Why should spaceships be painted bright white? I would imagine any warships in the future would be painted in stealth paint capable of absorbing light and radar etc.

So why is the large ship displaying window lights? - Errr let's not get too picky... Come to that why are the protaganists so close to each other? As Jim Burns points out in his latest book 'Transluminal' the stand off distances for space warfare would be on a planetary or even astronomical scale - but it does look better this way!