Where are the Routs and Surrenders in Sci-Fi Space Battles?

THE SOJOURN - AN ORIGINAL SCI-FI AUDIO DRAMA:
www.thesojournaudiodrama.com/
Spacedock investigates the curious absence of retreats and surrenders as a factor in Sci-Fi Space Battles.
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[@Spacedock]

For those asking about Audible, yes we are still boycotting it. We don't intend to release future volumes of The Sojourn on there. Audible is mentioned here because Volume One specifically is still being distributed there and this is a Vol 1 Plug that was edited a while ago. Not everyone who listens to Sojourn is a Spacedock viewer so we didn't want to send a confusing message by it suddenly disappearing. Plus as I mentioned in the boycott video, having at least something on Audible is a rather irritating necessity in the industry for various reasons. Naturally we would still prefer that anyone interested in checking The Sojourn out make efforts to do so on a more creator-friendly platform than Audible.

[@zacm.2342]

Ah, right. Reckoned this was probably edited prior to that when I heard it, but glad for the clarification!

[@DariusT32]

Have you guys ever read the Safehold Series by David Weber? That series has the interesting mix of fight to the death and the more realistic surrender when you have lost.

[@hotshotx1598]

Btw, General Grievous was infamous for retreating whenever the battle turned against his favor. Space or land, there are multiple Clone Wars episodes that show his awareness that living to fight another day is much better than dying out of honor or pride.

[@corporategunner5972]

Please make a video on the Pegasus-class Assault Carrier from the UC Timeline of Gundam!

[@Marinealver]

Boarding parties in Science Fiction: We are at a tactic disadvantage and will surely be destroyed unless we conduct a desperate boarding action! Boarding Parties if they were accurate: Unknown vessel has cut power to their engines and has struck their colors. Prepare the Boarding teams to secure the vessel and its crew for investigation.

[@inspectorbutters166]

Considering the staggering amount of false surrenders during the clone wars, I wouldn't be surprised, if the Imperial Academy taught its cadets to simply not give a damn about surrenders anymore

[@kaethesage]

The rebel alliance also pulls this all the time in the rebels show. Plus in Star Wars there's always the minor risk that you take aboard a force-sensitive who proceeds to jailbreak and do serious damage. Perfidy is the most common war crime in Star Wars.

[@BogeyTheBear]

And _that_ is the consequence of perfidy. You can only use a false surrender as an battle tactic a few times before the enemy says "Fine... be that way!" and opens fire on your white flags from then on out.

[@inspectorbutters166]

@@BogeyTheBear Exactly. There is a reason why false surrenders have been deemed a war crime in the real world. The white flag should be treated as sacrosanct by both combating forces

[@klaxxon__]

I always kept thinking when watching Clone Wars: Yeah, you may have won this battle, but you screwed every ally fighting a losing battle from now on.

[@CptJistuce]

@@kaethesage In fairness, the rebel alliance WAS a terrorist organization engaging in armed insurrection. Do we EXPECT them to adhere to the rules? Yes, I know they were the good guys, and history is written by the victors. Just sayin'... I wouldn't expect the rebellion to play by the rules.

[@pennyforyourthots]

Star Wars the Clone Wars actually has multiple examples of surrender, although they're almost always false and result in war crimes lol

[@achillesa5894]

clone Wars Anakin and war crimes, name a better duo, I'll wait

[@GreMnMlin]

@@achillesa5894 Yoda and ketamine

[@CHRF-55457]

Lmao

[@sothatsdevintart2562]

I mean, that makes a decent reason for ship Captains and Commanders would not surrender in the Star Wars universe, Anakin falsely surrendering multiple times without consequences, would understandably set a precedent where surrender has no real value anymore, and tacticians would likely view it to be more efficient to kill your enemy even if they supposedly surrender, than run the risk of them setting a trap and killing your surviving men.

[@marrqi7wini54]

@@sothatsdevintart2562 Or enemy tacticians start faking surrenders on mass. A war with no rules will lead to bloody conclusions. Even more so than before.

[@crizznik2312]

The battle in Rogue One is actually a good example of them doing this. They had a specific goal in mind and knew they needed to get it done regardless of the costs, but once the goal was completed, the remaining ships who could escape did so.

[@andymac4883]

And the Imperials aren't exactly being stupid about it either; they're holding out until reinforcements can arrive, because they're supposed to be defending a particularly high value asset. And while one Star Destroyer is disabled, the other doesn't seem to be in any trouble until the rebels pull a fast one and push one ship into the other.

[@timberwolf1575]

The sequel trilogy also had the rebels retreating (ineffectively, but retreating).

[@Bob-lr2xp]

The land battle was stupid though. They brought AT-ATs to lay waste to their own base.

[@ryanpayne7707]

@@timberwolf1575 Wasn't that kind of the whole point of the Battle of Hoth?

[@MarvelX42]

In Star Wars, the Rebels run away all the time. That is literally what the entire movie Empire Strikes back was about, the Rebels running away. They ran away to Hoth. When the Empire found them on Hoth they ran away again. At the end of that movie they were as far away as they could get.

[@davidcolby167]

And The Last Jedi too!

[@LAV-III]

And of course the rebels most major campaign wasn’t called the “mid rim retreat” for nothing

[@ninootten9255]

Running away is not the same as a surrender pal.

[@MarvelX42]

@@ninootten9255 I am not your "pal" as I don't know you. But running away is one of the things that he said that science fiction was lacking "routs". A rout is "a defeat attended with disorderly flight". I guess one could argue that the rebellions flight was orderly? but that is not quite veracious and would also be a matter of prospective and opinion.

[@Komaru.89]

@@MarvelX42 I think he's talking more about when two prepared forces meet for battle, and one of them decides that holding the thing is not worth it. In the case of Hoth, and Last Jedi, the Rebels/Resistance decided BEFORE THE BATTLE STARTED that they needed to run. Also, in both cases, the Empire wasn't interested in taking and holding their position, they were interested in wiping them out. So neither are quite the surrender he seems to be talking about.

[@InquisitorThomas]

In Halo the Humans actually had a no surrender policy because the Covenant was waging a war of extermination, and being captured risked the Covenant finding the Human core territory sooner, so self destructing was a better option then dying.

[@Halo_Legend]

Than

[@CMTechnica]

Never heard of the scuttling of UNSC vessels (so pressing X to doubt) but they made it doctrine during the war to wipe all navigation drives to prevent them from finding the core systems. It was the Cole Protocol

[@TheT7770ify]

@@CMTechnica That was the last step of the Cole protocol. In the event it looked like your ship was going to be captured scuttle it. The problem was that by the time it came to that most UNSC ships were completely destroyed by Covenant weapons. Also check out Halo Evolutions: midnight in the heart of Midlothian for an example of the Covenant trying to capture a ship and the UNSC scuttling it

[@Nostripe361]

@Nusil Vervich it’s because in old bungee lore, after first contact at Harvest, the prophets noticed that any forerunner tech reacted to humans being nearby; including a device that is on every covenant ship to find forerunner tech. The prophets realized this could lead to the species to start questioning the great journey so they decided the best thing to do was eliminate the humans before this became public knowledge by calling them heretics and enemies of the gods. It’s actually shown in some media that this confused some of the species like the elites; who though the humans showed of bravery in the face of defeat was worthy of them being educated on the great journey instead of being whipped out.

[@FrozenPhoenix15]

@@CMTechnica The Fermion and Circumference during the Battle for Reach Gray Team’s mission during The Cole Protocol The Heart of Midlothian Argent Moon during the second mission of Halo 5 And, as stated above, it’s literally the 5th step of the Cole Protocol For future reference, save everyone some time by admitting upfront that you’re not familiar with the lore.

[@DrakeAurum]

Rogue One seems a poor example. Aside from the fact that their largest ship actually was taken intact, the stakes in that battle were literally "If we surrender before completing our mission, the Empire starts blowing up planets."

[@AnEnemySpy456]

And the moment they had the plans the Rebels made a run for it.

[@badgamemaster]

And it Rebels they runs away from some battles... hell the Empire even have that anti hyperspace ships in the clip he was using.

[@TRONvix]

Rogue One isn´t an example at all. Their mentallity is more to either/or people/terrorists fighting kinda "holy" war against opression. It´s all about making a stand. Is die or be killed. No surrender is allowed for them.

[@ianbalogh3082]

Wasn't this put out before?

[@casbot71]

And if you do surrender to the Empire… well… _dying quickly in space_ may have been the better option. Rebels in Imperial custody did not just sit out the War in a prison camp treated properly in accordance to Galactic Rules of Warfare.

[@psychosolver]

"Commander, signal the following in all languages and on all frequencies: we surrender. State that we are not asking for any terms or conditions." Captain Picard, Encounter at Farpoint. He surrenders to Q because he knows it's pointless to fight and has to buy some time for the saucer section to escape.

[@Michael_Smith-Red_No.5]

Yes.

[@talos2384]

'When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard' Sun Tzu-The Art Of War

[@kelseybull9893]

The reason for that is so that they have a path to rout. The overwhelming majority of kills in and after a battle were done by the victors to the losers as they routed.

[@zackbobby5550]

@@kelseybull9893 Also it's so the enemy doesn't get too desperate. Desperate humans have a certain knack for pulling shit out of their ass when they're really scared. An enemy that thinks there's a decent chance they can lose AND survive is not gonna fight as hard as somebody who knows that their only way of survival is victory.

[@viperstriker4728]

Sun Tzu might change his tactics when he sees nukes.

[@LHWK_RHC]

Damn, beat me to it. LOL!

[@davidlewis5312]

yeah, you don't want to fight a man with his back to the wall who has already accepted he has to fight to live.

[@tesnacloud]

Ships can have a hard time surrendering when they can't properly communicate their surrender. This happened to the Bismark in world war two, and can be a plot point.

[@SheldonAdama17]

Maybe in a particular sci-fi universe, there is a universal “signal light” pattern similar to SOS that can signal intent to surrender at least among conventional civilized powers (e.g. rebels vs Empire, Klingons vs Federation). Just a thought from a world building perspective.

[@grantdotjpg]

I thought the Bismarck did surrender but all of the Brits were so mad they just kept hammering the ship.

[@tntsummers926]

@@grantdotjpg depends on which side you ask, I wouldn't be surprised, most, if not all wars, have both sides commit a lot, and I mean a lot, of war crimes for both sides.

[@unknowntoall.8280]

I see what your point is, but I don't think the Bismark is a good example. The Royal Navy was fairly merciless in that battle (obstesibly out of anger over the sinking of the Hood) and supposedly fired upon German sailers who were attempting to surrender. They were also under time pressure (they were closer to enemy territory than was strictly healthy) and had strict orders to destroy the Bismark no matter what. I'm not sure they would have honoured an official surrender from the captain, even if they were able to hear it.

[@TheBespectacledN00b]

@@SheldonAdama17 In the Honor Harrington novels striking your impeller wedge is the almost universally accepted signal for surrender.

[@Icarusabove]

Babylon 5 "Severed Dreams" "If you value your lives, be somewhere else" /enemy fleet runs away.

[@Tobiasfowler]

Man that scene is still awesome 20 years on.

[@ChaoticAphrodite]

Was about to reference this scene.

[@BlackXIV]

Yes but to be honest.. EVERYONE would surrender to Delenn if she is so serious.

[@modisp]

Came to comments to AGAIN slip in B5 too. Yes "Severed dreams" has few examples of offering surrender. Then battle of Proxima III basically ended with only 2-3 ships destroyed and rest surrendered of even refused to fight when offered a choice. But all this was humans vs humans civil war. But also same happened when B5 was shielding Narn cruised and attacked Centauri Primus battleship. Tho offer was bit too late. Also about Shadows in this video. In series in most engagements they either had overwhelming power to crush enemies efficiently or they retreated eventually. Issue was that it was near impossible to catch them off guard. That happened I think 3 times in series. First time it was Vorlons. Second time when Army of Light first engaged with heavy loses. Right before "going to Z'ha'dum. And last time was the three way when war ended. On the other hand EA-Minmbari war was brutal. But it was religious war. Which has similar all or nothing cases in human history too. Unfortunetly.

