Ideas on how melee weapons can be more efficient than range weapons in fantasy / science-fiction.

[bilateralrope]

Any human movement to dodge a bullet at typical combat ranges needs to start before the bullet is fired. Meaning the bullets path is still under the control of the precog holding the gun, and thus precog cancels precog.

Combat precognition can be combined with super speed.

How fast are you talking when you say super speed ?

I demand numbers.

Lets use a ranged weapon with a blast radius large enough that it can't be dodged. Have a super speed user aim it.

No such weapon especially if the precognition is added. No matter that the gunman be a speeder, because the speed of the projectile would remain the same.

Give us numbers for super speed.

Then think about the consequences that would have on the rest of your setting.

Lets build guns with enough power that they can overpower the shield. Or we just cover the area with something to prevent the shield user from moving. If he can't move, his melee weapons aren't a threat to us.

No guns with enough power that they can overpower the shield, because it is not on power but on psychic. The shield user can be contained, but not forever and it is a way to the efficiency of melee weapons over range weapons.

Fuck your no limits fallacy.

Meanwhile a sniper shoots you from outside the range of your probability shield.

No such weapons because the range of the probability shield is broader. The only weapons broader are ballistic missiles that are machines that are turned off when approaching the target with the probability shield.

That probability shield is a very powerful ranged weapon. So you have failed at preventing ranged combat with it.

[Haruhi]

Another poster here, Sea Skimmer, pointed out that the most obvious solution is to build armored, shielded bulldozers that drive around at low speeds crushing your enemies.

I still consider that a melee attack. We can imagine mechs with shields that can only be damaged with melee weapons.

Indeed, basically the only unpredictable thing a precognitive can do is punch me in the nose while already standing close enough to do so- or refrain from thus punching me, I suppose.

Yes.

Works if there are no futuristic weapons such as lasers or hypervelocity mass drivers, and specifically if you want duels between speedsters.

If speed is achieved through manipulation of space-time, the speeders apparently could exceed the speed of light without violate the general theory of relativity.

The big problem here is figuring out the dividing lines- depending on what they are the shield may have exploitable weaknesses.

You're right.

This doesn't work because there is always a nonzero probability of the melee weapon breaking, or rusting away into nothing, or for that matter of the guy using it suddenly having a heart attack and falling over dead. If you can manipulate probabilities far enough away, and far enough in advance, that a gun fired at you will predictably jam... you're basically a god, and nothing can affect you unless you want it to, unless they have equally capable probability manipulation.

The ability to manipulate the probabilities only works with objects with pieces elaborated separately, not with some melee weapons or living beings.

[Haruhi]

How fast are you talking when you say super speed ?

The necessary, which can range from the speed of sound to superluminical.

Fuck your no limits fallacy.

It is not because there is logic in that X can only be crossed by X.

That probability shield is a very powerful ranged weapon. So you have failed at preventing ranged combat with it.

Yes but that would lead to the use of melee weapons.

[NecronLord]

I like to discuss ways in which melee weapons can be more efficient than range weapons in fantasy / science-fiction scenarios. Some ideas are as follows.

1. Shields become more resistant when projectiles impacting them have more energy.

2. Combat precognition allow dodge or reject most of the projectiles, but the precognition is canceled if the enemy is also precog and melee combat happens. Ordinary range combat never cancels the precognition because once fired, the projectile is always predictable, but melee fight between precogs cancels the precognition because they never separated from their weapons and they can always vary the movement of their swords according to their precognitive experiences.

3. Super speed that allows dodge or reject most of the projectiles, but if you can dodge a shot, you can dodge a blade stroke. But no, because the sprinter also moves the blade at high speeds and usually a blade stroke travels less space than a shot, so it is still preferable that the sprinter carrying a melee weapon than a range weapon.

4. Shields teleporting any object within a range of size that approaches to the shielded, then any projectile fired on the shielded disappears, but not the air nor one who attack with a melee weapon for being too big.

5. Psychic shields that can only be pierced with something physically contiguous to psychic beings, that is, melee weapons carried by psychics. Psychic projectiles can not be obtained because the psychics are macroscopic and unable to accelerate at high speeds.

