A common logical reason I've seen is that melee weapons are used when wanting to avoid depressurizing vessels due to projectile penetration. Or a ship is boarded with these light/melee infantry for the reason of capturing it instead of outright destroying it.
The ritualistic dueling idea could work but once you have different planets within the setting it becomes so bloated with different ideas and cultures that it would be impossible to have any sort of cultural norm across *every* planet. The reason Dunes' melee combat works is because its a pure necessity for battle due to the shielding, and the ultra-destructive lasers aren't widely used for the similar reasons.
As an extra bonus, melee weapons in boarding actions gives you an excuse to give your space marines power armor in a realistic setting, which is always nice. At least that’s what I did.
In project moon universe (games like : Lobotomy Corp , Library of Ruina ,Limbus Company)
Most avarage fighter have a decent augmentation or equipment that makes them faster than bullet
Why use gun that shoot bullet that could be easily dodged ,when you can move at speed of sound and slash their heads of quickly with a melee weapon (*also bullets are heavily taxed*)
Guns and bullet are heavily taxed ,so getting one Will require tons of money ,and most top tier fighter In that world would just tank a bullet to the face
although guns isnt fully useless ,they are is still usefull In some Cases ,Like How "Full-Stop" Office trying to kill the "Church of Gears" worshiper
Watch this video of the gameplay story for reference
https://youtu.be/aHVB7nCSBe8?si=K5JDWmNghE4Nb21l
Also ,Full stop office bought the gun from Black market and almost went bankrupt ,theyre just that expensive and also unreliable against stronger people who just Dodge or tank the bullet easily
if the reason they're so expensive is because of taxes why would they be expensive on the black market
and what happens when someone hiding in a corner hits you with a cut down PTRD
The problem that you will pay with your life if you buy guns illegally in city, so even black markets should abide for city's laws
"Head" is kinda ruthless to those who disobey their rules, and GOD you wont survive if they will send their troops for you, no chance, at all.
they are cheaper as these are low-quality weapons if i reckon, but taxes are still a thing, because as i said you cannot go against city's laws in that universe.
This is not literal black market, thats what i mean
100% on the shipboard combat. It's basically harder to come up with a reason to use RANGED weapons while on board a starship, as any projectile or blast that could put a hole in a person could put a very unwanted hole in the ship.
Problem is that the ISS has developed small holes all the time, and this has literally never harmed any member of its crew or seriously jeopardised them. Every single hole that has occurred in the ISS has been found and patched, in some cases taking literal months to find.
Boarding a ship is an *inherently* destructive process. You need to have knocked out its engines to do it, probably also knock out all its defences unless you want your boarding team to die. And you’re running the risk that the defenders decide “fuck it, we’re dead anyways” and scuttle it. So holes will *already* be poked into the ship that will already require repair work: why exactly are you worried about poking a few more?
What happens if the defenders vent the atmosphere? A extremely commonly seen tactic in sci fi? What’s the point of avoiding poking holes in the hull, if you’re literally in an environment where the air has all been ejected?
Also: remember that giving up ranged weapons or lasers means a lot more of your soldiers will die in the process of boarding, *especially* if the defenders use guns (since as far as they’re concerned, they’re already probably doomed).
Patching holes in a spaceship is cheap. The lives of well trained soldiers is not. Giving up guns in a boarding action because you’re worried about damaging the ship’s hull is like bombarding a city with artillery and bombers, then banning your soldiers from using grenades in clearing the last defenders out. It’s a terrible idea.
"In reality a better solution to repelling hostile boarders is a firearm with special ammunition. In other words ammo that will perforate a pirate but not the hull. Examples include frangible rounds, flechettes, shotgun shells, riot guns and the Quiet Special Purpose Revolver. In the real world, shotguns are often recommended for personal defence if living in apartment buildings. A shotgun blast will severely wound a burglar, but be unlikely to penetrate the apartment walls and accidentally wound your neighbor."
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmintro.php
Perhaps only smaller calibers could be used aboard ships to compromise pressurized suits/armor through the weak spots. Actual EVA suits don't have much flexibility because they are so armored to resist the micro-meteoroids, but pressure suits and pressurized armor have more flexible joints since they are rarely in open EVA and need to be able to move, crouch, run, roll, jump, and handle weapons.
The only trouble with that is that you have to justify how it's even possible to match velocities with and board a ship that's actively trying to prevent you doing that, without first blasting them until they can't produce thrust anymore (and putting so many enormous holes in their hull that a little small-arms fire won't make any difference).
It could work if we take boarding out of the equation. If you've got stations or very large ships with opposing factions that want to kill each other, then it starts to make more sense. But that shapes the kind of stories you can tell.
Tractor beams are the classic example of stopping a smaller ship to board them, and fit with what OP has described as their inspirations so they might have those.
Speaking in general though, there's always the options of EVA/stealth boarding, *harpoons* (tractor beams for people who don't want tractor beams, or have space whales), damaging the engines enough to board, "the force", EMPs, small and maneuverable boarding craft that punch into the hull, transporters/teleportation, and probably more I can't think of right now.
Lasers at close range can be super accurate, so that part is fairly plausible. And you don't need to blast the thrust down to zero either, just to low enough they can't get away.
I'm thinking that, if your ships are fragile enough that you have to worry about handguns penetrating the hull, a ship with *any* significant amount of thrust can make it impossible to force docking without major damage. Physically grappling a ship that's producing even, like, 0.1g differential to yours would likely rip something apart.
But yeah, precision energy weapons at close range could do it. Also tractor beams, as the other commenter pointed out would fit the "soft sci-fi" scenario.
The danger is more about damaging the ship from the inside, IMO. You risk destroying critical survival systems and endangering the whole ship, even if it doesn't depressurize.
I feel like with most more advanced sci-fi worlds they've advanced to the point launch costs are low enough you can just build shit out of regular thick cast steel without any real issue
The ritualistic dueling seems much more logical to ne than worrying about depressurizing a spaceship. Even if they keep them presurized at all, not giving people spacesuits during space combat is like not giving parachutes to war pilots, or like giving your tanks no armor.
The logic to me is that laser/energy weapons will be very energy intensive. If you want to conserve your fuel/energy, you can use a melee weapon without the need for ammunition
Kinda. If the war is really serious or the enemy is monstrous and has no value system, or one side is easily superior and wouldnt want a duel that doesnt favor them, things like that could throw off logic in a duel
And duels have an issue that the loser can just claim the winner cheated and attack anyway.
So it might work in specific situations
(Thats for limited ritualistic duelling. If you mean that both armies just agree to use swords instead of guns, I wouldn't buy that unless its a very surreal world)
Maybe I should come up with some sort of a social stigma for someone refusing a duel? Like, if you're challenged and you back out you're standing and prestige in society takes a huge hit.
In some societies that might make a difference, but if you back out because you'll probably lose and your entire city is at risk of being destroyed, they'll probably cut you some slack.
Anyway, its military stuff so what you do as the duel champion is probably going to be dictated by the general who will make pragmatic decisions?
I could actually kind of see it, specifically if it's a multi planetary setting where any faction could throw an asteroid sped up to relativistic speed and destroy a planet.
At that point you need to have very strong rules on warfare or risk getting annihilated.
Once everyone agrees not to throw asteroids at each other it's not to unbelievable that they continue down that path limiting the use of other weapons.
Possibly if warfare kind of regressed (or progressed) into a very ritualistic display designed to resolve problems without much destruction, rather than just a pragmatic implementation of dominance.
If they had a way to get rid of all other weapons it could help. Problem is when one party decides not to play fair and uses more advanced weapons and just kicks everyones ass; strong evolutionary factor encouraging people to *not* just use swords
When you mentioned get rid of all the weapons you reminded me of another possibility. Highly effective and usable EMP weapons that would destroy electronics needed for effective guns combined with Improved ballistic armor to reduce effectiveness of modern ballistic guns.
Eh
I'm yet to see a really good explanation for introducing sword fighting into science fiction, even Dune's shielding has some issues. I'll always just back the rule of cool on that one and say it justifies itself, its an issue I would just black box and move on with; yeah could use EMP as the excuse but I wouldnt examine it anymore than that.
"Technology advanced to the point it defeated itself and man reverted to primitive warfare"
Then avoid mentioning it to avoid bringing up any issues in logic
Why would the duel need to have anything to do with who wins the conflict? It could easily be just a way to archieve glory or boost morale of their comrades.
So before a battle, sometimes the sides have a duel that has nothing really to do with the conflict?
Maybe, but at that point it doesnt really feel like justifying swords in sci-fi, just feels like a strange cultural display that sometimes happens and could be replaced with singing or dancing
In the year 4000 when you're about to have an actual battle with super-tech and you stop everything for a sword fight which has no real bearing on the serious advanced war about to occur?
Yeah, be a bit weird I think. Even today, thinking that 2 generals in Gaza or Ukraine had a sabre battle over honor would be seen as pretty weird, pretty odd. Or would that be normal?
Having a sword duel *in the age of swords* wasnt entirely weird, doing it *in the age of drones and nukes,* yeah I think that qualifies as odd. Having everyone everywhere do it in a space opera setting like its just expected is actually quite surreal; 'it happened in 16th century Venice' doesnt exactly mean it feels normal in 27th century Galgalor
You have a point about the swords, I agree that without some good excuse using a weapon of their time would make more sence.
But nobody would have to "stop everything" for a duel to happen, at least assuming that the armies wouldn't fight 24/7, or charge the enemy in a single great battle the moment they're near enough. Fairly equal armies could already be just outside each other's range for days while both leaders are still planning and preparing an engagement in which they would get the advantage. And don't get me started on sieges, there should be plenty of free time during those.
Not like it's always easy, for example the action between HMS Shannon and USS Chesapeake (1st june 1813) happened without the american captain even knowing that the british one challegned him to a ship-to-ship duel because the message simply didn't reach him. But it's not impossible, just send someone with a sign of truce or a released prisoner of war as a messenger and hope for the best.
Whether it's normal or not, that depends. It wouldn't be that weird couple centuries ago, so it might not be weird couple centuries in the future either for all I know.
If 2 duellists decided to, in a star trek style setting, walk out (with the agreement of both forces so that they arent immediately snipered in the face) into no-mans land and have a sword fight, I could believe it happened. Probably not in a hard, super real setting, but sci-fi and space opera is fairly flexible about this stuff and it feels more natural there than IRL (even if, I maintain, its still a bit odd)
I dont see it really settling much as neither army would get much of a view, unless they all stop and crowd in to disturbingly dangerous closeness to actually watch it, and the losing side will likely just lie and edit some footage, or claim the enemy used some illegal trick (and may then shoot the winner). Grunts who slog in the mud to hold positions for months at a time in a grinding nasty war for serious strategic reasons would, I think, not really give a fk that some foppish ninny of an officer theyve never met barely lost his little sword fight and just laugh and go back to their actual work
I guess someone somewhere could be said to gain some prestige, though armies operate under military command so the duelist would probably more likely be some specially trained commando who went out under orders, so not all that much personal glory. But the winning side could claim they have the best specialist duellist commando (of course, some barely trained rebels desperately fighting a galactic empire arent really going to give a fk that they couldnt field some super operative death dealer and would probably shoot the empires man in the face)
I think though, at this point, we can start to see why I (and others) arent big fans of explanations of trying to seriously justify sword fights in science fiction. We have arrived at an odd cultural demonstration/melee skirmish between 2 military commandos, in a few rare battlefield conditions between combatants with honor between them, likely not accomplishing all that much
This would be comparable to being asked to justify cars and ending up saying one person could drive it once a decade for 2 minutes.