[@davidcolby167]

ALSO!!!!! The battle for Proxima! Several Omegas strike their colors in that battle before being cut to pieces by White Stars

[@computernerdtechman]

Maybe YOU would mutiny to save your own skin, but being a former Navy man, it would be unconscionable. Think of all the naval battles in WWII when shots are exploding on the ship. Your too busy trying to fight the fires and damage control then worry about second guessing your Captains strategy and tactics. Tens of thousand of men died at their posts in naval battles. Very few mutinies compared to the number of ships in combat battles. Naval battles are completely different than land combat. In land combat, you as an individual can decide to run away on your own. A rout starts with one person running away and cascades when others see they will be left behind. On board a ship at sea, you cannot run away. You are stuck there. Unless you jump overboard and trust the sharks don't get you. Mutinies take time to form alliances. You have to get a good portion of the crew to agree with you. In the heat of a battle, there just isn't time and it would have to be senior staff. Lowly crew members wouldn't have a chance to start it on their own.

[@OrDuneStudios]

You are 100% correct shipmate. The best way to survive a naval engagement its to fight move and float.

[@nuggs4snuggs516]

In the Napoleonic Wars, I think something like 5% of all cavalry charges actually resulted in the cavalry smashing into the infantry. Most of the time, the infantry would either turn tail and run, or the cavalry would pull out of the charge once it was apparent the infantry was holding it's ground.

[@docartemis2878]

In Star Wars, when fighting the empire, surrender for the rebels typically meant brutal mistreatment by the empire likely ending in a public execution for treason.

[@user-qf6yt3id3w]

That was true on the Eastern Front in WW2 and yet people still surrendered. Come to think of it everyone who surrendered to the Japanese in WW2 knew they'd be brutally mistreated and possibly executed but they still surrendered. Even on the Western front, there were numerous summary executions of surrendering troops by both sides.

[@boxlflox9094]

I think he is arguing that the empire should take prisoners, but I agree that, at least for the aliens, surrendering will lead to violence, slavery and possibly execution for treason.

[@ronin3381]

It still gives you a better chance of survival than if you don’t surrender and fight to the death.

[@nuttyjawa]

literally the entire Rebel ground force on Endor surrenders

[@darthXreven]

@@nuttyjawa for all of 2 seconds enough to spring the trap.....

[@Pentagon6519]

In DS9 they retreated all the time from the Dominion. Also surrenders and retreats happened a lot in Babylon 5, the humans were trying to unconditionally surrender before the battle of the line. The Rebellion retreated from Hoth. The humans retreated from the cylons all the time. Most science fiction has the villains being the kind of people it is probably better to try and die than be captured by.

[@DavidKnowles0]

An they have several routs. They routed and completely destroy the Dominion fleet defending Ds9. The klingon and federation and romulans got destroyed when the Breen made a surprise entrance into the war.

[@Ghost1789]

Yea babylon 5 at the battle of proxima 3 saw the "surrender" of the "Nemesis" and "Heracles" and the routing of "Juno"

[@themonkeyhand]

The main characters retreating from the Dominion seem more like plot armor than military tactics.

[@Phlosioneer]

Late to the party but I think a large part of it is how fragile space ships are. On the one hand, taking a ship intact would be great. On the other hand, it's just so much easier, with fewer logistics, to vent a ship that you capture. Poke some holes, wait a bit, then patch them up and clean up. The major three logistic points are: 1) How are you going to get the people off the ship, safely? You have to dock, setup airlocks, and then send in a boarding party. You essentially have to expose the weakest part of your ship to the enemy's guns at point blank, most of the time, before you even get a chance to board. The only time this is a good, safe option is if you capture a ship you can store in a hangar, like the rebel blockade runner. 2) How are you going to store the people? Ships in star trek routinely have 600+ people on board at any given time. No ship in the entire federation fleet has a brig for 600 people. You'd have to keep people in their own ship, and tow it home. Home could be a long ways away, and it may be waste precious time getting a captured ship ready for warp, since you can't tow it at warp speed. 3) How are you going to secure the ship? You probably don't have enough crew to fully man a large ship, and attempts to make the surrendered crew pilot the ship without enough supervision are dangerous without other precautions. If you let the original crew pilot, then you have to go through and disable all the weapons; you have to lock down their navigation computers so they can't just jump to a different place (remember, can't tow through hyperspace or warp speed); and you have to try your best to remove all the sidearms and blasters and explosives from the ship. Compare this with the alternative logistics: destroy a ship enough to make it uninhabitable, and then leave, and let a dedicated ship come and tow/dismantle/crew/scrap it. Retreat should definitely happen way more often, though. As should "destroy their engines, then wait for a cleanup crew to arrive to safely disarm the ship". Unless you have a cargo bay big enough, it's just too difficult to do anything else. We should also see ships designed specifically to capture other ships; with huge hangars, scrap capabilities, tractor beams, oversized crew compliments, marine boarding teams, and very large prison/containment capacities to hold the crew of opposing ships.

[@erikschaal4124]

Sufficient to say, a large and advanced military will have a support fleet. If the main fleet can't accept prisoners, or salvage their ships, they should certainly be able to keep them locked down (tow cables, tractor beam) until the support fleet arrives. And even if you destroyed the enemy, chances are, your going to be left with dozens, hundreds, or even more enemy escape pods. Leaving them to die as the oxygen runs out is probably a war crime.

[@strategicperson95]

@@erikschaal4124 Well something that came to my mind actually reading all this is, while you have a point of a support fleet nearby. However something that I would even point to as something that even Spacedock forgets is that mentality works well in any other combat, except two: Air and Sub. Air you only have 2 choices, fight or run. And even if you go with the Run option, your counter measures better be good to ensure you don't get sniped by long range missiles while you tail out of there. However I see Space more on par to Submarine warfare, you are in an environment that is not suitable to anyone once exposed. For smaller vessels that don't have a lot of armor or large amounts of compartments you are doomed when it gets breached. With larger vessels you have a higher chance of survival as long as the ship is still mostly intact. Submarine warfare comes off to me as the most dangerous as it is essentially All-or-Nothing. Though at least with Submarines, stealth is a main factor; so surrendering isn't really an option. Almost like submariners get the same treatment that snipers get, but they also have the environment trying to kill them too.

[@floseatyard8063]

I'd imagine larger ships would already have a little prison but you got a point for the bigger ships.

[@BernddasBrotB7]

On point number one, you could either require the surrendering vessel to disable its guns somehow (scuttling charges?) or otherwise disable them with pinpoint fire to minimise risk to the surrendered crew. If relations allow (history of decent behaviour from the surrendering party), just have them power down and keep your own weapons ready just in case. You've probably got a stronger broadside then them if they're surrendering, particularly if you have pre-warning of power diversions. For point two, cargo and/or shuttle bays would be an option. Just sweep the bay for caches or potential control surfaces (smash screens and weld maintenance hatches closed, for example), make sure the surrendered crew are unarmed going in and then lock the doors behind them. From then on it's basically just a matter of making sure they have bedding, laundry and food. Having a few security people in your crew with some training toward maintaining a friendly but cautious outlook would be helpful here since if you treat the prisoners well, they're much less likely to try a revolt in the first place. Unless you're severely understaffed, point three is actually not much of a problem since you ought to have multiple shifts aboard. Just send over beta shift and redistribute timetables according to a pre-determined doctrine which ought to be in place for this, or in the case of severe casualties.

[@andrewzimmer9161]

Possible middle ground: "Power down your weapons, cut your engines, transfer your computer. We allow you five minutes to abandon your ship." - Main computer password is handed over, so the ship's AI can't get any ideas. - Enemy crew has time to beat feet to an escape pod and leave. The pods are treated as POWs and not fired on, and are rounded up after the battle. - Escape pods likely have some sort of rations aboard. You don't have to disembark the POWs immediately. You've got a bunch of metal cans in the cargo bay, with your marines stacked up with static weapons trained on the hatches. You captured the enemy ship, have complete control over its systems, and took the crew in a way respectful to galactic norms.

[@dwc1964]

Spacedock: No one ever runs away Delenn: Only one human captain has ever survived battle with a Minbari fleet ...

[@Thunderwolf666]

"He is behind me. You are in front of me."

[@dwc1964]

@@Thunderwolf666 Earthforce captain: proceeds to be somewhere else

[@Knuspermonster]

@@Thunderwolf666 Earthforce Commander: "Fair Point. Have a nice Day" Proceeds to Peace out.

[@babybalrog]

B5 has lots of surrenders. When they declare their independence, Sheridan calls on them to surrender. Same with last episode of Season 3. Earth Alliance civil war. in S4

[@MyrdredTheBuilder]

In the “Undiscovered Country”, Kirk signals his surrender to avoid further conflict.

[@Adam-sx6ed]

This video is a bit off. DS9 Surrendered to the Dominion Sisko captures a Dominion ship. ST6 Enterprise surrendered. Voyager was boarded and captured at least once, and all forced into holodeck hunting scenerios. ST Reboots: Nero is offered a surrender. Khanh is offered to surrender by Sulu. Kirk offers to surrender to the Vengeance. Discovery S3: Discovery is captured. Expanse pirates often board and capture supplies, even among themselves. Expanse Rocinante offers surrender to ships at least once. Battlestar was constantly retreating. .etc etc etc

[@Mercutioswrath]

@@Adam-sx6ed I'll chime in with Picard surrendering to Q in the first episode of TNG. The Enterprise in TNG surrenders in a few cases, though fights to the death drastically more prevalent.

[@mcnultyssobercompanion6372]

The surrender scene in "Undiscovered Country" is actually pretty excellent. Shatner's performance is incredibly compelling. Underrated film, in my opinion.

[@henshini]

Even the scenes shown on screen from rogue one led to a retreat

[@MonarchRigel]

was gonna post that response. glad to see someone else had taken care of it.

[@rainerbloedsinn182]

In the Honor Harrington book series the concept of surrender is quite real and often addressed. If a ship in combat wants to surrender it "strikes it's wedge", i.e. powering down their gravity based drive technology which also gives them some sort of shield protection. Striking the wedge is almost instantly seen on any sensor and leaves the ship basically defenseless, which is why it's the interstellar signal for surrender. At one point in the books there is a tragic incident when the inferior force strikes it's wedge but the other side could not recall it's massive inbound missile barrage, due to lightspeed delay and experimental tech issues. The winning admiral told the surrendering admiral of the fact and to abandon ship immediately, since he did not wish to kill surrendered opponents, but only very few spacemen made it in time while thousands died. Afterbattle search and rescue operations and the treatment of POWs are also often a topic in the series. All in all I would really love to see the Honor Harrington series be a topic of this channel at one point.

[@Exsam]

I immediately thought of the Honorverse while watching this video. 'Striking the wedge' is a huge component of the early books. Sadly the series degenerates into mass suicide by missile barrage as the scope widens and the stakes 'rise'.

[@bluebonic3497]

And the final battle in the Fifth novel, when the Havenite admiral realizes that he had just enough ships to maybe destroy all of the Grayson ships, but that there would be almost no one left alive at the end, so he just took the fleet and escaped. Only time in sci fi where a retreat was chosen over a potential victory.

[@Dorweaver]

@@bluebonic3497 Thomas Theisman was no strategic slouch, after all.

[@Dorweaver]

@@Exsam I've always lamented that. I guess it was inevitable, but I like the small scale of the engagements in the first 6 or 8 books.

