," the word has a negative definition which implies here that it's a Bad Thing, so I've been replacing it with a more neutral equivalent. This time I'm trying "massive amount."

Then there's what you did with the paragraphs later on down. "Actually rather sensible" doesn't mean that they're "a great idea." It means exact same thing as "may be a Justified Trope even in works on the ..." and does it with far less words, considering "actually rather sensible" comes right after the mention of soft science fiction, which is often derided for its "nonsense" by hard sci-fi fans. In my reversion, I've changed "actually rather sensible" to "is vindicable by real physics," since vindicable means "capable of being justified," and that flows directly into the example given by Star Destroyer and demonstrates the rationale hard sci-fi writers might use for including starfighters in their setting.

That's far and away from saying starfighters are a great idea, because what it's actually saying is "starfighters aren't nonsensical, unlike what some hard sci-fi fans may claim." It's followed by a short explanation that, yes, the usefulness of small manned military ships can be vindicated by physics and the state of warfare in a work. That signals well enough that whether or not starfighters are used, and the justifications for using them, will vary Depending on the Writer—but that they aren't inherently Bad Writing.

That's all that's needed—your throwing in a paragraph's worth of downplaying all that amounts to restating that starfighters are "nonsensical all along," flying in the face of the provided link. It's obscene Wiki Schizophrenia.

Given that, it looks like you're working from the assumption that this trope is not good, and that any statement taken to mean using starfighters is okay (not great, just okay) must be met with a paragraph's worth of assertions that they are not. That does not make the article neutral.

All you really wound up doing was exaggerate the opinion of starfighters held by Atomic Rocket and its fellow sites, on top of making the article wordy with a series of (un)Justifying Edits trying to downplay the idea that starfighters might not be the logic failure certain critics make them out to be.

On the other hand, I'm working from the assumption that, like other conventions of science fiction, this concept is a tool that authors may or may not use, and can be used well or used poorly.

It is not "trivial" because you are comparing piloted fighters to "attack drones," which may include things like non-sapient A.I.s, or simple remote control. I'd hardly call such differences "trivial."

"Disproportionate" may have negative connotations, but if you are going to change it, please change it to something that sounds better than "a massive amount of protagonists." That sounds like something I'd get when buying in bulk down at the Protagonist Store.

"May be a Justified trope" sounds like "it MIGHT be justified, or it might not be. It's also a trope, in a work of fiction." "Actually rather sensible" sounds like "space fighters are a very logical idea and quite realistic." My phrasing sounds less certain, as it should be.

Basically, in my changes after your edits, I preserved the sense of what you were doing, while trying to get the whole thing to flow better, and adding one sole mention that yes, as a matter of fact, some hard sci-fi writers don't think space fighters make sense. That's not "schitsophrenia", that's an important point that should be mentioned in the article for a trope of fiction. I think people who want to learn about this trope may want to know that not all writers think space fighters are sensible, regardless of what "real physics" say.

It sounds to me like you are unwilling to compromise.

As for your claim that I think "this trope is not good," consider that I'm the one who made the YKTTW, and launched it. I doubt I'd have invested that time in a trope I hate. I very much like this trope. I just don't think there are grounds to be as sure as you are that it's 100% realistic and sensible, and I want the article to reflect this.

Not to mention that none of this has to do with good or bad writing. Whether a trope is "justified" or not in the sense of realism or internal consistency, or whether it is more properly associated with hard or soft science fiction, has nothing to do with whether it is good writing or not. You are the one making this connection, not I.

As for my writing style being needlessly wordy, I disagree. It's exactly as wordy as needed. And to be blunt, I do not think your writing is a major improvement on my supposedly wordy style.

Short version: I changed some of your wording, but kept the cores of your changes. This isn't good enough for you, and you do not want to compromise. This makes me very sad and I hope you change your mind.

There we go. I combined the best of your edits with elements that I feel you should not have deleted. I hope this is all good now?