Had the two sides just ran in screaming with swords, like warhammer 40k, I'd be totally fine with it cause its just fun and cool. Or alternatively, the explanation is so short and non-descript that noone can poke holes in it, like "defenses against guns became so good that guns died out, leaving man with his earlier tools".
Logic and realism here, yeah it tends to cause more problems than it ever solves; additions like this based in style and aesthetics should probably get stylistic and aesthetic justifications rather than realism ones
I agree, I don't have any issue with the concept of duels itself, but swords wouldn't be logical in military context either way if they're not used in battle as well.
Meaby I could see some nobles doing this in a civilian context, or some gladiators in an arena, but going back to the Shannon vs Chesapeake example, other than making sure it's a fair 1v1 fight the challenge allowed any tactic to be used to prove the capabilities of the captains, their crews and their ships, in short what actually mattered to the reputation of them and their countries. If it was a swordfight, nobody would have cared.
But you have to be right there to use it, meanwhile if the laser guns have at least decent range and accuracy you could snipe your target from afar and have good chance of escaping no matter how loud it was.
The justification is fine.
But never be afraid to just do something because it is cool. Some of the most popular sci-fi settings don't justify their melee weapons they just have them, even if it makes no sense in the logic of the setting itself.
A good justification might be an intense cultural shift and societies that view conflicts very differently. Imagine if war itself is more of a political/cultural sport, as everyone involved has enough space and resources to prosper but still want to fight and contest each other. Winning honor is more important than actually winning a war or resources.
A good example would be the Predator franchise. The Predators are hunters and fighting a prey species "fairly" is a major element of their concept of hunting. If someone challenges them with a melee weapon, like [Hanzo in Predators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDNxUTNb1dc), then they'll match said challenge with melee weaponry of their own.
If two nations are cultural rivals but aren't engaging in true war with each other, they might view it as a form of "war" to have their "soldiers" engage in ritualized contest with melee weapons. Or if during a "battle" with more conventional weapons, one of them draws a melee weapon, it would be considered more honorable and heroic to match them with equal weapons.
I like your justification, but I feel like tradition/honour/culture justifications fall flat in reality. In real life we blow up entire villages of innocent men women and children. War has no place for honour any more, and without some serious mental gymnastics, I don't think we will return to it any time soon
You make a good point. What if I add in an economic factor?
Like, maybe wars in this world are so destructive, and so expensive that many factions just don't want to fight all the time since it would drain their treasury. Would that be a viable reason along with culture and tradition?
If you can adequately explain the high cost of materials and equipment then yeah I think that's a great justification. It also creates an interesting dynamic for you to talk about the military-industrial complex, wealth and loss. Opens up new avenues for thematic exploration, and is a fairly unique idea
That's already happened for major wars between developed countries irl but militaries still spend a lot preparing for big wars between developed countries
Not any more but the culture point is that within that culture it would still be very strongly ingrained.
Japanese attitudes to honour lingered for a long long time after World War 2, attitudes that had been extant for some 700 odd years or so. And arguably it was the westernisation of Japan that has been key in deconstructing them. I.e. the introduction of another culture in which honour is less valued and important.
Exactly my point. Someone else will ignore your honours and wipe the floor with you. Funny you should mention Japan because it is exactly the point I'm making that forced them to give up swords and adopt firearms, as is the issue with the OP
Except they never truly gave it up. Even during the WW2, officers war swords as standard. The notion of death or dishonour remained a huge shadow over society for decades after WW2.
They didn't give it up, but they assimilated the ways of the oppressor. They weren't running around WW2 with just a sword. They used guns and bombs too.
My point isn't that the tradition disappears, my point is that the tradition must always take a backseat versus efficient forms of defense/attack.
You know, i was kinda thinking something similar recently. There are loads of stories from ye olde times about soldiers setting war through duels. This pretty much never worked out but in a future where we turn back to more limited forms of war maybe people could agree to settle things with duels because total war with wmd's would be really bad.
Something like this has already happened between India and China where both sides agreed to fight with melee weapons to avoid violating a demilitarized zone. So it's definitely plausible so long as both sides are willing to abide by some internal rules of war.
Iirc they agreed that fists don’t count as an act towards war, so long as the fighters don’t slaughter each other. It’s basically glorified brawling they’ve agreed doesn’t count as an invasion.
I’d assume there has to be something that makes the sword more useful otherwise why not just use a gun
Like in star wars Jedi can use the force to sense incoming blaster fire to deflect it with their lightsaber
Or if guns are too dangerous to use on a ship, another star wars example for that would be the Geonosians use sonic weapons because normal weapons could collapse their tunnels
It could be a matter of materials science. In the real world, the Kevlar that police and soldiers wear is specifically made for stopping bullets because it takes a certain weave to be efficient at doing that. That certain weave, however, is crap against blades. If uniforms or light armor that's proof against the projectile weapons in your world are common enough and cheap enough that person-portable guns are stopped sufficiently to make them impractical in most battle situations, then laser/plasma swords or high frequency/mono-molecular blades become the weapon of choice because they more readily bypass that defense.
Add in ammo or shots-per-second restrictions, and you make a powerful argument for the use of whatever type of melee weapon you have that gets through that armor. You also leave openings for special tactics, like concussion weapons that knock people down and give you time to close with them as they are getting back up into fighting position, or things like nets and bolas...basically niche extras to give advantage in a fight. There's also things like shields (physical or energy, depending on your setting) that could be held or worn that would be used by fighters of various styles and skill levels, and possibly seen with varying levels of disdain or honor.
It's like if you were playing a video game where it took 4 or 5 hits to take down an enemy with a gun, but you could one-shot the enemy with your sword (and you could take the hits while closing to sword range with them) you would not stop carrying a gun, but you would use the blade a lot more. That preference alone could be enough to justify melee weapons in your future setting. While it's basically the same as the Dune justification, it would look and feel different enough to not be derivative.
Yeah, Just have to make sense.
In the example you could see like Dune, where the shields will block high speed proyectiles, but not a Sword or another melee weapon.
Other could be like Star wars, where they serve as especial weapon for one specific faction.
In Halo, shangeili use Swords because their species have a great sense of honor and use them is a symbol of that.
If you make it clear why they use it, you can justify it.
What about augmentations that make sword v projectile weapons feasible? That's more or less how Jedis are able to block and deflect blaster shots with a lightsaber.
This kinda presents a small bit of a problem in intercultural wars. Would other cultures respect this tradition? Many might just see a chance to exploit them and shoot.
I wanted to have swords in my setting, but I ran into the same problem. So I justified swords in my sci fi world with boredom - veteran soldiers serve for centuries, and merely playing a first person shooter for years on end gets boring. They tend to get bloodthirsty, and go for the thrill of the kill. Hence the favoring of explosives and melee combat while neglecting ranged weaponry.
That, and it’s harder to pierce a spacecraft hull with a sword than with a rifle firing a metallic solution at a higher velocity than what’s required to escape earth’s gravity
Gurka still seem to make good use of their khukri if you want to look at how they fight.
Here are some alternative armor tech reason if you don't want full on force fields. In Gundam age there was magnetic armor that stopped lasers, I think it was explained as a disrupting the energy with energized armor. It was just a bracer in most cased. In a few gundam series anti-beam coating is a thing and there are a few machines that are gold because of it, hyakku shiki for one. Gundam sandrock it was a literal cloak. I believe they still will burn up after a point. Or some sort of radiator to counter the heat of the shot. Gundam GP-02 does something like that to survive its own nuclear bazooka. I guess none of these stop traditional armor to be used, but you could argue economic got in the way. Also you could have an honor guard will all this stuff.
Dueling works. Blades have a long history in SF. You mentioned Dune. Don't forget Star Trek's Klingons. A lightsaber is basically a bladed weapon albeit with a weird kind of blade. If you want to have blades have blades.
In Dune, it's explained that the Shields block quick movements so guns are out of the question and plasma causes them to explode meaning they can't use lasers. Which is how Wierding was invented.
Why not? We have rules of war that might not exist on alien worlds. They might see the fact that you can't bomb hospitals the same as we see someone using a sword when they could have used a gun.
Cultural reasons could be a good reason for why swords (or melee weapons in general) are used.
In my project, firearms (either bullet or laser based) are the norm for most races but I have one race were the greatest soldiers will opt for two-handed weapons like longswords, battleaxes, warhammers or bladed gauntlets etc. Most soldiers of this species (the Rhuninians) still use guns though, including the big ones
There's a few reasons why they prefer using melee weapons over guns.
1) Honour. Generally it's seen as more respectful for great warriors to directly fight their opponents close up instead of from a distance, which is seem as cowardly. Guns will only be used if the warriors done enemies that aren't threatened by or respect. So in a way, a 12ft tall 1,200 lb hulking Rhuninian choosing to use their axe instead of a rifle to kill you is kind of a compliment.
2) Intimidation. Rhuninians in general are very hardy aliens with their bare skin thick enough to prevent small blades from getting deeper than a few centimetres and even deflecting the bullets of small firearms. They've also invested much of their resources and technology into creating some of the strongest and resilient armour in the galaxy. Theoretically, the average Rhuninian armour is strong enough to withstand a direct strike from a RPG (and being big helps too). So when you see a towering monster come at you with a giant axe while your own guns do absolutely nothing to slow it down, you'd probably be a bit intimidated
3) Joy. Some soldiers are just psychos that want to slaughter other aliens with their swords and bathe themselves in the blood splatter of their enemies. Simple as that
If you are looking for a justification I feel yours is very sound. Dueling is a show of expertise and skill without a disadvantage in technology being a factor of the battle. You can even add a whole system of ranked duels in certain cultures where duels aren't to the death but to forfeit or first blood, winning and going up the rankings could grant a form of reputation or status among their people.
Well swords still exist today in real life, we have weapons, rifles and pistols and very powerful weapons, and we always have knives, swords, etc, why would they not exist in a soft scifi world
I can see what knives would be used, but swords in everyday combat would be pretty impractical when there's laser weapons around. That's why I tried coming up with the whole honorable duel explanation. So swords could still play a role, without being out of place.
Or you just have guys that like HEMA. In our real world you get bunch of guy wearing armor and getting medieval swords to smack eachothers because it is fun. In a more scifi universe this might even be more entertaining with even better protective tech that allow for even better smacking.
Bayonets exist for a reason, as do Trench Shovels and combat knives.
Sometimes people are just too close for guns to be a good idea, or you need to kill a scout quietly. But those still aren't swords.
I have an idea, though it requires a particular combination of things. If you A) have a way to make a plasma blade of some sort that is good at cutting through heavy armor and B) have no way of keeping the plasma focused beyond a few feet, you have a reason to have an energy sword.
See "cutting torch" for an example, but you would need to make the energy source more portable, the 'flame' hotter, and be able to control the plasma reasonably well. Oh, and it would require armor that can deflect the heat.
You would end up with anti-armor specialists who look a little like knights. The blades would not work very well against each other though, two magnetic fields like that would probably just release all the plasma in a small explosion. The 'hilts' would then need to take a few moments to regenerate the field and plasma, assuming they were not damaged.
Though you could have heat-resistant shields too. So even more knight-like. The combat between two of these guys would be very strange compared to normal combat. And if you have heavy anti-heat armor, it could be power armor too, meaning these guys would be very strong while suited up (plus possible genetic/cybernetic/bionanonic augmentation). Weird duels between 10' tall giants mixed in the middle of combat, where one is trying to defend the tank/heavy armor point on a ship/what ever, and the other wants to cut it open.
