No you will not see any mass battle going on,we may eventually see something like that in

FFE3D.other wise we will just have to wait untill Elite 4 appears.

It is true that the major factions don't square up to one another en-mass, however you can get two or more ships to fight one another. One time I remember (while playing Frontier) was jumping into an anarchy system full of hostile ships. I had a very poorly armed ship, but spotted a heavily armed Boa freighter peacefully making it's way toward a starport. I decided to close the gap and followed this ship all the way to port. Unsurprisingly I was attacked by the hostiles, but I stuck like glue to the Boa, using it to shield me from the incoming attacks. The Boa ignored the attacking ships until one of them raked it's hull by accident trying to target me. Then Boa then started to attack the hostile ships! Eventually with it's help I made it all the way to a safe landing and made a tidy profit from all the scooped up cargo from the destroyed ships. 😎