Weaponry?

Ritrezer

Ritrezer

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I plan to include hi-tech/sci-fi weaponry in my work, any ideas? Though personally, I'm a lover of medieval weapons, such as the sword, bow and arrow etc. Is there any way to blend both such cultures and sort of "upgrade" or "modernize" these weapons? So far, I've only come up with sci-fi guns, which I don't quite like and few others including lasers. So any ideas or views?
 
For a bow, you could take a look at Hawkeye's. I think they did a really good job modernizing it.
 
Ritrezer said:
I plan to include hi-tech/sci-fi weaponry in my work, any ideas? Though personally, I'm a lover of medieval weapons, such as the sword, bow and arrow etc. Is there any way to blend both such cultures and sort of "upgrade" or "modernize" these weapons? So far, I've only come up with sci-fi guns, which I don't quite like and few others including lasers. So any ideas or views?
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If you like old style weapons, howzabout some kind of sword that creates a massive amount of heat in the edge of the blade when it comes into contact with objects. The heat would be an aid in cutting through most materials and would also have the added bonus of immediately cauterising wounds when passing through flesh. Or what about a mace that pulverises its victim from the inside out through ultrasonics?

Just a thought:)
 
The warhammer 40k universe has a lot of good, ridiculous and bizarre ideas on this front. Power weapons are close combat weapons like swords, axes and claws that project an energy field around the business end that disintegrates matter, meaning that they ignore armour. Thunder hammers release a burst of energy when they strike for extra damage (enough to take down a tank), though they can only be used if you are wearing powered armour to account for recoil. Also, a wide range of chainsaw weapons like chainswords and axes. There's also a fair amount of combined arms, I think the Adeptus Custodes use a combination Power Halberd and Boltgun.

As for guns, the boltguns fire tiny explosive rockets, but like a machine gun. There's a range of laser, plasma and particle based weapons, but I think the Ork Big Zappa/Zap Kannon is my favourite. It shoots a gretchin (goblin) through the warp (which is basically Hell), driving it insane. The gun then materializes the gretchin inside an enemy's armour as a snarling, slathering ball of teeth and rage.

Mis-spent youth...
 
The monofilament bolas – exactly the same principle as a traditional bolas, but the entangling cord replaced my monocrystaline boron filaments, just as strong but invisibly thin, that slice through just about anything. If we've got some of the monofilament left we build a couple of abendsterns; like morgansterns, but they put the light out…

The chain sword, with the microdiamond crusted monofilament loop might be unnecessary for slicing through armour, if we can make sharp swords - like monomolecular edge. And we could manage a nerve jangler, with EMP sized magnetic fields absorbed by shielding only in the armour you're wearing?
 
Ritrezer said:
I plan to include hi-tech/sci-fi weaponry in my work, any ideas? Though personally, I'm a lover of medieval weapons, such as the sword, bow and arrow etc. Is there any way to blend both such cultures and sort of "upgrade" or "modernize" these weapons? So far, I've only come up with sci-fi guns, which I don't quite like and few others including lasers. So any ideas or views?
Click to expand...

Unfortunately the medieval weapons you quote are all what would be considered short-range i.e. to be used in one-ot-one combat.

The true sci-fi weapons of the future will have distance between attacker and victim. We have distance now, e.g. missiles, but not necessary the accuracy or precision of attack (by the latter I mean singles out the desired victim and only the desired victim). Long distance weapons would also require some form of in-built stealth to avoid being detected and therefore giving the victim time to react and save him/her/itself.

Hope this helps with the general scientific trending of sci-fi weaponry.

...Of course you could totally ignore science and just go for the blood-goring battle scenes... ahem...
 
I guess one thing that readers would ask is: why are these weapons primarily medieval in nature? You say you want hi tech/scifi weaponry, so if you want scifi weaponry, why would you still wish to use swords etc in your world?
 
To make melee weaponry useful in the future, you just need to make it so that ranged weaponry is ineffective. If, in the modern day, we invented a material that could withstand any small arms at anything but point blank range, then all modern military combat would suddenly be taking place really close up. And if you have to stand four feet from someone in order to get a bullet through their armour, why use a gun? It can jam, has to be reloaded, etc. You might as well use something like a sword (assuming, of course, that a sword could penetrate this wonder armour that stops machine guns and assault rifles).

The jedi and sith are a great example of this; given that they can deflect, block or dodge projectile weaponry, they resort to melee weaponry to fight one another.

If you want an actual design of some silly future weapon, I'd go for something that messes around the gravity. If you could manipulate gravity you could destabilise the particles of something you struck, or you could perhaps massively increase the weight of the item you're hitting something with, making your sword hit them with the mass of a garbage truck.
 
Sapheron - Yup. Futuristic melee weapons might use some sort of handwavium based loosely on Higgs field manipulation, such as greatly increasing the mass of the weapon once it's already been set swinging. Imagine swinging a mediaeval-style longsword of the normal mass (about 3kg) that suddenly increases in mass to hundreds of kilos mid-swing - and near-instantaneously becomes just about massless when you press a button on the hilt.
 
Tower75 said:
I guess one thing that readers would ask is: why are these weapons primarily medieval in nature? You say you want hi tech/scifi weaponry, so if you want scifi weaponry, why would you still wish to use swords etc in your world?
Click to expand...

"The slow blade penetrates the shield..."
 
Agreed. Unless you have some sort of magic armour/shield that makes guns worthless but doesn't stop blades, it would be very hard to justify using medieval style weapons in the future.

I suppose though, you could perhaps get away with a world where guns are illegal and sufficiently hard to get ahold of that the characters have to resort to other weapons. Perhaps you could set it on a space station where guns would be too much of a risk, for instance.
 
I remember something I wrote a long long time ago which had fantasy and sci-fi elements - one of the characters used 'blaster shafts', which were like hand-thrown rockets with an energy blast warhead. The rocket motor would ignite after throwing, and it took a great deal of skill to be able to throw one accurately.
 
There's always the issue of ease of production or use. In some vast space empire, where transport costs are huge and raw materials scarce - not to mention the disruption to trade routes that war might cause - you might well find that a reliable, easily-made weapon is much better than a fancy one that breaks down easily. Of course, most of these would probably be ranged weapons, anyhow: Lee Enfield rifles or even bows would seem like likely candidates rather than swords.

Really, for swords to have any use, you need to get rid of the small problem of bullets. Extremely thick armour might possibly work, although I can't imagine it. Force fields are probably the way to go. Either that or a society where ritual duelling is considered acceptable, and the results will be honoured by everyone else.
 
Some kind of heat-edged discus? It could be lobbed and return like a boomerang, and I'm sure the methodology of using it, could be interesting in action, not to mention fertile to storylines. They could also be used as melee weapons.

pH
 
Remember it is science fiction, so unless you are going for hardcore science fiction based on current physics and knowledge, then the world is your oyster. The things you use dont need to be understood today.
We use many levels of technology including advanced versions of medievil weapons. Use of energy fields and advanced materials. Defensive fields that render energy weapons inefective, kinetic shielding that creates an equaly opposed hard field when hit with a kinetic force - ie bullets.
Our battlefields quite literaly vary from advanced energy weapons right down to bloody hand to hand combat. Its more fun that way ;-)
 
Hi,

Could I suggest Green's Deathstalker universe. Swords and one shot laser guns - can't remember why you got only one shot with them - something to do with personal shields. After that it was swords all the way which you ramped up partly by improving the blade but mostly by improving the swordsman - increasing his speed and strength etc.

Cheers, Greg.
 
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