Re: How to get swords on your starship
The best exmple of sword in space is the Star Trek movie First Contact. The Scene where Picard and Worf fight the Borg outside the ship. Remember, Worf brought his Klingon sword(don't remembere the name) with him. He could have brought a phaser and just used that. Remember swords in space is COOL.
In the Deathstalker series from Simon Green, The reason for swords is that the main ranged weapon is a disruptor which takes up to 4 minutes to recharge between blasts. And the use of personal force fields made slug throwers obsolete. So while waiting for yor disruptor to recharge, you pull your sword and go mano-a-mano.