Sci-fi wear swords?

[Citizen Keen]

So, I'm curious... Other than wanting to have our cake and eat it, too, what is the justification of swords in science fiction? Or any melee weapons?

 

Super futuristic weapons (light sabres, etc) are a bit more of a stretch. Unless they are partnered with a force-powered ability to move fast enough to deflect laser-beams, they're really not as good as a nicely ranged blaster.

 

Personally, I'm fond of Dune's explanation regarding personal force fields and slow-moving blades.

 

As such, I'm curious what other explanations gamers have used, or writers have employed, in their fanatical need to justify the presence of bad-*** looking antiquated combat tools.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

So, I'm curious... Other than wanting to have our cake and eat it, too, what is the justification of swords in science fiction? Or any melee weapons?

 

Super futuristic weapons (light sabres, etc) are a bit more of a stretch. Unless they are partnered with a force-powered ability to move fast enough to deflect laser-beams, they're really not as good as a nicely ranged blaster.

 

Personally, I'm fond of Dune's explanation regarding personal force fields and slow-moving blades.

 

As such, I'm curious what other explanations gamers have used, or writers have employed, in their fanatical need to justify the presence of bad-*** looking antiquated combat tools.

 

I've always liked the traveller justification.

A sword that misses its target isn't likely to cause explosive decompression.

Once melee weapons become common in boarding actions, it's easy enough to carry into the rest of society.

That and with proper advances in medical technology, it becomes a comparitively safe(for bystanders) and non lethal form of self defence, which may cause governments to encourage them.

[Duke Bushido]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

Tighter and tighter bans on "firearms" with crime remaining more or less unchanged, or perhaps hieghtened. People will still want to hurt each other, and people will still need to defend themselves. They'll need to find a 'legal' weapon if they want to have it handy.

 

Another justification I've used is simply a return to a more 'honor driven' society, where personal duels are more common, but kiling a bystander is 'gauche.'

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

Another thing that contributes to the idea is having a "frontier" again...

Any area where psersonal saftey is mostly in the hands of the individual, and or where there are relatively few laws, and the ones that do exist tend to be enforced by the community (communal law) rather than by organized government.

When you add in the increased effectiveness of Scifi weaponry, having some way of defending yourself that won't cause a lot of collateral damage starts to become very appealing.

 

And High tech melee weapons are EASY to justify if you've already justified melee weapons. Superiorweapons technology always goes hand in hand with superior defensive tech, and theres little reason to carry a weapon that you can't use to defend yourself with.

[pinecone]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

I remember reading many a sci-fi story that justified swords on the basis of not wanting to destroy the ship while fighting...this seems to sugest ships are pretty easy to damage or destroy though......seems like poison (ala Dune) is very much a natural if melee weapons are making a come back...also jiujistsu and other bare hand/armed styles as well. Capoera is famed for being able to fight in very cramped quarters...sound just great for on board ships...

[Badger]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

Well sneak attacks will benefit from melee weapons such as knives. Guns and blasters make noise alerting the enemy of your prescence. Think guerilla tactics. Might not be as handy on ship. But, usually in sci-fi games they land on a planet at some point.

[starblaze]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

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That reminds me of Star Trek 6 The Undiscovered Country when you couldn't fire a phaser in the ship without sounding an alarm. So when there was a murder on board a blunt instrument was used.

[Guest Suleyman Rashid]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

I like Niven's variable knife. It was a cutting tool made out of a strand of monomolecular wire helt taut by a magnetic field. Its use as a melee weapon was developed later...

[Citizen Keen]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

Do any of you employ really over-the-top weapons in your sci-fi campaigns? I'm thinking along the lines of Cloud's sword from Final Fantasy VII or, even better, all the melee weapons in Warhammer 40k. Giant electrified plasma chainsaw vibro blades.

 

Anyone up for that?

[BigJackBrass]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

As far as I'm concerned, one excellent justification for having swords in sci-fi is that player characters are considerably less dangerous with them than they are with ranged energy weapons. Perhaps I am bitter. The memory is still strong of my character being held hostage with a gun to his head, by a villain wanting my colleague to hand over our ship. Had a sword been involved it could all have turned out so differently, but - alas! - 'twas not to be. My good friend raced to the ship's turret and with a shout of "Hang on, I think I can pick him off over your shoulder," fired the energy weapons.

 

... forgetting that our ship was equipped with twin meson accelerator guns with a forty metre burst radius...

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

I agree with the Traveller and Dune justifications along with a couple of others

 

also Swords and various blades are dress/court weapons for officers and nobles

along with a tradition on warships, the ships captain has a ceremonial sword that stays with the ship and is passed from captain to captain as part of the chain of command

[Curufea]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

Plus they're easy to make and the materials are ready to hand on any medieval tech planet (or better), or any spaceship. Sharpened hunks of metal - no machine shop required.

 

Also - they are more useful than guns.

Makeshift mirrors, shovels, screwdrivers, hammers, bottle openers, grappling hooks or even used for surgery.

Also chopping wood.

[Sword-dancer]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

Boarding, not necessary damaging the ship but close combat fighting.

Swords don`t run out of ammo.

 

The same reason as fighters exist or slugthrowers, they penetrate energyfields.

[Mister E]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

For the Planetary Fantasy I'm working on, psionics are a large part of the game, and I've come up with a somewhat unique justification for the prefered use of melee weapons.

 

The following is taken from my notes:

 

"There is a sacred bond between conflicting combatants, called contra. Contra is a form of communion, perceived on the Astral Plane, that can only be experienced in close combat. Thus, close-quarter martial artforms are far more common, and ranged martial artforms (and weapons) are rare, as well as much less respected. Attacks from surprise and/or concealment are likewise lacking in contra, and thus are rarely used. For this reason, it is also seen as dishonorable to wound an opponent in the back."

