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Best approaches to large~massive scale combat?
I didn't see a remotely recent thread on this, so I thought I would ask. I have a story that chronicles a series of wars, and most of those wars are fought on immense scales (including, in the final chapters, more active combatants than the entire population of the earth). Until now, I've just written using rather arbitrary techniques for describing these battles, but what are the best ways to get the reader interested, to cover large amounts of information, and what is the best way to present events (direct narration or dialogue)? What are the best examples of these methods?
Here's an example: In one battle (this is a scifi story, but I also write large scale fantasy warfare), a large government's capitol world comes under siege by a terrorist force (without too much detail, it's a coalition of city-state like planets who use brute force tactics to "liberate" systems under multi-planetary rule) and the local defense squadrons scramble to defend. The real purpose behind this battle is to showcase Terran tactics and battle methodologies, but as non-terrans have been called a myth up until this point, the reader doesn't know that not all space warfare is fought using the same techniques. I tried to provide a perspective of the combat that would streamline the battle - that of the commander and his staff overseeing the entire affair. I wonder if this was the best choice, however, for they are removed from the battle and their emotional responses feel artificial. Would it be better to try to chronicle events from the perspective of a participant in the battle, or does this vary primarily from case to case?
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