Books, films, and games influenced by Starship Troopers

These are books, games and films influenced by the novel "Starship Troopers" and the film "Starship Troopers".

Books

"Starship Troopers" clearly influenced many later science fiction stories, setting a tone for the military in space, a type of story referred to as military science fiction.

*John Steakley's novel "Armor" was, according to the author, born out of frustration with the small amount of actual combat in "Starship Troopers" and because he wanted this aspect developed further. The themes are similar, it also contains exoskeletons and insect-like aliens.

*John Scalzi's novel "Old Man's War" is, according to the author (in comments to [http://dshoffman.blogspot.com/2005/05/old-mans-war-distaff-view.html this blog post] ), explicitly patterned after "Starship Troopers"; in the book's acknowledgments, he thanks Heinlein for "debts that have become obvious."

*David Weber and Steve White's "In Death Ground" and its sequel "The Shiva Option" describe an interstellar war between an alliance headed by humans and felinoid Orions, and an arachnid species with a caste-like structure like Heinlein's, with the additional diabolical feature that it regards other intelligent life forms as mere food sources. Interestingly enough, this universe also incorporates a number of other facets which are already reminiscent of "Starship Troopers": the human government is called the Terran Federation, as it was in Heinlein's novel, and its military is headed by a Sky Marshal, as in Heinlein's novel. Also, the Marines wear powered combat armor.

Conversely, Joe Haldeman's antiwar novel "The Forever War" is popularly thought to be a direct reply to "Starship Troopers", though Haldeman has stated that it is rather a result of his personal experiences in the Vietnam War ( [http://www.scifi.com/transcripts/1998/JoeHaldeman.html 1998 SciFi.com interview] ). Haldeman, a twice-wounded combat engineer, has implied that certain perspective differences could be attributed to the fact that Heinlein never served in active combat, having been an Annapolis graduate who was medically discharged from the Navy in the 1930s for a tuberculosis infection and served out WWII doing R&D at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. For his part, Heinlein praised Haldeman's novel as outstanding science fiction, although he disagreed with the politics.Fact|date=August 2007

One of the most striking commonalities of the two novels is the degree to which military veteran characters in both find themselves estranged from their own culture, alien strangers in a strange land that they paradoxically are willing to die to defend, no matter how much their society looks upon them as oddities. The protagonists of both novels learn to build their own societies amongst their comrades, their brothers in arms.

Harry Harrison's book "Bill, the Galactic Hero" is often considered a criticism of Heinlein's book, though his other parodies, like "Star Smashers of the Galaxy Rangers" (1973) also lampooned the military SF typical of "Starship Troopers".

In recent years, John Ringo's popular science fiction novel series Legacy of the Alldenata (popularly known as the Posleen series) featured a more explicit homage to Heinlein's book. A series of novels traces the events surrounding a massive, late 20th Century series of invasions of Earth by a hive-like but non-arachnid alien race called the Posleen, which have been fought for centuries by a coalition of various alien races, who provide technical aid to allow the armed forces of Earth to resist the invasion, and also serve as colonial troops on other planets invaded by the Posleen. Various science fiction writers and ex-military personnel are recruited, some rejuvenated, and develop various naval and ground forces based on science fiction novels. One effort is the development of armored combat suits to be deployed in various "Mobile Infantry" Battalions.

The Rowan series by Anne McCaffrey, particularly the sequels to "The Rowan", describe a generations-long war between the insectile and ravenously expansionist Hiver (or Beetle) species who shoot their nestships into space to colonize wherever they land, and a human space navy assisted by psychics and a species of alien allies. The tone is not strictly military sci-fi, being more a romance/adventure series using the war as a backdrop, and the focus is primarily on the psychics and their families on the home front.

In 1987, a "choose your own adventure" style interactive book set in the "Starship Troopers" universe, "Combat Command in the World of Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers: Shines the Name," by Mark Acres, was published by Ace Publishers.

