How to Write a Space Battle

[Nutso]

[Graham Kennedy]

Hear hear.

[Coalition]

For the bad battles, how could they have been improved?
Star Trek: Discovery - S2: Battle of Zaheia (sp?)
Have the large number of Section 31 ships, but they are mentioned as 2-3 being actual warships, with the rest being little more than a pair of engines strapped to a cargo box full of drones. The Federation ships are essentially using their anti-shipping weapons to swat the MASSIVE swarm of drones, and the shuttles are being deployed to provide more firepower. Reinforcements that show up are expecting a fight against ships, but are soon englobed by drones as well, and have to resort to shifting engine power to shields so they don't die. Ships with weaponry primarily in the forward arc have to be constantly spinning to fire against the drones that are approaching, plus performing Thatch weaves to clean each other off.

Show the space battle as individual or paired ships with a bubble of exploding drones around them, with a red 'cloud' indicating the drones flying. Think the battle of Ender's Game, with the Bug fighters around the Earth warships

Attempts to get the ships together to provide mutual protection are prevented by the section 31 control, but isolated ships are still being swarmed over and killed. The Kelpians' instinct of being a 'prey species' is to herd together, and is actually the tactic that can work best. Maneuvering to string out the drones is not practical as the drones have higher acceleration/top speed than the ships.

Then introduce a twist - the cargo box ships will use kamikaze attacks on ships that get too close, so the 'harmless' cargo ships suddenly become a threat again. 'Good guys' stay away from them, while still dealing with the drones, and trying to destroy the 2-3 main Section 3 warships. They sacrifice a lot, manage to destroy them, but the drones are still attacking smartly. Realizing the drones are now coordinating among themselves, the Good Guys resign themselves to taking out as many drones each before they are all destroyed.

The catch - one of the cargo ships is the actual control node. One person spots the pattern that drones in a certain volume faster than others, or a specific cargo ship avoids ramming, or something, and that gives the whole deceit away. With a key target identified, all Good Guy ships focus their attention on that cargo ship. The critical control ship is destroyed, and the drone go to autonomous. They are no longer coordinated, no longer share data, and are soon mopped up on an individual basis (where a swarm of drones will not react if a swarm outside its sensor range is attacked),false targets are created to decoy the drones into multiple directions, or just wait until the drones run out of fuel.

Need some technobabble about where there was only one control ship though (Leland?, but then make his life-sign cloaked so they cannot find him)