Battle Dress
- Thread starter Maedhros
- Start date
I think that a "hostile boarding" should indeed be a very rare situation.zozotroll said:
In most cases where such a boarding would be possible, it would equal-
ly well be possible to tell the enemy to surrender (assemble all person-
nel in the cargo hold, unarmed, and wait to be taken prisoner) or be de-
stroyed within the next hour.
Apart from some kind of hostage situation, with the hostages taken by
opponents willing to die instead of surrendering, I can hardly imagine
a case where a prudent commander would have to risk the lives of his
troops in a "hostile boarding".
There have been good points on all sides of this debate so far.
I approach the problem thusly:
A fundamental conceit of the Traveller universe since its inception is the idea of blade combat being a fundamental element of space travel:
* The prevalence of "Melee (Blade)" in the specialization tables for spacefaring careers.
* Certain descriptions in the text, e.g. the "Weapons Locker" is described to contain useful items such as cutlasses for use in repelling boarding actions.
Now, if one assumes that all the "pro-FGMP" folks are correct and the most powerful/efficient weapons would be used in a boarding action then the cutlass would be hopelessly obsolete - just as it is today. Nobody in Iraq on either side is charging into a room-clearing operation with a cutlass on their belt. Japanese officers in WWII carried katanas, which were useful in close combat, but even carrying a katana was mostly a symbolic gesture.
Approaching the problem from the other angle - i.e. "because cutlasses and blade combat are given special importance by the Traveller rules, then the use of blades must be the most effective method for repelling boarders" - gives you perhaps an "unrealistic" result, but also a result richer in flavor and unique from other SFRPG.
Brutes in powered armor with energy weapons? Done to death by any number of games, novels, films and anime.
Desperate battles through the corridors of a spacecraft using ringing steel? A bit more original.
So, for that reason alone, I lean toward the latter approach. YMMV, of course.
I approach the problem thusly:
A fundamental conceit of the Traveller universe since its inception is the idea of blade combat being a fundamental element of space travel:
* The prevalence of "Melee (Blade)" in the specialization tables for spacefaring careers.
* Certain descriptions in the text, e.g. the "Weapons Locker" is described to contain useful items such as cutlasses for use in repelling boarding actions.
Now, if one assumes that all the "pro-FGMP" folks are correct and the most powerful/efficient weapons would be used in a boarding action then the cutlass would be hopelessly obsolete - just as it is today. Nobody in Iraq on either side is charging into a room-clearing operation with a cutlass on their belt. Japanese officers in WWII carried katanas, which were useful in close combat, but even carrying a katana was mostly a symbolic gesture.
Approaching the problem from the other angle - i.e. "because cutlasses and blade combat are given special importance by the Traveller rules, then the use of blades must be the most effective method for repelling boarders" - gives you perhaps an "unrealistic" result, but also a result richer in flavor and unique from other SFRPG.
Brutes in powered armor with energy weapons? Done to death by any number of games, novels, films and anime.
Desperate battles through the corridors of a spacecraft using ringing steel? A bit more original.
So, for that reason alone, I lean toward the latter approach. YMMV, of course.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
And also two other Traveller inspirations, Lensmen (where "space armor", energy pistols, and space axes were the norm for boarding) and Poul Anderson's Flandry cycle, where FTL boarding (!) was a closely timed thing, and blowing up the opposing ship once you were connected was fatal to all parties.
The vision of the superlative swordsman as a hero of space opera goes way back. From a practical point of view in the Traveller universe, a knife is passable to carry on far more worlds than the holdout pistol, so knowledge of melee combat skills among spacers is not terribly surprising.
The vision of the superlative swordsman as a hero of space opera goes way back. From a practical point of view in the Traveller universe, a knife is passable to carry on far more worlds than the holdout pistol, so knowledge of melee combat skills among spacers is not terribly surprising.
rust said:
Hm. Dune won both the Hugo and Nebula awards in the same year (the first novel to do so, if I recall correctly). I guess I find it odd that any fan of SF would laugh at it.
Herbert was writing about a "dark age" of technological remission. His style was very much in contrast with someone like Niven, who delighted in positing some situation that, while absolutely outlandish, was still technically possible and the novel was all about exposition of the situation(e.g. The Integral Trees, Ringworld, etc.).
There is no doubt that Dune is a brilliant space fantasy (Heinlein evenMaedhros said:
compared it to the Lord of the Rings) or social fiction, and I really like it,
but in my view it is not really science fiction, and some of the Dune
science is quite funny indeed.
But this is off topic here, I think.
