[Psionics] [Space] Psi Trek - Worldbuilding

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by johndallman

The problem with dial-a-yield antimatter that is that once your grenade starts to go off, all the antimatter in it is going to annihilate within a timescale of milliseconds, at most. Present-day dial-a-yield H-bombs work by preventing stages of the bomb from detonating, which isn't really an option with antimatter.

My assumption with antimatter dial-a-yield is that the antimatter is stored somewhere other than the grenade until just before use, and the yield is dialed in by setting how much antimatter the grenade gets.

[Flyndaran]

I think much of an antimatter-matter reaction involves lots of neutrinos that are effectively lost as they don't interact with normal matter or energy.
Psi Trek could use technobabble to increase or decrease that to alter the grenade's yield.

[TGLS]

City demolishing grenades don't really fit well with Star Trek at all, or even as grenades really. These would be Davy Crockett style pieces of artillery. If Starfleet or whoever actually decided they needed to blow up a city sized area, it makes more sense to have a starship just bombard the area. Man portable artillery would make most sense as anti-personnel weapons, and maybe area denial weapons.

[ericthered]

Grenades in the modern incarnation don't feel very star trek. However, hand-sized devices that blow up, emit loud noises, alter minds, or any of a dozen other effects are very trekish. These generally are placed rather than thrown, or might scurry into place by themselves. They have a very similar size and effect to grenades, and there is not logical reason why they wouldn't be more common in trek warfare, especially in combat on-board starships, with tight spaces and abundant corners.

An anti-matter "grenade" isn't a grenade, its a small bomb you place and then run to get away from.

star-trek has something of a pacifist bent, which may explain the lack of grenades, at least among the federation. I think grenades should be either blatantly ignored or a variety of exotic charges should be encouraged.

[Prince Charon]

OK, does anyone object to the idea that grenades in Psi Trek, at least as used by the Star Fleet or equivalent, should come in 'a variety of exotic charges?'

[dcarson]

The Psionic equivalent of a flash bang would be useful for non-psionic people when dealing with psionics.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by dcarson

The Psionic equivalent of a flash bang would be useful for non-psionic people when dealing with psionics.

There's a few of those in the Psi-Tech book, and possibly in Ultra-Tech.

[Prince Charon]

Melee Weapons

Star Fleet in canon doesn't seem to have a lot of interest in melee weapons, outside of the Mirror Universe. The closest thing to a Star Fleet-issue melee weapon we see in TOS is the thing Kirk pulls out of a panel in Engineering when he was fighting Khan in Space Seed, and that was probably a component of the ship rather than something intended to be used as a weapon as its primary purpose. Pretty much every time we see a Starfleet officer from the twenty-third century onward with a melee weapon, they're either improvised like that, given to them by someone else (e. g. just about every episode that has gladiatorial combat in it), less-lethal practice weapons (e. g. fencing foils or the padded sticks used in anbo-jyutsu), taken from an enemy (e. g. a lot of episodes where they get into fights with Klingons in the Next Gen era), or the personal property of that specific individual (e. g. the Klingon weapons owned by Worf and Dax). It's a bit different in the 22nd century, where at least the MACOs carry stun batons, but even then we rarely see even survival knives, something that really would have been a good idea on multiple occasions (Tucker uses one once in ENT that might be standard issue, and Janeway got one out of a weapons locker in VOY, but the writers otherwise seem to forget that Starfleet might have them).

In theory, it makes sense, they have really effective ranged weapons, and are supposed to look for non-violent solutions anyway, but Star Fleet personnel get into a lot of melee combat, where such tools would be very useful.

Do we want our Star Fleet-expy to have some melee weapons as standard issue, and if so, what should they have?

My own suggestion is that Swiss Army knives and survival knives are standard issue, that stun batons (possibly something like Pizard's Shock Batons or Shock Rods, if we don't go for something more psi-tech-y) and collapsible batons are commonly carried by security personnel and such (and are available to others if, for example, someone thinks an away team might need them), and that officers and NCOs have swords for ceremonial purposes, but very rarely use them in combat. Bayonets I'm less sure about, but the survival knife being usable as a bayonet makes sense, and has been done by a number of real-world militaries.


EDIT: The conclusion seems to be that the Star Fleet expy will have survival knives and probably other multitools, but won't generally be big on melee weapons outside of personal possessions and unusual circumstances.

[ericthered]

Star trek gear has always had this fantastic minimalism to it, where most the tools they need can fit into their pockets. I think that drives the lack of survival tools in at least some part.

Star trek ranged weapons should be sufficient to compete with melee weapons. I have no problem missing them as a melee weapon.

I do think some survival tools would be very useful. If possible, they should be built into those tiny pocket tools, or the small handheld devices should be able to manufacture the tools on site.

[TGLS]

Starfleet phasers look awfully fragile and never seem to need reloading; bayonets seem unnecessary. On swords, starfleet is so demilitarized them being armed with swords makes no sense. Survival Knives make sense, and batons only make sense if "stun" is too lethal or failure prone.