What would it take for melee weapons to make sense...

[Purple]

Barring that you could have wars fought by armies of magically gifted superhumans like the jedi. The idea being that they can use the force to dodge bullets and deflect artillery shells and what not. But when they come into personal combat this cancels out and they have to melee it out. And you can replace magic with sufficiently advanced technology if you like.

[lance]

Or you need some technobabble shield that can only be pierced by some nearunobtanium that cannot be used in bullets for some reason, but is suitable for melee weapons.

Like it being in very limited supply?

[LaCroix]

Or you need some technobabble shield that can only be pierced by some nearunobtanium that cannot be used in bullets for some reason, but is suitable for melee weapons.

Like it being in very limited supply?

For example.

Body-hugging shield capable to stop energy weapons and deflect incoming projectiles. Only one material can pierce it, but it is very rare. Not really rare, but there simply isn't enough to consider using it for one-time mass produced applications like bullets or grenade casings.

There could be the occasional "silver bullet" used in a sniper rifle, but equipping everyone with a pistol shooting that stuff or artillery shell casings made of it may be impractical, because no mass production. Also, people will wear bullet proof vests underneath that shield and be mostly safe from being shot and shrapnel, again. It's simply too expensive to shoot pounds of that stuff downrange per killed soldier, shile that shield is relatively cheap.

A knife made out of it, on the other hand, would be very handy to take down people.

And since some soldiers have such knifes, someone would give his soldiers bigger knives or real swords, axes, or make spears...
People might start wearing stab-proof armor underneath that shield, and start using hand held metal shields, so people might go and make maces out of it to use concussion force -you know, arms race, again.

[Simon_Jester]

Barring that you could have wars fought by armies of magically gifted superhumans like the jedi. The idea being that they can use the force to dodge bullets and deflect artillery shells and what not. But when they come into personal combat this cancels out and they have to melee it out. And you can replace magic with sufficiently advanced technology if you like.

The problem is that if their power relies on being able to predict and block ranged weapons, then the solution is to use faster-moving weapons. A humanish body cannot conceivably move fast enough to block a laser while the beam is moving toward it.

If you see the weapon pointed at you you might somehow preemptively 'dodge' it before the trigger is actually pulled, but there are some weird implications to making this a common ability. Especially if it lets you dodge incoming laser fire from an emplaced weapon several kilometers away. How do you even see it and know it is being fired at you, and that the beam is going there, not a meter to the left or right?

If the ability that lets you 'dodge' is explicitly prescience, knowing about things before they happen, that objection is removed. But in that case, the reason people can fight hand to hand is that prescience cancels out other people's prescience.

If we fight a duel, and my actions are informed by prescient awareness, and yours are too, then either our duel ends in a single stroke with both of us knowing ahead of time exactly what will happen... in which case the loser was a complete fool to even show up to the battle...

Or my prescient actions have the effect of fogging your prescience and vice versa, because when we can both foresee the future and act accordingly the future becomes intrinsically unpredictable. In which case there is no obvious reason why this would only apply to swordfights, and not to, for example, us getting into a gunfight where you presciently foresee me shooting there, and dodge here, but I foresee that and shoot here so you have to dodge to the other place and so on...

Or you need some technobabble shield that can only be pierced by some nearunobtanium that cannot be used in bullets for some reason, but is suitable for melee weapons.

Like it being in very limited supply?

The main problem is that you can make many bullets (or armor-piercing tank gun rounds) for the mass of metal that goes into a single sword (or giant mecha-battleaxe). So it'd have to be something really freaking limited in supply, and yet available in non-microscopic quantities. Also, you have to get used to the idea that instead of issuing every squad marksman three silver bullets to kill werewolves or whatever, you have to have like one guy per hundred soldiers or whatever with a sword that can do the job. This can result in very one-sided slaughters if one of the handful of precious, unobtainium weapons is not available on hand to take care of the threat.

There could be the occasional "silver bullet" used in a sniper rifle, but equipping everyone with a pistol shooting that stuff or artillery shell casings made of it may be impractical, because no mass production. Also, people will wear bullet proof vests underneath that shield and be mostly safe from being shot and shrapnel, again. It's simply too expensive to shoot pounds of that stuff downrange per killed soldier, shile that shield is relatively cheap.

A knife made out of it, on the other hand, would be very handy to take down people.

And since some soldiers have such knifes, someone would give his soldiers bigger knives or real swords, axes, or make spears...
People might start wearing stab-proof armor underneath that shield, and start using hand held metal shields, so people might go and make maces out of it to use concussion force -you know, arms race, again.