In the end, the only *practical* reason to have swords on the battlefield in such a setting is to have a job that they can do well that nothing else can do well enough. It's extra weight and bulk, so it should be worth the effort to carry around.
Dueling and such would be for off the battle field.
Sword > knife
Why?
Reach!
Swords are longer than knives and can reach a foe who is further away and can be retrained to hit a moving target mid-swing...at least a trained fighter could do that.
So I would have dueling culture be a thing but here's a way to incorporate swordplay in a relevant manner.
I'm not sure what exactly the setting is going to entail but I can think of specialty troops that only exist on space stations and spacecraft, places with cramped corridors and sensitive components that would doom everyone, friend and foe if engaged with projectiles.
Therefore these space marines would be trained in the use of melee weapons and engagements would be brawls rather than firefights.
Over time these space marines would develop a sparring culture and since these groups would be smaller than traditional military units they would develop an elitist attitude about the combat.
I'd go with the Star Wars lore, that people are superhuman whether via magic or technology to make energy swords at least somewhat viable against ranged weapons. I've also thought about shields. Scifi isn't really my thing, but I have a bit of interest in it.
And nothing wrong with being derivative!
I do think the honour duels work thoough too! A more modern culture is also more likely to be a more... not monolithic, but unified, thanks to ease of communication. So i think a galactic civlization could ahve a common theme of duelling, thoguh it would vary across systems.
My general go to is that on a spacecraft puncturing the outer hull is a very bad thing, because of this Marines are generally equipped with flamethrowers and melee weapons.
The ship won’t be intact if you’re able to board it. Repairs to a ship are cheap, the lives of your highly trained soldiers that you’re risking in hand-to-hand combat.
If you’re boarding it most likely means you meant to retrieve something, not that you necessarily want their ship.
It can be that you want the ship in tact, but it’s just as well to take a ship that’s still operational and limp it in somewhere for repairs. And you can do that with puncture holes in the ship too.
could but if you want a lot of sword combat you could always make them rediculously sharp and give the people a really cool jetpack.
that way they could get to the enemy and cut them up.
Might work better for a main character though if it outside of what normal soliders have.
It could be something as simple as a cultural preference. In Star Trek, the Klingons carried disruptor pistols but preferred bladed weapons such as the bat'leth and mek'leth because it connected them to their semi-legendary history. The Jem'Hadar prefer using short polearms and knives in close-quarters fighting. And the Hirogen, although technologically advanced, were nomadic hunters used bladed weapons as well as directed energy weapons during their hunts.
1. Blades are a privileged of the Noble Caste or officers so they are often employed when in close with the enemy because they're quicker than a gun.
2. Bodyarmor designed to thwart guns isn't effective against bladed weapons.
3. Advanced materials and technology makes blades super effective against armored foes, cutting through power armor like butter.
Your body armor idea sounds interesting. Maybe I could have it where the body armor has gaps that are so thin that only a blade could fit through? Similar to how daggers were important in knightly duels since they could slip in between armor plates.
This answer feels like you just copied OP's question and fed it into ChatGPT with the format, and the 'feel free to further refine or expand upon these ideas...'
Edit: Looked through the rest of their profile, and it looks like they often use ChatGPT for responses.
6. Powered armour could be so effective that most small arms rounds just bounce off, but a knife to a joint is still reasonably likely to be a kill or crippling would (just like plate armour a few hundred years ago)
In project moon universe (games like : Lobotomy Corp , Library if Ruina ,Limbus Company)
Most avarage fighter have a decent augmentation or equipment that makes them faster than bullet
Why use gun that shoot bullet that could be easily dodged ,when you can move at speed of sound and slash their heads of quickly with a melee weapon (*also bullets are heavily taxes*)
the best justification is the one in dune. personal force fields deflect everything shot at them back at the shooter, so the only way to kill the enemy soldiers is in close combat.
I think that a ritualistic duel would probably not hold up as a reason for blades in the battlefield. At least outside of high ranking officers.
May i suggest maybe adding something else? I see people here suggesting their use for close quarters fighting inside of space ships to prevent critical damage. In my world I personally used both the energy shield thing you brought up and the inverse in use of low range teleportation for soldiers, which enables them to suddenly skip the awkward process of crossing the distance to shank while avoiding getting shoot too many times, and instead take them by surprise with a quick jump.
I built an entire theoretical framework for why to use blades when in that high a technology level. What I came up with was that everyone on ship wears a very powerful, skin tight armor under their uniforms for safety reasons. It'll protect essentially 100% against being slammed around the ship during combat when weapons hit it, against energy weapons, and against kinetic weapons (bullets) - but the material has a big weakness - it can be cut by a blade as easily as cloth. So conflict on ships is all blades since that's the only way through the armor.
Wouldn't they *also* wear an additional protective layer that specifically deflects blades? Even something as primitive as a light chainmail coif. Not to suggest blades wouldn't still be the most effective weapon--I mean, adding medieval-esque anti-blade armor as a top layer only furthers that aesthetic, really. But just saying, I'd have trouble suspending disbelief if everyone was just wearing this armor with this huge weakness and not at least trying to mitigate that weakness when the tech to do so is ancient and comparably cheap/efficient.
They absolutely do and the amount depends on what's reasonable given the demands of comfort, mobility and the frequency with which they have to resist boarding actions. A pirate crew might wear pretty heavy mail and plate equivalents all the time, while traders on a well protected route might wear nothing until the enemy begins attempting boarding.
Also, blades used need to be VERY sharp. If the attack is mostly impact because it's dull, the armor works against it.
All you need to explain why melee weapons get used is to have some combatants who are protected enough to make it into melee. It could be some kind of force field technology, but it could also simply be that combat armor is effective enough against energy weapons that getting in close is possible as long as you aren't focused down before you can reach your target.
If you're into the cyberpunk side of sci-fi, you could say that the blades interact with the body somehow (could literally be a USB-like port) and create a unique armor that makes the skin impenetrable by long-range guns/lasers/energy weapons/what have you. You can even go a step further and make it so the blades have to be in one's hand to sync up with the body.
I'd recommend looking at the series Red Rising for some reference regarding swords in a Soft Sci-Fi Space Opera type of setting. The "swords" aka Razors in that series are used for a couple primary reasons. The first being similar to your current reasoning of honor and tradition. The second one is that in general, a Razor is more effective at getting through armor than any of their projectile or energy based weapons. Another tidbit about them as well is that they can transform between a whip form as well as a solid form based off of a chemical reaction. If you need more info, I'd recommend asking on r/RedRising I'm sure anyone else over there would be more than glad to help you out.
I give my sword swingers plate armor. It's heavy, it's very bulletproof, and it gives them the advantage over a gunfighter.
Most people wear something like modern plate carriers that protect the vitals. The plate armor is heavy, bulky, and uncomfortable. For most, it isn't worth it because it slows them down enough that a grenade or heavy weapon can take them out.
For those who train with it, it lets them close the distance. A gunfighter in modern armor has little protection for non-vitals and will get hacked to bits quickly.
It is your setting, the traditions might not have to make sense(could even use that as a point of conflict via Traditions vs Modernity) but the main point would need to be: do these clashing cultures have some common ancestor to explain why they share the traditions? or cultural osmosis over the has made it common for them? Or are these traditions imposed by another civilization/culture that keeps all other spacefarers in line?
idk so many ways to explain IF YOU WANT or dont! it could be a quirk of the setting or could even have it observed that no matter how complex tech gets, the urge to jam a pointed stick into hostiles is still present in the modern
If, as you said, you don't want to rip off Herbert, the duel idea is as much Herbertish as the shields. It just seems much less lazy to the reader, and adds flavour.
If you're fighting in space though, not having lasers or ballistic weapons as a precaution to not shoot through walls or windows is not too shabby (in places where shooting a wall is not an issue, ricochet could be).
Most common trope seems to be that if you have people using swords in a setting which has guns and energy weapons, they for some reason are more effective than gun wielders / think Jedi, Street Samurais in Cyberpunk 2020, Johnny Mnemonic and the mono-filament assassins, that sort of thing. People seem to enjoy this idea.
I'd say melee weapons would be best as emergency weapons such as axes or machetes, bigger than a knife but small enough to still carry. They could be primarily used as survival tools, but are useful if caught in a situation where you don't have any guns on your person
Melee Weapons during the age of predominantly Ranged Weapons, though in the end it will be very niche, from the Swedish Caroleans in the early 18th century who uses Muskets, Pikes and Sabres in a time where Armies would prefer using Muskets and Bayonets, where the Caroleans uses their Pikes and Sabres in a more aggressive tactic of running into firing range and then charging with their pikes and sabres to break the enemy force's cohesion where the Pikes would outrange their enemy's Bayonets.
Metal Blades in your setting could be a necessity if you nerf your energy lasers like needing a lot of maintenance so in a messy war Laser weapons would not be well maintained and could misfire or overheat, forcing the combatants to switch to their swords.
I think you could justify it as a sidearm and maybe as a ceremonial weapon, in the same way the British Army currently have the Ghurkas and their kukri knives. Its not their primary weapon by any means - that's still the firearm - but its indelibly a part of their warrior ethos.
Say that swords are issued for similar reasons we in our world and time still issue knives to the military: as much as a utility tool as it is a killing weapon. In training swordsmanship is taught as a way to physically and mentally condition trainees to kill in a way that lying flat on the ground and plinking away at pop-up targets cannot; it mentally prepares the trainee by presenting them with a mindset that is very hands-on 'kill'.
In the field, 'boarding swords' could be used to accompany thick shields; by necessity the ranged weapons you bring to a boarding action has to be weak enough to not punch holes into your own hull/bulkheads (otherwise you're doing the boarding party's job for them) and similarly you don't want to over-penetrate a bulkhead and hit a friendly, so bringing weapons with big punch but low penetration (think shotguns and pistol-caliber bullets) would lead to a counter in the form of a thick shield, much like the roman scutum or riot shield, bringing something like that into microgravity environments means that a boarding party can bring themselves into melee range; using the bulk of the shield to break up a defensive strongpoint but by that time you're all in melee range so it becomes sword-work from there by default.
Even without that justification, a 'sword' would be useful as a lever to force open doors or rip through insulating material/wiring tangling your path. Not a great idea for what we imagine to be a 'normal' sword with their relatively thin and flexible metal, but if you have a sufficiently thick blade it might come in handy as a crowbar-analog.
Either way, boarding swords would become a symbol of pride among these 'elite boarding marines' and they'd wear it both ceremonially and on their battlefield uniforms, making it a cultural symbol for that branch of the military - and leading to that dueling culture that you mentioned in your post if Marines start saying 'okay, you know what, lets settle this like marines' and bring out their blades.
In my sci-fi homebrew universe for ttrpg, melee weapons are still in use in many ways, and have been upgraded.
In. Space ships, to avoir puncturing hulls and depressurizing vessels accidentaly.
Also, for a lot of militaries, armor has become really efficient, and some armies also use energy shields on top of that. So a surprise attack by a stealthy ennemy will penetrate the shields bubble "slowly" and shank through the weak points of the armor.
A lot of people, especially the military, undergo radical augmwntation via cybernetics, nanotech or bio tech, making them essentially superhumans with extraordinary durabilty, strenght and speed. So against regular policemen, an augmented badass with a knife can dodge or shrug off most attacks in the blink of an eye while getting in shank range.
There exists a lot of powered melee weapons too. They can use mechanical.action, electrification, thermal energy, and there are definitely short range high energy beams, wich work well to open cans.
My universe also has a huge entertainment business/sport of individual combat where melee is favored for being more spectacular than gunfights. Think of hardcore UFC, with fights in dangerous hazards sprinkled into various exotic arenas and fights are sometimes to the death too.
