Your Favourite Space Battle

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

That was the Battle of Earth. Exactly how far Earth was from the Typhon Expanse was never stated, but it was considered remote in "Cause and Effect".

Okay. My bad, then. I change it to... the visual portion we saw in FC.

[Aaron]

I'll go with Balance of Terror, specifically because it focused on the Commanders and the crews rather then shove effects on the screen. The tension, the pain and the loss we see reflected in the men and woman really brought home what the stakes were if they failed.

[Graham Kennedy]

Balance of Terror for me. I love that it's move and countermove, with each getting the upper hand. I love that the enemy is basically just as good at what he does as Kirk is. I love that the stakes they are playing for are the start of a whole war. I even love that the Enterprise is hampered by equipment failures - exactly the kind of thing that happens in the real world but which you almost NEVER see in a fictional battle.

And most of all... every time I see it, I wonder if the Romulan Commander threw the game. He'd crippled the Enterprise with that nuke, all he had to do was turn and head for home and he'd likely have gotten away... but instead he chose to close in again, even knowing what kind of an adversary Kirk was. There is a moment, when his subordinate asks for permission to attack one last time, the Commander hesitates for a long moment, and then says no, he will do it. I always wonder if he didn't decide that perhaps sacrificing himself and his ship to avoid another war wasn't a good trade after all. Maybe, just maybe.

[Deepcrush]

Balance of Terror followed Way of the Warrior followed by The Wrath of Khan.

[Tyyr]

Balance of Terror for me. The DS9 and FC stuff is flashy and all but BoT and TWoK as well were both very cerebral, there was a lot more going on than just two ships taking potshots at one another.

[Reliant121]

I like both equally. The thinking mans battles of BoT and TWoK are great stimulators, but I can't deny being a sucker for flashy graphics.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

Balance of Terror for me. I love that it's move and countermove, with each getting the upper hand. I love that the enemy is basically just as good at what he does as Kirk is. I love that the stakes they are playing for are the start of a whole war. I even love that the Enterprise is hampered by equipment failures - exactly the kind of thing that happens in the real world but which you almost NEVER see in a fictional battle.

And most of all... every time I see it, I wonder if the Romulan Commander threw the game. He'd crippled the Enterprise with that nuke, all he had to do was turn and head for home and he'd likely have gotten away... but instead he chose to close in again, even knowing what kind of an adversary Kirk was. There is a moment, when his subordinate asks for permission to attack one last time, the Commander hesitates for a long moment, and then says no, he will do it. I always wonder if he didn't decide that perhaps sacrificing himself and his ship to avoid another war wasn't a good trade after all. Maybe, just maybe.

Gotta wonder how it'd have turned out if the Romulan Commander was captaining a ship equal to a Connie...

[Captain Seafort]

Gotta wonder how it'd have turned out if the Romulan Commander was captaining a ship equal to a Connie...

He was. The Connie had better shields and possibly better weapons, but the cloak and the plasma canon evened to playing field.

[Mark]

It could easily have gone alot worse for the Enterprise if they didn't have plot power on their side.

[Deepcrush]

I don't think it was plot power. I think it was a cat and mouse battle. Both ships playing both fields. The difference IMO is that the Connie was tougher built so the slugging matches were in her favor. Plus she had range on her side.

[Aaron]

Aye, Kirk stayed outside the BOP's range. Hence the Romulan Commnader's tactic of going through the comet.

[Captain Seafort]

Plus there's always luck. It was plot that luck went the E-nil's way, but it's far from unreasonable that it would play a major part given how balanced the ships were.

[Deepcrush]

Luck is partly chance and partly preparation. Kirk knew the odds of hitting the Romulan ship at long range. But for every shot he had a chance to hit his target. A target that couldn't fire back without giving up its position.

[Lighthawk]

I'm not sure if it has an official name, but the battle in which the dominion claimed DS9. The battle itself was beautiful, getting the see the station unloading onto the dominion/cardassian fleet, so many explosions. And it had a good back story behind the battle, the whole strategy of mining the wormhole to provoke a dominion response, with the plan actually calling for losing the station while a SF/KE fleet would go destroy the dominion ship yards and then swing back to retake the station. Granted the plan didn't work out, but it was cool to see a battle that had more to it than just the fight itself, more than just a matter of staying alive for the moment or stopping an immediate threat. It was the start of a war plan.

[Mikey]

Luck is partly chance and partly preparation. Kirk knew the odds of hitting the Romulan ship at long range. But for every shot he had a chance to hit his target. A target that couldn't fire back without giving up its position.

Agreed. If luck played a part, that luck was shaped by the way Kirk handled the situation. That battle always reminded me of Das Boot. They were lucky to put in safely in Spain, but that luck was due to the way Prochnow's character handled his boat.