6. Camouflage is disabled when using range weapons but not to move melee weapons.

7. Force field manipulating the probabilities around a subject, making the chances that range weapons do not shoot are 100 percent, but melee weapons are unaffected because they lack mechanical parts.

What is your opinion?

Might I suggest:

8. ripping off - but not too closely - The Trigger. Something that remotely explodes explosives across the battlefield.

No more unrealistic than a shield. You could have lasers and railguns take up the slack, but be too bulky with their battery requirements for widespread use as sidearms, or have them be somewhat awkward to handle like some sort of early arquebus. Leaving a space for sticking pointy things into the foe. Airguns and perhaps even some sort of modernized crossbow would also flourish I expect.

You would also get Skimmer's crush-vehicles and unarmed or alternately armoured vehicles will be nigh invincible without tools like grenades and some bombs might still work if dropped from above the effect and with EFPs etc.

9. Back in the day we had a 'practical melee weapon' thread; which ended up being a sort of boarding pike that generated a shield toward the front, like a giant umbrella of a sort and could be used in combination with firearms. The pointy bit was almost perfunctory and used to kill the guy with another shield-pike if you came across him. It was a pike so that you could handle the recoil of shots hitting the shield.

10. Just have a duelling culture. The last UK duel with swords was reputedly 1994.

[NecronLord]

Fuck your no limits fallacy.

It is not because there is logic in that X can only be crossed by X.

It is.

Don't feel that should restrain you; literature's rife with no limits fallacies. But don't say it's logically consistent either.

[Cykeisme]

I'd go with a couple of ideas.

Passive defensive technology exists that quite nearly negates most attacks, including directed energy beams and projectiles with stupid amounts of KE and momentum.
There's offensive technology that can defeat it, but it's so expensive in comparison to the defensive stuff (either due to rare materials or complexity of manufacture), or possibly has components that are too fragile, that it's too expensive or fragile to throw away as projectiles. There might even be components that are too fragile to use as projectiles at all, whereas a soldier can put the fragile part in a backpack and have it attached to his melee weapon with a cable.

Thus, while there's some ranged weaponry, statistically it's ineffective enough that taking and holding ground from the enemy in a practical amount of time requires one side to get in close and beat/stab the crap out of the other side.

The defensive technology can be either advanced armor materials or shields of some sort, or a combination of the two, with "intertial compensators" or some sort, perhaps.
The offensive stuff could be either just advanced materials too, or be some sort of fields like a lightsaber, or again, a combination of both.


On the other hand, you can make melee necessary if you're fighting an opponent that simply has insane numerical superiority.
Human wave attacks disappeared when machine guns and mines became prevalent because even the most populous real-world human nation cannot deal with the casualty rates.
But if you're dealing with some sort of aliens or robots or otherdimensional beings, it's possible that they can simply swamp you with dozens, or hundreds, or thousands, or even billions of troops, trying to get into melee, that eventually they WILL get there, no matter how susceptible they were to ranged weaponry.
Then again, if they had those kinds of numbers, it sounds like they'd beat the crap out of all your troops anyway, through numbers, once they get into melee range.


Btw, I'd throw out precognition.
Because if both parties had precognition, and it allowed two precognitive melee fighters to second-guess the other guy's second-guess in a neverending recursion until one guy's gives out and he gets hit, then as a rule they can do the same thing to each other at a distance, with lasers or high-velocity projectiles.

And science-fiction is a subtype of fantasy.

I disagree. There is a clear delineation between the criteria for a piece of fiction to qualify as science-fiction or fantasy. While a work can qualify as both, that's because it ticks the boxes two separate lists.. but it's still two separate lists. One is not a subset of the other.
If you don't believe that's the case, I'm not sure why you're bothering to explore this topic at all. Just use magic!

Works if there are no futuristic weapons such as lasers or hypervelocity mass drivers, and specifically if you want duels between speedsters.

If speed is achieved through manipulation of space-time, the speeders apparently could exceed the speed of light without violate the general theory of relativity.

If they can go that fast, then these individuals are essentially hypervelocity mass drivers, just by throwing random stuff really fast.

I'm guessing they'd also violate conservation of energy, but I won't go into that, because I'm already rather interested in the extent of your understanding of "the general theory of relativity".