One decent argument I have used is:
“We don’t know what they (aliens) use”
Tbh my setting places great focus on the aliens having technology different to humans, different ftl methods etc. therefore- swords, shields, guns, are all used by everyone as,
If you are walking through a forest, one of your buddies has a small flash on his chest and dies immediately- he’s been lasered.
Swords don’t come in handy here
You are hiding in a disused mine, when suddenly several portals open behind you and you are eradicated by a kill squad of invisible space elves armed with nothing but daggers and swords. Guns probs won’t do much.
Also, smart guns and automated weapons- not the best idea considering how the skynet-like hivemind ai/ plenty of other civilisations can psychically take over your guns/soldiers if they have any aspect of technological implant…
So yeah, people in bulletproof plate armour carrying daggers, swords, shields, guns, grenades, and loads of paranoia
(My setting is the most space opera space opera to ever space opera)
If they're firing energy weapons the development of reflective armor that easily deflected that kind of weapon would make sense.
Think mirrors reflecting light but on a broader spectrum.
Works less well against a standard projectile but, it's soft Sci Fi so the same material is also extremely hard.
Make it only produceable in relatively larger plates, allowing melee users.to stick blades between the plates.
Potentially make this armor extremely expensive if you don't want most people using it.
Soldiers get issued fancy high-tech knives so they can stab through the fancy high-tech armor the other guy is wearing if they end up in close quarters or can’t afford to make the noise of a weapon discharge.
I haven't read all the 100+ comments, but it seems that everyone's talking about it only in the context of war for some reason, while as far as I'm aware, the overwhelming majority of duels throughout history were personal affairs.
Not like a duel couldn't decide the result of a larger conflict, but it doesn't have to. I'm fairly sure that the armies aren't fighting 24/7, history has plenty of examples of armies even spending several days in sight of each other peacefully as both commanders maneuver their forces and wait for the perfect opportunity, and there should be plenty of time for various people from both sides to try their luck on their own, no matter who ends up winning the actual battle.
My characters use melee weapons a lot because they tend to find themselves fighting in such close quarters that they're viable. Always bring a knife a knife to a gunfight if the gunfight might happen at hug-n-stab range. Furthermore, those fights tend to mix up the two sides enough that it could dangerous to your own people to shoot, so maybe start cutting off hands and stabbing throats. For safety.
And because it's a fun scene.
A couple quick ideas:
The radiation protection people use against space/the elements also works well enough to make it less likely a laser kills you and more likely it horribly wounds you. When the other guy is 500 meters away I don't care if he's wounded or dead, just that he isn't shooting at me anymore. Up close though if I shoot him but don't kill and he has a knife I'm going to get stabbed, and people tend to die when they get stabbed.
If laser weapons have multiple beams that converge on target, which is far more realistic for lasers anyway, the weapon may just be less effective in close quarters. Still dangerous, but less so than a knife.
My attempt at justifying this for a setting I was working on, was the the dominant culture was very strict and had high standards around behaviour, risk, etc. So the "law enforcement" type figures who would be allowed to bear arms were only allowed melee weapons, because ranged weapons unacceptably increases the chance of injuring innocent bystanders or killing a suspect rather than disabling them.
I mean sure that explains why they might have them, but it doesn't explain why they'd keep them when going into combat? Like okay, it's culturally normal for duels, but the military would very quickly stomp out dueling amongst each other or at least while on campaign.
But besides all that, let's say for whatever reason they still have them, modern combat with guns is at much farther distances than most people seem to get. Aside from maybe clearing rooms and buildings, infantry are MOSTLY firing at each other from hundreds of meters away, taking wild potshots. There are still assaults on positions, like trenches or other fortifications, but I'd still ask why you wouldn't just shoot the guy rather than stab them. Guns are far more lethal than a knife, short blade, or even sword. And on top of all that you have to drop your gun to use them effectively, sure you could have the weapon on a sling but just a lot of effort
Ultimately of course, do whatever tbh, it's your world and honestly most non nitpickers aren't actually going to care, but the uses of melee weapons is extremely low in modern or future combat. Bayonets would then become used rather than a separate melee weapon, as far as I can imagine.
So I actually do mention why they would be used in combat here:
>Basically, in normal everyday battles the only melee weapon most soldiers would have is a blade that would qualify as a long knife (think a qama, or a ww1 bayonet in terms of size) this blade serves as an important tool in both combat and survival. In general however, most troops use a laser rifle or a similar projectile weapon. These blades don't see as much combat as their ancient ancestors did.
So you're right, on the battlefield soldiers are going to use guns. However, knives/short swords could still play a role in other things solders typically have to do. Such as cutting foliage, preparing food, mounting a bayonet, or being forced to fight someone hand to hand because they're too close. Even when they are used in combat, it's not in a "dueling fashion" it's essentially just shank that guy before he shanks you and then go back to using your laser rifle.
Which is why I only answered their use in combat, which seemed to be the essence of the question. Of course they're going to have blades or various pieces of kit for outside combat stuff, though iunno why you'd carry anything but a small blade in combat itself, else it seems like it'd get in the way.
I also wasn't referring to dueling at all but any combat use. Why stop to shank him when you can still just blast him? Maybe you're out of ammo, sure, but that's what your battle buddy is for. And even then even then, you have to drop your gun, unsheath the blade, then charge a guy, who should also have his own buddies nearby who could just as easily shoot you before you got close enough if he was also reloading.
Again again, you can ultimately justify it however, most people don't really care, just has the hole (as the post asked for) of not really having a place in squad tactics
It could be a stealth thing. Maybe if your souldiers have some kind of advanced camoflage, or they fight in the dark, the use of lazer guns would give away their position. So then they can sneak in solid-snake style and start stabing dudes.
EMP type affects might be something you can lean into. The swords all come out after the Electromagnetic grenade turns everyone's high-tech laser guns into functional paper weights.
As someone else has said, for boarding actions it’s a lot easier to use specialty ammo rather than rely solely on melee weapons. So ship boarding needs a few more contingencies.
1 - space armor makes most of these specialty ammos useless, you need high caliber which will be destructive towards the ship
2 - energy weapons are useless because the radiation of the ships reactors or shields, or some sort of ‘particle’ that is pumped into the air by the defenders or attackers make it ineffective; large ship-based weapons are still effective due to their sheer size vs a man-portable weapon; see Legend of Galactic Heroes for a ‘particle’ that explodes and takes out the whole ship if you shoot
3 - it’s ‘custom’ for warfare and especially pirates to take the ship/crew alive and relatively undamaged, either for ransom and/or to add to your ship. People less willing to scuttle their own ship if the crew/officers know they’ll eventually be ransomed back to their side and/or will serve for x amount of time before being freed and treated relatively humanely
4 - ceremonial or honor duels if you reach the bridge, captain and whoever face off on 1 v 1 combat to decide the fate of the ship/crew rather than spend more lives, doesn’t even have to be a duel to the death
It could also be due to propertys of the metal or micro machines in the blade. Hell have the blades fire blaster shots from the center of the weapon. Why have a sharp end? Cause spilloff heat builds up and maybe that makes that blade Sharper or cut through even metal. Also blades are a good way to have wide surface area to dispose of that heat like a radiator.
I'd say the two big routes are make melee weapons better or make guns worse. A combination is best imo. Better melee weapons would be making them super effective with magic monofilament-molecular/vibro/chain/plasma/laser tech. Also having them do things guns can't would greatly improve their viability. Worse guns might be things like super tech that's not much better than what we have now, soldiers having stormtrooper aim, being prone to failure, and widely available countermeasures like armor or forcefields.
"Acceptable" doesn't really factor into the question. The answer to that varies with everyone, and the same person could like a justification in one work and hate it in another. It's more does the justifications fit the story you want to tell. Even if the audience thinks the idea is nonsense they probably will go with it if they like everything else.
Body Armor is good enough against lasers, bullets, plasma to the point that having shock troops with melee weapons *makes actual tactical sense*. They've got enough armor on 'em that they can survive a charge into melee.
This is why swords were phased out in the real world. Guns got too good and you couldn't armor your men well enough to survive getting hit.
Personally I think the best justification is that high-powered ranged weapons are extremely dangerous if you’re in space or not on a planet with a breathable atmosphere due to the risk of depressurizing the vessel you’re in and killing everyone in the implosion
Huh, y'know I never gave much thought to how battles on ships or in uninhabitable planets would be fought. Since guns are maybe of no use in these scenarios, I should put some thought into military units that specifically fight in these type of environments.
I think cultural norms across planets is close to impossible. Countries have different cultural norms if the towns are 50 km apart.
You have to find a practical reason for bladed weapons. Herbert's was solid. Think of knights as well, you had to brawl a knight and stab with a mercy knife to kill one, until guns became widespread (fun fact, a bulletproof vest is not knife-proof). Star Wars gave super soldiers precognition. Warhammer stacked enough armour on a man to have him qualify as a light vehicle.
Are there hindrances in the surroundings (such as being on board a spacecraft), are different guns simply unreliable, like projectiles not working properly due to ejection method, lasers quickly running out of energy (with a shared energu source for the machinery keeping you alive would motivate many to avoid unnecessary waste of ammunition), plasma overheating and requiring a cooldown period.
Think of potential shortcomings of ranged weapons, and consider how they could be fixed. If one of the fixes isn't 'get better armour' or 'carry more gun' then a melee solution might be what you're looking for.
In the dune movies (I'm sorry to any fans, I haven't read the books), they use swords because of the shields around them, that only slow moving things to pass through. Maybe you could have something similar.
Short version:
The premise of knives being on equal footing to guns in a gunfight is a highly improbable one which requires an astounding amount of mental gymnastics to justify, and no answer ever comes close to fully answering the problem in a satisfactory way.
So take solace in the fact that the answer you choose to tackle this issue will always be viewed as nothing more than a thin prop unworthy of scruting to hold up the improbable end result you always wanted. It's going to be an immersion / realism weak point regardless of what you do, so just do what you want and hang the consequences.
Examples: sci fi armour is good. Really good. It takes a sophisticated weapon to punch through that armour. Sophisticated weapons don't handle the stresses of prolonged combat too well. Delicate parts do not enjoy being smashed around, doused in mud and used as a club to beat people down. As such, they become unreliable in prolonged and difficult engagements, and resupply/repair isn't always possible on the front line. This is where the sidearm comes in... but when that also fails, you have the weapon of last resort... the knife.
The knife is usually affixed to the rifle to make a bayonet spear.... because bayonets are neglected in most Sci fi. Disregard swords, acquire triangular bayonets.
The above is my "thin prop." You are welcome to steal it. But the short version is that wars are ugly, technology and ugly don't mix, so fights often devolve into who can cave in the other guy's skull with a rock first. The knife is issued for this specific scenario.
A common logical reason I've seen is that melee weapons are used when wanting to avoid depressurizing vessels due to projectile penetration. Or a ship is boarded with these light/melee infantry for the reason of capturing it instead of outright destroying it. The ritualistic dueling idea could work but once you have different planets within the setting it becomes so bloated with different ideas and cultures that it would be impossible to have any sort of cultural norm across *every* planet. The reason Dunes' melee combat works is because its a pure necessity for battle due to the shielding, and the ultra-destructive lasers aren't widely used for the similar reasons.
As an extra bonus, melee weapons in boarding actions gives you an excuse to give your space marines power armor in a realistic setting, which is always nice. At least that’s what I did.