[@ralphkern9146]

@@Dorweaver Thomas Theisman is one of my favourite SF characters. A total tactical and strategic genius who didn't just fight and win as often or not against a vastly superior enemy. But kept his morals when his own government was found wanting and corrupt. To me, the true hero of the Honorverse.

[@Azreal34]

This is something I always liked about the Honor Harrington series. They were willing to surrender when absolutely necessary or to let the enemy go if it ended the battle.

[@t4rv0r60]

a man of culture

[@davidsinn]

I was going to comment the same thing. Surrender is a minor plot point all through the series and a major plot point several times in the series, from both sides of the conflict.

[@johnrice6180]

Shows what happens when SF is written by an actual military historian. I'd love to see Spacedock do a review or two (dozen) about Honorverse combat.

[@xheralt]

That would require people to, you know, _read a book..._ but yes, I love the Harrington saga.

[@Kamenriderneo]

5:50 At the end of Star Wars: Rebels season 3, the rebels see that they are loosing the fight and they contact the empire to announce their surrender. Admiral Thrawn's response was: "So sorry, but are not accepting surrender at this time." And then he ordered his fleet to keep firing at the rebels. In this particular context, the Empire viewed themselves as the righteous and the rebels were only terrorists. So of course, their rules of engagement were no mercy, no prisoners. But if this battle had happened between two legitimate armes, would the rules of engagement have been the same? Maybe, maybe not. We have to remember also the setting. During the Clone wars, just 20 years earlier, one of the republic favorite tactic was to fake surrendering in order to get the enemy to lower their guard and then spring a trap. In our world, this would be a war crime, but not in the Galaxy far, far away. So no, I don't think there would be a lot of surrendering in space battles because most people wouldn't take the risk of it being a trap and would just shoot you anyway

[@USAFraimius]

Well, the Star Wars Empire had a nasty habit of executing prisoners, so I don't think the Rebel Alliance would have seen surrender as a viable option in most cases. Better to chance long odds than resign yourself to torture and execution.

[@Janoha17]

And in most cases, retreat was the Rebels' goal, or accomplishing their objective and then retreating, while for an Imperial captain, surrender puts you on the Empire's hit list, and retreat subjects you to the wrath of Vader or the Inquisitors.

[@boxlflox9094]

as someone has already pointed out in a different comments during world war II on the Eastern front both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union treated their prisoners terribly and in some cases would just shoot them on the spot but still people surrendered

[@Joesolo13]

Exactly. Plus the rebels retreat a lot, To the point the Empire develops special ships to prevent them from doing it.

[@JonBerry555]

@@Joesolo13 The Empire also had the Tarkin Doctrine which encouraged rule by fear, which likely includes massive demonstration of force even when its uncalled for. Destroying an Enemy fleet would be apart of that Doctrine, even if that fleet surrendered. The Empire was ruled by murderous madmen after all.

[@Arkangilos]

There are plenty of examples of Rebel POW’s though. I think it’s usually the high profile leaders that are executed. The rest are used for labor and re-educated.

[@HonorableTaco]

I have an example. This reminds me of the outcome of the Callisto Incident in the Halo universe. Preston Cole, serving aboard a UNSC destroyer, was forced to take command when the rest of his bridge crew were taken out of action by a nuclear attack by insurrectionists, in a fight with a previously captured corvette. Cole ordered an immediate surrender, to which his enemy accepted. The corvette then docked with the cargo bay to imprison his crew. When the bay doors opened, a missile transported from its silo into the bay of the destroyer was fired into the corvette, forcing a surrender. Narrowly dodging a court martial for war crimes, Cole was left without the option of surrender for the rest of his career, as nobody would believe it.

[@CHRF-55457]

Lol. Lmao

[@herbderbler1585]

I guess that's a good example of failing upward. His actions were morally shady at the time, but humanity ultimately ended up in a war where surrender truly wasn't an option for anyone, making him a sort of poster child for fighting to the bitter end no matter what.

[@lachlanmckinnie1406]

I like how he was actually tried for war crimes. It's good to see someone held accountable for false surrenders.

[@AbolaSpartan]

@@lachlanmckinnie1406 In the short story that details Vice Admiral Cole's life, "The Impossible Life and Possible Death of Preston Cole", the brass was really unsure about what to do with Cole. On one hand, some wanted to give him the Legion of Honor (the halo equivalent of the Medal of Honor) for his bravery and tactical insight, but others wanted to court-martial him for violating Common Space Law. They did neither to avoid setting a precedent.

[@seekingabsolution1907]

Wow, Cole was an evil man wasn't he.

[@MrMikemcmike]

"Almost no warfare in history has gone this way" Aside from basically every naval engagement of WW2? You know, the most recent large-scale naval conflict that still largely defines the underlying assumptions we approach scifi navies with?

[@williamlydon2554]

Well the Japanese in the PTO did indeed fight with fanaticism, at sea they still withdrew when the battle was lost. After Midway, their invasion force turned back because it couldn't risk being caught under carrier attack, and off Samar in 1944, the Yamato and her escorts withdrew when it became clear Taffy 3's carriers had escaped them. Well they did rarely surrender, they still didn't fight to the death at sea, only on land.

[@retrograde98xp7]

Ships still struck their colors during ww2, it happened less often but it still happened.

[@The_Natalist]

@@williamlydon2554 the battle of samar is great example of both, actually. Absolute chaos tends to do that 😅

[@wiros]

And hundred of cities sieges among the centuries. There are thousands of examples of standing to the last men. Sometimes ppl feel they are fighting for something bigger than their lifes

[@Flarecobra]

Battle of Hoth. Rebels escaped the field of battle after performing a fighting retreat. And in the X-wing series of games, there were a few missions where the objective was in the capture, not kill, of a target.

[@danielkorladis7869]

Yeah. Hoth was a hollow victory for the Empire because they won the field, but the Alliance mostly escaped and they didn't capture any significant leaders (until quite a while after the battle was over, with Solo).

[@BogeyTheBear]

The correct term is 'rearguard'. A retreat is a force repositioning itself into a better fighting position. A rearguard is a screening action trying to protect a force that is quitting the field of battle.

[@warmachine5835]

This was also an explicit strategy and not "We thought we could win, but we're actually losing." It's not comparable to the situations the video addresses.

[@Toerinator]

Plenty of examples in Star Trek; In wrath of khan, Reliant hailing the Enterprise to discuss terms of surrender. After exchange of fire, both retreat, realizing there isn't much to gain, beside their mutual destruction. In The search for spock, The enterprise fakes its surrender. In The Undiscovered Country, Kirk surrenders to prevent a war. In TNG, the defector, commander Tamolak urges Picard to surrender, to consider the men and women he would lead into a lost cause. ...

[@Icarusabove]

"The Defector" /Klingon ships uncloak Picard - Shall we die together? /Tomalak tips fedora and leaves.

[@milamberarial]

Even in the clip he showed in the video with the Klingon attack on DS9, the ships are about to break away and retreat when he ends that clip. He is kind of deliberately ignoring a lot of retreats in scifi

[@Marinealver]

@@Icarusabove Don't forget when first encountering the Q continuum after the Enterprise was caught in the net Picard announced their surrender.

[@cura5000]

DS9 - Federation ships withdrawing from battles with the Dominion (Start of season 6) Picard - Romulan fleet withdrawing rather than engage Starfleet

[@dawfydd]

@@cura5000 there are plenty of examples he just wanted to plug his book, he does this sometimes, i can't think of too many examples where fleets fight to the last and nobody escapes..

[@BattleUnit3]

"No retreat, No Surrender!" *Bang* "Whoever wants to die here, go ahead, however I am legging it!"

[@Halo_Legend]

Now storytellers have the freedom to create a character charismatic enough to convince his troops to stay and fight in the face of overwhelming odds.

[@DatInnocentGuy]

@@Halo_Legend charisma vs the fear of death is an easy choice for me lmao :p

[@danielkorladis7869]

I think it's actually more reasonable for fights to the death to occur in Star Wars (though the rebels do a *lot* of running away, like all of The Empire Strikes Back) because it's a brutal, ugly civil war where one side are guerillas most of the time. Whereas wars in Star Trek are usually fought between two different interstellar states.

[@samschellhase8831]

that scene you used of Rebels at the beginning did result in a retreat, though. Sato sacrificed himself after sustained damage to allow a means of escape for Ezra, but eventually they realized they were taking too heavy of losses and retreated to the planet surface, and Thrawn even let them, didn't needlessly pursue them as they retreated. Of course, he enacted a planetary bombardment after that, but it was an example of a retreat

[@woytaq]

While capturing ships was a thing that very often happened in the past, if you look for example at the first and second world war, instances of ships surrendering are very few and far between. Crews would sooner scuttle their ships than let them fall into enemy hands and there were very good practical reasons for that - technology and secrets, code books and communication equipment like enigma machines. I think that this is the sentiment of those times rather than earlier prize-taking ship capturing times, that are closer to what most authors want to show.

[@ronin3381]

Crews still surrendered though. Just not with their ships intact. The scuttling of the German cruiser Graf Spee is a good example of this.

[@woytaq]

@@ronin3381 I agree and that is something that definitely should happen more often in stories. For every Graf Spee you have a Scharnhorst or Bismarck that kept fighting for as long as their guns were able to fire. And we have to remember that it would be so much harder to properly scuttle a ship in space, since it ain't gonna sink beneath te waves taking all it's secrets with it. a couple of well placed explosions would make it's data core, weapon systems and other potentially strategic parts unrecognizable, but if you detonate a warp core or whatever, your ship's crew in escape pods probably won't survive it either.

[@cp1cupcake]

@@woytaq With regards to ships which kept on fighting as long as possible in WW2 despite the odds, there is also Taffy 3. One of those few naval battles where the side hopelessly outclassed (US)..........won. In part because some of the ships refused to disengage.

[@ChakatBlackstar]

@@cp1cupcake The other part being that the Japanese didn't realize their decoy tactic had actually drawn off Halsey's main fleet, and they assumed no one would be daft enough to fight that fiercely against those odds without the main fleet at their back.

[@woytaq]

​@@cp1cupcake Indeed, and it is also one of the cases where giving up wouldn't even be possible since, you know, Imperial Japanese navy wasn't exactly known for humane treatment of captured sailors and soldiers. That and Taffy 3 was the only thing between Yamato's guns and landing forces so they were basically buying as much time as they could.

[@maxhocks2006]

The battle of Hoth in the original trilogy is fought so the rebels can run away.

[@Joesolo13]

The alliance in general is a massive exception to the "no one retreats" rule. Their entire strategy is hit and run, and given the chance, they run. Hell the first thing we see in star wars is a rebel ship fucking legging it.

[@VegetaLF7]

@@Joesolo13 Yup. The Rebels have fully embraced the oldest and noblest of pirate traditions (according to Captain Jack Sparrow). They fight...to run away

[@owenmichaels8220]

But I think he's drawing the difference between the whole force withdrawing per the plan and individual ships running away from an ongoing battle

[@Trepur349]

Yeah but that's the thing, it's always organized retreats. You don't see any routs

[@brianjohnson5272]

So in that case "they must fight, to run away." Got the pirate's of the Caribbean reference.

[@Wish-and-Hope]

The whole "why is everbody fighting to their death?" thing is also a thing Pen&Paper absolutely needs to ask itself. Why would some rugged highwaymen even attack an armed group of adventurers? Far too much risk and trouble, when the usual merchant can easily be made to pay a toll. (Not meant as a euphemism btw: Why kill people, interrupt the trade route you're leeching of and put a major bounty on your head, when you can just take a bit less but with far fewer consequences.) And even if they somehow get into a fight with adventurers... what's the motivation to fight to the death... ?

