tkdguy

Yes, they would be extremely quiet in comparison. 

Good Reads has a shelf for that.
 
https://www.goodreads.com/genres/non-magical-fantasy

Royal Navy age of sail (1799) signal book

Yes, but....
Any point can be reached on earth within hours rather than days/weeks/months in space.
 
in the real world if you hole the hull the atmosphere doesn't disappear. 
in the real world if the air becomes fouled you just vent.
in the real world if you lose propulsion no matter where you are you have air and aid within hours.
in the real world if your environmental support (heating & cooling) goes out, you can survive the hours needed for rescue.
in the real world if you vessel becomes catastrophically disabled (sinks) you can take to lifeboats that have endless breathable air
in the real world if a gunshot/shotgun blast destroys/damages a critical system you can survive air & heat for the hours needed to get a replacement. 
 
In the real world I have seen critical parts for an engineering casualty delivered to an adrift vessel within the same day.  It is true that on earth they didn't need to worry about lose of air or freezing to death with the loss of heating as would be a danger in space.
 
In the real world I have seen critical medical supplies delivered to a private sailing yacht in the middle of the Pacific by air in less than 9 hours and a surface vessel intercept withing 14 hours. 
 
Compared to space, seafaring is very forgiving. 
And the sea has rightly been described as unforgiving. 
 
In the 1900's all the way through the 30's/40's kerosene and oil lamps were very common.   In the 1910-20's they were far far more common than electrical lights on land or at sea.  And yet we didn't see them used on zeppelins/airships.   Something to do with hydrogen going bang.
 
On earth at sea the firearm is used because it is a easy weapon that is very efficient and the possible collateral damage is very low on the "we will die scale".   Even adrift and without power you can live a long time until rescue arrives and in 2019, unless it is a private vessel on the cheap, a ships position is always known down to meters and there are several methods of singling distress that do not involve visual signalling.
 
On a vessel that operates in space, the destruction or incapacitation damage to a critical support system needed to maintain breathable atmosphere, a control that controls heating/cooling to maintain livable temperature  or even damage that causes a fire or chemical reaction that contaminates the existing atmosphere that cannot be removed.  Any of those could be caused by one errant shot be it a high powered round or pellets from a shotgun.
 
All tools are chosen by simplicity (easier to train the users) and efficiency (completes the task quickly and correctly with less error/rework).
 
Swords replaced earlier weapons because they were "better".
They held that spot until a "better" weapon came around, the firearm.
Redefine conditions and "better" may be a weapon that does not damage the things that keep you alive and condemn you to a slow death.
 
Most of the naysayers use an old environments assumptions plastered over a new environment and call it proved.
While I cannot say you are wrong, I can say I have envisioned several new issues that make the use of a firearm detrimental to survival.  All of which give some credence to the need for a personal weapon system that is not a firearm.   It could be a sword, or maybe something we haven't thought of.  But a explosively driven kinetic impact weapon fired inside of a metal box filled with fragile equipment needed to keep one alive minute to minute is not a good thing.   
 

For a monomolecular sword, I'd be tempted to stat it up as a NND attack as that stuff is supposed to be able to cut through (almost) anything. The defense could be a force field of some kind.

$130 seems expensive to me (but ... over what duration is that expense?  a week?  four months?), but I am a notably cheap bastidge.  I also really begrudge travel time; if I'm gonna do nothing, I want to do it on my own terms, and do I interpret your post correctly when you're talking six hours plus committed out of each Saturday, of which only  two are in the class itself (i.e., two hours each way to and from)?  If that was the only option, it would make it a tough choice; the options in Berkeley seem too remote and inconvenient to be worth it until you've at least sampled a second class and decide to go all-in on it. 
 
So that suggests to me that at least initially it's the Sunday morning class in town, or nothing at all.  And only you can decide if you are interested enough in it for that to be worth the time and the early Sunday.

Champions Beyond has a few paragraphs about them. Terran Empire provides a moderate amount of additional details, although some of those apply to the future of the official Hero Universe timeline.
 
As humanoid sci-fi races go, I find them pretty distinctive.

That's them. Note that page refers to their future status, although its social context mostly applies to the present as well.

Well, one idea as to why they would be used on a starship could be that the power plant, maneuver drive and/or FTL drive causes some kind of damping field that prevents energy weapons from functioning.
 
You might can handwave that to include gunpowder weapons by positing something akin to the realm of Amber in the Chronicles of Amber books where gunpowder didn't work in Amber. Maybe the exotic field generated by the power plant/drives has a similar effect. You could even use that as a plot hook so the characters can try to discover something similar to what (a rouge, IIRC) Corwin found in the Amber books that works like gunpowder even in those fields.
 