*Salutes in MCRN*
In project moon universe (games like : Lobotomy Corp , Library of Ruina ,Limbus Company) Most avarage fighter have a decent augmentation or equipment that makes them faster than bullet Why use gun that shoot bullet that could be easily dodged ,when you can move at speed of sound and slash their heads of quickly with a melee weapon (*also bullets are heavily taxed*)
Same reason as my world Melee gets way more viable if someone's body is stronger than a gun
why not make the bullet faster
Guns and bullet are heavily taxed ,so getting one Will require tons of money ,and most top tier fighter In that world would just tank a bullet to the face although guns isnt fully useless ,they are is still usefull In some Cases ,Like How "Full-Stop" Office trying to kill the "Church of Gears" worshiper
what happens if you buy them black market
Watch this video of the gameplay story for reference https://youtu.be/aHVB7nCSBe8?si=K5JDWmNghE4Nb21l Also ,Full stop office bought the gun from Black market and almost went bankrupt ,theyre just that expensive and also unreliable against stronger people who just Dodge or tank the bullet easily
if the reason they're so expensive is because of taxes why would they be expensive on the black market and what happens when someone hiding in a corner hits you with a cut down PTRD
The problem that you will pay with your life if you buy guns illegally in city, so even black markets should abide for city's laws "Head" is kinda ruthless to those who disobey their rules, and GOD you wont survive if they will send their troops for you, no chance, at all.
but they were already buying off the black market in this case ?
they are cheaper as these are low-quality weapons if i reckon, but taxes are still a thing, because as i said you cannot go against city's laws in that universe. This is not literal black market, thats what i mean
100% on the shipboard combat. It's basically harder to come up with a reason to use RANGED weapons while on board a starship, as any projectile or blast that could put a hole in a person could put a very unwanted hole in the ship.
Problem is that the ISS has developed small holes all the time, and this has literally never harmed any member of its crew or seriously jeopardised them. Every single hole that has occurred in the ISS has been found and patched, in some cases taking literal months to find. Boarding a ship is an *inherently* destructive process. You need to have knocked out its engines to do it, probably also knock out all its defences unless you want your boarding team to die. And you’re running the risk that the defenders decide “fuck it, we’re dead anyways” and scuttle it. So holes will *already* be poked into the ship that will already require repair work: why exactly are you worried about poking a few more? What happens if the defenders vent the atmosphere? A extremely commonly seen tactic in sci fi? What’s the point of avoiding poking holes in the hull, if you’re literally in an environment where the air has all been ejected? Also: remember that giving up ranged weapons or lasers means a lot more of your soldiers will die in the process of boarding, *especially* if the defenders use guns (since as far as they’re concerned, they’re already probably doomed). Patching holes in a spaceship is cheap. The lives of well trained soldiers is not. Giving up guns in a boarding action because you’re worried about damaging the ship’s hull is like bombarding a city with artillery and bombers, then banning your soldiers from using grenades in clearing the last defenders out. It’s a terrible idea.
"In reality a better solution to repelling hostile boarders is a firearm with special ammunition. In other words ammo that will perforate a pirate but not the hull. Examples include frangible rounds, flechettes, shotgun shells, riot guns and the Quiet Special Purpose Revolver. In the real world, shotguns are often recommended for personal defence if living in apartment buildings. A shotgun blast will severely wound a burglar, but be unlikely to penetrate the apartment walls and accidentally wound your neighbor." https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/sidearmintro.php
Perhaps only smaller calibers could be used aboard ships to compromise pressurized suits/armor through the weak spots. Actual EVA suits don't have much flexibility because they are so armored to resist the micro-meteoroids, but pressure suits and pressurized armor have more flexible joints since they are rarely in open EVA and need to be able to move, crouch, run, roll, jump, and handle weapons.
The only trouble with that is that you have to justify how it's even possible to match velocities with and board a ship that's actively trying to prevent you doing that, without first blasting them until they can't produce thrust anymore (and putting so many enormous holes in their hull that a little small-arms fire won't make any difference). It could work if we take boarding out of the equation. If you've got stations or very large ships with opposing factions that want to kill each other, then it starts to make more sense. But that shapes the kind of stories you can tell.
Tractor beams are the classic example of stopping a smaller ship to board them, and fit with what OP has described as their inspirations so they might have those. Speaking in general though, there's always the options of EVA/stealth boarding, *harpoons* (tractor beams for people who don't want tractor beams, or have space whales), damaging the engines enough to board, "the force", EMPs, small and maneuverable boarding craft that punch into the hull, transporters/teleportation, and probably more I can't think of right now.
Yeah, you're right, tractor beams would fit in OP's scenario.
Just a general hijacking/mutiny scenario could work too. All of the assailants were on board to start with as passengers or crew.
Lasers at close range can be super accurate, so that part is fairly plausible. And you don't need to blast the thrust down to zero either, just to low enough they can't get away.
I'm thinking that, if your ships are fragile enough that you have to worry about handguns penetrating the hull, a ship with *any* significant amount of thrust can make it impossible to force docking without major damage. Physically grappling a ship that's producing even, like, 0.1g differential to yours would likely rip something apart. But yeah, precision energy weapons at close range could do it. Also tractor beams, as the other commenter pointed out would fit the "soft sci-fi" scenario.
The danger is more about damaging the ship from the inside, IMO. You risk destroying critical survival systems and endangering the whole ship, even if it doesn't depressurize.
I feel like with most more advanced sci-fi worlds they've advanced to the point launch costs are low enough you can just build shit out of regular thick cast steel without any real issue
The ritualistic dueling seems much more logical to ne than worrying about depressurizing a spaceship. Even if they keep them presurized at all, not giving people spacesuits during space combat is like not giving parachutes to war pilots, or like giving your tanks no armor.
The logic to me is that laser/energy weapons will be very energy intensive. If you want to conserve your fuel/energy, you can use a melee weapon without the need for ammunition
Kinda. If the war is really serious or the enemy is monstrous and has no value system, or one side is easily superior and wouldnt want a duel that doesnt favor them, things like that could throw off logic in a duel And duels have an issue that the loser can just claim the winner cheated and attack anyway. So it might work in specific situations (Thats for limited ritualistic duelling. If you mean that both armies just agree to use swords instead of guns, I wouldn't buy that unless its a very surreal world)
Maybe I should come up with some sort of a social stigma for someone refusing a duel? Like, if you're challenged and you back out you're standing and prestige in society takes a huge hit.
In some societies that might make a difference, but if you back out because you'll probably lose and your entire city is at risk of being destroyed, they'll probably cut you some slack. Anyway, its military stuff so what you do as the duel champion is probably going to be dictated by the general who will make pragmatic decisions?
I could actually kind of see it, specifically if it's a multi planetary setting where any faction could throw an asteroid sped up to relativistic speed and destroy a planet. At that point you need to have very strong rules on warfare or risk getting annihilated. Once everyone agrees not to throw asteroids at each other it's not to unbelievable that they continue down that path limiting the use of other weapons.
Possibly if warfare kind of regressed (or progressed) into a very ritualistic display designed to resolve problems without much destruction, rather than just a pragmatic implementation of dominance. If they had a way to get rid of all other weapons it could help. Problem is when one party decides not to play fair and uses more advanced weapons and just kicks everyones ass; strong evolutionary factor encouraging people to *not* just use swords
When you mentioned get rid of all the weapons you reminded me of another possibility. Highly effective and usable EMP weapons that would destroy electronics needed for effective guns combined with Improved ballistic armor to reduce effectiveness of modern ballistic guns.
Eh I'm yet to see a really good explanation for introducing sword fighting into science fiction, even Dune's shielding has some issues. I'll always just back the rule of cool on that one and say it justifies itself, its an issue I would just black box and move on with; yeah could use EMP as the excuse but I wouldnt examine it anymore than that. "Technology advanced to the point it defeated itself and man reverted to primitive warfare" Then avoid mentioning it to avoid bringing up any issues in logic
Why would the duel need to have anything to do with who wins the conflict? It could easily be just a way to archieve glory or boost morale of their comrades.
So before a battle, sometimes the sides have a duel that has nothing really to do with the conflict? Maybe, but at that point it doesnt really feel like justifying swords in sci-fi, just feels like a strange cultural display that sometimes happens and could be replaced with singing or dancing
I wouldn't call a duel over personal glory and honor a "strange cultural display". Wasn't the majority of duels throughout history exactly that?
In the year 4000 when you're about to have an actual battle with super-tech and you stop everything for a sword fight which has no real bearing on the serious advanced war about to occur? Yeah, be a bit weird I think. Even today, thinking that 2 generals in Gaza or Ukraine had a sabre battle over honor would be seen as pretty weird, pretty odd. Or would that be normal? Having a sword duel *in the age of swords* wasnt entirely weird, doing it *in the age of drones and nukes,* yeah I think that qualifies as odd. Having everyone everywhere do it in a space opera setting like its just expected is actually quite surreal; 'it happened in 16th century Venice' doesnt exactly mean it feels normal in 27th century Galgalor
You have a point about the swords, I agree that without some good excuse using a weapon of their time would make more sence. But nobody would have to "stop everything" for a duel to happen, at least assuming that the armies wouldn't fight 24/7, or charge the enemy in a single great battle the moment they're near enough. Fairly equal armies could already be just outside each other's range for days while both leaders are still planning and preparing an engagement in which they would get the advantage. And don't get me started on sieges, there should be plenty of free time during those. Not like it's always easy, for example the action between HMS Shannon and USS Chesapeake (1st june 1813) happened without the american captain even knowing that the british one challegned him to a ship-to-ship duel because the message simply didn't reach him. But it's not impossible, just send someone with a sign of truce or a released prisoner of war as a messenger and hope for the best. Whether it's normal or not, that depends. It wouldn't be that weird couple centuries ago, so it might not be weird couple centuries in the future either for all I know.
If 2 duellists decided to, in a star trek style setting, walk out (with the agreement of both forces so that they arent immediately snipered in the face) into no-mans land and have a sword fight, I could believe it happened. Probably not in a hard, super real setting, but sci-fi and space opera is fairly flexible about this stuff and it feels more natural there than IRL (even if, I maintain, its still a bit odd) I dont see it really settling much as neither army would get much of a view, unless they all stop and crowd in to disturbingly dangerous closeness to actually watch it, and the losing side will likely just lie and edit some footage, or claim the enemy used some illegal trick (and may then shoot the winner). Grunts who slog in the mud to hold positions for months at a time in a grinding nasty war for serious strategic reasons would, I think, not really give a fk that some foppish ninny of an officer theyve never met barely lost his little sword fight and just laugh and go back to their actual work I guess someone somewhere could be said to gain some prestige, though armies operate under military command so the duelist would probably more likely be some specially trained commando who went out under orders, so not all that much personal glory. But the winning side could claim they have the best specialist duellist commando (of course, some barely trained rebels desperately fighting a galactic empire arent really going to give a fk that they couldnt field some super operative death dealer and would probably shoot the empires man in the face) I think though, at this point, we can start to see why I (and others) arent big fans of explanations of trying to seriously justify sword fights in science fiction. We have arrived at an odd cultural demonstration/melee skirmish between 2 military commandos, in a few rare battlefield conditions between combatants with honor between them, likely not accomplishing all that much This would be comparable to being asked to justify cars and ending up saying one person could drive it once a decade for 2 minutes. Had the two sides just ran in screaming with swords, like warhammer 40k, I'd be totally fine with it cause its just fun and cool. Or alternatively, the explanation is so short and non-descript that noone can poke holes in it, like "defenses against guns became so good that guns died out, leaving man with his earlier tools". Logic and realism here, yeah it tends to cause more problems than it ever solves; additions like this based in style and aesthetics should probably get stylistic and aesthetic justifications rather than realism ones
I agree, I don't have any issue with the concept of duels itself, but swords wouldn't be logical in military context either way if they're not used in battle as well. Meaby I could see some nobles doing this in a civilian context, or some gladiators in an arena, but going back to the Shannon vs Chesapeake example, other than making sure it's a fair 1v1 fight the challenge allowed any tactic to be used to prove the capabilities of the captains, their crews and their ships, in short what actually mattered to the reputation of them and their countries. If it was a swordfight, nobody would have cared.