Anyway, so basically this is a world of DC comic book Flash expies?

[Simon_Jester]

Indeed, basically the only unpredictable thing a precognitive can do is punch me in the nose while already standing close enough to do so- or refrain from thus punching me, I suppose.

Yes.

You are aware of the disappointing plot consequences of this, right?

For that matter, precognitives who can 'see' each other this accurately would presumably know the outcomes of fights in advance, because they can 'see' the cooling, no-longer-precognitive corpse of the loser. So the logical response would be for the loser to simply not show up to the battle.

If precognitives can literally predict everything except the location of another precognitive's body during their lifetime, and can predict all the consequences of that precognitive's movements... they can predict everything there is to know about them.

Works if there are no futuristic weapons such as lasers or hypervelocity mass drivers, and specifically if you want duels between speedsters.

If speed is achieved through manipulation of space-time, the speeders apparently could exceed the speed of light without violate the general theory of relativity.

Now you're just throwing rather silly words around. If you're talking about people with that kind of bizarre magical power, then the image of them fighting with swords is no longer even meaningful. Also, don't invoke general relativity and spacetime manipulation if you don't have a college-level understanding of them; it never ends well.

The ability to manipulate the probabilities only works with objects with pieces elaborated separately, not with some melee weapons or living beings.

Okay, see, now you're just making up rationalizations when other people point out holes in your logic. That is not healthy, it leads to invisible dragons in your garage.

[Zixinus]

If you have precog and the enemy does not, why would you use a melee weapon that is more difficult to master and exposes you to greater risk?

This is actually true for Star Wars Jedi and the argument there can easily be made simply by this: the Jedi deliberately bring a sword to a gunfight, a sword they can defend themselves with very well but are not suited for war or for killing as many people as possible (a lightsaber can kill well, sure, but a grenade can kill more people at the same time). It is a statement about their ideology. There is actually some lore for some rare Force-users that don't bother with the flashy things and can actually control blaster bolts instead, allowing both to defend themselves or make their own weapons more lethal.
It would actually raise a question as to why the Sith don't bother with more deadly gadgets and tricks. The best explanation I can think of is that they deliberately use means that requires them to use the Dark Side more and thus gain more power.

If you have people with supernatural powers (and precog is basically that), you may want to go with a supernatural explanation or even a cultural one. Such as using guns and other high-tech means is frowned deeply upon in precog society but using a low-tech weapon like a knife is considered more "sporting" precisely because it is more difficult.

[Lord Revan]

If you have precog and the enemy does not, why would you use a melee weapon that is more difficult to master and exposes you to greater risk?

This is actually true for Star Wars Jedi and the argument there can easily be made simply by this: the Jedi deliberately bring a sword to a gunfight, a sword they can defend themselves with very well but are not suited for war or for killing as many people as possible (a lightsaber can kill well, sure, but a grenade can kill more people at the same time). It is a statement about their ideology. There is actually some lore for some rare Force-users that don't bother with the flashy things and can actually control blaster bolts instead, allowing both to defend themselves or make their own weapons more lethal.
It would actually raise a question as to why the Sith don't bother with more deadly gadgets and tricks. The best explanation I can think of is that they deliberately use means that requires them to use the Dark Side more and thus gain more power.

If you have people with supernatural powers (and precog is basically that), you may want to go with a supernatural explanation or even a cultural one. Such as using guns and other high-tech means is frowned deeply upon in precog society but using a low-tech weapon like a knife is considered more "sporting" precisely because it is more difficult.

Actually in the Medstar duology (though no longer canon) it was explictly said that the "bring a sword to gun fight" was the reason for Lightsabres and Jedi knew it wasn't the most efficient combat tool and that was the point, basically when Jedi have a lightsabre and your opponents have blasters the Jedi is less willing to go in "guns blazing" or so the theory is.

As for the Sith I've read somewhere else (I think it was Darth Bane books but I'm not sure) that Sith use Lightsabres also for similar reasons basically the way is "I'm intentionally crippling myself as you're not worth using my full power" since with are all about showing their (implied) superiority over the opponents and what shows superiority more then essentially saying "I can beat you with my hands tied behind my back" and then doing just that.

