this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2026
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It absolutely is fantasy
But the physics as far as that goes are still on point compared to, idunno, Star Trek.
The sound in space, the swooping, all of that were story telling tools used to convey a sense of what was happening. Realistic space battles aren’t really all that exciting.
Not even the expanse got that right. They just replaced particle beams with Gatling guns and condescending but inaccurate explanations of why things don’t swoop.
Fun fact, the reason planes and stuff seem to swoop is because they’re under constant accelerations and observed from the perspective outside the plane. One source of that constant acceleration is the atmosphere (drag and lift,) but you can just as easily replace that with fusion maneuvering thrusters or something.
Real space battles are probably like split-second flypasts repeated until one spacecraft is destroyed. The likelihood of both spacecraft voluntarily keeping the speed between them below 100m/s is very low.