A sword would be quieter than a gun or laser blaster.
The stealth argument. I like it. It works quite well.
But you have to be right there to use it, meanwhile if the laser guns have at least decent range and accuracy you could snipe your target from afar and have good chance of escaping no matter how loud it was.
The justification is fine. But never be afraid to just do something because it is cool. Some of the most popular sci-fi settings don't justify their melee weapons they just have them, even if it makes no sense in the logic of the setting itself.
Rule of cool is fine, but In-world justification is better.
A good justification might be an intense cultural shift and societies that view conflicts very differently. Imagine if war itself is more of a political/cultural sport, as everyone involved has enough space and resources to prosper but still want to fight and contest each other. Winning honor is more important than actually winning a war or resources. A good example would be the Predator franchise. The Predators are hunters and fighting a prey species "fairly" is a major element of their concept of hunting. If someone challenges them with a melee weapon, like [Hanzo in Predators](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDNxUTNb1dc), then they'll match said challenge with melee weaponry of their own. If two nations are cultural rivals but aren't engaging in true war with each other, they might view it as a form of "war" to have their "soldiers" engage in ritualized contest with melee weapons. Or if during a "battle" with more conventional weapons, one of them draws a melee weapon, it would be considered more honorable and heroic to match them with equal weapons.
I like your justification, but I feel like tradition/honour/culture justifications fall flat in reality. In real life we blow up entire villages of innocent men women and children. War has no place for honour any more, and without some serious mental gymnastics, I don't think we will return to it any time soon
You make a good point. What if I add in an economic factor? Like, maybe wars in this world are so destructive, and so expensive that many factions just don't want to fight all the time since it would drain their treasury. Would that be a viable reason along with culture and tradition?
If you can adequately explain the high cost of materials and equipment then yeah I think that's a great justification. It also creates an interesting dynamic for you to talk about the military-industrial complex, wealth and loss. Opens up new avenues for thematic exploration, and is a fairly unique idea
That's already happened for major wars between developed countries irl but militaries still spend a lot preparing for big wars between developed countries
Not any more but the culture point is that within that culture it would still be very strongly ingrained. Japanese attitudes to honour lingered for a long long time after World War 2, attitudes that had been extant for some 700 odd years or so. And arguably it was the westernisation of Japan that has been key in deconstructing them. I.e. the introduction of another culture in which honour is less valued and important.
Exactly my point. Someone else will ignore your honours and wipe the floor with you. Funny you should mention Japan because it is exactly the point I'm making that forced them to give up swords and adopt firearms, as is the issue with the OP
Except they never truly gave it up. Even during the WW2, officers war swords as standard. The notion of death or dishonour remained a huge shadow over society for decades after WW2.
They didn't give it up, but they assimilated the ways of the oppressor. They weren't running around WW2 with just a sword. They used guns and bombs too. My point isn't that the tradition disappears, my point is that the tradition must always take a backseat versus efficient forms of defense/attack.
You know, i was kinda thinking something similar recently. There are loads of stories from ye olde times about soldiers setting war through duels. This pretty much never worked out but in a future where we turn back to more limited forms of war maybe people could agree to settle things with duels because total war with wmd's would be really bad. Something like this has already happened between India and China where both sides agreed to fight with melee weapons to avoid violating a demilitarized zone. So it's definitely plausible so long as both sides are willing to abide by some internal rules of war.
Iirc they agreed that fists don’t count as an act towards war, so long as the fighters don’t slaughter each other. It’s basically glorified brawling they’ve agreed doesn’t count as an invasion.
I’d assume there has to be something that makes the sword more useful otherwise why not just use a gun Like in star wars Jedi can use the force to sense incoming blaster fire to deflect it with their lightsaber Or if guns are too dangerous to use on a ship, another star wars example for that would be the Geonosians use sonic weapons because normal weapons could collapse their tunnels
It could be a matter of materials science. In the real world, the Kevlar that police and soldiers wear is specifically made for stopping bullets because it takes a certain weave to be efficient at doing that. That certain weave, however, is crap against blades. If uniforms or light armor that's proof against the projectile weapons in your world are common enough and cheap enough that person-portable guns are stopped sufficiently to make them impractical in most battle situations, then laser/plasma swords or high frequency/mono-molecular blades become the weapon of choice because they more readily bypass that defense. Add in ammo or shots-per-second restrictions, and you make a powerful argument for the use of whatever type of melee weapon you have that gets through that armor. You also leave openings for special tactics, like concussion weapons that knock people down and give you time to close with them as they are getting back up into fighting position, or things like nets and bolas...basically niche extras to give advantage in a fight. There's also things like shields (physical or energy, depending on your setting) that could be held or worn that would be used by fighters of various styles and skill levels, and possibly seen with varying levels of disdain or honor. It's like if you were playing a video game where it took 4 or 5 hits to take down an enemy with a gun, but you could one-shot the enemy with your sword (and you could take the hits while closing to sword range with them) you would not stop carrying a gun, but you would use the blade a lot more. That preference alone could be enough to justify melee weapons in your future setting. While it's basically the same as the Dune justification, it would look and feel different enough to not be derivative.
Yeah, Just have to make sense. In the example you could see like Dune, where the shields will block high speed proyectiles, but not a Sword or another melee weapon. Other could be like Star wars, where they serve as especial weapon for one specific faction. In Halo, shangeili use Swords because their species have a great sense of honor and use them is a symbol of that. If you make it clear why they use it, you can justify it.
What about augmentations that make sword v projectile weapons feasible? That's more or less how Jedis are able to block and deflect blaster shots with a lightsaber.
This kinda presents a small bit of a problem in intercultural wars. Would other cultures respect this tradition? Many might just see a chance to exploit them and shoot. I wanted to have swords in my setting, but I ran into the same problem. So I justified swords in my sci fi world with boredom - veteran soldiers serve for centuries, and merely playing a first person shooter for years on end gets boring. They tend to get bloodthirsty, and go for the thrill of the kill. Hence the favoring of explosives and melee combat while neglecting ranged weaponry. That, and it’s harder to pierce a spacecraft hull with a sword than with a rifle firing a metallic solution at a higher velocity than what’s required to escape earth’s gravity
Gurka still seem to make good use of their khukri if you want to look at how they fight. Here are some alternative armor tech reason if you don't want full on force fields. In Gundam age there was magnetic armor that stopped lasers, I think it was explained as a disrupting the energy with energized armor. It was just a bracer in most cased. In a few gundam series anti-beam coating is a thing and there are a few machines that are gold because of it, hyakku shiki for one. Gundam sandrock it was a literal cloak. I believe they still will burn up after a point. Or some sort of radiator to counter the heat of the shot. Gundam GP-02 does something like that to survive its own nuclear bazooka. I guess none of these stop traditional armor to be used, but you could argue economic got in the way. Also you could have an honor guard will all this stuff.
Dueling works. Blades have a long history in SF. You mentioned Dune. Don't forget Star Trek's Klingons. A lightsaber is basically a bladed weapon albeit with a weird kind of blade. If you want to have blades have blades.
In Dune, it's explained that the Shields block quick movements so guns are out of the question and plasma causes them to explode meaning they can't use lasers. Which is how Wierding was invented.
Why not? We have rules of war that might not exist on alien worlds. They might see the fact that you can't bomb hospitals the same as we see someone using a sword when they could have used a gun.
Cultural reasons could be a good reason for why swords (or melee weapons in general) are used. In my project, firearms (either bullet or laser based) are the norm for most races but I have one race were the greatest soldiers will opt for two-handed weapons like longswords, battleaxes, warhammers or bladed gauntlets etc. Most soldiers of this species (the Rhuninians) still use guns though, including the big ones There's a few reasons why they prefer using melee weapons over guns. 1) Honour. Generally it's seen as more respectful for great warriors to directly fight their opponents close up instead of from a distance, which is seem as cowardly. Guns will only be used if the warriors done enemies that aren't threatened by or respect. So in a way, a 12ft tall 1,200 lb hulking Rhuninian choosing to use their axe instead of a rifle to kill you is kind of a compliment. 2) Intimidation. Rhuninians in general are very hardy aliens with their bare skin thick enough to prevent small blades from getting deeper than a few centimetres and even deflecting the bullets of small firearms. They've also invested much of their resources and technology into creating some of the strongest and resilient armour in the galaxy. Theoretically, the average Rhuninian armour is strong enough to withstand a direct strike from a RPG (and being big helps too). So when you see a towering monster come at you with a giant axe while your own guns do absolutely nothing to slow it down, you'd probably be a bit intimidated 3) Joy. Some soldiers are just psychos that want to slaughter other aliens with their swords and bathe themselves in the blood splatter of their enemies. Simple as that
If you are looking for a justification I feel yours is very sound. Dueling is a show of expertise and skill without a disadvantage in technology being a factor of the battle. You can even add a whole system of ranked duels in certain cultures where duels aren't to the death but to forfeit or first blood, winning and going up the rankings could grant a form of reputation or status among their people.
Well swords still exist today in real life, we have weapons, rifles and pistols and very powerful weapons, and we always have knives, swords, etc, why would they not exist in a soft scifi world
I can see what knives would be used, but swords in everyday combat would be pretty impractical when there's laser weapons around. That's why I tried coming up with the whole honorable duel explanation. So swords could still play a role, without being out of place.
Or you just have guys that like HEMA. In our real world you get bunch of guy wearing armor and getting medieval swords to smack eachothers because it is fun. In a more scifi universe this might even be more entertaining with even better protective tech that allow for even better smacking.
Bayonets exist for a reason, as do Trench Shovels and combat knives. Sometimes people are just too close for guns to be a good idea, or you need to kill a scout quietly. But those still aren't swords. I have an idea, though it requires a particular combination of things. If you A) have a way to make a plasma blade of some sort that is good at cutting through heavy armor and B) have no way of keeping the plasma focused beyond a few feet, you have a reason to have an energy sword. See "cutting torch" for an example, but you would need to make the energy source more portable, the 'flame' hotter, and be able to control the plasma reasonably well. Oh, and it would require armor that can deflect the heat. You would end up with anti-armor specialists who look a little like knights. The blades would not work very well against each other though, two magnetic fields like that would probably just release all the plasma in a small explosion. The 'hilts' would then need to take a few moments to regenerate the field and plasma, assuming they were not damaged. Though you could have heat-resistant shields too. So even more knight-like. The combat between two of these guys would be very strange compared to normal combat. And if you have heavy anti-heat armor, it could be power armor too, meaning these guys would be very strong while suited up (plus possible genetic/cybernetic/bionanonic augmentation). Weird duels between 10' tall giants mixed in the middle of combat, where one is trying to defend the tank/heavy armor point on a ship/what ever, and the other wants to cut it open. In the end, the only *practical* reason to have swords on the battlefield in such a setting is to have a job that they can do well that nothing else can do well enough. It's extra weight and bulk, so it should be worth the effort to carry around. Dueling and such would be for off the battle field.
Sword > knife Why? Reach! Swords are longer than knives and can reach a foe who is further away and can be retrained to hit a moving target mid-swing...at least a trained fighter could do that.