[Adam Reynolds]

It was indeed mentioned in the Darth Bane trilogy. Though it does seem odd that Sith still use them despite the fact that they are wanting to remain covert. Using a unique weapon is hardy conductive to this. Using the Dark Side in a similar fashion is also problematic when wanting to remain covert.

Though those books had something of a problem with the way the Sith disappeared. It almost happened by accident, because the Jedi failed to communicate their existence properly or investigate the truth of what occurred with any diligence. They accepted what was wrapped up in a package for them. As much as I enjoyed the alternative perspective(so much so that I would love to see this as a movie), there were more than a few minor problems here.

[Sea Skimmer]

Yeah, I'm one of them, and if you're interested, and Skimmer doesn't mind, I could send you the conversation I had with him, because it was about pretty much exactly this. In fact, I even recognise a lot of the arguments you're making as stolen directly out of my mouth.

Do mind, I don't allow anyone permission to copy past what I write as a rule.

You can't get around the area of influence problem, each ranged weapon even if very short reaching simply gets xtrillion bonus paper chances to engage the enemy, which becomes xqadrillizions more times when you have superior numbers and overlapping fields of fire. Humans have always exploited this, even chimps throw stuff, so it seems very silly to try to rule this out of life.

Ironically some of the most absurd melee actions actually known to be true occurred because of ranged weapons shaped the situation beforehand, this makes many things possible a lone person could never do without being a god. You find that endlessly with medal citations from the world wars, even allowing that a fair number of said citations are embellished.

One of them was at Lepanto in 1571, the massive cannon galley battle, in which actually several different men on the Christian side, two Spaniards as I recall, are claimed to have single-hand led successful boarding actions of Ottoman war galleys. These are ships that at the minimal would have had about 200 rowers, largely willing, and 50-100 Ottoman marines onboard, and often been reinforced by small boats during the action from the rearward ships. After hours of shooting each other to pieces it was not implausible that one guy in armor with swords and backed up by guys with pikes and guns on the friendly ships could storm the deck, and thus take the vessel.

But if you have something real contrived going on nothing like that is ever going to feel right happening. The Jedi in Star Wars for example work precisely because they can still just be gunned down by superior numbers and indeed struggle precisely to prevent this from happening.

It was indeed mentioned in the Darth Bane trilogy. Though it does seem odd that Sith still use them despite the fact that they are wanting to remain covert. Using a unique weapon is hardy conductive to this. Using the Dark Side in a similar fashion is also problematic when wanting to remain covert.

Ah yeah, but it does make some sense in the context of being a 'Sith' actually makes you into a different-evil person, whom is not entirely rational. They want to be covert but can't help themselves but to leave a calling card mark when they kill. Serial killers will do that already in some instances. Also since a lightsaber doesn't HAVE to be a Sith it spreads confusion, something the Sith like to employ.

[Terralthra]

Also, while a Jedi with a lightsabre loses to a bunch of mooks with blasters, the Jedi almost definitively - by definition - wins vs. just one blaster, since the rate of fire and reaction speed interacting doesn't allow opponents - even with precog - to successfully get past the blaster defense offered by a skilled lightsabre wielder with similar precog, and a blaster offers no defense to a lightsabre blade. So even if it's suboptimal vs. non-precogs, in order to fight their primary opponents, the Sith need a similar weapon.

[Simon_Jester]

For that matter, experience shows that one Jedi wins against several mooks with blasters. Sure, he can't fight an army, but if he can't avoid contact with a whole army of blaster-wielding enemies he's doing something very wrong.

[Adam Reynolds]

My point was more about the idea of using both rather than merely a blaster or lightsaber. Each has its purpose when used properly. The only Jedi that do this are those fleeing from the Empire, who are on the run and known, unlike the Sith. Though Sea Skimmer is probably correct, it is a status thing more than anything. The short story Darth Maul: Sabotuer had an interesting bit with this, in which Maul was able to use clever tactics to kill a large quantity of miners without detection by anyone, setting up the Trade Federation to benefit.

