Writing: Sci-Fi Technology

 Almost at 200,000 words.  Currently—according to MS Word’s Wordcount—at 199,838 words.

 

Finally sat down and worked most of the way through a fight scene with (mostly) swords.

 

So, no lightsabers, so why swords?

 

Guns are common.  Different types of guns are common in this sci-fi world.

 

However, they are extensions of modern technology and modern tech already has a problem with overpenetration in civilian structures.

 

Just imagine how you’d need to build to stop future tech in a city or on a spacecraft….

 

So, I’ve gone three directions.

 

One is weapons following the inverse-square law of power.  So, powerful point blank, rapid decrease in power over a short distance.  Directional stunners, for example, or—to a lesser degree—what I call “boarding guns” which are high mass, low velocity weapons usually used to fire things like shot, flechettes, and low velocity payload items. 

 

A second is your low energy beam weapons with “triggered” effects.  Some overlap with the first group.

 

The last set are melee weapons because you know exactly how far your effective range is.

 

Now, shields do exist—a technology tied to gravity and inertially linked plating in this fictional universe because I’m entitled to speculate some “ubertechs”—but their primary effect is against light, fast projectiles including light and particle beams…

 

So, no Dune-shields and while a heavy slow blade can penetrate, it’s probably going to not be the same ever again and not have much of a precise edge on the other side.

 

So, people have and carry compact, extendable blades called “flickblades” and not everyone is Zorro or Inigo Montoya or Errol Flynn’s Robin Hood.

 

Now, hopefully I can write something believable although—to be honest—my only “fencing” training was bayonet training a couple decades ago so sword fights will be brutal, hurt on both sides, and people that get solidly hit will probably leave bleeding—at least—if they leave at all.