I say weapon because it gets to complicated with all the super powers you can get. Turning invisible, walking through walls, teleporting. So for this I want to limit it to sci fi weapons that at least attempt to have a tech basis. So like not the masters device that turns people into dolls. However we don’t care if we can completely explain how it might be done now. Like lightsabers are fair game. As for me I would go with the star gate zat guns as initially put in. Both lethal and nonlethas and very portable. I want to put an honorable mention for tthe minority report sonic shotgun that seems to run on wind up energy so you should never theoretically run out of ammo. although not so sure as there was no indication you could power up more than one shot at a time.
EDITED: Its a little late at this point as the answers have went way off the rails but in case it gets more replies my intention was a weapon someone might carry around and could use as one person. not a weapons system or vehicle. Also no robots or things that essentially are their own entities. It should be a weapon used in a weapon like manner. aim and fire. also that quote about sufficiently advance technology looks like magic. if it looks like magic to us instead of technology then its to far afield. I hope this makes it more clear what I was looking for. Honestly I would have like to not use weapons as a basis but there are just to many things when you look at all of sci fi.
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Hmm, a Culture militarized drone might count as a weapon. If there were one that wanted to be my friend and be helpful to me that would probably be the most generally useful weapon possible.
ah man that is so tough guideline wise. I mean its one thing. that is by and large used for fighting. kinda feels like we are getting into robots now which would open up a big can of worms.
Yeah Culture drones are on both sides of the line between autonomous person and (potentially, if that’s what kind they are) weapon. Plus I was imagining all of the non-offensive things it could do to be useful when I suggested it.
Definitely a drone from Culture. Probably one like in Inversions. Looks like a normal object (dagger in that case) but is intelligent and will defend you when needed. When it gets into fighting mode there’s no stopping it. The drone from Use of weapons was straight out scary. The defensive and offensive tech they could use was also beyond anything I’ve seen in other series. Antimatter missiles, “tractor beams”, energy weapons. If you realized one is trying to kill you it was only because it wanted to have some fun and was doing it slowly.
A lightsaber because it is as defensive as it is offensive.
I kinda feel the lightsaber sans jedi superpowers is just a really dangerous to the user kind of thing.
Lightsabers are incredibly OP even without Force powers. So much so that they had to eventually add in-universe explanations as to why non-Force sensitives couldn’t make or use them.
It is. People have pointed out that if you don’t have the precognition and super-reflexes of a Jedi, a sword with a massless blade is actually really easy to hurt yourself with.
i was just imagining myself, with severe adhd, forgetting that I’m holding something in my hand… xD
Us fire performers would uhh find a way
Coincidentally, we’d also be missing a few fingers
Deathwand from Hyperion. Very useful…
I can’t think of a sci-fi weapon that would be cooler than actual existing weapons but the closest thing would be an Ornithopter from Dune. I guess it probably haves guns - I haven’t seen the movies or read the books.
They seem so impractical, especially on desert planets. But damn they are cool.
They have been designed to “work” like desert insects, but yes, they are pinnacle impractical for anything that flies. Especially if you see the landing crafts that seem to work without rocket engines, IIRC. Why bother with wings when you could just float away. But what a cool design.
I just love the sound they make.
I’m fairly certain Holtzman suspensors attract worms. (As do Holtzman shields.)
With the harvesters it doesn’t matter much because the harvesting itself attracts them, but if you want to move around in Arrakis and don’t want to find your vehicle eaten when you come back for it, it’s probably better for it to use some mechanical means of flight, and ornithopters are probably less noisy than propellers, rotors, or jet engines. Also more capable of handling sandstorms.
Go see the movies immediately, then immediately go read the books.
Right after I’ve watched Interstellar first.
Persuadatron - a short range weapon that fires a small dose of chemical which renders the target totally open to suggestion. When hit, victims momentarily turn blue, lose all free will and follow the agent who fired around the mission zone like sheep. Civilians are always open to persuasion…
The lesser version is called Rohypnol. It’s already used by exactly the people you would normally expect to use a Persuadatron in this world to do exactly the things one would expect such people to do with/to their victims.
Yeah, but it was cool in Syndicate.
Are you so critical of all the other weapons people are nominating? Like the disintegratiaton?
Orgazmo’s Orgazmorator, a ray gun that forces orgasm upon whomever it is fired.
*for crime fighting, bad politicians, or consensual encounters, only.
A cheap clone of the Tasp. I assume Orgazmo came after 1970.
It did. It’s a 90s movie from Matt Stone and Trey Parker about a Mormon that becomes a superhero genre pornstar. At the time it was funny as fuck, but haven’t seen it in years to know if it still stands up or not.
If you have a couple drinks first it’s still decent
It does!
Which is a portable version of the Excessive Machine (Orgasmotron) from Barbarella.
I still quote, “I am Sancho!”
My friend quotes/mimics Neutered Man often to hilarious effect.
Oh god! 🤣🤣🤣
Portal gun or gravity gun from Halflife
If you get a portal gun, you get the gravity gun included
The Tasp from Larry Nivens’ Ringworld universe.
Ok, that’s the most evil one I’ve read so far in the comments…
It’s a long time ago that I read the books, but that was a thing that got stuck. I wonder if that thing was single-target or area-of-effect, but it would actually be a fun weapon to use. Especially on the unsuspecting.
Well, chances are you can’t resist using it on yourself and get addicted to it.
I think there even was some mention of it in the books…
what does it do?
It takes the target out by inducing an orgasm.
thats only like a few seconds!
You have not read the book, have you?
it was supposed to be a self efacing joke about my sexual inadequacies
It makes you happy, like heroin does
Elysiums combination 50bmg/railgun, the tst chemrail
That was so satisfying in the movie. I was sad that he didn’t spend the rest of the movie carrying around a bunch of them to use.
Gravity Gun from Half-life 2 Ravenholm was a brilliant tutorial for that thing!
The “Bobbler” from Vernor Vinge’s Peace War series.
It’s a device that can remotely enclose arbitrary volumes within “Bobbles”, which are impenetrable and in which the time stands still.
It is instantly used as a kind of passive weapon, enclosing all known nuclear sites and big military installations in one go to force peace (although in the story this backfires into a strange kind of authoritarianism).
What’s special about it is, that it’s weaponization is only a kind of secondary use, it’s later uses propel humanity into a technological golden age.
Killy’s gravity beam pistol probably. Shit is just stupid.
lol I had the same thought
Death star, without the stupid weakness.
I think blowing up is always a weakness
Unless it’s a bomb, then it’s kind of a job requirement.
Does the GCU Grey Area from Iain M. Banks’ The Culture series count as a weapon?
I know I can’t use it, of course, I wouldn’t want to. I just want it to have fun. Right now. On Earth.
I’m sure it find plenty of ways to enjoy itself…
Is that Meat Fucker?
Yes Grey Area is called meat fucker by the other ships
The Farsight from Perfect Dark (or the equivalent gun from the last season of Deep Space 9). The scope sees through walls quite a distance away, and when fired the shot teleports to the target.