The Darth Bane trilogy also had an interesting fight between a weak Dark Jedi and a powerful but untrained Dark Force wielder who would become Darth Cognus, the third Sith of Bane's order, and who was able to get the better of Bane himself(albeit with extensive backup). The Jedi had a lightsaber against the Dark Sider's knives and blasters. Neither were able to gain the upper hand and the fight ended with a draw, as the Jedi escaped by threatening to sabotage her ship with his lightsaber, something she had no way to reliably match.

[Haruhi]

I disagree. There is a clear delineation between the criteria for a piece of fiction to qualify as science-fiction or fantasy.

There is not, because that depends on what people in a time believed plausible, which is subjective and ambiguous. It is a fact that all science fiction is fantasy, if not, it would not be fiction. But I will not go on here.

If you're talking about people with that kind of bizarre magical power, then the image of them fighting with swords is no longer even meaningful.

I never said they were swords but melee combat is imposed.

Okay, see, now you're just making up rationalizations when other people point out holes in your logic.

I was just showing a basic difference between objects in one piece, machines and living beings.

[Haruhi]

If you have precog and the enemy does not, why would you use a melee weapon that is more difficult to master and exposes you to greater risk?

I already wrote that if the adversary is not precog, it is preferable range weapons, but not if the adversary is precog.

[Zwinmar]

How to beat a jedi with a lightsaber and hes blocking your blaster? Pick up your scatter gun. They can't reflect lead back at you and they will have a hell of a time trying to dodge that area attack.

Many of the stories above sound more like something seen in a role playing game rather than what actually would happen if they went at it, of course, plot shields play a major role.

[NecronLord]

The thing with lightsabers is even in the most optimistic renditions there's no reason not to also carry and use a gun; in some of the unreleased clone wars episodes Anakin uses a pistol alongside his lightsaber for a few fights, and it's very, very effecive.

[Simon_Jester]

I disagree. There is a clear delineation between the criteria for a piece of fiction to qualify as science-fiction or fantasy.

There is not, because that depends on what people in a time believed plausible, which is subjective and ambiguous. It is a fact that all science fiction is fantasy, if not, it would not be fiction. But I will not go on here.

You have just now asserted that all fiction is fantasy.

If this is true, then "fantasy" is a useless word and means nothing, we might as well just copy-paste the word "fiction" every time we say "fantasy."

You don't win arguments by saying "A is B." You win by saying "A is B, and that matters." Even if your argument is correct, you've proven that A is B... but it doesn't matter, because all you're telling us is that science fiction is fiction, which we already knew, it's right there in the name, you fool.

If you're talking about people with that kind of bizarre magical power, then the image of them fighting with swords is no longer even meaningful.

I never said they were swords but melee combat is imposed.

Did you even pay attention to what I said, or only to the word 'swords?'

Okay, see, now you're just making up rationalizations when other people point out holes in your logic.

I was just showing a basic difference between objects in one piece, machines and living beings.

You're not "showing" anything, you're asserting. And you're asserting silly things.

The laws of nature don't really care about whether an object has one 'piece' or many. Atoms are atoms, inter-atomic forces are inter-atomic forces. At the basic level, the only reason some "pieces" aren't part of a single object and others are is because the atoms in the separate "pieces" don't have bonds. Heck, sometimes you can just leave objects touching one another and they'll spontaneously form one "piece," because the atoms at the surface DID form bonds.

There's no reason that probability manipulation should work on one-piece objects and not on multi-piece objects, or the other way around. If the connection between two mechanical parts can "randomly" fail, then a hairline crack in ONE mechanical part can "randomly" split open, or the part can "randomly" start to rust quickly, or anything can happen. Probability manipulation is a fancy way of saying "literally any conceivable thing can be made to happen, no matter how unlikely." Objects that are "all one piece" aren't immune to that.

Moreover, there's no obvious reason living creatures should be immune when objects made of wood, stone, or steel are not immune.

[Terralthra]

The thing with lightsabers is even in the most optimistic renditions there's no reason not to also carry and use a gun; in some of the unreleased clone wars episodes Anakin uses a pistol alongside his lightsaber for a few fights, and it's very, very effecive.

There is a reason, but it's ideological. A lightsabre is a defensive weapon, primarily, and limited in offense to melee range (or how far you can throw it). That is a statement about the Jedi ethos about using the Force to defend, and about their role - keepers of the peace, not soldiers. Anakin using a blaster is pretty sharply symbolic if you keep that in mind.