Lee

The Catavalans, an alien race from the official Hero Universe, are a prime example of a cultural perspective which supports the use of swords in a sci-fi setting. Take for example, this passage from Champions Beyond p. 265: Society on Cataval has followed the same pattern for a very long time, since Catavalan longevity gives them a strong streak of conservatism and reliance on tradition... The Catavalans have technology that’s more advanced than Humanity’s (such as slow FTL ships), but with many curious survivals of earlier technology; Catavalans don’t adopt new tech if an older method serves them well. They use steam power where most other civilizations use internal combustion or gas turbines, their soldiers fight with swords as well as energy guns, and they keep records on paper as much as on electronic storage media. Other species often find it frustrating to deal with them because of this; “Catavalan paperwork” has become a galactic slang term for “pointless procedures caused by backward thinking or practices.”
 

Precisely my point. The drive fields alter things such that energy weapons, gunpowder weapons, or any other weapons you might like as a GM won't function aboard a ship. Thus, the need for swords and other such things shipboard.
 
Another idea would be to posit the idea of it's the artificial gravity field generators that cause the issue. In either case, there's an added complication when the fields get shut off (i.e. damage, someone hits "the big red switch", etc.). Suddenly, those weapons now work, but in an environment where their recoil (for the gunpowder weapons at least) makes the situation more interesting.
 
Lee 

When I don't want gunpowder weapons, I change the physics of the universe so that no matter the ratios of charcoal, saltpeter, and sulfur that you try, there's never an explosive reaction.
 
That takes a lot of the steam out of fantasy players who want to "invent" gunpowder and introduce modern weapons into inappropriate settings.
 
I start by telling them as a GM that it isn't going to work. After that, if they want to pour all their money down a rathole looking for things which will create an explosive force, I'll let them spend as much money on it as they want and dig through endless piles of dung if that's what makes them happy.

Oddly I can not only see them, but I can see them in your reply.  But let me try posting them differently to see if that helps:


 
 

I think swords are cool too. I have practiced with both Western and Eastern sword arts, although I am by no means a master. However, I don't think swords are appropriate in every scifi game. Science fantasy, sword & planet: of course. Hard science: not so much.
 
 
Chain swords work. I think they have power swords there, as well as in Halo. As for the shared world offer, I didn't get any responses, so I thought there wasn't any interest. Maybe I'll post my ideas soon.

Batman does not Yelp. He grimaces and takes the pain stoically.

Very few songs annoy me enough to make me switch radio stations.  "Who Let the Dogs Out" by Baha Men is the only one I can think of right now.

Midsomer Murders with MMA added.

People are on their best behavior while dating you. If you don't like the way they handle money, present themselves, or treat you while you're dating, expect it to get worse rather than better once you make a long-term commitment to each other.
 
Don't expect that you can fix them. People only change when they have a desire to change...you are never going to be in control of that for other people.

There might also be religious reasons driving the culture: firearms determined to be sinful or reserved only for the elite.

The use of hand weapons would naturally increase in the absence of ranged weaponry. As an example, on the space station Babylon 5, possession of firearms was absolutely prohibited, and the PPG energy weapons (which have very low penetrating power, making them usable in a dangerous/delicate environment) are seriously restricted - even the Ambassadors couldn't legally own one.
But notably, the actual weapons in use seem to be primarily knives. The only exceptions were Michael York's character for one episode, Londo Mollari (who was noted as being in duelling society) and a Narn bodyguard who followed a specific and unusual honour code. Oh, and the Rangers, but they used staves, not swords.

But there's more to the "cost" of a weapon than its manufacturing.  There's also the training and skill needed to use it.  When firearms were first invented, they weren't very good - they often misfired, and they were slow to reload, and they were certainly expensive to make.  Nonetheless, they still caught on very quickly.  Even though swords and bows and arrows were "better" in many ways, guns were so much easier to use.  Just point and shoot.  Very little strength required, relative to a sword or bow.  And when you want to raise an army, sufficiently skilled personnel is a lot more expensive than weapons.  Anyone with two functioning hands and reasonably good eyesight can fire a rifle with a decent level of effectiveness.
 
Why are there swords in science fiction?  Because many science fiction writers are really writing fantasy.  Just cross out the word "monster" and put in "alien".  Replace "distant kingdom" with "distant planet".  Instead of "evil magic curse on the world", say "planet-destroying weapon" or "doomsday device".  And keep the swords, even if you have to rename them.

Also keep in mind that good swords are expensive, and people need training to use them well.
 
I had thought of creating a science fantasy campaign, where some force field prevented modern and futuristic firearms from working. The PCs would probably try to find that force field and negate it. I nixed that idea because it would have turned into a retread of some previous campaigns. But I can post it in the Fantasy Hero boards if you wish.
 