Electroplate a thin coating onto ammunition and call it "Shield Piercing Cap?" Sorry. Being a bit silly.

Anyway, coming up with a clever justification like this is fine, the trick is just to think it through and consider the implications of the technology.

[Purple]

@Simon_Jester

You are thinking too hard about this. It basically boils down to the idea that if you and me are having a duel and are up close and personal with one another I can focus my magic on you and you can focus your magic on me and the two will cancel out so that the guy with the strongest magic wins.

[Borgholio]

Electroplate a thin coating onto ammunition

Just wanted to say I love this idea. Could be a great plot point if someone points out how stupid these vampire / werewolf hunters are for using silver melee weapons when they could just melt one down and plate several thousand bullets with a thin 1/2mm coating of silver.

[Purple]

Electroplate a thin coating onto ammunition

Just wanted to say I love this idea. Could be a great plot point if someone points out how stupid these vampire / werewolf hunters are for using silver melee weapons when they could just melt one down and plate several thousand bullets with a thin 1/2mm coating of silver.

I see one problem with that and that's barrel erosion. Basically there is a reason why modern lead bullets have a copper jacket. I'd much rather have a standard AP style bullet with a silver core.

[Borgholio]

I'd much rather have a standard AP style bullet with a silver core.

I always presumed that it was the contact with the metal itself that did in the creatures. Would silver work if it was encased in the core of the bullet?

[biostem]

I'd much rather have a standard AP style bullet with a silver core.

I always presumed that it was the contact with the metal itself that did in the creatures. Would silver work if it was encased in the core of the bullet?

That was my take as well - Silver had to touch their skin to do damage.

However, there'd also be no reason why one wouldn't plate just the cutting edge of a melee weapon with the special material, either. Imagine that this special material was so rare, and so expensive, that we're talking about lining the edge of a blade with a single molecule-wide strip of said material. Now factor in some contrived reason as to why ranged weapons wouldn't work, and you have, at the very least, an explanation for why melee weapons would be used, (though said material would have to be strong/durable enough that the single molecule thick strip would withstand repeated use AND be able to stay attached to the base material of the melee weapon in question).

Another possible explanation would be that the means of manufacturing these specialized weapons have been lost, and the only remnants of this technology come in the form of melee weapons, so that's all they have...

[Purple]

I'd much rather have a standard AP style bullet with a silver core.

I always presumed that it was the contact with the metal itself that did in the creatures. Would silver work if it was encased in the core of the bullet?

Modern bullets, or rather a large segment of them most notably the 5.56 OTAN are designed to fragment inside the body of what ever unfortunate sod they lodge them self in. I firmly believe that this is going to give you quite enough contact.

[biostem]

I'd much rather have a standard AP style bullet with a silver core.

I always presumed that it was the contact with the metal itself that did in the creatures. Would silver work if it was encased in the core of the bullet?

Modern bullets, or rather a large segment of them most notably the 5.56 OTAN are designed to fragment inside the body of what ever unfortunate sod they lodge them self in. I firmly believe that this is going to give you quite enough contact.

What if, in the setting, this "special material" is the only thing that can harm the armor or shielding/defenses in question? Then, said material MUST be what's making contact to even open a wound/breach the armor in the first place - thus it cannot just be a payload sheathed inside the projectile.

[Purple]

What if, in the setting, this "special material" is the only thing that can harm the armor or shielding/defenses in question? Then, said material MUST be what's making contact to even open a wound/breach the armor in the first place - thus it cannot just be a payload sheathed inside the projectile.

The issue is that as I said bullets have copper jackets for a reason. A bullet with a jacket of silver or what ever is going to cause massive barrel erosion and quite likely end up with most of the jacket torn off before it leaves the gun.

[LaCroix]

There could also be some minimum amount of material required to absorb the shield energy. A bullet might not be big enough to disrupt the shield, and using 40mm solid shot would be a waste of a scarce material, as you can only take down one enemy per shot, even if you never miss. But each of these "bullets" would be enough material to make a very nice knife or spear point, if you get mine...

[Jub]

The trouble with the exotic material angle is that any material critical to your war effort will be produced in quantity almost regardless of cost. It's not as if you can claim that it's a rare element and leave it at that either, simply due to the fact that it's rather unlikely that any elements heavier than those already discovered will be stable enough to be used in any sort of weapon and the heavy elements we already know of don't have this property. Sure the material could be a rare alloy that is hard to make outside of specific geological conditions, but I can't fathom the stellar or geologic event that would form such a magic material.

