Starship Trooper

"Starship Trooper" is a song written by Jon Anderson, Steve Howe and Chris Squire that first appeared on Yes' 1971 album The Yes Album. The song is in three parts, "Life Seeker," "Disillusion" and "Würm." "Life Seeker" was released as a single on the b-side of the UK release of "Your Move."

Lyrics and music

The title of "Starship Trooper" comes from the 1959 novel by Robert Heinlein, Starship Troopers. "Starship Trooper" was constructed from pieces of music written separately by Anderson, Howe and Squire. Howe had written the instrumental "Würm" section while he was in an earlier band, Squire wrote most of the "Disillusion" section and Anderson wrote most of the rest of the song, particularly "Life Seeker."

The song was heavily constructed in the recording studio, and as a result the band were never able to play it live quite the way it was recorded. The song changes mood, rhythm, tempo and style continually, but according to Yes biographer Chris Welch, it still manages to "hang together." Authors Pete Brown and Lisa Sharken describe the "Würm" section as "a Bolero-paced chord sequence that builds into an explosive solo. They note that Howe's solo incorporates rockabilly and country music elements rather than on blues-based music with distortion as is typical for these types of solos.

Starship Troopers (disambiguation)

Starship Troopers is a 1959 book by Robert Heinlein. It may also refer to:

Film and television

Games

Starship Trooper may refer to:

Starship Troopers (board wargame)

Starship Troopers is a board wargame by Avalon Hill based on the novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein. It was originally released in 1976 and designed by Randall C. Reed. Avalon Hill redesigned and re-released a "movie" version (entitled Starship Troopers: Prepare for Battle!) in 1997 to coincide with the movie's release.

The game is a hexagon-based wargame for two players. The player who takes the side of Arachnids has a sheet of paper with a copy of the map-board on which he plots out his bug-hive and tunnel system. The Mobile Infantry player sends in his soldiers and tries to dig them out. A third faction, the Skinnies, starts out playing on the bug side, but switches to the human side during later scenarios.

In a 1977 review of the original (1976) Avalon Hill game, Martin Easterbrook stated that "All in all this is probably the best SF game currently on the market because it has the well worked out background of Heinlein's novel and because it is an extrapolation of current military technology, allowing Avalon Hill to use their experience in game design" and gave the game an overall 9/10 rating.