In any case, my players prefer guns over swords anyway. I am leaning toward a non-military science fiction campaign, which will be hard enough to sell.

And all the Japanese cartoons that inspired them.  There is  was a cool factor there until the prequels just passed the things around like candy.  Got tired of seeing them, honestly.
 
 
 
No matter how you tear that thing apart, analyze it, or study and create some kind of methodology for it's use, that thing is stupid from start to finish.  The only way to use it with minimal risk to yourself and the guys on either side of you is as a very short, very limited-options staff, and a very short, very limited option staff would be better at it.
 
 
 
 
I'll come back to that, but first I'd like to say that the Traveller justification works well enough, honestly.
 
 
 
When firearms are illegal from top to bottom in all places-- 
well, let's face it:   people are still going to want to kill each other.  It's in our nature.  Swords work better than sticks.  So you never know: social pressure might actually result in them coming back.  Even today, there are just as many places selling (seriously low-quality artistic junk) swords as there are guns, at least in the US.
 
 
 
Addressed already: the Traveller justification may not be absolutely perfect, but it is reasonable enough to accept as plausible in a game setting.
 
 
What else do you _need_?!  
 
 
 
 
And airlines and conduits and all those other things-- the Traveller justification.  However, if you're fighting inside a Traveller-esque ship, you'd better be using them for stabbing only, as swinging them in those tight corridors causes the same "cutting things" problems, compounded by the presence of your teammates swinging swords in narrow corridors.
 
 
 
And that's a great place to start with "why."   If we're going the Traveller / space opera route, we have more than one culture.  We have more than the cultures of one planet.  Given potentially a thousand new cultures, or a thousand-thousand new cultures, it's entirely possible that some of those cultures, for whatever reason, find swords to be the most practical personal weapon.  Even today, should I live in Canada or England, I-- as a tourist-- would likely have a way easier time finding a big knife than I would have finding a hand gun.  The catch, of course, is that the pigsticker is a bit harder to conceal---
 
which in _itself_-- the fact that you _know_ if buddy-cross-the-table is packing a sword or not-- may be one of the very reasons that some sci-fi cultures find swords to be more socially-acceptable weapons.  Who can say?
 
But keep running with space-opera settings: traveling to untold worlds, a hundred tech levels from "Wheels?!  That's one _hell_ of an idea!" to stone hatchets to compound bows to pistols to pocket missiles to nuclear-weapons concealed in prosthetic eyes to who knows what?!
 
So I stop at Aldebaran Station and load up: I refill my sand casters and missile launchers, maybe trade off some cargo space for a small power plant so I can add that last beam weapon I've been dreaming of....   I get my slug and pellet throwers serviced (last mission saw a _lot_ of action!  You can _hear_ the barrel slop on that automatic! ), and I get two crates of ammo for each of them.  I grab a couple of flash and stun grenades, just in case the natives are hostile where I'm going, fill the galley, and off I go, my crew and I ready for adventure.
 
We get halfway to our destination, prepare for another jump, foof-- misjump.  Lucky us, we can detect a habitable tech 1 planet at extreme range and head for it.  Navigator says the comp and some of the hardware needs work.  Looks like we'll be camping for four months or so, given we're going to have to cannibalize a few things and make a few others.  Turns out the natives _are_ hostile, and more than one hunting trip has resulted in attack.  By the end of the third month, we're pretty low on deadly noisemakers.  The natives, iron age bastards that they are, seem to have one distinct advantage over us with their swords:  the don't have to reload.  Sure, they're sucking hind teat on offensive ranged capability, but they've got the area knowledge; they've got the skills-- the tend to get pretty damned close before we even see them!  We fire eight shots and we're out; stop to reload.  They keep swinging those swords....
 
 
So we've got that in favor of swords, at least as a back-up weapon (which honestly, even in Traveller, other than duels, back up weapons is all I ever really saw a sword being used for, even for NPCs.  Everyone had a gun, but they all had a sword of some sort for on-board work and in case that gun failed.  Guns are inherently more complicated than swords, after all.
 
 
Or suppose we leave the Imperium entirely.  I've been two seven worlds and can't find a damned thing that will work with my Browning or my Dan Wesson.  That kind of sucks, because I really _like_ that Dan Wesson!  So I've spent money on new slug throwers and new ammunition on every planet, only to find I have to do it all over again if I don't scrape up the funds to start buying it by the metric ton!   My steward, though, has come to realize that regardless of how they build their guns, all these different people still bleed a _lot_ when you chop them with something.
 
I have more, but I don't have the time, so I hope some of this might get your "why we need swords" juices flowing.
 
 
Now backing way up to Connery's Outland, or whatever it was called--- well these problems don't apply.  It's sci-fi, but we didn't leave the planet(ish), so why bother? 
 
 

I am not illiterate! My parents were married!