Plus having a magic material leaves a ton of questions that either need to be left by the way side or explained away. The first issue is the need to make up shields/biology that is immune to ranged attack from projectiles, lasers, flamethrowers, gases and anything else that has better range and is easier to use than a melee weapon. Then you need to explain why the shield blocks everything except for this rare material and explain why this material is so effective that nothing more common will make an acceptable replacement. After doing that you'd also need to explain why you can't simply manufacture or mine more of this war winning resource. Then after all of that you still need to explain why it's properties make it better used as a melee weapon than as a coating for bullets.

Honestly you might as well just say magic is the reason for future wars fought with melee weapons given the sheer number of hoops you need to leap through to make the scenario work.

[Zeropoint]

The issue is that as I said bullets have copper jackets for a reason. A bullet with a jacket of silver or what ever is going to cause massive barrel erosion and quite likely end up with most of the jacket torn off before it leaves the gun.

Silver isn't that hard. Pure copper is about twice as hard as pure silver, and the 95/5 copper/zinc brass (commonly called "gilding metal") used for bullet jackets is about twice as hard as pure copper.

(See Hardness of the Elements and List of Copper Alloys for data.)

[Batman]

Sabot round. Problem solved. The question is how small you can make those and still have them be useful ammunition.

[Eleventh Century Remnant]

As far as the OP goes, we do have the ability to draw magic lines in the sand almost at will; laws, treaties, arms control agreements, alliances, theories of deterrence. There is a story to be written as to how it came to this, but that's just another opportunity, right?


I did have a story in which I had to solve this problem; a story which alas could not find a publisher. I did resort to magic materials- the way the ships got around the universe was by Discontinuity Drive, and there followed much technobabble about quantum Riemann cuts and various nonsense.

Relativity, FTL, Causality- I chose to ditch causality, claiming in essence that causality is a local phenomenon that only applies within and not between frames of reference. (Still complete nonsense, but a smaller proportion of the population should immediately notice it as such.)

The magic material was the drive core. Essentially you build a, I think I actually used the term 'piezogravitic crystal' matrix around a quantum black hole and allow it to Hawking-radiation evaporate; the subsequent kaboom imprints the spacetime deformation, the naked singularity on the blank core. Explosive forging and then some. (It can be surprising amounts of fun trying to make up technobabble; the headache of trying to make self- consistent technobabble is the price to pay.)

As uncertain and volatile a process as this was, there is a high proportion of failures- but the really interesting ones are the partial successes. The cores that still bend spacetime, but don't reach a high enough standard to be used for their design purpose, and are relegated to the secondary functions of fitting out weapon and shielding systems- class beta cores were good enough for starship work, class gamma subdivided through fighter, marines, surface armour, infantry.

The average squaddie in this universe wears heavy power armour mainly to protect themselves from their own shielding, which is based on a broken- off fragment of a failed starship drive core, and can (most of the time) simply warp away bullets, lasers, radiation, large falling rocks- most things, in fact, except a ripple of spacetime used as an offensive weapon from a similar broken fragment of drive core.

Which are not reliable, stable or really predictable weapons at all- discontinuity blasters are very sensitive to their environment, and getting one to behave and project a coherent bolt, down at the bottom end of the scale just above civilian waste disposals, is a frustrating and time consuming task, requiring many attempts to get right usually; a random and highly variable rate of fire, usually somewhat less than that of a musket actually. Capable of blowing up small hills in the way, sure, but when exactly?

Vastly more reliable to go for a point source effect, use the fragment core as an axehead and just hit them with it.

That was my solution to the problem, anyway.

[lance]

Or you need some technobabble shield that can only be pierced by some nearunobtanium that cannot be used in bullets for some reason, but is suitable for melee weapons.

Like it being in very limited supply?

The main problem is that you can make many bullets (or armor-piercing tank gun rounds) for the mass of metal that goes into a single sword (or giant mecha-battleaxe). So it'd have to be something really freaking limited in supply, and yet available in non-microscopic quantities. Also, you have to get used to the idea that instead of issuing every squad marksman three silver bullets to kill werewolves or whatever, you have to have like one guy per hundred soldiers or whatever with a sword that can do the job. This can result in very one-sided slaughters if one of the handful of precious, unobtainium weapons is not available on hand to take care of the threat.