[@Knuspermonster]

Thats why i accept always in my campaigns non fighting options or at least non lethal options for encounters.....wich leads wierdly to the point that the Party is actually Recruting people xD

[@Wish-and-Hope]

@@Knuspermonster YES. xD Some thugs sent to "teach us a lesson" - we beat them up and afterwards we're like... "So... you happy with your current employers? We offer all of the following benefits!" +6 guards for our combined Inn/Bathhouse/Community Centre! (That needs guards because we've "accidentally" kicked out the gang who previously controlled that part of town.)

[@Knuspermonster]

@@Wish-and-Hope and thats how they created the mafia by accident

[@erikschaal4124]

As a DM, the only monsters that fight to the death are generally undead or constructs. Wild beasts, even if they're half starved, won't pick on prey that is too difficult. And will generally run from a fight, unless they're defending their young. DMs who follow the fight to the death are generally unimaginative, or they're following a module that is just as unimaginative. Worse still are the players. Because they expect to be able to handle every encounter the DM throws at them. (And complain that the DM is being unfair when their character dies.) But also because the question of taking prisoners will inevitably create party conflict.

[@Sorain1]

This is why when I've run some fights in D&D I've portrayed it as HP being a measure of ability and willingness to keep fighting. I had to explain to my players a couple of times (back in the early 3.5 days) that I wasn't 'saving my villain's from their fate' as much as doing the logical thing and having them throw in the towel without screwing with game balance. Oddly enough, 4E D&D interpreted HP this way, which also allowed for things like a bard insulting you to do meaningful damage, or an inspiring word from a Warlord to 'heal' you. It was comedic to see it codified like that, yet I think it works well in most TTRPGs. This is, after all, part of what makes Undead/Constructs/Mind slaves an effective fighting force, that until you physically put them down, render them totally incapable of fighting, they keep going without hesitation. The side benefit is that it lead to the players actually considering surrender an option on the few occasions they make particularly poor engagement decisions.

[@thomilsvlog4544]

I think you're overreaching a bit here. First of all, I believe it would have been more appropriate to use a naval setting as a comparison, rather than the land battles, as most space battles are very similar to naval engagements, just with a third dimension thrown in. For the classic age of sail, the arguments would have basically been the same, with surrendering being far more common than battering a ship into submission, unless you somehow managed to get some heated shot into the enemy's main magazine. This began to change however with the advent of first steam propulsion and later on with iron armor and explosive shells respectively. The weapons used simply became so destructive that even if you wanted to surrender, chances are by the time you'd reached that point there was nothing left that you could signal your surrender with, masts, yardarms and later radio aerials all having been blown away by explosive shot. By the time the pre-dreadnought battleships arrived on the scene, this transition was pretty much complete, with the Battle of Tsushima in 1905 being the last one that I can think off where any significant number of a combatant fleet struck their colours. Ever since then, naval battles have often been fought to the bitter end. Granted, ships, task groups or entire fleets may have withdrawn, but I can't remember a single ship striking its colours in a naval conflict from World War 2 up until the Falklands War, and looking at the damage ships like HMS Sheffield, Ardent or Antelope took, or indeed the ARA General Belgrano, they simply didn't have any opportunity to surrender even if they'd wanted as the weapons were too destructive, the distances so great that the enemy fleets never even saw each other, and the pace of combat far too fast. How do you surrender to an A-4 Skyhawk that just deposited a 1000lb bomb in your engine room? You're going to have similar issues in a sci-fi setting. Leaving aside things like piracy, any space combat will likely be taking place in an environment with a lot of both unwitting interference and deliberate jamming of all radio frequencies. You're going to have ships with reactors that harness immense amounts of energy, while the weapons in use will, when being kinetic weapons, use ammunition that will slice through almost any amount of armour plating like so much butter. One hit in the reactor with one of those weapons and your ship is likely going to be nothing but a fast-expanding cloud of plasma, and a will few millennia down the line probably leave some alien scientists wondering where that Fast Radio Burst came from. Granted, point defence cannons may be weaker but even then, chances of actually signalling a surrender before your comms array decides to flee very rapidly in many directions at once are slim. Guided munitions, whether you call them torpedoes or missiles, will likely have similar effects.

[@Eihort]

1000x this. Additionally, the very environment is a bit hostile to carbon based life, making it only slightly worse than say, the colder waters on earth, or God help you, the subsurface depths (which is effectively as hostile as vacuum). The number of survivors you have to take prisoner dwindles rapidly. However, this does leave the point that in a *Fleet* engagement, when one side is clearly going to win, what happens to the survivors of the losing side that can't escape? From a world building perspective I suppose you have to write how escape is completely impossible, which in a Six degree of freedom environment can be a problem to solve, but not impossible. Same with removing or adding what ever McGuffins are necessary to ensure prisoners stay that way. What if you just gave a skeleton crew explosive collars? Removed focusing lenses from energy weapons? Disabled fire control? Slaved nav systems? Lots of possibilities.

[@dustinbrandel59]

Microwave weapons to cook everyone alive inside. U could blow up the whole ship with vibrations and frequency, like a wine glass.

[@fabian1939]

Bit late to the party, but I have to agree. The Honor Harrington Universe explores this very well. They have a rudimentary instant signalling via handwaved gravitational fields that also double as shields and if they strike their shield (analog to striking colors), it means they surrender, but even with instant signaling it is dangerous to do this, as already fired rockets often can't be deactivated this fast (regular signals where still at lightspeed) and they have to do it in exactly the right moment between volleys. If memory saves right it more than once happened in the books that a surrendered ship got blown up by accident.

[@ryanpayne7707]

Still doesn't explain the lack of retreating.

[@Axterix13]

@@ryanpayne7707 It does, somewhat. Ships do break off when they can, but often times the ship will have taken damage that makes it impossible for them to run off. Much like how the Bismark wanted to get back to a friendly port, but the British weren't inclined to let her. And, of course, sci-fi is loaded with retreats. Star Trek 2 has Kirk run away after he lost that first fight. In various episodes of the various Star Treks, they often want to run, but their ships are so poorly designed with inadequate redundancy that a single lucky hit will take out the warp drive half the time. Star Wars has multiple cases where people retreat (Hoth in ESB) or at least discuss it (RotJ at Endor). And so on. So these things do happen. But I think one other important aspect is that we're typically shown fights that matter for the story. So, for example, we see the Brown Coats lose in the first episode of Firefly, because it is important to set up the stage and the characters. But most of the time, you don't need to show a lost battle for that reason.

[@johnturner7790]

Didn't the 1st J.J. Abrams StarTrek film start with the Kelvin's surrender being rejected and the crew retreating from behind it's suicide run?

[@Adam-sx6ed]

Kirk then offered Nero a surrender at the end of the film, which is rejected. Into Darkness has Sulu offering Khanh a surrender, and Kirk tried to surrender the Enterprise.

[@quinnsoutar2196]

My mind goes a bit to Episode 6, where Akbar and Lando are straight up arguing about whether to retreat from the fight - and the admiral straight up wants to bug tf out but is holding off because the fleet seems to kind of be okay (though by no means gleefully thrilled) with giving the wacky plan a shot for a little while first before they gtfo

[@TheNapster153]

I'd imagine a retreat with so many large ships would end terrible too. The Imperial won't waste time on disabling engines the moment anybof those ships even remotely try and slip past the two way blockade.

[@kevinmccorkle128]

Bab 5 is a great example of what you are describing. Multiple examples of ship surrendering. Battle of Proxima 3 for instance. Getting Earth Alliance sips to surrender was a key aspect of Sheridan's strategy.

[@corellon9684]

Came here to say this. That was the first example I thought of too, and I kept expecting the video to mention it, especially when B5 came up.

[@thequantumnexus4270]

The key to that was that it was humans against other humans, and neither side wanted to kill each other. So I guess it's a unique circumstance. But, I think for a surrender to happen in a major battle rather than retreat it the circumstances would need to be unique. I mean, yeah, if you're in a space tug boat and a Star Destroyer pulls up and demands surrender, you're gonna do it. And as another example seldom used, most people surrendered to pirates and just handed them their manifest. The pirates preferred this as it's an easy victory, and the insurance on the carbon pays. Even if not, money is not as important to a crew as their lives.

[@sinecurve9999]

The Expanse, Season 6: "Well, I've got good news and I've got bad news."

[@peterk7428]

In David Weber's 'Honorverse' books, ships will often surrender when they are outmaneuvered or outgunned. They basically 'strike their sails' which leaves them defenseless and unable to move, and it is considered a war crime to fire on a ship that has surrendered.

[@xheralt]

And war crime prosecutions have teeth in the Honorverse!

[@thomasgray4188]

Wait you're telling me that the in the battle of Jutland the high seas fleet and the grand fleet didn't just sail slowly towards eachother until their fleets had no ships left?

[@Tobiasfowler]

Or sail around in circles for days until they found something to shoot at.

[@grantdotjpg]

If they had honor yes

[@ronin3381]

@@grantdotjpg It’s much more honourable to return home with a reasonably intact fleet than to fight until that fleet is at the bottom of the ocean.

[@grantdotjpg]

@@ronin3381 stand and fight coward FOR THE WARHAMMER

[@astratan2238]

Jutland’s a pretty poor example of surrender vs non-surrender. There basically wasn’t enough reason to have a battle and both sides lost sight of each other due to poor weather. The entire affair was pretty much a draw of little consequence, unless you count the High Seas Fleet not being willing to risk it again.

[@lordfirebeard8569]

One of the things I loved about the Honor Harrington books is that ships and fleets surrendering was somewhat commonplace, and there were several times in the story where surrenders or attempts to do so were critical plot points.

[@patrickdusablon2789]

And until the Comittee for Public Safety took over and State Sec was in charge of POWs, Manty POWs could expect honourable treatement from the Peeps, and everyone knew the Manties treated their prisoners well. Fair treatment of POWs was a matter of honour (for those for whom honour mattered).

[@kitnaylor7267]

In more modern (post-dreadnought) naval battles, striking your colours is much, much less common than in age of sail. I would guess at least part of that is that modern actions are fought over much larger distances, by either a fleeting enemy (in the case of carrier-borne aircraft) or well beyond white flag waving range - and usually part of a larger fleet. Additionally, the ships are so complex that people have their own little tasks to get on with, and aren't anywhere near the bridge, or even a window. A good example perhaps would be the sinking of the Bismark in WW2 - they stuck to fighting to the very end, despite being pummelled at point-blank range into literally glowing red slag. It was only when the ship was burning end-to-end and communication and fighting capacity had been completely lost that there are some (disputed, because nobody wants a war crime pinned on them) reports of isolated crew members waving white flags. Most surrenders I can think of involve merchant ships in commerce raiding operations.

[@beskamir5977]

Stellaris has routing and it's the most infuriating thing cause it makes wiping my enemies out in a single engagement really difficult as most of them will run away.

[@cumunist2120]

Fuck I wish they would run away more I just accidentally sent my entire Armada into one of those leviathan things 1 ship made it out out of 60

[@shadowarchon7964]

There's always mods. There's a class in NSC (Strike Cruiser) that specifically acts as an interdictor to prevent enemy retreat.

[@jonathanrich9281]

@@shadowarchon7964 NSC2 Dev here, glad to see that you like the Strike Cruiser! That is indeed the reason behind its existence.

[@dragondna1346]

"GET BACK HERE SO I CAN SHOOT YOU WITH MY GIGA CANON!"

