Murder in TL10 Space Opera

[LordOfDorkness]

A few months ago, I was introduced to GURPS by a friend of mine, known as Mailanka in these dark bowels of the internet. Since then I've basically addicted to the system.

We've been playing in this space opera setting known as G-verse, which is indeed a generic space universe, you have the proud warrior race guys, the space-elves, no real nano-tech, fancy AIs or the more funky elements of bio-tech. There are only a few super sciences, for instance, faster than light travel.

But anyway, I decided that I want to combine my love for space opera and murder mysteries and set up a oneshot adventure set in this G-verse, based around a murder mysterie.

I've read up on Ultra-tech, High-tech, Bio-tech (lot's of techs now I think of it...) and GURPS Mysteries.

But that leaves me with a problem: I still lack a murder weapon, or a murder method. So, I've decided to ask the following question on these forums:

What would be an original method to commit murder in a TL10 setting, keeping in mind the limits of the setting I've just described?

[Anaraxes]

Ever read Larry Niven?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hole_Man

I guess the decision is whether you want the murder weapon to be the central SF gimmick. Or whether you want the background to influence what would otherwise be a "normal" mystery. (Like, say, Kiln People by David Brin, or Asimov's Caves of Steel.)

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by LordOfDorkness

A few months ago, I was introduced to GURPS by a friend of mine, known as Mailanka in these dark bowels of the internet. Since then I've basically addicted to the system.

We've been playing in this space opera setting known as G-verse, which is indeed a generic space universe, you have the proud warrior race guys, the space-elves, no real nano-tech, fancy AIs or the more funky elements of bio-tech. There are only a few super sciences, for instance, faster than light travel.

But anyway, I decided that I want to combine my love for space opera and murder mysteries and set up a oneshot adventure set in this G-verse, based around a murder mysterie.

I've read up on Ultra-tech, High-tech, Bio-tech (lot's of techs now I think of it...) and GURPS Mysteries.

But that leaves me with a problem: I still lack a murder weapon, or a murder method. So, I've decided to ask the following question on these forums:

What would be an original method to commit murder in a TL10 setting, keeping in mind the limits of the setting I've just described?

Alien life forms strike me as likely murder weapons if you are looking for originality. Ear worms, plants that exhale poison, or put roots into flesh and grow super-fast, bombardier-toads, strangle vines, paralysing goo that slowly digests you. Then there's forerunner artifacts which can have way of taking people by surprise. Genetically engineered life, like cats with poison claws or wasps programmed to seek out a certain life form and kill. Then there's very low tech weapons used because nobody's scanning for them. Tampering with life-support systems. Just change the atmosphere mix a little and then let it clean up again. Cybernetic viruses downloaded into people's implants that make them suicidal...

[Stormcrow]

Send the victim into the event horizon of a black hole. He's gone forever, but technically he never actually dies due to the severe time dilation... so is it really murder?

[Ulzgoroth]

Not really original, but one 'clever' method that Space Opera often seems to like is re-directable sniper weapons. Laser rifle through (cinematic/superscience) mirrors, or even less technically sound variants. (There's some sort of deeply pointless contraption that does the same for blasters in one Star Wars book.)

[lexington]

An engineered/nanomachine virus that rewrites the victim's brain leaving the target alive but the offending personality dead.

[DungeonCrawler]

Larry Niven's book, Gil the ARM has a lot of takes on this one, including a time acceleration field (or deceleration, it's been awhile) that allowed a flash light to expend enormous amounts of energy then released it all as a pulse that fried a guy. Not a laser, not a torch, not any recognizable weapon.

...

The real trick is to make sure the super-tech weapon gets vanished into the government storage facility and not implemented as a universe-wide revolutionary technology with whole families of tech breakthroughs resulting from it.

[MattStriker]

In a TL10 setting, the most original thing would probably be...low-tech.

There may be ways to scan for metal, weapons-grade ceramics or hard plastic, power sources of all kinds, explosives or nanites...

...but a simple blowpipe might go unnoticed, and with the right toxin it can take the target out rather quickly.

[vesper]

Air powered gun firing chucks of ice.
vesper

[Ulzgoroth]

One cute one, that may or may not work with your in-setting super-science, is sabotaging an air-car to ascend uncontrollably beyond survivable altitudes.