How to beat a jedi with a lightsaber and hes blocking your blaster? Pick up your scatter gun. They can't reflect lead back at you and they will have a hell of a time trying to dodge that area attack.

Force push. If it works on piles of rock and debris falling on you, there's no reason it can't work on bullets (and indeed, it does, in the games).

[NecronLord]

I am aware of the symbolism. Ideological excuses are not relevant to a thread on efficiency. A jedi with a gun and blade is superior to a jedi with a blade. Kanaan Jarrus notably also uses Ezra's gun-saber and his own blade to defeat the Grand Inquisitior when he could not do so by bladework alone, repeatedly using the gun to drive the Inquisitor onto the defensive, and had lost multiple sword-on-sword duels against the Inquisitor. A gun wielding Jedi is superior to one without.

As mentioned, yes, culture can keep melee weapons alive, but it can't really make them more efficient.

[Terralthra]

I am aware of the symbolism. Ideological excuses are not relevant to a thread on efficiency. A jedi with a gun and blade is superior to a jedi with a blade. The gun is the master. Kanaan Jarrus notably also uses gun and blade to defeat the Grand Inquisitior when he could not do so by bladework alone.

The purpose of the thread is doomed to failure without stepping outside the realm of efficiency, I think. Ranged weapons are more efficient than melee weapons. The only way people using fancy scifi melee weapons ever makes sense is if there's a story reason why. Star Wars goes a long way to justify its use of melee weapons: they are ridiculously powerful - and for some reason, that technology doesn't seem to be applied to blasters - and the few who wield them are precognitive space ninjas performing feats of superlative defense as a matter of routine. Even with all of that, the laser sword mystic space ninjas get overwhelmed and exterminated by ye olde goon squad with a bunch of machine guns.

As previous people have said in-thread, you're much better off either coming up with societal or ideological reasons to have someone swinging a sword around than coming up with a gimmicky technological justification which will probably still not actually hold up to examination.

Or just do it and refuse to explain why. That works too.

[Adam Reynolds]

How to beat a jedi with a lightsaber and hes blocking your blaster? Pick up your scatter gun. They can't reflect lead back at you and they will have a hell of a time trying to dodge that area attack.

Many of the stories above sound more like something seen in a role playing game rather than what actually would happen if they went at it, of course, plot shields play a major role.

We see in Attack of the Clones what Jedi do against weapons they cannot deflect, they are extremely effective at getting out of the area. Obi-Wan against Jango Fett's missle, Anakin against Geonosian sonic weapons, and Mace Windu against Jango Fett's flamethrower all did fine.

The problem with blasters against Jedi one on one is that of actually hitting the person in question. Which is why the only truly reliable way to take down a Jedi is their opposite numbers. Superior numbers can do the trick in a straight fight, but those are hard to create against a Jedi not willing to commit to combat.

Force push. If it works on piles of rock and debris falling on you, there's no reason it can't work on bullets (and indeed, it does, in the games).

Indeed. It doesn't work against blasters because the bolt is massless and thus all but impossible to push.

Ideological excuses are not relevant to a thread on efficiency. A jedi with a gun and blade is superior to a jedi with a blade. The gun is the master.

It is also likely an issue of concentration. It is easier to focus on a lightsaber than a lightsaber and blaster at the same time, especially when they train for one rather than the other. But ideology is why they don't train to do this. Though we do see an example like Ezra, who has his odd lightsaber gun hybrid and who was never indoctrinated by the Jedi. Though we might just be seeing the problem with that in season 3.

[AniThyng]

I was just showing a basic difference between objects in one piece, machines and living beings.

You seem to have completely glossed over that a human arm holding a sword is just a biological machine when you get down to it - it's just a mechanical lever with organic muscles . Why wouldn't the probability field just make the wielder of the melee weapon have a random butterfinger moment?

[Haruhi]

How to beat a jedi with a lightsaber and hes blocking your blaster? Pick up your scatter gun. They can't reflect lead back at you and they will have a hell of a time trying to dodge that area attack.

Then the Jedi carry a lightshield and with telekinesis bring back the projectiles to shooters.