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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48739
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

One way to depict a brilliant military mind is to find a successful battle or campaign in history which starts from similar conditions to the type of starting conditions you want at the start of the battle or campaign in your story, and then more or less copy the historical battle or campaign.

But you change details to perhaps copy an event in Earth's recorded history into a space war, or a war in Earth's distant future or past, or on a another planet, or in some fantasy setting. And you change some details so that instead of maybe a few leaders have the good ideas that lead to victory, the protagonist thinks of all the good ideas himself. And possibly you might shorten the campaign or battle to omit as many of the boring parts as possible. And possibly you think of ways to increase the apparent odds against victory - while keeping those apparent odds irrelevant to the outcome - to make the eventual victory seem more impressive.

And the same thing goes for other types of strategic thinking. You can copy examples of brilliant political strategic thinking or brilliant financial strategic thinking from history, and have your brilliant characters behave like the most brilliant politicians or financiers in history.

Original score: 2