It may have been original at the time it was concieved, but by the time Traveller was released, Star Wars and it's use of "blades" overshadowed it.Maedhros said:
I admit, at the time I first saw CT I was enamored of the concept too, until I spent 6.5 years in the Navy. As I mature, and reflect on a lot more wisdom and personal experience, it really seems to be impractical to me, unless you're talking laser sword type weapons wielded by soldiers with super fast reflexes and other supernatural abilities. Which is still impractical, but super-cool.
I think melee weapons still have their place in Traveller - IMO, a good place to see them in widespread use would be among Belters, where they would be a far safer (and therefore more tolerated) means of settling personal disputes than a gun.
Thank you for a very good idea.kristof65 said:
Thinking of it, such weapons would also be perfect for the closed habitats
of my setting, where a gun could damage some vital equipment or even
cause a hull breach, while some kind of melee weapon (in my setting mo-
re likely something non-lethal, perhaps batons or staffs) could be accep-
table for fights or duels between colonists.
Blade weapons would also take on much more importance in a setting with a finite number of ships, all very old and irreplaceable. Fight over them, sure...but damage them? NEVER.
Mechwarrior had this feature. Jump technology had been lost, so it was accepted by everyone that the remaining jump ships would not be attacked. The system ships that were brought in via jump were fair game, but not the jump ship itself.
Mechwarrior had this feature. Jump technology had been lost, so it was accepted by everyone that the remaining jump ships would not be attacked. The system ships that were brought in via jump were fair game, but not the jump ship itself.
Indeed, out in the Wilds a single ship could well be an entire planet's onlykristof65 said:
connection with vital off-world resources, for example to import medical
drugs. To damage it could be a serious threat to the survival of the entire
population.
I could even imagine a similar situation on some remote frontier colony
of the intact Third Imperium, where the only available ship would perhaps
also be treated almost like some holy relic.
I bet they won't be laughing when the blow themselves up.
I'd point out that using the quick boarding rules, they can cause up to 2d6 worth of damage to the ship. Then I'd point out that the MGT indicates that cutlasses and accelerator rifles are considered standard for boarding parties.
Since a FGMP does roughly 5 times the damage that a acclerator rifle does, I'd multiply all the ship damage numbers by 5 on the quick boarding resolution chart. So 10d6 worth of ship damage in some cases.
Then I'd make them use quick boarding resolution whenever they wanted to board something.
My guess is that no one would think that's funny.
I'd point out that using the quick boarding rules, they can cause up to 2d6 worth of damage to the ship. Then I'd point out that the MGT indicates that cutlasses and accelerator rifles are considered standard for boarding parties.
Since a FGMP does roughly 5 times the damage that a acclerator rifle does, I'd multiply all the ship damage numbers by 5 on the quick boarding resolution chart. So 10d6 worth of ship damage in some cases.
Then I'd make them use quick boarding resolution whenever they wanted to board something.
My guess is that no one would think that's funny.
Getting back to BATTLEDRESS
and not boarding actions....
IYTU....
does battledress have to be human shaped?
or can they be non-human in form like Fuchikomas from ghost in the Shell?
Given dni's ( direct neural interfaces), would someone who wore BD all the time be considered a cyborg?
Are there programs that use dni's to turn BD into a form of combat-droid using 'wet-ware'?
...use paraplegics are the brain+brain_support to drive non-human BD?
Given the combat abilities of BD, sans specific weapons, should law level cover armor as well as weapons?
and not boarding actions....
IYTU....
does battledress have to be human shaped?
or can they be non-human in form like Fuchikomas from ghost in the Shell?
Given dni's ( direct neural interfaces), would someone who wore BD all the time be considered a cyborg?
Are there programs that use dni's to turn BD into a form of combat-droid using 'wet-ware'?
...use paraplegics are the brain+brain_support to drive non-human BD?
Given the combat abilities of BD, sans specific weapons, should law level cover armor as well as weapons?
I toyed with the idea of Cargo Dress, an unarmed and lightly armored version of Battle Dress used to help load cargo. Give those ex-Marines something to do with the Battle Dress skill they had earned, and a chance to serve as a deckhand on a Free Trader. Augmented strength would be very useful for someone moving engineering parts, 50 kg missiles reloads, etc. Man sized so it can go anywhere on a ship. Of course some kind of contragrav rig is probably more realistic and economical, but less fun...
We have that kind of exoskeleton in our setting, adapted from GURPS Tra-opensent said:
veller. It is basically a battle dress without armour and advanced electro-
nics. It proved to be most useful, not only for loading cargo, but also for
quite a number of other tasks, from construction to exploration.
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