Comics

The comic book franchise has been held by Dark Horse, Mongoose Publishing and currently Markosia. Publications have included:

*"Starship Troopers":
**" Starship Troopers" (trade paperback, 1998, ISBN 1-56971-314-6) collects:
*** " Starship Troopers" (by Den Beauvais, with pencils by Mitch Byrd and inks by Andrew Pepoy, 2-issue mini-series, 1997)
*** "Insect Touch" (by co-writers Warren Ellis and Gordon Rennie, with art by Davide Fabbri and Paolo Parente, 3-issue mini-series, 1997)
*** "Brute Creations" (by Jan Strnad, with pencils by Tommy Lee Edwards and inks by Robert Campanella, one-shot, 1997)
** "Blaze of Glory" (by Tony Lee and Sam Hart, Markosia, previously published through Mongoose Publishing)
** "Extinction Protocol" (by Cy Dethan and Nic Wilkinson. Mongoose Publishing)
** "Dead Man's Hand" (by Tony Lee and Neil Edwards, Markosia)
** "Damaged Justice" (by Tony Lee and Shanth Enjeti, Markosia)
** "Marooned" (by Tony Lee and Chris DiBari. Markosia)
** "Bad Blood" (by Cy Dethan and Paul Green. Markosia)
** "Triple Threat" (by Cy Dethan, Tony Lee, Christian Beranek,Scott James, Jim Boswell and Neil Edwards. Markosia)
** "Fool's Errand" (by Cy Dethan and Diego Simone. Markosia)
** "War Stories - Vandals One Shots" (by Cy Dethan and Various. Markosia)

Films

*James Cameron's "Aliens" movie incorporated themes and phrases right out of the novel such as the terms "the drop" and "bug hunt" as well as the cargo-loader exoskeleton. The actors playing the Colonial Marines were required to read "Starship Troopers" as part of their training prior to filming. [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090605/trivia]

*The popular Japanese mecha anime meta-series "Gundam", which started the "real robot" genre and spawned its own enormous family of TV series, films, OVAs, novels and manga, is believed to be at least inspired by "Starship Troopers". The term "mobile suit" from 1979's "Mobile Suit Gundam" is said to be derived directly from the Mobile Infantry's powered suit. It is also said that the mobile suits were originally planned to be "Starship Troopers"-style powered mechanical exoskeleton of about 2 metres in height, called "Gunboy", but redesigned into 18-metre giant robots under the request of Sunrise's sponsors.

Computer and video games

*In 1982, Tandy Corporation published the video game "Klendathu" for the TRS-80 Color Computer. The game features a nameless Mobile Infantry soldier (1st Platoon, B Company, 5th Battalion) fighting in the Battle of Klendathu.

*Sierra Games' "Tribes" series of first-person shooter computer games is influenced by the book, most notably in the core gameplay element of rocket-assisted powered armor that allows the combatants to bound over the terrain in giant, arcing leaps. During a training mission in "Tribes 2", the training voice uses the phrase "on the bounce", from the novel.

*In the 1996 Looking Glass Studios computer game "", soldiers use Powered Battle Armor, which behaves much like the suits in "Starship Troopers". Various classes of suit exist, used by friendly and enemy forces. A notable difference is that the soldiers are not dropped from orbit, but instead jump from fast low-flying dropships (which may themselves be dropped from orbit from inter-planet transports). Paul Neurath later commented that he "had the concept for a squad level 3D tactical game loosely based on the fiction of "Starship Troopers" and "The Forever War". [http://www.rpgdot.com/index.php?hsaction=10053&ID=63]

*Outwars is a science fiction third-person shooter developed by SingleTrac and published by Microsoft in 1998. The use of power armored space marines fighting giant arachnids is central to the game.

* In 2000 Blue Tongue Entertainment via Atari released the top-down real-time tactics wargame "" [cite web| url=http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/starship-troopers-terran-ascendancy| title=Starship Troopers: Terran Ascendancy| accessdate=2006-03-04] .

*Powered Armour appears in the 1998 computer role-playing game "Fallout 2". The Enclave troopers encountered late in the game also sometimes sing a line from the "Ballad of Rodger Young", which is prominently featured in Heinlein's novel.

*Many of the thematic elements in Bungie Studios' "" series appear to be drawn from the novel, for example, the use of individual "drop pods" to deploy troops in a cutscene in Halo 2, and the use of strength-enchancing armor worn by supersoldiers being used as shock troops. The zombie-like Flood race in the Halo universe also share some similarities with the bugs. They are humans who lose their free will, and become controlled by a master brain form.

Board games and wargames

*In 1976 Avalon Hill released the board wargame "Starship Troopers" based on Heinlein's book under license. The game was redesigned and rereleased in 1997, to tie in with the film.
*In 2005, Mongoose Publishing released the " Miniatures Wargame".
*"Olympica", a Metagaming microgame, parallels a Starship Troopers battle with the Arachnids in many ways: elite United Nations troopers must storm the tunnels and strongpoints of a hive-mind enemy ("Webbies") to capture a central computer (akin to a brain bug).