[@astratan2238]

I’d imagine this is heavily influenced by real life naval affairs - and in that sense it’s actually not that unrealistic to expect a lack of surrendering ships. Retreat is an entirely different matter, but surrender is surprisingly uncommon in Naval circles. I actually did some research on this as part of my MA, and traditions such as ‘going down with the ship’ date back to napoleonic times in which surrendering the vessel would likely see it showing up in the next battle in the enemy line. The Royal Navy played a huge part in propagating the ‘no surrender’ mindset - their traditions of command and honour emphasised always accepting surrender but never countenancing it yourself. This was picked up by the navies aiming to imitate the RN’s success and thus proliferates even today. This culture of fighting to the last would ensure that taking a vessel intact would be much more difficult for your enemy and your crew would understand that their options really were winning or dying. It also played into the myth of invincibility surrounding your fleet and thus deterred opposition. Striking of course did still happen, but it got rarer and rarer as time went on. In WW2 there were almost no cases of ships surrendering - scuttling or fighting to the death being much more common. The reasoning theorised to be behind this is actually very interesting but I won’t go into it in a YT comment. Retreat is a different matter, and I agree that where possible in major battles the losing side should consider retreat more often. However in Naval battles there is very often a priority placed on actually eliminating a retreating enemy once the battle is won - and it’s far from guaranteed that a losing side is going to have the mobility to retreat. It all goes back to ‘fleet in being’ theories and the like - so long as a fleet remains extant it constitutes a threat that must be accounted for. Total destruction of the enemy is much more important and sought after in naval engagements compared to land ones, and I think it might be a slightly unfair comparison to draw. TL;DR Retreat and surrender do happen, but irl Naval tradition and theory makes them less likely than you might imagine, and particularly in the wars most close to the culture of most sci-fi writers (I.e. WW2) if a battle was moving towards a conclusive result one way or another there was a high chance of it being fought to the near or complete destruction of the losing side. I’d be happy to write more if people are interested :)

[@oneneoeno9824]

That was fascinating, thank you for the detailed post. I’d certainly be interested to read more.

[@astratan2238]

@@oneneoeno9824 thanks! If anyone is interested in reading about this from the proper author and not just my wiffle the work I read on this was in ‘How Fighting Ends - A History of Surrender’ edited by Holger Afflerbach. Surprisingly readable for an academic text so I can recommend!

[@zchen27]

I would imagine one issue would be how a combination of more destructive weapons and longer battle ranges means it gets very hard to signal a surrender. Striking your colors would be very difficult to spot when both sides are a few miles away, with their ships belching gunsmoke and probably on fire themselves, to the point where the most sane option to preserve the crew would be either fall out of line and retreat if your ship is still seaworthy, or abandon ship if your ship is too shot up. And that is not to mention naval aviation striking from beyond line of sight or fighting at night. Of course, there are also the cases where ships suffer catastrophic damage from a single salvo or hit that don't even give you a chance to abandon ship, much less surrender.

[@cp1cupcake]

I think it is also a good chance that with more modern ships (like iron/steel ships), there is a much narrower line between 'ship is disabled' and 'ship is sinking.' Wooden ships were much more likely to survive a battle intact, giving them the opportunity to surrender before the ship is completely out of action.

[@thefirstprimariscatosicari6870]

@@cp1cupcake Yes, but also no. Yes because if a steel ship is disabled chances are it's irreparable (at least in the middle of the sea) and going to sink. No because it can take a surprisingly long time for a ship to sink. So the surviving crew usually can surrender, but the ship instead went down fighting. It's actually quite similar to tanks, if tanks could sink. Most of the time the crew will bail out at the first penetrating hit, because otherwise their dead and most likely the tank has already been disabled. The only difference is that tanks can be recovered because they don't inevitably sink beneath the waves. There's also the fact wood ships often fought at boarding ranges. Metal ships, not so much.

[@Lion603]

Well, the empire in Star Wars is actually one of the few "normal human" civilisations where I could imagine a different attitude towards surrender. Considering the Tarkin doctrine I can imagine imperial Officers showing no mercy. This relies heavily on superiority like the whole doctrine but with a "we will not spare any rebels" approach you get people to think twice about even starting to rebel rather than rebelling and when it turns out to not work out surrrender and go back to being an imperial citizen.

[@derekburge5294]

"We're surrendering." "But captain, I was really looking forward to a really painful death in the vacuum of space!"

[@dparky1627]

"You'll likely get your wish if they space us."

[@horatio8213]

David Weber's Honorverse is full of examples of that situations. Babylon 5 is also give examples of that part of war.

[@Johmpa]

Indeed, the mechanic of "striking your wedge" is both thematic and consistent with how the technology works in the Honorverse setting

[@justrecentlyi5444]

The Honorverse avoids most of the pitfalls that Daniel brings up in SciFi, in general. Maybe that's partly due to the book format leaving more room for developing such aspects.

[@TheAchilles26]

@@justrecentlyi5444, the Honorverse and the Lost Fleet generally either avoid Daniel's pitfalls, or prove they aren't actually pitfalls when handled correctly. You're probably right about it being heavily due to being books, because both of those are series of novels

[@TheBespectacledN00b]

The Mote in God's Eye handles this very well as well. Even if their shields mean you have to send over an expendable young midshipman with a nuke and dead-man's switch in order to accept a surrender.

[@earnestbrown6524]

They talk about how the improvement in missile tech has change the stalemate of battle. That before if someone wanted to run away there was little one could do to stop it. Of course it then got to the point that one or both sides didn't survive the first volleys to surrender.

[@kpmh2001]

In most Sci-Fi mentioned here, particularly Star Wars, being taken prisoner is generally considered to be worse than being outright killed. A fast death in battle where you have a tiny chance of victory is better than a guaranteed death by torture in some hole in the ground with an imperial logo on the front door. A good example in my mind is a young Lieutenant in Halo: The Flood who insists to Captain Keyes that they try to surrender rather than continuing to flee and become exhausted as they're hunted by the Covenant. Keyes rightly points out that the Covenant don't take prisoners, since their goal is to destroy the Human Race entirely. Despite this, the Lieutenant breaks off and leads the Covenant to Keyes and the other survivors of the Pillar of Autumn once the Covenant promise that they'll be treated well. Of course, the Covenant then proceed to execute everyone but Captain Keyes, including the traitorous Lieutenant who insisted on trying to surrender, and capture Captain Keyes where he is savagely tortured in an attempt to get more information about the whereabouts of Earth. So the problem I suppose with a lot of sci-fi is that the antagonists are designed in such a way where they are either unwilling to accept surrender, or where surrendering to them is a worse decision than being killed outright, because then you get a less painful death.

[@kpmh2001]

The Empire in Star Wars also do not respect any kind of protections for their prisoners, who are normally executed as soon as they cease to be useful, usually by further torture. As such, it is entirely reasonable for most people to be unwilling to surrender to them, because surrender in such a case isn't just suicide, it's unduly painful suicide. This goes for both Legends and Disney Canon.

[@kpmh2001]

One final note is in the first level of Star Wars: Squadrons, the Empire fires on an escaping transport that's owned by smugglers. When the transport is hit, it strikes its colors and agrees to be scanned. Not a movie example like you wanted, but it is something.

[@Janoha17]

@@kpmh2001 And Imperial captains are disincentivized from retreating by the looming specter of Darth Vader.

[@kpmh2001]

@@Janoha17 Oh hell yeah, The Empire makes it very clear that surrender isn't an option for their forces.

[@tmutant]

"The (insert alien race here) don't take prisoners" is a common sci-fi trope. It's refreshing to see it NOT used.

[@rayyanma1608]

Spacedock: "Nobody fights to the death." Imperial Japan: "Am I a joke to you?"

[@subliminaljuggernaut7278]

if imperial japan had fought to the death it would no longer be around. But it didnt, did it? It surrendered. Jokes on you.

[@rayyanma1608]

@@subliminaljuggernaut7278 I think the large number of Japanese soldiers that refused to surrender and chose to die in battle would beg to differ; oh wait, they can't, because they fought to the death.

[@subliminaljuggernaut7278]

@@rayyanma1608 Oh wait, maybe, just maybe, they chose to die because they were actually, maybe cowards? The largest numbers of Japanese soldiers were possibly TERRIFIED of the repercussions of the things they'd done. Such as for tiny examples: The mass beheadings of prisoners who had surrendered to japan, treated as a sport and reported back in papers as quite a jolly thing to behead prisioners. The evil chemical and biological experimentations and live vivisections of men, women and children. The utter depravity of the mass rapes, the forced incest entertainments, the cannibalisms, the burying alive of random civilians for nothing other than pure evil fun. the brutal tortures used to install terror..... the endless list of horrors theyd done. They thought that if they were captured theyd be treated the same way they'd shamefully treated the people they had power over. And my original point stands. If japan hadnt surrendered, itd be a radioactive hole in the ground. But it did surrender.

[@viperstriker4728]

@@subliminaljuggernaut7278 Maybe but their culture had been fighting to the death long before WW2. When the "honorable" thing to do is to lop off the enemy commander's head it's no surprise when we see banzai charges and seppuku. The other countries wouldn't going to save commit war crimes save their prisoners "honor", so for some death was the only option.

[@subliminaljuggernaut7278]

My statement was that japan did in fact surrender. Unconditionally. This is evidenced by the fact that its still around today. Thus they didnt fight to the death.

[@FlameDarkfire]

The Halo books did touch upon these themes a bit. The Covenant had declared a war of annihilation against the humans, so their goal was to burn everything humanity owned and kill as many as possible. Several times there are instances where ships can get away, but would be dooming a larger objective, such as Keyes trying to protect Sigma Octavius IV. There are actual examples of human fleets retreating into slip space when they’re outclassed as well, and usually when they couldn’t hold an objective any longer and have to try to evacuate a planet before it is destroyed (which touches on another one of your gripes). Surrender didn’t really happen, as again the Covenant made it clear they wanted to exterminate humanity.

[@seekingabsolution1907]

He already covered implacable opponents in the video.

[@lt_rainbowslash58]

II think it's because when most people think "space ship battle", they draw the closest parallels to modern naval combat. Specifically WWI and WWII. Now sure, if we're talking merchantman, plenty of them would strike their colors when faced alone with a U-boat or heavy raider. But Warships? I can't off the top of my head name a single Warship in either war to strike their colors. Not in major engagements at least. Not even the Bismarck, stricken and doomed. Usually instead ships were scuttled, or they simply disengaged. Simply put the practice died out for warships for the most part, and so writers took that into the 'future' and space.

[@xheralt]

Merchantmen wouldn't be given the chance to surrender. They're minimally manned, maybe a dozen crew, compared to hundreds on a warship. The whole point of the exercise is to insure that the cargo never reaches its destination. Unless the cargo is something particularly and immediately useful, because putting on a prize crew reduces one's own crew to less robust levels, and/or detaching entire vessels from your order of battle to escort them to friendly port reduces your fighting strength, tactical resupply, bench depth, etc. Especially if you do it repeatedly! Just blow it to hell and continue patrolling. Wasteful, yes, but you want your opponent to be wasting resources replacing this cargo, repeatedly if possible.

[@CameronGoble]

In the first novella of The Expanse (The Butcher of Anderson Station), Fred Johnston marvels openly at how the opposing force continued to fight back after it was clear to them they had lost. His marines echo their astonishment. By holding their ground, the opposing force backed Johnston's marines into a corner, requiring them to defend themselves lethally. One of the main plot points (not too big of a spoiler) is that the opposition's surrender--which he likely would have accepted--was withheld from Johnston during the battle in order to prolong it.

[@chrisgriffith1573]

Surrendering in Star Wars means: Stopping the Death Star from destroying whatever planet it hovering over just long enough for them to set up your internment camp there...

[@DevilSurvivor69]

One example of a show with routes and surrenders that features a lot of space battles is the Legend of The Galactic Heros, which is a Japanese anime space opera that is very long. It's a great show, just over 100 episodes.

[@tntsummers926]

I see that we have the same tastes, nice to know I'm not alone in basking in the light that is LOGH.

[@justinweeb8145]

Oh, LoGH. Truly masterpiece of political drama that SW prequels wanted to be.