"There we go. I combined the best of your edits with elements that I feel you should not have deleted. I hope this is all good now?"

That's about the only thing I'll take. Still not satisfied with the rest of it. Not by far. By the numbers:

I'm sorry, but you're really exaggerating that, to the point of Critical Research Failure. Both your original and revised version make it sound like a single human needs a life support system the size of a truck or even semitruck just to fly a small spaceship.

Did you know that the space suit on the left◊ is designed to support its wearer for five days in the event of depressurization?

Bottom line: Yes, you can shave off mass and space for a weapon system by taking the human out of the equation—but as humans don't necessarily require a lot of mass and space to survive short missions, the saved mass isn't "potentially massive" by far. My version, by contrast, tells it like it is: the design for an unmanned vehicles doesn't need to allocate mass or space for a human pilot and any life support.

What's the point of adding this when the previous paragraph notes that some sci-fi doesn't even use manned spacecraft? Especially when the link posted just prior proves that "bigger ships have more fuel capacity therefore they can always go longer without refueling than smaller ships" is a fallacy.

All you're doing is contradicting what's been established and trying to downplay the idea that starfighters can be used in science fiction realistically by adding this phrase. Despite your claims, it is needlessly wordy and does nothing but talk against what was said prior.

Considering that you only added this in response to my initial group of edits, I have every reason to believe you are working that into the article as a Take That!. That entire statement is wholly unnecessary if you are trying to avoid causing the very thing you warn 'careless tropers.'

That you keep trying to add that statement back in makes me very skeptical of your repeated claims that you're just trying to be neutral, especially considering these other examples I am posting.

... Which was the quoted words of one "Jack Staik," who envisioned that society as a Deconstruction to be quickly swept aside by "realism." He pretty much spells it out that it would only exist as a science fiction analogy to Don Quixote.

The rest of the Atomic Rockets article on starfighters is one long quotation of like-minded opinions touting how silly/stupid/unscientific/impractical a little manned combat ship is. That is why I keep removing your addition—its author only throws that concept out as a way of mocking people who think otherwise.

"As for your claim that I think "this trope is not good," consider that I'm the one who made the YKTTW, and launched it. I doubt I'd have invested that time in a trope I hate. I very much like this trope. I just don't think there are grounds to be as sure as you are that it's 100% realistic and sensible, and I want the article to reflect this."

You actually like this concept? That wasn't clear to me at all looking at the version you launched, or from the edits you keep making. It looked very much like a parrot of Atomic Rocket's claims. For all I knew, you could have launched the trope to mock it. It's not like people haven't done that before in TV Tropes, after all.

I've watched fans of Atomic Rocket slowly turn the Old-School Dogfighting page from a trope about starfighters being used in nonsensical ways, into a soapbox about how nonsensical and bad science fiction starfighters are period—all using Atomic Rocket and its allied sites as sources for their argument.

"Not to mention that none of this has to do with good or bad writing. Whether a trope is "justified" or not in the sense of realism or internal consistency, or whether it is more properly associated with hard or soft science fiction, has nothing to do with whether it is good writing or not. You are the one making this connection, not I. "

Oh, really now?

Go look at the Bad Writing index and take note that it lists "Did Not Do The Research," "Dan Browned," and "Critical Research Failure" as part of the category.

Then go look at the people who claim starfighters are bad science fiction, because—quoting the version of the page as written entirely by you—"small, single-person spacecraft with limited space for fuel, engines, and life support, operating in an environment where small size might not mean superior manoeuvrability, do not necessarily make sense."

Hmm. Looks like that's claims of Space Fighters being Bad Writing to me! Especially when one takes into consideration certain pages on Atomic Rocket that thumb their nose at anyone who would disagree that manned starfighters aren bad writing or bad science.

So, there you have it. Those are my objections, spelled out for you.

Yes, I'm a parrot, etc. Anywho, no more edit wars for me for now, so I'll leave it as it is. Congrats!