What if the creatures biology makes lopping off body parts necessary to incapacitate it?

[Simon_Jester]

Below I use "werewolf" as a stand-in for "any creature that is immune to all materials other than a very special one." And "silver" as a stand-in for that special material... This is just for the sake of keeping my sentences compact.

Well, for one, it's going to be very hard to mechanically lop off a werewolf's arm with your silver sword. Unless you get very explicitly magical and say that the silver's material properties are irrelevant. Maybe the sword just goes "snicker-snack" through any arbitrary amount of the werewolf's body like a white-hot scalpel through butter. But at that point you are really moving into fantasy territory.

For another, this does not negate the problem that if your special material is that rare, you can't possibly make enough swords or axes out of the stuff to equip every soldier in a large army. In which case either you have only a handful of soldiers armed with silver swords (who get mopped up by any enemy force that doesn't consist entirely of werewolves). Or you have a large army, only a tiny fraction of which actually has the silver swords... in which case each time a werewolf shows up, he'll probably slaughter his way through a dozen regular line troopers before your one silver-swordsman shows up.

[bilateralrope]

In which case either you have only a handful of soldiers armed with silver swords (who get mopped up by any enemy force that doesn't consist entirely of werewolves).

Or an army of werewolves who use guns.

[Terralthra]

The problem is that if their power relies on being able to predict and block ranged weapons, then the solution is to use faster-moving weapons. A humanish body cannot conceivably move fast enough to block a laser while the beam is moving toward it.

If you see the weapon pointed at you you might somehow preemptively 'dodge' it before the trigger is actually pulled, but there are some weird implications to making this a common ability. Especially if it lets you dodge incoming laser fire from an emplaced weapon several kilometers away. How do you even see it and know it is being fired at you, and that the beam is going there, not a meter to the left or right?

If the ability that lets you 'dodge' is explicitly prescience, knowing about things before they happen, that objection is removed. But in that case, the reason people can fight hand to hand is that prescience cancels out other people's prescience.

If we fight a duel, and my actions are informed by prescient awareness, and yours are too, then either our duel ends in a single stroke with both of us knowing ahead of time exactly what will happen... in which case the loser was a complete fool to even show up to the battle...

Or my prescient actions have the effect of fogging your prescience and vice versa, because when we can both foresee the future and act accordingly the future becomes intrinsically unpredictable. In which case there is no obvious reason why this would only apply to swordfights, and not to, for example, us getting into a gunfight where you presciently foresee me shooting there, and dodge here, but I foresee that and shoot here so you have to dodge to the other place and so on...

For one, Jedi (the go-to example of vaguely-prescient melee-weapon-wielders) do use blasters on occasion, but generally restrict themselves to their lightsabres as a mix of "defensive weapon for defenders of the peace" and "symbol of a code of honor and a light standing against the dark."

There's nothing stopping them from using blasters, except that, as shown, even a twelve-year-old youngling/padawan was perfectly capable of deflecting blasterfire while advancing, to deadly effect, before getting overpowered by numbers. A jedi armed with their lightsabre is capable of defending themselves against both another lightsabre wielder or a non-trivial amount of blaster-wielding normals. A blaster-wielding jedi could presumably have some slight advantage over a lightsabre-wielding jedi (maybe; not sold on that), but would have real problems defending themselves against as many blaster-wielding normals.

Another advantage in their role as peacekeepers is that lightsabres are defensive weapons capable of essentially perfect defense against "blaster-toting criminal" without devolving into "shoot them before they shoot me". If police in America had a nightstick that effectively blocked bullets, I'd want them to use it over a pistol nearly every damn time.

The rest of the scenarios you mention seem...pretty awesome, actually. A swordsman goes to face up against another swordsman because honor demands it, knowing before blades are drawn that they will lose. They are not afraid they'll lose, worried they'll lose, nervous they may lose, but knows, from the beginning, that they will lose. They accept their fate and go anyway, because honor demands it, or to prevent a greater harm.

On the other hand, two jedi (or juicers, who get an automatic dodge attempt against any attack, to give the Rifts example) going up against each other with pistols is pretty much an amazing scene, and experience backs me up on that. Juicers, by the way, use guns all the time.

[Simon_Jester]

...If the ability that lets you 'dodge' is explicitly prescience, knowing about things before they happen, that objection is removed. But in that case, the reason people can fight hand to hand is that prescience cancels out other people's prescience.