[@GottHammer]

yeah, Legend of the Galactic Heroes is awesome. I wish that got more coverage (the old stuff, at least, as I didn't really get into the 'Die Neue These' remake)

[@mr.d6486]

Ah yes another man of culture. Would love to see spacedock or similar videos done for logh content. I really love how they surrender by literally having a white panel come out of the hull, along with some lights.

[@jio5680]

"... everyone fights to the death till their ship explodes" and here I remembered all the battles in Stargate where they ran as hell away lol I think for most of the SGU they basically ran away

[@Knuspermonster]

In BSG its basicly the WHOLE DAM PLOT xD

[@Sciopticl]

Video: "There's hardly any routs or surrenders in Sci-fi" Comments section: *Sci-Fi fans providing tons of examples of routs and surrenders in sci-fi.* I feel like this video was super lazily put together with pretty much zero research.

[@Hellion232Z]

I don't watch the channel often, but the last three videos I have watched have all been the exact same. It feels like very little research or thought is being put into these videos.

[@danterosewood5734]

This is a common occurrence here. I show mostly for the comment section shredding his poorly thought out complaint.

[@evae1216]

The early Star Wars clips shown are from the battle of Atollon in Star Wars Rebels. In which the Empire (eventually) offered terms of surrender and the entire rebel objective for two whole episodes was to open avenues to retreat with what was left of their armies.

[@edwinball985]

I think he should have used more specific examples of sci-fi battles where a retreat or surrender would have made more sense than complete destruction instead of simply throwing seemingly random clips up while talking. Particularly because some of those like the Battle of Wolf 359 are actually good examples where making a desperate fight to the last man makes sense given the circumstances.

[@UnlimitedFlyers]

Daniel has been more active on Twitter, and is showing signs of Twitter corruption -- you know: excess toxicity, a tendency for snark, trying to sound cool and making closed statements without a chance for debate... Anyone who builds up a charge within the Twittersphere must be evacuated ASAP and provided a place to recover. I've seen examples far too gone and it's... not pretty.

[@NathanWeeks]

There was a repeating theme in Star Trek of various people believing that their enemy either would not accept surrender, or that they would treat prisoners so harshly that death was preferable. The Klingons even believed this of the Federation in a TOS episode.I also recall a few times someone would try to convince the enemy, whether it was true or not, that if they surrendered they would be treated with dignity and respect. We may not have actually seen much surrendering, but it was recognized as a part of warfare.

[@tophatminion.7558]

Who but the federation would you surrender to. Klingons/cardassians/romulans/ jem'hadar Where all Shown to treat prisoner very poorly. Maybe the ferengi? If you've got the money you can buy your freedom.

[@burri06]

I’ve always found it interesting that the “Evil Empire” of Star Wars always took prisoners (see Battle of Endor), or at least attempted to arrest the rebels first whereas the Rebels just went out shooting

[@aralornwolf3140]

The Empire had no problems with Torture Droid use... No one is able to resist torture forever. As these Rebels knew what was going to happen... they were more likely to avoid capture... although, there were lots of prisoners on Hoth... as long as the senior command were able to evacuate (or die) their secret information would be out of the Empire's Torture Droids' memory banks.

[@burri06]

@@aralornwolf3140 Good point, well made. I remember the fail condition of TIE Fighter also saw your pilot taken away to a Rebel “education centre” - I’d love to know what they did in there

[@viperstriker4728]

@@aralornwolf3140 Though Star Wars is told entirely from the Rebel point of view, would be interesting to see it told from the Imperial point of view. Consider hearing about the Roman empire only from a zealot in Jerusalem or Attila the Hun. Some details might change, like all the "kick the puppy" scenes in which the empire does something very stupid just to make them look more villainess.

[@aralornwolf3140]

@@viperstriker4728 , That's what Fan Fiction/Films are for, right? Although, I played Star Wars Force Commander as a kid... the Commander broke with the Empire when he was ordered to kill all the civilians in a town. :/

[@raw6668]

True, but considering their ships are barely working and their crew is stretched thin or live on cramp warships, it is more along the lines the Rebels don't have the space to take prisoners. That is the biggest point I have against Spacedock discussion today, they talk like take prisoners are easy, well tell that to the naval battles in WWII.

[@somestrangechannel4526]

Babylon 5 has several examples, the Battle of Proxima 3 comes to mind. The captain of the losing side wants to fight to the death, but his XO relieves him and surrenders the system.

[@viperstriker4728]

Babylon 5 always seam to make the list of "which shows did this right"

[@Krahazik]

In the battle for Earth, there were a couple of times a ship would communicate their surrender as they powered down what weapons they had left, and Sheradin would declare the ship non-hostile and leave it be as they focused on the ships still fighting.

[@shaunmoreau5081]

An enemy that retreats successfully can come back to fight another day, that's why people in irl wars make the effort to block retreats and prevent successful retreats Forcing your enemies to retreat may be a tactical success but it may pose a major strategic concern if those enemies are given time to recover Napoleon's inability to destroy the retreating Russian army in the 1812 campaign lead to his eventual defeat

[@ElzariusUnity]

Napoleon's inability to destroy ANYONE EVER lead to his eventual defeat. The guy was like " Yeah I beat Austria for like a 4th time now. Oh well, just accept their surrender take some cash, and back to Spain it is."

[@shaunmoreau5081]

@@ElzariusUnity yeah pretty much, like Spacedock does have a point, people arent inherently so morbidly self-destructive to that they kill each other to the last man in every battle But sometimes people can be so incredibly persistent and petty that they will come back up despite devastating losses because surrender is just not an option and would rather indulge in more bloodshed than just give in because the consequences of defeat may be worse than death itself Thats why many people both in fiction or otherwise choose to fight to the death, better to die in a glorious spaceship explosion in space than to endure weeks of torture in an interregoation camp and years of imprisonment That is why annihilating the enemy is important Beating them is one thing but making sure they stay down for good is what wins the war

[@hammer1349]

The Empire Interdictor class cruiser from SW Rebels is a good example of developing ways to prevent a retreat. That said, star wars isn't the best example for a multitude of reasons.

[@georgeowain]

Surprised you didn’t reference B5 episode: “No Surrender, No Retreat”. We see Earth Force ships either surrender, stand down or flee, with only one ship being destroyed..

[@dawfydd]

He didn't bother cause it was a plug for his audio book there are far less examples if you really sit down and think about it LOL

[@thakillman7]

It's not that it never happens. Surrender is still pretty rare compared to fights to the death.

[@michaelguth4007]

They even made a point why the EA ships did not surrender for a long time, as their crews were fed propaganda that in case of surrender, they would be killed and replaced anyway.

[@VorlonServant]

There are a lot of examples in B5 of ships running.

[@bottasheimfe5750]

In the game Stellaris, fleet combat usually ends when the one fleet makes an “emergency FTL jump” and will reappear in friendly territory after a period of time lost in the higher dimensions that are easier to navigate at certain locations in a star system. You could totally lose a battle but still have the majority of your fleet intact with a properly equipped fleet, the right admiral, and the “hot and run” combat doctrine. Great for quickly striking a superior opponent then escaping only to return to study debris left behind by the enemy to obtain insight into their technology Of course there is something the owner of a star system such a battle takes place in to make this much harder. There’s a module one could place on a star base in a system that makes emergency FTL jumps for an enemy harder to do, which makes it easier to completely destroy an enemy, or with a certain mod, board the enemy’s ships and capture them.

[@ronin3381]

I always set my war doctrine to No Retreat. I’m not very good at Stellaris so maybe that isn’t necessarily the best choice.

[@achillesa5894]

Yup, I love hit and run with a Trickster admiral. You can take risky fights that seem evenly matched throughout the battle and when the battle ends and you look at the damage report you've only lost like 20% of your ships while your enemy has lost most of them. Afterwards it's only a matter of repairing at the nearest port and going for a second strike to finish off the remnants. It takes much less time to repair than to rebuild, after all, not to mention repairs are free.

[@kanebekkattla3963]

@@ronin3381 it's usually good if you already have an overwhelming advantage but as a general rule in Stellaris, you almost never want to fight some equal to you.

[@zoltanzarosz3131]

Well if your ships damage output is high (one shot - one ship), your fleet will be the only one who leaving the battlefield with one piece.

[@aaduwall1]

The Honorverse had good subversions of this and really great treatment of space warfare in general. Turning off your ship's grav drive engine was a universal sign of surrender (called "striking the wedge" in a nod to striking the colors) and most battles ended in a surrender or rout. Honor Harrington wound up ending so many of her battles in big explosions mostly because her unconventional tactics left enemies so convinced of their immanent victory until it was too late to surrender (in one book, I remember an unfortunate pirate captain frantically shouting "strike the wedge!" but her crew not having enough time to actually do so before their ship gets vaporized by an unexpected missile salvo).

[@tdistel]

The Captain of the Hamurabi in The Expanse stood down and even offered help to the opposing fleet. It's a bit different from what you're saying but, still shows that humans are in control instead of just ships fighting ships.

[@corporategunner5972]

I'm pretty sure the reason why most of the time there is no surrender is because the winning enemy would likely do horrible things to them.

[@thakillman7]

His point is that it's an excuse to have people fight to the death. He even makes an exception for unthinking enemies. But if you have two parties who can think, surrender is preferable for both. Treating POWs somewhat decently encourages surrender, and surrender is pretty much the lowest cost victory you can have. Even shooting people costs bullets.

[@detachsoup6061]

@@thakillman7 surrendering a captital ship to youre enemy? Nope. Never big no no. They would destroy the entire ship and eject in escape pods. That we see often and plenty of times escape pods get picked up or get destroyed. And if the enemy want to retreat with their big powerfull capital ships because they are losing a fight? Then youre gonna wanna blow them up straight away. And there are countless of scifi movies and series where the heros escape a bad/unwinnable fight. I love spacedock but i dont see this point as valid (maybe they should break off fights earlier but that depends on a lot of the lore)

[@thakillman7]

@@detachsoup6061 In a realistic combat scenario the only way to go home is with your ship. Escape pods would just be coffins

[@detachsoup6061]

@@thakillman7 depends on the coffin and enemies. They probaly pick you up since you can be used for intel. Also many escape pods in scifi have diffrent layouts. Some are just a box with live support, some are droppods for planents and some are just light shuttles.

[@t4rv0r60]

One point to make is the entertainment value. If we are watching action and onw force is surrendering, it could kill the pacing.

[@DBoycee91]

Stargate SG-1 season 9 Ethon, when the Prometheus is struck by the Ori weapons platform. Colonel Lionel Pendergast surrenders to the enemy but is still destroyed :(

[@victorselve8349]

They also run away quite often but surrender really isn't a big thing, probably because most factions will either execute (Ori), torture and then execute (Goauld),* eat (Wraith) you or just don't care (Block replicators). I think you would probably have the best chance when surrendering with the Asurans (unless they are trying to genocide your race) *That's for the tauri, for other Goaulds you might be allowed to serve under them

[@RRW359]

@@victorselve8349 Actually the Ori generally liked survivors so they could tell everyone how badly they were defeated. It also probably makes them look merciful.

[@victorselve8349]

@@RRW359 they did at least in the beginning (I think they mostly dropped that practice after they established themselves in the milky way) but you don't need many survivors to spread the tale.

[@MjolnirFeaw]

@@RRW359 If I remeber correctly, the main objsctive of the Ori was more convertion than slaughter: dead people don't worship anyone...

[@RRW359]

@@MjolnirFeaw But they were also willing on several occasions to kill entire planets of believers just because there were a few malcontents.

[@282XVL]

The Honor Harrington book series has many examples of ships and even entire fleets surrendering when faced with an untenable situation. All sides are human in that universe, and mostly rational and willing to respect the rules of war and take prisoners (with a few exceptions.)

