Yes, we know what the strongest dog does at the end I get your point but what you are suggesting would be a really short story. Spaceship arrives, nukes, waits 50 years, comes back and conquers the planet. There could be many reasons why the developed high-tech guys don't nuke the enemy. This is most probably some moral concern about collateral damage. USA also did not nuke the taliban, instead they sent soldiers to Afghanistan. The OP asked about plausible solution for using swords, crossbows, etc in a sci-fi. I just suggested an idea which he can start with
Hm, there is also wanting to rule over someone = conquering, versus wanting to simply acquire resources. Bioengineered pandemia would be a pretty good way to kill off an unwanted native population without contaminating natural resources. (it makes me a bit uneasy even thinking about the "economy of mass murder" - the culture of war is really the most obnoxious of Western ideologies...)
It is much more economical for a conqueror to use the local population to obtain the resources for him than to kill them and obtain these on his own. A really developed attacker of course can use a fully automated system to mine and process all what's needed but if the difference in power is so huge then what is the point to kill the population at all? They can't disturb anything anyway
Well you could potentially have a sword that you can strike into the ground whilst holding the hilt. Which would releases a shock-wave so you can charge out into the battle field and strike opponents. Crossbows that have automatic pin point accuracy on them. Regarding bows you could make the arrows track-able so you lock onto someone and then fire into the air. The arrow would have a miniature power modulator on it so it can seek out the target you painted. Going back to the swords how about one that is only recognizable by your hand print. This would enable a scene where you are captured/lose your sword and the enemy picks it up. Only to have the sword incinerate his hand. One last suggestion is again by pressing a button on the hilt you can release a shock-wave through the tip of the sword. However by changing it via a wrist strap you can send flame, oil or ice at the enemy. Depends how realistic you want to make it. Although saying that in the future most of those could be possible.
That's a good point. Fighting with blades in space would be plausible in a scenario where space junk was a major concern. For example, bullets might be easily traceable in the future, so any stray shots that eventually hit a civilian or neutral party's spacecraft would lead to legal or military action by the harmed party. Space junk close to the size of many calibers are already being tracked by space agencies, so if the combatants were fighting in secret (commando raids on space stations or satellites?) blades might be the tool of choice. I forgot about two books where bladed weapons made a comeback: Dune and The Forever War. In the former book, personal force fields block objects moving above a certain speed, while "lasguns" trigger massive explosions on the scale of nuclear weapons. Because of this, skill in fighting unarmed and with knives becomes essential for soldiers and the nobility. However, the style of fighting that is developed seems slow to people unfamiliar with it; in one fight scene, spectators think that the protagonist is toying with his opponent because he is trained to slow his thrusts to penetrate a force field, which neither fighter is using. In The Forever War, humans develop a kind of force field which works in a similar fashion, although it can be made much larger. Nothing within the spherical space can move faster than a certain speed unless it is wearing a protective suit, forcing combatants to set aside projectiles and energy weapons. It turns out to be a spectacular defensive weapon. In one scene, the protagonists turn off their force field to discover that the area had been hit with a nuclear weapon, which they had been protected from. So you're proposing that they add a bowstring to a railgun to gain some fractional boost in speed? It is my understanding that crossbows are very inaccurate - their advantage over traditional bows was that they could be reloaded quickly and needed much less physical strength to use. I agree. War and its glorification, which is unique to Westerners, is terrible. If the white man hadn't invented war the world would have been a better place.
I don't see the need for ironic non sequiturs... War is hardly unique to Europeans - but modern European, Clausewitzian, philosophy of war (which forms the foundation for 20th c. Kriege Kultur) is a very modern and very European thing... Despite criticism, I'd still recommend John Keegan's "History of Warfare" - as a parallel read to "Vom Kriege"...
I've heard of weapons where a bladed edge is electrified so that the blade is super heated and it then will slice through a lot more things than a normal blade would. Think about a hot knife through butter.
I don't know much about Clausewitz except that he is quoted very often in military histories, but military doctrines and the idea that war has a social aspect predates him and can be found in other cultures. I happen to have a copy of this book on my bookshelf right now! It's been sitting there for about six months and has been trapped in the middle of my "to read" list for most of that time because it appears to be a dry read, but I guess I can start it after I finish French Chivalry by Sidney Painter.
I think you're on the right track actually. It's the unexpected elements of story that generate interest in many cases. Fact or fiction make little difference to a readers interest as long as you're able to engage them in some form. A blend of reality with sureality is in most epic films. Thor, Star wars etc. Rationale thought does not always prevail, if it did fantasy novels would not sell. I could see an ax enhanced with GPS tracking to help guide it's blow to the victim. Or a composite head that shifts it's own weight digitally by altering the metal composition during the strike motion, giving it multiples of normal force. Or a bow and arrow, with similar GPS guided heads, or transforming "in flight" shapes. There's lots of ways you could pull it off and it could become the best part of the story. I say "go for it" John Krone
I don't believe I am reading this correctly. You can't invent war, and even if you could a white man wouldn't be the cause of it. People have fought wars all over the world. Even the Native Americans fought battles. In a way, war can be considered natural. Look at animals. Animals claim territory much like humans do, and they will fight over territory and resources - just like humans do. I'm not saying it's natural to forge arms and armor, but war is just a higher-form of competition that is natural within living things. Sometimes war is necessary. It is sometimes better to squish the spider before it can bite you. War can be an extremely great way to defend your people, especially when diplomacy fails. Unless, of course, I may have read the statement completely wrong. If I did, the above is my two-cents on this here discussion.
Bows and crossbows are still used by military groups as stealth weapons. And knives are always usefull. You can bring back swords by making bullets uneffective some way, like special shields. (Protectives vests need to have different fibers to protect from knives and bullets). If you improve the strength and speed of the individuals that might also change things. A good samurai sword can cut a man like it's melted butter. So if people are harder to hit and harder to kill getting close might start to be a more logical way to fight.
A borrow that its arrow is a missile. When missile is shot by the borrow and hits the target ( for example a spatial monster) the main character connect the wire of the missile to a socket of electricity immediately and the electricity is transferred via wire to the missile and from missile to the monster. Thus the monster will be paralyzed.
My 23rd century set story features police with "Arc Guns" which can detect whether the target is unarmed, inform the officer of their threat level based on their criminal record, and deliver a temporarily crippling electrical discharge, tranquilliser dart or armour piercing round. Then there are the "Pangolorb Tanks", which due to the evolution in tank design, more closely resemble a humanoid pangolin which can curl up into an armour plated ball than the current design of a 21st century tank. The Pangolorb is remotely operated, carries an array of small but powerful guided missiles which can be launched one at a time, a plasma discharge cannon in each arm and a top speed of 40 mph (20 in the early prototypes).