If we fight a duel, and my actions are informed by prescient awareness, and yours are too, then either our duel ends in a single stroke with both of us knowing ahead of time exactly what will happen... in which case the loser was a complete fool to even show up to the battle...

Or my prescient actions have the effect of fogging your prescience and vice versa, because when we can both foresee the future and act accordingly the future becomes intrinsically unpredictable. In which case there is no obvious reason why this would only apply to swordfights, and not to, for example, us getting into a gunfight where you presciently foresee me shooting there, and dodge here, but I foresee that and shoot here so you have to dodge to the other place and so on...

For one, Jedi (the go-to example of vaguely-prescient melee-weapon-wielders) do use blasters on occasion, but generally restrict themselves to their lightsabres as a mix of "defensive weapon for defenders of the peace" and "symbol of a code of honor and a light standing against the dark."

There's nothing stopping them from using blasters, except that, as shown, even a twelve-year-old youngling/padawan was perfectly capable of deflecting blasterfire while advancing, to deadly effect, before getting overpowered by numbers. A jedi armed with their lightsabre is capable of defending themselves against both another lightsabre wielder or a non-trivial amount of blaster-wielding normals. A blaster-wielding jedi could presumably have some slight advantage over a lightsabre-wielding jedi (maybe; not sold on that), but would have real problems defending themselves against as many blaster-wielding normals.

That's because of the lightsaber's ability as a defensive weapon. Which is unique to lightsabers, not something that normally applies to just any hand-to-hand weapon.

However, my key point here is that there is no obvious reason why "prescience cancels prescience" would apply only to duels fought between prescient beings with hand-to-hand weapons. It would also apply to gunfights. I think we're in agreement on that.

The rest of the scenarios you mention seem...pretty awesome, actually. A swordsman goes to face up against another swordsman because honor demands it, knowing before blades are drawn that they will lose. They are not afraid they'll lose, worried they'll lose, nervous they may lose, but knows, from the beginning, that they will lose. They accept their fate and go anyway, because honor demands it, or to prevent a greater harm.

True. On the other hand, the mark of a really successful prescient duelist may be that they never even got close to the situation that would necessitate fighting a losing duel.

I for one find this a very compelling idea too- the "I know how that would end," followed by a cunning ploy to avert one's fate by doing something entirely different. Although if people can do that in-setting then you trend toward the "prescience cancels prescience" scenario, because it's only a matter of time before you run into an enemy capable of foreseeing your countermove and preparing a countercountermove, and so on, and so on.

On the other hand, two jedi (or juicers, who get an automatic dodge attempt against any attack, to give the Rifts example) going up against each other with pistols is pretty much an amazing scene, and experience backs me up on that. Juicers, by the way, use guns all the time.

Although honestly I was envisioning a fight at longer range, which to me is a bit more compelling, but I'm weird like that. As my previous paragraph illustrates.

[Gaidin]

Although honestly I was envisioning a fight at longer range, which to me is a bit more compelling, but I'm weird like that. As my previous paragraph illustrates.

The gunfight in the hallway leading up to that might be what you're looking for.

[Purple]

However, my key point here is that there is no obvious reason why "prescience cancels prescience" would apply only to duels fought between prescient beings with hand-to-hand weapons. It would also apply to gunfights. I think we're in agreement on that.

That's why I said not to think of it as "prescience cancels prescience" but as "magic cancels magic". Simply have the characters cancel each others prescience out when up close. So when they are fighting with swords the future becomes "clouded" because each of them can see all the possible moves and counter moves. So the battle becomes a chess match with the one who has more power to see that one extra move in advance landing the one and only blow. But if they are evenly matched you just end up with a regular sword fight.

[Simon_Jester]

Although honestly I was envisioning a fight at longer range, which to me is a bit more compelling, but I'm weird like that. As my previous paragraph illustrates.

The gunfight in the hallway leading up to that might be what you're looking for.

Maaaybe.

Honestly, the gun-kata premise of Equilibrium doesn't do it for me because it's based on the idea that you can have a list of canned moves that will reliably keep you alive in a gunfight, and allow you to kill your enemies without stopping to look at where they are.

However, my key point here is that there is no obvious reason why "prescience cancels prescience" would apply only to duels fought between prescient beings with hand-to-hand weapons. It would also apply to gunfights. I think we're in agreement on that.

That's why I said not to think of it as "prescience cancels prescience" but as "magic cancels magic". Simply have the characters cancel each others prescience out when up close....

But not far away? Why not?