Posted by Anne Onymous on Thu, 09/25/2003 - 10:38am.
Archived comment by Jon:
In general, I agree that B5 had better use of 3 dimensions in space battles. One motivator for that is that in the "space opera" genre, it is usually one-on-many or many-on-many fighting. The Star Trek shows have relied on more submarine and other naval history, which obviously is more limited in the z-axis. One of the most famous original Star Trek episodes directly cribbed from a war movie with two submarines playing "cat and mouse" - imitation as flattery, there.
I think that you'll find in a few of the later Treks that they start to do more with ships using more interesting angles of attack. Having the Borg to fight helped (see the first DS9 episode for a refresher), and the Dominion War was on a more epic scale. The Treks still have a lot of ground to make up in that regard, though.
In general, I agree that B5 had better use of 3 dimensions in space battles. One motivator for that is that in the "space opera" genre, it is usually one-on-many or many-on-many fighting. The Star Trek shows have relied on more submarine and other naval history, which obviously is more limited in the z-axis. One of the most famous original Star Trek episodes directly cribbed from a war movie with two submarines playing "cat and mouse" - imitation as flattery, there.
I think that you'll find in a few of the later Treks that they start to do more with ships using more interesting angles of attack. Having the Borg to fight helped (see the first DS9 episode for a refresher), and the Dominion War was on a more epic scale. The Treks still have a lot of ground to make up in that regard, though.
YMMV.