[@tirirana4732]

That's what I love about the Honor Harrington series. Status quo before book one has been that decisive victories were almost impossible in space combat. The losing side always had a way to escape. The only way to win was to pin an enemy fleet down against some objective they just had to defend, like a planet or space station. And even then it happens frequently, that the station commander decides to retreat, when it's clear he can't even stall or hinder the raid. Light combatants often surrender, because they often fight at longer ranges trying to outmanoeuvre the enemy, while capital ships are so heavily armoured, that they have to get to energy range to have a chance to win, so they are destroyed more often, because light-speed weapons outpace the speed of surrender, but even then surrender and POWs are an important plot point in a lot of the stories.

[@chriswriter9087]

I think it has a lot to do with how much of an influence the World Wars had on Science Fiction. In World War II, combat took place at such extreme ranges that demanding or offering surrender was practically impossible.

[@hoarder1919]

in ww2 armies demanded and were demanded to surrender all the time.

[@hetzer5926]

@@hoarder1919, navel combat, not ground combat. Just try to wave the white flag to someone whose shooting at you from 20 miles away. It ain’t gonna happen. The best thing to do would be to shoot it out, or run away as fast as possible. Odds are, running away is not only going to save your crews lives, but also you’ll keep the ship. Strategically, you want to destroy ships when found, capture them when practical, and keep your ship from being destroyed or captured at all times.

[@cesargonzalez4146]

@@hetzer5926 The Japanese Navy had a no surrender policy, their officers preferred suicide to surrender, and the enlisted men made very bad POWs, constantly trying to take some allied lives with them, that's the reason for the staggering losses of life and materials in the Pacific. At the end the americans preferred to shoot the japanese in the water to risk having a little psyscho makong a mess on deck. The germans were more adept to the conventions and customs of war, but they made sure to scuttle their ships before taking the lifeboats and try to float to a nearby axis or neutral coast, or be taken prisoners. The allies surrendered all the time, mainly at the beginning of the war, before a system to rescue and recover losses could be implemented, the conditions of imprisonment under the japanese military were terrible, starvation, disease, mistreatment and arbitrary executions made surrender almost the same to death. The convention was to radio a surrender in all open frequencies.

[@KillerOrca]

@@hoarder1919 "Nuts" at Bastone, yes?

[@hoarder1919]

@@KillerOrca thats a very specific and minor case tbh. I was talking more about things like surrender of the French armies or battle of Bryansk (1941) where hundreds of thousands of russians were encircled and eventually 600 000 of them taken prisoners. Those are just some examples, theres many more. but if OP was talking strictly about naval battles then none of that counts.

[@back2babylon513]

Entire fleets surrendering when sufficiently outnumbered/outgunned, and tactics to set up situations where outnumbered fleets physically can't escape and thus are forced to surrender, are major plot points in the Honor Harrington series by David Weber.

[@kbomb1235]

The entire BSG series is based upon one commander’s decision not to go down fighting

[@ambientlightofdarknesss4245]

another interesting fact: in the age of sail cannons were not used to sink the ship, but more to disable the ship and her crew. thus things like grape shot and chain shot were made. it was actually very hard to sink a full ship of the line. and took much more work than just simply disabling the sails or killing the crew.

[@hoarder1919]

it's a generalization. A lot of times cannons WERE used to sink ships hence lots of, y'know, sunk ships after major engagements. Two main rivals of the XVIII century, France and Britain, are known for deploying different tactics. The french method was usually as you described, shooting from distance with grape shots and destroying the masts and immobilizing an enemy ship. The brits relied more on conventional shots and the hull damage. The carronade cannon was designed specifically to deal out as much hull damage as possible in close-quarter fight. The britons used it quite a lot in the napoleonic wars.

[@stoutyyyy]

@@hoarder1919 The carronade was actually primarily used to sweep the enemy's decks before boarding, although experimental carronade-only configurations were used on occasion. Ships of this period didn't often sink outright in battle because being made of wood they had a degree of inherent buoyancy even when badly damaged, the most common causes of actual destruction in battle were fire or magazine detonation. Also particularly at the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars the British tried to capture ships rather than sink them because the Royal Navy was somewhat downsized due to economic problems, and British captains were incentivized to capture rather than destroy enemy vessels because of the prize money system. The French, on the other hand, had barely enough sailors for the ships they already had, and so had little incentive to try and capture British vessels.

[@Aeimnestus1]

“Bayonets where almost never use to actually kill anyone.” Laughs in Norwegian.

[@TheAchilles26]

Laughs in most 17th and 18th century warfare. Bayonets killed more people than bullets.

[@samarkand1585]

@@TheAchilles26 ...no. They made people run away and abandon a position. Artillery was the bigger killer anyway

[@TheAchilles26]

@@samarkand1585, they quite definitively killed more people than bullets did. Artillery and disease each outperformed bayonets and bullets combined, but bayonets still killed more people than bullets in 17th and 18th century warfare. During the 19th century, widespread use of rifled guns drastically reduced the number of bayonet inflicted wounds on the battlefield.

[@samarkand1585]

@@TheAchilles26 Well, you can make your comment longer all you want, but it's still....no.

[@TheAchilles26]

@@samarkand1585, my statements have been accurate, whether you like that or not

[@Janoha17]

The Tarkin Doctrine that defines the Imperial playbook demands maximum fear and total subjugation. When becoming a prisoner is a fate worse than death, and your avenues of escape are being cut off, you'll fight to the last man to tear open that avenue of escape; while for the Empire, retreat means being subjected to the usually non-existent mercy of someone who can easily strangle them from across the galaxy or butcher them with a blade of plasma, either Vader or his Inquisitors, or possibly getting barbecued by the Emperor himself if you really screw up.

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

Gods, the Tarkin Doctrine is so fucking stupid. But then, so is most of the Empire and their 'strategies' in SW.

[@Janoha17]

@@DrBunnyMedicinal The Tarkin Doctrine is what a sadist with a god complex thinks is a good idea.

[@DrBunnyMedicinal]

@@Janoha17 Agreed!

[@KuK137]

@@DrBunnyMedicinal All fascist doctrines are stupid. Though there is some logic in it - if you're a complete barbarian to everyone, your own soldiers won't surrender because they will fear reprisals (unless they are no longer scared of you, that is). That said, it's terrible for morale and that's why Empire has so many stormtroopers on the ships, to prevent desertion and ensure everyone knows they can be shot at all times (even worse for morale)...

[@danielkorladis7869]

It actually happens a lot in the old anime series "Legend Of The Galactic Heroes." I recommend checking it out. In fact, as you mention, there are even instances of mutiny when commanders want to fight to the death but the crews know the battle is lost.

[@hollenwanderer]

Pretty much just hit ctrl-f to find this comment as soon as I started watching this - unlike a lot of other scifi which is just inspired by historical warfare on a surface level, whereas LOGH really just IS historical naval combat, only is space, sometimes to a fault...

[@wraith2294]

How would one communicate their surrender during a hostile first contact situation where one side is horribly outgunned? Communication is hard, especially when you know literally nothing about the enemy.

[@LtCWest]

Speaking from a stricly human point of view, Id say shutting down the whole ship, guns, engines, active sensors, main power plant, everything. Playing Possum, basically. You just removed yourself from the fight. At least, this makes you look like a non-threat. On the other side, turing and burning with your guns silenced might also do the trick.

[@thakillman7]

Shutting down your reactor or whatever powers your weapons/shields/engines whatever would be a sure sign of surrender.

[@TheAchilles26]

Even when you can communicate it, surrender basically died with the rise of ironclads. It was way too easy to get destroyed while trying to signal any surrender. Running for it, on the other hand, has not only survived that particular technological milestone, but also frankly shows up in fiction WAY more than Daniel is claiming. It's just that, contrary to one of Daniel's other erroneous claims in the video, no military commander in history has ever just shrugged at a retreating enemy and ignored them. 90% of the purpose of cavalry since ancient times was chasing down fleeing enemies to kill more of them. In naval engagements, when one side starts trying to escape, the other side usually makes at least some attempt to pursue and either destroy or at least deal further damage to the fleeing enemy units.

[@jakobknudsen3296]

@@thakillman7 Or a sign of someone trying to pretend they were disabled in order to lure in an enemy in order to execute a surprise attack.

[@thakillman7]

@@jakobknudsen3296 If they try that, before the reactor is warm they're shot to hell.

[@nohbody987]

I feel that in a lot of universes, space ships have similar issues that U-boats did: lack of space and supplies to take on prisoners. Its not like you can have them march to a camp under guard. In addition, repairing a critically wounded ship would be a lot more difficult. The reality of space combat is that it would be quick and lethal and most likely fought with drones

[@joesmith1810]

depends on whether you are dealing with big ships or a bunch of small ones. Small ships could be used as fighters, but big ships to be effective long-term require a crew to keep them running and make repairs, both from battle damage and from general wear-and-tear.

[@patrickdusablon2789]

You can fix that by interning surrendered crews on their own ships, assuming they can still hold atmosphere. Send in a prize crew with a detachment of marines, keep the surrendered crew confined to quarters, and take them to a holding facility in their own ship. And/or use them for some crew functions under the supervision of a prize crew (assuming you're taking some precautions, like completely disabling weapons systems and keeping them away from anything that can blow up the ship).

[@hudsonb631]

The Expanse does this when batteling the magnetar in sol and in a few other cases. However, I think that as most space battles are limited to a few ships at any given time, engagements are quick and final. Not leaving much opportunity to flee or surrender. One missile is usually all it takes. However, in the case of starwars, with many ships and massive ones at that, it would be nice to see something like this. Interesting video!

[@Peregrin3]

While I understand the point I find it odd this video focuses on Star Wars because it is one of the Sci-fi franchises that does this the most, the first battle in Star Wars has a ship fleeing in it, the space battle over Hoth is them just running away, The battle of Endor ends with the Imperial Fleet retreating, the Battle over Geonosis ends with the CIS retreating, The battle of Coruscant ends with the CIS Retreating, and if you watch the Clone Wars it there are a bunch of battles that end in a retreat or surrender, in Rogue One the Rebel fleet tries to run away, the whole Rebel strategy is hit and run, which is why the Empire designed interdictors in the first place.🙃

[@kevinshepardson1628]

Fictional battles in general are almost always about "kill everybody" rather than about taking objectives the way real battles function, not just in sci-fi.

[@boxlflox9094]

Or the bad guys took no prisoners and the good guys were made to look good because they did take prisoners. Also in those works after they took the prisoners the prisoners turned out to be spies or saboteurs, thus detracting them actually taking prisoners in the future, but they will always sight moral reasons to continue to take prisoners.

[@cp1cupcake]

I think there is a big difference between stuff like military sci-fi and film/TV. The former is much more realistic in terms of what would happen.

[@tackytrooper]

Destroying an enemy being the real objective has plenty of historical precedence. Case in point the entire Vietnam War.

[@kevinshepardson1628]

Even if that was truly the objective, consider how poorly that conflict went for the U.S.. Something a lot of countries/militaries seem to have forgotten in the last 50+ years is that winning a war generally requires a lot more than just being effective at killing enemy troops - at its core, it requires convincing the other side that it's not worth fighting. Then, even if you win the war, you still have to win the peace afterward if you don't want it to flare back up again.

[@tackytrooper]

@@kevinshepardson1628 Vietnam is an example of the philosophy not really working. But in other times and places it's worked great. For example the Germanic Tribes in ancient Roman times. Turns out by ambushing and obliterating several legions, they secured relative safety for themselves for years.

