Duelling in Spaaaaaaace!

[Sindri]

Great examples!

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

One question that springs to mind is what sort of medical (or other) life-preserving technologies are used.

If the point of the duel is the fight, not the risk, you could go with extreme supportive technology (life support nanites, medical sensor linked stasis generators), strict rules against taking it too far, and a portable hospital standing by, or with having all out bouts to the death where both participants are backed up for re-instantiation or the duel is fought by forks (possibly in simulation) while the primaries watch.

On the other hand, if dueling serves as a legally acceptable way to produce a world without the other person in it, participants might be stripped of augmentations and required to purge their backups.

Good point on the two separate aims of duelling. Of course specific examples might fall between the two extremes depending on how much risk they find necessary for a duel to count.

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Dueling is based primarily on social and cultural considerations, unlike out and out warfare whose rules are seldom limiting on techniques. For this reason it is perfectly possible to imagine a future society that duels with obsolete weapons or ultra tech weapons or anything in between.

For martial games I envisioned what I call a scoresuit which is designed to protect the player from serious injury as well as to record the nature of the blow. This makes it perfectly possible to have a fairly realistic match with any weapon.

Does it also do anything to simulate the effects of injury?

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Gladiator games can be done without the obvious disadvantage of having oppressed slaves trained in usable weapons in a sci-fi setting. The Evil Empire has technology far enough that it can afford to enjoy giving swords to slaves.

Free men did partake in gladiator games sometimes. With advanced technology such as uploading or virtual reality they might be more interested. Alternatively you could oppress things with enough intelligence to fight interestingly but not enough to rebel.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Does it also do anything to simulate the effects of injury?

You know I never thought of that. I would have to say no, not as such. I suppose someone who is recorded in the computer as being "hamstrung" would have to kneel down for the rest of the fight. Or if it was a real duel instead of a sporting match, they would have to stoically stand still while the umpire or the opponent's second hamstrung them.

[jason taylor]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

You know I never thought of that. I would have to say no, not as such. I suppose someone who is recorded in the computer as being "hamstrung" would have to kneel down for the rest of the fight. Or if it was a real duel instead of a sporting match, they would have to stoically stand still while the umpire or the opponent's second hamstrung them.

Of course in that case, there would really be no point in wearing one for a real duel. It was intended as a sporting contrivance anyway.

Alternatives are a scoresuit rigged with a pain inducer of some sort for real dueling.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

Alternatives are a scoresuit rigged with a pain inducer of some sort for real dueling.

They could be wearing powersuits that "lock up" the "damaged" limb, like at the battle school from Ender's Game.

[Captain-Captain]

Slugthrowers in 0 gravity can be a problem. :)

Did you mean Space as a SF setting instead of virtually infinite void?

To be serios for the moment, you need to figure out what brought dueling back. Tech improvements helped make it obsolete a century or more ago. Why should 35th century FTL enabled people find it acceptable?

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

They could be wearing powersuits that "lock up" the "damaged" limb, like at the battle school from Ender's Game.

Yeah that was the kind of thing I was imagining

Originally Posted by Captain-Captain

Slugthrowers in 0 gravity can be a problem. :)

Did you mean Space as a SF setting instead of virtually infinite void?

To be serios for the moment, you need to figure out what brought dueling back. Tech improvements helped make it obsolete a century or more ago. Why should 35th century FTL enabled people find it acceptable?

Slugthrowers in zero g are quite useful. Note that it's in spaaaaaaace! not in space. Space doesn't necessarily mean zero g and duelling with slugthrowers isn't the only or even the default means of duelling.

Err how did technological improvements make duelling obsolete? Duelling isn't obsolete in any technical sense, society just changed it's opinion in regard to it.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Err how did technological improvements make duelling obsolete? Duelling isn't obsolete in any technical sense, society just changed it's opinion in regard to it.

I think he's referring to how lethal it is to duel with pistols, once pistols become accurate enough to kill a man consistently at 20 paces. Early pistols made acceptable dueling weapons because hitting at that range was largely a matter of luck.

[Sindri]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

I think he's referring to how lethal it is to duel with pistols, once pistols become accurate enough to kill a man consistently at 20 paces. Early pistols made acceptable dueling weapons because hitting at that range was largely a matter of luck.

Ahh I see. Like I said above though, pistol duels are by no means the only kind of duel. If people want to duel then they will use appropriate weapons and restrictions to bring the lethality to the desired level.

[Captain-Captain]

Originally Posted by Sindri

Ahh I see. Like I said above though, pistol duels are by no means the only kind of duel. If people want to duel then they will use appropriate weapons and restrictions to bring the lethality to the desired level.

With one shot pistols, missing is relatively easy. Not so much with Uzis at ten paces.

More to thepoint we've matured as civilizations go and tech improvements have fueled that maturing.

[nondescript handle]

Originally Posted by vierasmarius

I think he's referring to how lethal it is to duel with pistols, once pistols become accurate enough to kill a man consistently at 20 paces. Early pistols made acceptable dueling weapons because hitting at that range was largely a matter of luck.

But people didn't necessarily used state of the art precise pistols (i.e. rifled) to duel.
They did use state of the art reliable pistols though. Real duel pistols (as opposed to "auctioneer duel pistols" i.e. any two pistols in a box) have low Acc but high Malf for their TL.

We know in exhaustive detail how European pre-WW1 duels worked, because there are several published "duel codes" which codified the rules. One of them for German speaking Europe is the "Duell=Codex" of Gustav Hergsell from 1891. Which is the basis for my following remarks.

The reason for fighting duels wasn't to kill or injure the other man, but to show that you were willing to risk life and limb for your convictions or honor.
The risk assumed (by weapon and by "mode") should be proportional to the disagreement.

On page 144 Hergsell writes that rifled pistols are permissible for duels "despite common thought," but that they should only be used in the case of the "most grievous insults."
He also explains that it isn't dishonorable for the referee or the seconds and witnesses to argue for smooth bore pistols.

My point is that the risk isn't determined by the available technology ("once pistols become accurate enough"), but by the rules set by society.