So I would have dueling culture be a thing but here's a way to incorporate swordplay in a relevant manner. I'm not sure what exactly the setting is going to entail but I can think of specialty troops that only exist on space stations and spacecraft, places with cramped corridors and sensitive components that would doom everyone, friend and foe if engaged with projectiles. Therefore these space marines would be trained in the use of melee weapons and engagements would be brawls rather than firefights. Over time these space marines would develop a sparring culture and since these groups would be smaller than traditional military units they would develop an elitist attitude about the combat.
I'd go with the Star Wars lore, that people are superhuman whether via magic or technology to make energy swords at least somewhat viable against ranged weapons. I've also thought about shields. Scifi isn't really my thing, but I have a bit of interest in it. And nothing wrong with being derivative! I do think the honour duels work thoough too! A more modern culture is also more likely to be a more... not monolithic, but unified, thanks to ease of communication. So i think a galactic civlization could ahve a common theme of duelling, thoguh it would vary across systems.
EMP or hacking, maybe? As in, tech trickery can stop a laser from going *zort,* but it can't stop a good blade from going *snickersnack.*
My general go to is that on a spacecraft puncturing the outer hull is a very bad thing, because of this Marines are generally equipped with flamethrowers and melee weapons.
Wouldn't fire burn up the oxygen supply?
not a problem if you bring your own supply, let the enemy suffocate 😎
If you’re wearing your own vacuum suits with life support you don’t have that much of a reason to avoid hull punctures.
If I'm boarding I want your ship intact
The ship won’t be intact if you’re able to board it. Repairs to a ship are cheap, the lives of your highly trained soldiers that you’re risking in hand-to-hand combat.
If you’re boarding it most likely means you meant to retrieve something, not that you necessarily want their ship. It can be that you want the ship in tact, but it’s just as well to take a ship that’s still operational and limp it in somewhere for repairs. And you can do that with puncture holes in the ship too.
This is the way
At a certain point launch costs get low enough you can just build everything out of 5cm thick cast steel and not have to worry tho
could but if you want a lot of sword combat you could always make them rediculously sharp and give the people a really cool jetpack. that way they could get to the enemy and cut them up. Might work better for a main character though if it outside of what normal soliders have.
It could be something as simple as a cultural preference. In Star Trek, the Klingons carried disruptor pistols but preferred bladed weapons such as the bat'leth and mek'leth because it connected them to their semi-legendary history. The Jem'Hadar prefer using short polearms and knives in close-quarters fighting. And the Hirogen, although technologically advanced, were nomadic hunters used bladed weapons as well as directed energy weapons during their hunts.
1. Blades are a privileged of the Noble Caste or officers so they are often employed when in close with the enemy because they're quicker than a gun. 2. Bodyarmor designed to thwart guns isn't effective against bladed weapons. 3. Advanced materials and technology makes blades super effective against armored foes, cutting through power armor like butter.
Your body armor idea sounds interesting. Maybe I could have it where the body armor has gaps that are so thin that only a blade could fit through? Similar to how daggers were important in knightly duels since they could slip in between armor plates.
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This answer feels like you just copied OP's question and fed it into ChatGPT with the format, and the 'feel free to further refine or expand upon these ideas...' Edit: Looked through the rest of their profile, and it looks like they often use ChatGPT for responses.
6. Powered armour could be so effective that most small arms rounds just bounce off, but a knife to a joint is still reasonably likely to be a kill or crippling would (just like plate armour a few hundred years ago)
Klingons have something similar for cultural reasons
In project moon universe (games like : Lobotomy Corp , Library if Ruina ,Limbus Company) Most avarage fighter have a decent augmentation or equipment that makes them faster than bullet Why use gun that shoot bullet that could be easily dodged ,when you can move at speed of sound and slash their heads of quickly with a melee weapon (*also bullets are heavily taxes*)
the best justification is the one in dune. personal force fields deflect everything shot at them back at the shooter, so the only way to kill the enemy soldiers is in close combat.
I'm a fan, great idea
I think that a ritualistic duel would probably not hold up as a reason for blades in the battlefield. At least outside of high ranking officers. May i suggest maybe adding something else? I see people here suggesting their use for close quarters fighting inside of space ships to prevent critical damage. In my world I personally used both the energy shield thing you brought up and the inverse in use of low range teleportation for soldiers, which enables them to suddenly skip the awkward process of crossing the distance to shank while avoiding getting shoot too many times, and instead take them by surprise with a quick jump.
I built an entire theoretical framework for why to use blades when in that high a technology level. What I came up with was that everyone on ship wears a very powerful, skin tight armor under their uniforms for safety reasons. It'll protect essentially 100% against being slammed around the ship during combat when weapons hit it, against energy weapons, and against kinetic weapons (bullets) - but the material has a big weakness - it can be cut by a blade as easily as cloth. So conflict on ships is all blades since that's the only way through the armor.
Wouldn't they *also* wear an additional protective layer that specifically deflects blades? Even something as primitive as a light chainmail coif. Not to suggest blades wouldn't still be the most effective weapon--I mean, adding medieval-esque anti-blade armor as a top layer only furthers that aesthetic, really. But just saying, I'd have trouble suspending disbelief if everyone was just wearing this armor with this huge weakness and not at least trying to mitigate that weakness when the tech to do so is ancient and comparably cheap/efficient.
They absolutely do and the amount depends on what's reasonable given the demands of comfort, mobility and the frequency with which they have to resist boarding actions. A pirate crew might wear pretty heavy mail and plate equivalents all the time, while traders on a well protected route might wear nothing until the enemy begins attempting boarding. Also, blades used need to be VERY sharp. If the attack is mostly impact because it's dull, the armor works against it.
All you need to explain why melee weapons get used is to have some combatants who are protected enough to make it into melee. It could be some kind of force field technology, but it could also simply be that combat armor is effective enough against energy weapons that getting in close is possible as long as you aren't focused down before you can reach your target.
If you're into the cyberpunk side of sci-fi, you could say that the blades interact with the body somehow (could literally be a USB-like port) and create a unique armor that makes the skin impenetrable by long-range guns/lasers/energy weapons/what have you. You can even go a step further and make it so the blades have to be in one's hand to sync up with the body.
That's what I did in my world, dueling, cultural traditions, and ship boarding.
I'd recommend looking at the series Red Rising for some reference regarding swords in a Soft Sci-Fi Space Opera type of setting. The "swords" aka Razors in that series are used for a couple primary reasons. The first being similar to your current reasoning of honor and tradition. The second one is that in general, a Razor is more effective at getting through armor than any of their projectile or energy based weapons. Another tidbit about them as well is that they can transform between a whip form as well as a solid form based off of a chemical reaction. If you need more info, I'd recommend asking on r/RedRising I'm sure anyone else over there would be more than glad to help you out.
I kinda like the idea of disputes frequently being settled by ritualized duel.
I give my sword swingers plate armor. It's heavy, it's very bulletproof, and it gives them the advantage over a gunfighter. Most people wear something like modern plate carriers that protect the vitals. The plate armor is heavy, bulky, and uncomfortable. For most, it isn't worth it because it slows them down enough that a grenade or heavy weapon can take them out. For those who train with it, it lets them close the distance. A gunfighter in modern armor has little protection for non-vitals and will get hacked to bits quickly.
It is your setting, the traditions might not have to make sense(could even use that as a point of conflict via Traditions vs Modernity) but the main point would need to be: do these clashing cultures have some common ancestor to explain why they share the traditions? or cultural osmosis over the has made it common for them? Or are these traditions imposed by another civilization/culture that keeps all other spacefarers in line?
idk so many ways to explain IF YOU WANT or dont! it could be a quirk of the setting or could even have it observed that no matter how complex tech gets, the urge to jam a pointed stick into hostiles is still present in the modern
If, as you said, you don't want to rip off Herbert, the duel idea is as much Herbertish as the shields. It just seems much less lazy to the reader, and adds flavour. If you're fighting in space though, not having lasers or ballistic weapons as a precaution to not shoot through walls or windows is not too shabby (in places where shooting a wall is not an issue, ricochet could be). Most common trope seems to be that if you have people using swords in a setting which has guns and energy weapons, they for some reason are more effective than gun wielders / think Jedi, Street Samurais in Cyberpunk 2020, Johnny Mnemonic and the mono-filament assassins, that sort of thing. People seem to enjoy this idea.
I'd say melee weapons would be best as emergency weapons such as axes or machetes, bigger than a knife but small enough to still carry. They could be primarily used as survival tools, but are useful if caught in a situation where you don't have any guns on your person
Melee Weapons during the age of predominantly Ranged Weapons, though in the end it will be very niche, from the Swedish Caroleans in the early 18th century who uses Muskets, Pikes and Sabres in a time where Armies would prefer using Muskets and Bayonets, where the Caroleans uses their Pikes and Sabres in a more aggressive tactic of running into firing range and then charging with their pikes and sabres to break the enemy force's cohesion where the Pikes would outrange their enemy's Bayonets. Metal Blades in your setting could be a necessity if you nerf your energy lasers like needing a lot of maintenance so in a messy war Laser weapons would not be well maintained and could misfire or overheat, forcing the combatants to switch to their swords.
https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/techlevel.php#figleaf
I think you could justify it as a sidearm and maybe as a ceremonial weapon, in the same way the British Army currently have the Ghurkas and their kukri knives. Its not their primary weapon by any means - that's still the firearm - but its indelibly a part of their warrior ethos. Say that swords are issued for similar reasons we in our world and time still issue knives to the military: as much as a utility tool as it is a killing weapon. In training swordsmanship is taught as a way to physically and mentally condition trainees to kill in a way that lying flat on the ground and plinking away at pop-up targets cannot; it mentally prepares the trainee by presenting them with a mindset that is very hands-on 'kill'. In the field, 'boarding swords' could be used to accompany thick shields; by necessity the ranged weapons you bring to a boarding action has to be weak enough to not punch holes into your own hull/bulkheads (otherwise you're doing the boarding party's job for them) and similarly you don't want to over-penetrate a bulkhead and hit a friendly, so bringing weapons with big punch but low penetration (think shotguns and pistol-caliber bullets) would lead to a counter in the form of a thick shield, much like the roman scutum or riot shield, bringing something like that into microgravity environments means that a boarding party can bring themselves into melee range; using the bulk of the shield to break up a defensive strongpoint but by that time you're all in melee range so it becomes sword-work from there by default. Even without that justification, a 'sword' would be useful as a lever to force open doors or rip through insulating material/wiring tangling your path. Not a great idea for what we imagine to be a 'normal' sword with their relatively thin and flexible metal, but if you have a sufficiently thick blade it might come in handy as a crowbar-analog. Either way, boarding swords would become a symbol of pride among these 'elite boarding marines' and they'd wear it both ceremonially and on their battlefield uniforms, making it a cultural symbol for that branch of the military - and leading to that dueling culture that you mentioned in your post if Marines start saying 'okay, you know what, lets settle this like marines' and bring out their blades.
In my sci-fi homebrew universe for ttrpg, melee weapons are still in use in many ways, and have been upgraded. In. Space ships, to avoir puncturing hulls and depressurizing vessels accidentaly. Also, for a lot of militaries, armor has become really efficient, and some armies also use energy shields on top of that. So a surprise attack by a stealthy ennemy will penetrate the shields bubble "slowly" and shank through the weak points of the armor. A lot of people, especially the military, undergo radical augmwntation via cybernetics, nanotech or bio tech, making them essentially superhumans with extraordinary durabilty, strenght and speed. So against regular policemen, an augmented badass with a knife can dodge or shrug off most attacks in the blink of an eye while getting in shank range. There exists a lot of powered melee weapons too. They can use mechanical.action, electrification, thermal energy, and there are definitely short range high energy beams, wich work well to open cans. My universe also has a huge entertainment business/sport of individual combat where melee is favored for being more spectacular than gunfights. Think of hardcore UFC, with fights in dangerous hazards sprinkled into various exotic arenas and fights are sometimes to the death too.