[@crashstudi0s]

"destroying an empire to win a war is no victory" Me after destroying everyone in stellaris: well sh*t Edit: I know the context/meaning/intention of the phrase, I still think is funny without it

[@dutch_soldier8387]

That one was more pointing to the fact that the Crew on DS9 was holding the station and the Fed reinforcement were closer then the klingons so in the face of that the Klingons desided to cease fire and retreat into klingon/cardassian territory.

[@kjj26k]

He means _your_ empire. Won't be much of a victory party if every other one is dead.

[@dutch_soldier8387]

@@kjj26k "Consider what you do here, Gowron. Kahless himself said, 'Destroying an empire to win a war is no victory…'" "…and ending a battle to save an empire is no defeat." - Worf and Gowron "I do not intend to hand victory to the Dominion. But let your people know that the Klingon Empire will remember what has happened here. You have sided against us in battle, and this we do not forgive… or forget!" - Gowron

[@Marinealver]

I play Empire At War with the extended mods. There is only one way to win.

[@reasonableastartes5975]

Determined Exterminator: "Say what???"

[@theofficerfactory2625]

Legend of the galactic heroes. Fleets surrendered or were routed on that magnificent anime. We also have ships surrendering in the Honor Harrington series.

[@jonathonrodriguezthomas6457]

There were two routes that I can think of during the Clone Wars once was during the battle over Ryloth and the other was the battle over christophsis

[@MarvelX42]

The Empire Strikes Back, the entire movie.

[@gusty9053]

One of my favorite sci fi series was "The lost fleet" series of books (i hope i remember the name right, the admiral was nicknamed Blackjack, was rescued from stasis and found himself in a war that was raging for 100 years or so). The fleet battles took place at relativistic speeds, all the damage was done in seconds, computers actually did the shooting because humans simply couldn't react in time. A ship didn't surrender because it either survived the shooting phase or it didn't (most of the time anyway). Also one of the factions was practically a galaxy spanning corporation and the ships were fitted with self destructs activated by the CEOs of the fleets which yes were assholes and did blow up surrendering ships :).

[@TheAchilles26]

It's the Lost Fleet. The Alliance wouldn't surrender, either. They'd evacuate the crew and scuttle the ship to prevent its tech from falling into enemy hands. The author, Jack Campbell, is a US Navy veteran and has a much better understanding of modern naval warfare than Spacedock, and as a result makes a better extrapolation about the probable realities of engagements between space fleets than Daniel's anachronistic projection of Age of Sail and land engagement norms.

[@huntkp6005]

The start of the Lost Fleet begins with a surrender, where the leadership of the fleet goes across the the enemy to discuss terms. The enemy then executes them, which is why our hero turns the fleet around and retreats. They also come across a POW camp, showing us that the enemy did capture ships or at the very least they captures escape pods.

[@TheAchilles26]

@@huntkp6005, it's firmly established that the POWs are from picked up escape pods after ships were abandoned and scuttled

[@huntkp6005]

@@TheAchilles26 I thought that was the case. Though I seem to have a rough memory of a ship boarding, though I seem to remember that going wrong. It could just be a rescue mission they undertook that I am thinking about. The Lost Fleet is a good series, and I think Spacedock needs to read them, for many of the things they claim never happens do happen in the Lost Fleet.

[@TheAchilles26]

@@huntkp6005, the boarding was civilian merchant ships that had been diplomatically strongarmed into giving supplies but were loaded with special forces trying to use the ships as bombs. And at one point a ship was damaged badly enough to incapacitate it without destroying it, so it was used to hold escape pod pickup prisoners. But individual ships "striking their colors" doesn't happen, in no small part because it's been basically absent from real life naval doctrine for over a century

[@TheLoremistress]

Honor Harrington has Striking the wedge a signal of surrender. Happens a lot in the story not just a few times.

[@havocthedemonicliger328]

I knew I wouldn't be the only one! And lets not forget that one navy in the story got basically started to grow because they were given almost a whole operation group of dreadnoughts previously captured in battle by their allies.

[@rmsgrey]

Later in the series, any Solarian-Manticoran encounters where the Manticorans aren't outmassed by at least ten to one tend to go: Manticoran commander: Surrender. Solarian commander: Never! Manticoran commander: Have you seen what our cool weapons can do? Solarian commander: Let's revisit that whole "surrender" thing. I feel there's real potential for discussion there.

[@dparky1627]

@@rmsgrey, toward the end of the series it really got into some heavy deus ex machina territory. I grew rather bored with it and how Manticore and Haven were just able to curbstomp literally anyone with near impunity.

[@rmsgrey]

@@dparky1627 That's not exactly what deus ex machina means - deus ex machina is when the author introduces something new to resolve an otherwise doomed situation without having established or foreshadowed it first. Deus ex machina would be having a Gbaba extermination fleet show up and attack the Solarian ships when the Alliance ships were losing. Grand Alliance ships being better armed and crewed than anyone else in the galaxy (barring a few Mesan tricks) is established repeatedly and at great length. That doesn't mean that it isn't a problem, particularly as the pace of events got rather bogged down later in the series, but it's a different problem.

[@dparky1627]

@@rmsgrey, thank you for correcting me. And you’re right, toward the end the pacing got really bad. I just don’t like the idea how they pretty much sailed into Sol System and held a gun to their heads. I understand that Grand Alliance technology was orders of magnitude greater than Solarian technology; it almost became a turkey shoot for the Grand Alliance. By then it just got boring. And Solarian officers not believing the evidence right in front of them that they’d get slaughtered wholesale if they fought became less and less believable by the chapter. I also just don’t see how Haven and Manticore could put aside decades of animosity and outright hatred of each other and act like best of friends in a scant few years after finding out that Mesa had been playing everyone for as long as they’ve been around. Even knowing that I can’t realistically believe that on an emotional level the two sides would be so quick to bury the hatchet. As Queen Elizabeth was so famously quoted, “They’re Peeps.” That kind of emotional response doesn’t go away over night.

[@GeneralPatton-pw2vz]

In the Honor Harrington series, starships and fleets often surrender when presented with overwhelming force and/or no opportunity to escape battle without being destroyed. The universal sign of surrender in this sci-fi universe is shutting down the impeller drive. This action is called 'striking the wedge', because the impeller drive generates a wedge-shaped gravity band that functions as both the real-space engines and shields.

[@Judgewrath1]

It's something that absolutely happens in the Honorverse books, which is great, and also makes sense in terms of how the books are basically Horatio Hornblower in space

[@FireflyFlynn]

Could be considered a gross generalization, but a sizable degree of SciFi battles appear to be an ideological struggle made manifest in space combat-hence no surrender, no retreat. But also a tactically unsound method, as you stated, Spacedock. That said, I saw some references to B5 Severed Dreams in this thread, also in the Earth Civil War in B5 season 4, there are plenty of examples where Sheridan and his people sought surrender or disablement instead of total destruction.

[@thefunnynamehere266]

Also that the stakes are often too high to surrender (I’m mainly talking about Star Wars)

[@tiberiuskirk2593]

In Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin the Earth Federation Space Forces are routed at the Battle of Loum by Zeon mobile suits and cruisers. Later in the war, Zeon forces retreat from Solomon space fortress and fight a savage rear guard action.

[@kevinbayu7621]

In a 90s OVA series also by sunrise named Legend of galactic heroes even an entire fleet would just surrender. In fact, battles more often than not result in route and the losing side conceded their territory only to launch an invasion and take it back the next year. Repeat ad nausea for centuries.

[@XerrolAvengerII]

Also, there is very little way to ensure a propper surrender on the part of your enemies. Remember the quote that any FTL engine's effectiveness as a weapon is proportional to it's effectiveness as an engine. Even if you disable an enemy ship, most ships in science fiction have the means to self destruct and destroy you too. The safest option is to just 1 extra missile, instead of subjecting your ship and crew to increased risk, and the logistical challenges of dealing with a potentially crippled ship and it's mutinous crew.

[@barclaybower512]

Legend of the galactic heroes has quite a few Surrenders and Mutanies and I would definitely recommend that you check it out.

[@hammer1349]

Also a mutiny in BSG where the Galactica herself is taken over by Gaeta though thanks to the efforts of a ship engineer, Adama is returned to command.

[@Aelric78]

David Weber's "Honor Harrington" universe does cover this - his fictional starship drives utililize a "wedge" of gravitic distortion above and below the ship. "Striking the wedge," essentially killing your drive and over half of your ships' defense is a universally understood symbol of surrender. As the entire series is loosely based on the Napoleonic Wars it has the same meaning as "striking the colors" in Age of Sail Naval combat.

[@DemianArmandSteele]

I'm glad I was not the only one to recall the Honorverse in this particular topic.

[@xheralt]

AND firing upon a ship with its wedge down is considered a war crime, likely to get the officers who ordered it executed after a tribunal. Which does happen (the crime), although punishment only manages to be successfully meted out about half the time.

[@GeneralPatton-pw2vz]

Aggh, I just finished making a comment on this. Should have read further down before doing so.

[@aralornwolf3140]

@@GeneralPatton-pw2vz , Don't worry, this is the fourth comment about the honorverse I've seen, lol.

[@TheAchilles26]

@@GeneralPatton-pw2vz, it's a Spacedock video. Half the comment section is just going to be people yelling at Daniel to read the Honorverse.

[@theastrogamer710]

That's what I really like with Babylon 5. During the Earth Alliance Civil War we saw plenty of ships surrender, defect or flee of their own accord during the battles shown on screen.

[@pcmacintyre]

In the Honor Harrington series of books there are quite a few examples of one side or the other having to surrender.

[@johnlavery3433]

That’s why I love honor Harrington. It’s realistic about what naval warfare would be like in space

[@alexmartin9177]

According to it’s established rules anyway.

[@tophatminion.7558]

It's a shame the last books where so bad.

[@johnlavery3433]

I wouldn’t say they’re bad. Just look at Hypatia, I loved that.

[@Tom-vn1pq]

I wouldn't say bad, but they get cluttered and unfocused from 'At All Costs' onward. Weber's brilliance is still there in parts such as Hypatia, but he really needs an editor with the authority and balls to reign him in when he goes crazy with the overly detailed worldbuilding.

[@Exsam]

@@Tom-vn1pq He needs to stop copy/pasting whole chapters from previous books to make whatever arbitrary word count is being required.

[@Tobiasfowler]

I lump this in with that more often than not the bad guy chooses death, it’s an easy way of not having to deal with more complicated or moral issues. It makes me a little sad.

[@Zamun]

Thanks for the content.

[@seriouslypretending]

Great video, and totally right. I love that you included the Kahless quote in there!

[@SnazBrigade]

I feel like the logistics of surrendering ships especially when they're huge battleships 100s of meters long with crews of potentially thousands are one of the reasons why it doesn't come up a lot in scifi, both from the perspective of the writers who have to figure out how to put that into the story and from within universe itself. I imagine if a whole mon calamari battleship surrendered, the empire would much rather just come up alongside them and lob some torpedos into their reactor rather than try and ferry all the prisoner's over or try and wrangle the ship back to some station to be scrapped or fitted for their service. This also happened in real life a lot when large amounts of prisoners had to be dealt with. An example that comes to mind is in Band of Brothers, where they were just executing captured PoWs cause they didn't have the time or logistical capacity to manage them.

[@ChakatBlackstar]

It reminds me of an Honor Harrington-verse novel, one of the side ones though, where they captured an unprecedentedly large fleet of Superdreadnoughts and literally had millions of captured enemy crews to sort out.

[@Shuddarun]

"It is a far greater victory to make another see through your eyes than to close theirs forever."

[@RRW359]

Isn't that basically what Dukat thought?

[@Shuddarun]

@@RRW359 Not who I took the quote from, but I guess that sums up his viewpoint pretty well too.

[@Elthenar]

@@RRW359 Yeah, except that once you realized Dukat was right and you were wrong, then Dukat killed you.

[@RRW359]

@@Elthenar "Only if it's necessary".