[BNakagawa]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

Capoera is famed for being able to fight in very cramped quarters...sound just great for on board ships...

 

I'm no expert, but I don't think capoera is very suited to fighting in very cramped quarters...

[shadowcat1313]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

I wonder if something more like Savate would be better suited to close quarters

 

I would think you want something with a close range/economy of motion

[lapsedgamer]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

Certainly not Capoeira, but possibly Jailhouse Rock (AKA 52 Blocks) the somewhat apocryphal urban martial art developed in the prison system.

 

Capoeira

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capoeira

 

Jailhouse Rock

 

http://www.osmalandrosdemestretouro.bigstep.com/generic.html?pid=2

[mikesama]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

For close quarters one of the best styles is Wing Chun.

 

A friend of mine described it as "a martial art designed to be fought by two people in a phone booth."

 

Anything that relies on spinning kicks or stepping kicks is right out in close quarters.

[mikesama]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

Lets see reason to use HTH weapons in SCi Fi.

 

1. No holes in the ship/station.

2. Harder to trace/hear.

3. Technology renders firearms partially or fully useless.

4. Noble tradition to carry HTH weapon.

5. Ammo whats that?

6. HTH weapon is also specialty tool. (hull cutter)

[mikesama]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

I remember reading many a sci-fi story that justified swords on the basis of not wanting to destroy the ship while fighting...this seems to sugest ships are pretty easy to damage or destroy though......seems like poison (ala Dune) is very much a natural if melee weapons are making a come back...also jiujistsu and other bare hand/armed styles as well. Capoera is famed for being able to fight in very cramped quarters...sound just great for on board ships...

 

Actually Capoera is famed for the ability to fight while being manacled or handcuffed.

[pinecone]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

I'm no expert' date=' but I don't think capoera is very suited to fighting in very cramped quarters...[/quote']

I just got finished watching a documentary on Capoera...and one Maestro gave a demo of fighting in a door way and in a Tiny circle of people...it was truely amazing...I was unaware of how cramped a space they could work in.....

[Adventus]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

As such, I'm curious what other explanations gamers have used, or writers have employed, in their fanatical need to justify the presence of bad-*** looking antiquated combat tools.

 

 

They are unpowered weapons, not primitive or antiquated. They never run out of power or jam. And in the hands of a master, DEADLY.

 

And the best reason: The Star Trek the Next Generation movie with the Borg. Worf took his baklith with him to fight the Borg outside the ship. Spacesuits are Big bags full of air. Cut one and your opponent just got a new movement vector and he is suffocating. So, in a vacuum a sword just became even more deadly.

[Markdoc]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

The standard argument : "not so random or clumsy as a blaster"

 

Real answer: there isn't one. All the reasons given here - never run out of ammo, used as boarding weapons for spaceships made of explodium, etc, apply equally to the world today and the only people who use swords as real weapons are those who can't get guns. I mean really, we have bullets designed for inside commercial airliners, I figure in the future, we'll be able to at least match 1970's technology - though hopefully with better design sense.

 

So... make up your own reason. Dune style force-fields, restrictive weapons laws, cultural disgust, etc.

 

One I idea I played around with was that personal forcefields were common. Such a forcefield creates a "one-way discontinuity" so energy impinging on it from outside is simply bled off into another dimension, but inside (or going out the other way) there's no effect. Since this field is generated from a point source, they are spherical - so to cover a person you need a radius of about two meters. When two force fields meet, they meld.

 

So shooting at someone was OK - but you had to be within at a minimum of a couple of metres, and preferably much closer - at which point melee weapons or martial arts suddenly seem like a much more viable option. Heavy weapons could still exist, because a large shell could carry its own forcefield generator, but personal weapons could not.

 

In game, it works exactly as a regular FF, with a few limitations. So it's not a perfect protection - throw enough energy at it and it can only absorb so much, and like any technology it's not 100 % efficient (so with much pushing you could squeeze though a gap smaller than two metres).

 

You can wear the generator placed so that the bottoms of your feet stick out so you can move around without having to overcome the energy loss of pushing the discontinuity against the ground

 

This idea was for a "space opera" game with swords and martial arts in space and frantic boarding actions, etc.

 

If you don't like it, make up another reason!

 

cheers, Mark

[Lucius]

Sci-fi wear swords?

 

An interesting historical perspective....

 

I'm told that, within 50 years of their introduction to gunpowder, the Japanese were making BETTER guns than were being made in Europe at the time.

 

Within 100 years of their introduction to gunpowder, they had stopped making guns at all. I guess they just decided they liked swords better anyway.

 

Of course, then the American Admiral Perry (if I remember the name right) sailed in and forced them to face the fact that, without guns, they could only keep the rest of the world out for as long as the rest of the world chose to ignore them...and that time was coming to an end. But Japan does provide an example of preferring melee weapons on a purely cultural basis. Then again, it also provides an example of how that only works as long as the culture isn't forced to interact with other cultures with no such bias.

 

Lucius Alexander

 

Insert funny palindromedary tagline here

[Mantis]

Re: Sci-fi wear swords?

 

Another reason from Traveller: Not all worlds are at the same tech level. Some worlds are-still-at/have-regressed-to pre-gunpowder tech levels.

 

It is also possible that alien cultures - even if advanced - may not have invented gunpowder during their history, and/or the raw materials may not exist in sufficient quantities on their planet to make the discovery possible. In these cases, the edged weapon remains atop the arm's race totem pole in their society.