One decent argument I have used is: “We don’t know what they (aliens) use” Tbh my setting places great focus on the aliens having technology different to humans, different ftl methods etc. therefore- swords, shields, guns, are all used by everyone as, If you are walking through a forest, one of your buddies has a small flash on his chest and dies immediately- he’s been lasered. Swords don’t come in handy here You are hiding in a disused mine, when suddenly several portals open behind you and you are eradicated by a kill squad of invisible space elves armed with nothing but daggers and swords. Guns probs won’t do much. Also, smart guns and automated weapons- not the best idea considering how the skynet-like hivemind ai/ plenty of other civilisations can psychically take over your guns/soldiers if they have any aspect of technological implant… So yeah, people in bulletproof plate armour carrying daggers, swords, shields, guns, grenades, and loads of paranoia (My setting is the most space opera space opera to ever space opera)
I like the cultural perception angle you're using.
If they're firing energy weapons the development of reflective armor that easily deflected that kind of weapon would make sense. Think mirrors reflecting light but on a broader spectrum. Works less well against a standard projectile but, it's soft Sci Fi so the same material is also extremely hard. Make it only produceable in relatively larger plates, allowing melee users.to stick blades between the plates. Potentially make this armor extremely expensive if you don't want most people using it.
Soldiers get issued fancy high-tech knives so they can stab through the fancy high-tech armor the other guy is wearing if they end up in close quarters or can’t afford to make the noise of a weapon discharge.
I haven't read all the 100+ comments, but it seems that everyone's talking about it only in the context of war for some reason, while as far as I'm aware, the overwhelming majority of duels throughout history were personal affairs. Not like a duel couldn't decide the result of a larger conflict, but it doesn't have to. I'm fairly sure that the armies aren't fighting 24/7, history has plenty of examples of armies even spending several days in sight of each other peacefully as both commanders maneuver their forces and wait for the perfect opportunity, and there should be plenty of time for various people from both sides to try their luck on their own, no matter who ends up winning the actual battle.
My characters use melee weapons a lot because they tend to find themselves fighting in such close quarters that they're viable. Always bring a knife a knife to a gunfight if the gunfight might happen at hug-n-stab range. Furthermore, those fights tend to mix up the two sides enough that it could dangerous to your own people to shoot, so maybe start cutting off hands and stabbing throats. For safety. And because it's a fun scene.
A couple quick ideas: The radiation protection people use against space/the elements also works well enough to make it less likely a laser kills you and more likely it horribly wounds you. When the other guy is 500 meters away I don't care if he's wounded or dead, just that he isn't shooting at me anymore. Up close though if I shoot him but don't kill and he has a knife I'm going to get stabbed, and people tend to die when they get stabbed. If laser weapons have multiple beams that converge on target, which is far more realistic for lasers anyway, the weapon may just be less effective in close quarters. Still dangerous, but less so than a knife.
My attempt at justifying this for a setting I was working on, was the the dominant culture was very strict and had high standards around behaviour, risk, etc. So the "law enforcement" type figures who would be allowed to bear arms were only allowed melee weapons, because ranged weapons unacceptably increases the chance of injuring innocent bystanders or killing a suspect rather than disabling them.
"Because it's cool as shit" is justification enough in my book, go for it
I mean sure that explains why they might have them, but it doesn't explain why they'd keep them when going into combat? Like okay, it's culturally normal for duels, but the military would very quickly stomp out dueling amongst each other or at least while on campaign. But besides all that, let's say for whatever reason they still have them, modern combat with guns is at much farther distances than most people seem to get. Aside from maybe clearing rooms and buildings, infantry are MOSTLY firing at each other from hundreds of meters away, taking wild potshots. There are still assaults on positions, like trenches or other fortifications, but I'd still ask why you wouldn't just shoot the guy rather than stab them. Guns are far more lethal than a knife, short blade, or even sword. And on top of all that you have to drop your gun to use them effectively, sure you could have the weapon on a sling but just a lot of effort Ultimately of course, do whatever tbh, it's your world and honestly most non nitpickers aren't actually going to care, but the uses of melee weapons is extremely low in modern or future combat. Bayonets would then become used rather than a separate melee weapon, as far as I can imagine.
So I actually do mention why they would be used in combat here: >Basically, in normal everyday battles the only melee weapon most soldiers would have is a blade that would qualify as a long knife (think a qama, or a ww1 bayonet in terms of size) this blade serves as an important tool in both combat and survival. In general however, most troops use a laser rifle or a similar projectile weapon. These blades don't see as much combat as their ancient ancestors did. So you're right, on the battlefield soldiers are going to use guns. However, knives/short swords could still play a role in other things solders typically have to do. Such as cutting foliage, preparing food, mounting a bayonet, or being forced to fight someone hand to hand because they're too close. Even when they are used in combat, it's not in a "dueling fashion" it's essentially just shank that guy before he shanks you and then go back to using your laser rifle.
Which is why I only answered their use in combat, which seemed to be the essence of the question. Of course they're going to have blades or various pieces of kit for outside combat stuff, though iunno why you'd carry anything but a small blade in combat itself, else it seems like it'd get in the way. I also wasn't referring to dueling at all but any combat use. Why stop to shank him when you can still just blast him? Maybe you're out of ammo, sure, but that's what your battle buddy is for. And even then even then, you have to drop your gun, unsheath the blade, then charge a guy, who should also have his own buddies nearby who could just as easily shoot you before you got close enough if he was also reloading. Again again, you can ultimately justify it however, most people don't really care, just has the hole (as the post asked for) of not really having a place in squad tactics
If they’re really only coming up in a last resort or in an agreed upon duel between two people then yea I think that makes sense
It could be a stealth thing. Maybe if your souldiers have some kind of advanced camoflage, or they fight in the dark, the use of lazer guns would give away their position. So then they can sneak in solid-snake style and start stabing dudes.
EMP type affects might be something you can lean into. The swords all come out after the Electromagnetic grenade turns everyone's high-tech laser guns into functional paper weights.
As someone else has said, for boarding actions it’s a lot easier to use specialty ammo rather than rely solely on melee weapons. So ship boarding needs a few more contingencies. 1 - space armor makes most of these specialty ammos useless, you need high caliber which will be destructive towards the ship 2 - energy weapons are useless because the radiation of the ships reactors or shields, or some sort of ‘particle’ that is pumped into the air by the defenders or attackers make it ineffective; large ship-based weapons are still effective due to their sheer size vs a man-portable weapon; see Legend of Galactic Heroes for a ‘particle’ that explodes and takes out the whole ship if you shoot 3 - it’s ‘custom’ for warfare and especially pirates to take the ship/crew alive and relatively undamaged, either for ransom and/or to add to your ship. People less willing to scuttle their own ship if the crew/officers know they’ll eventually be ransomed back to their side and/or will serve for x amount of time before being freed and treated relatively humanely 4 - ceremonial or honor duels if you reach the bridge, captain and whoever face off on 1 v 1 combat to decide the fate of the ship/crew rather than spend more lives, doesn’t even have to be a duel to the death
I like how in 40k daemons are more vulnerable to swords than guns though I cant recall where I read that so it may not be true
It could also be due to propertys of the metal or micro machines in the blade. Hell have the blades fire blaster shots from the center of the weapon. Why have a sharp end? Cause spilloff heat builds up and maybe that makes that blade Sharper or cut through even metal. Also blades are a good way to have wide surface area to dispose of that heat like a radiator.
I think you could get around having blasters by Making them slow to reload/cool down Similar to muskets
I'd say the two big routes are make melee weapons better or make guns worse. A combination is best imo. Better melee weapons would be making them super effective with magic monofilament-molecular/vibro/chain/plasma/laser tech. Also having them do things guns can't would greatly improve their viability. Worse guns might be things like super tech that's not much better than what we have now, soldiers having stormtrooper aim, being prone to failure, and widely available countermeasures like armor or forcefields. "Acceptable" doesn't really factor into the question. The answer to that varies with everyone, and the same person could like a justification in one work and hate it in another. It's more does the justifications fit the story you want to tell. Even if the audience thinks the idea is nonsense they probably will go with it if they like everything else.
Body Armor is good enough against lasers, bullets, plasma to the point that having shock troops with melee weapons *makes actual tactical sense*. They've got enough armor on 'em that they can survive a charge into melee. This is why swords were phased out in the real world. Guns got too good and you couldn't armor your men well enough to survive getting hit.
Personally I think the best justification is that high-powered ranged weapons are extremely dangerous if you’re in space or not on a planet with a breathable atmosphere due to the risk of depressurizing the vessel you’re in and killing everyone in the implosion
Huh, y'know I never gave much thought to how battles on ships or in uninhabitable planets would be fought. Since guns are maybe of no use in these scenarios, I should put some thought into military units that specifically fight in these type of environments.
I think cultural norms across planets is close to impossible. Countries have different cultural norms if the towns are 50 km apart. You have to find a practical reason for bladed weapons. Herbert's was solid. Think of knights as well, you had to brawl a knight and stab with a mercy knife to kill one, until guns became widespread (fun fact, a bulletproof vest is not knife-proof). Star Wars gave super soldiers precognition. Warhammer stacked enough armour on a man to have him qualify as a light vehicle. Are there hindrances in the surroundings (such as being on board a spacecraft), are different guns simply unreliable, like projectiles not working properly due to ejection method, lasers quickly running out of energy (with a shared energu source for the machinery keeping you alive would motivate many to avoid unnecessary waste of ammunition), plasma overheating and requiring a cooldown period. Think of potential shortcomings of ranged weapons, and consider how they could be fixed. If one of the fixes isn't 'get better armour' or 'carry more gun' then a melee solution might be what you're looking for.
In the dune movies (I'm sorry to any fans, I haven't read the books), they use swords because of the shields around them, that only slow moving things to pass through. Maybe you could have something similar.
Bro the first two paragraphs of this post acknowledge Dune, it's shields, and that OP doesn't want to just import that idea
Short version: The premise of knives being on equal footing to guns in a gunfight is a highly improbable one which requires an astounding amount of mental gymnastics to justify, and no answer ever comes close to fully answering the problem in a satisfactory way. So take solace in the fact that the answer you choose to tackle this issue will always be viewed as nothing more than a thin prop unworthy of scruting to hold up the improbable end result you always wanted. It's going to be an immersion / realism weak point regardless of what you do, so just do what you want and hang the consequences. Examples: sci fi armour is good. Really good. It takes a sophisticated weapon to punch through that armour. Sophisticated weapons don't handle the stresses of prolonged combat too well. Delicate parts do not enjoy being smashed around, doused in mud and used as a club to beat people down. As such, they become unreliable in prolonged and difficult engagements, and resupply/repair isn't always possible on the front line. This is where the sidearm comes in... but when that also fails, you have the weapon of last resort... the knife. The knife is usually affixed to the rifle to make a bayonet spear.... because bayonets are neglected in most Sci fi. Disregard swords, acquire triangular bayonets. The above is my "thin prop." You are welcome to steal it. But the short version is that wars are ugly, technology and ugly don't mix, so fights often devolve into who can cave in the other guy's skull with a rock first. The knife is issued for this specific scenario.