The Shoulders Of Giants (OOC Thread)

Knives, crude swords, spears, hatchets, multi-purpose entrenching tools. These are the most widespread weapons of today. The best possible among the low-tech choices, blades are sturdy, durable, easy to manufacture and maintain. They are good personal defense weapons. Of course, when the man with the sword meets the man with the gun, the man with the sword is dead.

Sledgehammers, bats, wooden planks, steel tools, staffs, even some really archaic weapons crafted by madmen. They are easy to use, easy to maintain, and almost anything can be used as one. I would take a knife over a bat any day, honestly. And the same reasoning for swords and guns is, of course, valid. Even more so.

As the technique to build compound bows and crossbows has been lost, almost nobody uses bows or their stock-mounted counterparts, as they tend to be rather useless. Nevertheless, they remain fascinating.

Nowadays, not many blacksmiths have the skill to build functional firearms. Those who do tend to demand a lot of payment for every weapon. Moreover, they will usually only be able to make breech-loaded rifles and shotguns. However, there are some who can build gas-operated machineguns, or pump-action rifles. The most widespread type of weapon is the revolver, as it is easier to produce and of simple maintenance, even in the sand.

Apparently, most soldiers during the War Without Victors wielded laser weaponry, or similar. However, some solid slug weapons were in use. Mostly chambering very high caliber rounds, such as the Tartarus 12.7mm Anti-Armor handgun, or the Bloodhound 13mm Shrapnel Autorifle. They are, as most things Pre-War, very rare.

These ancient weapons use laser technology to project a superheated beam of coherent light in a nonlinear blast. Essentially, it fires a really hot beam with nigh-pinpoint precision. Those who haven't seen the effects of laser weapons imagine clean cauterized holes. The truth is much, much harsher. Upon contact with skin, the water contained within the cells evaporates explosively, creating a gaping, ragged, bloody hole. It's not a pretty sight. These weapons, in spite of being very widespread before the war, are incredibly rare. This is because the inner workings of laser weapons are very delicate, and after two-thousand years of exposition to the elements most were damaged beyond repair. Those that are in circulation were retrieved in military installations and research labs, under the sand. The weapons themselves are prone to overheating, bulky, and they tend to "jam"(they just stop firing due to misalignment of the diamond lenses). They require constant maintenance, and few living engineers can do much beyond "jury-rigging into firing".

These weapons, operating via fusion batteries and caskets of high-density gases, emit a controlled blast of pure blue-hot plasma. They can melt through rocks, most metals, alloys, and people like a bullet through clear air. They were in development at the apex of the War, and only a few, rare exemplars exist. They are impossibly rare, being only contained in facilities of the highest security. The only fusion weapons retrieved until now amount to thirteen: Five rifles, six blasters (big, bulky pistols), and two pistols. Eight of them are in a vault beneath Swordpoint. Two (a rifle and a blaster) have catastrophically exploded, killing several people in both instances, due to a misfire. The remaining three are in the possession of travelers of the Sands.

Anything from Focus Pistols, to Railguns, to Tesla Carbines, to Neural Incapacitators. Peculiar weaponry, used very sporadically even during the War. Only a few, rare exemplars of every weapon exists. Usually impractical, heavy, bulky, prone to failures or overheating. Or just plain dangerous, like the Neural Shocker-class Nonlethal Takedown Weapons. Seriously, those things are nightmarish.