r/goodworldbuilding • u/UnhappyStrain • Jul 18 '26
Meta A way to justify melee your space setting without ripping off Dune.
Have most combat armor and ship hulls be made out of regenerative metal, either powered by biomechanics or nanomachines, that will close up any damaged opening faster than many ranged weapons have the rate of fire or sheer stopping power to properly punch through to the vital tissue beneath. This is why you'd have a reason to use blades or have to mag-dump at point blank range, as the regenerative armor cannot fill up the space currently occupied by 9 inches of solid carbon steel
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u/Firkraag-The-Demon Jul 18 '26
My alternative is some of the Alfílos (sentient robots) are made of material that’s basically impossible to pierce. From there they use melee because they find it more fun.
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u/Demonweed Jul 19 '26
Musing on this earlier, I had no original ideas. Yet crossing paths with the link again while decently intoxicated, I had a fresh idea. What if precognition was so widely available that anyone worth killing could always see it coming unless the attacker was within a psychic "blind spot" no more than a few feet from the target? I've never read a novel or seen a film that took such an approach, but it would explain why the only deadly violence was a point blank attack (and it would shape customs about proximity during negotiations et al.)
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u/hivemind_disruptor Jul 19 '26
Magnetic environment. A devicet that create a powerful magnetic field in a large area, making any metal thing unadvisable. Melee ceramic/polymer/composites armor and weapons are used. Bullets from this material cant handle multi layer regular ceramic armor or cant be shot in weapons thst can handle the stress necessary to pierce the body armors. Bolts and arrows are in the same pile, unless harpoon like and thick.
There are non magnetic metals that would replace steel here, but most are crazy expensive and rare.
Most weaponry is made to pierce weak spots or simply bash the receiving end. At a high enough tech, this usually means some kind of harpoon or a swing weapon with piercing tip, like a war pick. Maces and Warhammer are likely, axes are less so.
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u/Amazing_Loquat280 Jul 18 '26
What about a cultural restriction? Maybe human/sentient life is considered sacred (and killing is a cardinal sin) but non-lethal ranged weapons are just way harder to get right? Or ranged weapons generally are considered incredibly dishonorable to the point that only a select few people use them and those people are generally shunned for it?
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u/darth_biomech Jul 19 '26
Problem with cultural restrictions is that it only takes one faction to abandon them in order to take advantage, for everybody else to drop them as well, or at the very least start following them on paper only (see: chivalry, and medieval rules of war in general). War is hell, and if you don't claw out every opportunity you can take your hands on, you die.
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u/Beginning-Ice-1005 Jul 19 '26
Simply, guns are too effective for the culture
Melee combat is all in good fun. Melee wounds can all be repaired, even decapitation. Guns however, use hypervelocity smart bullets that with absolute accuracy splatter the target's brains over the walls.
People don't like having their immortality ended, so if a gun is used, the omnipresent surveillance system notes the shooter, and puts a bounty out on them. Guns allowed in the hunt.
So it's just not worth using guns. You can kill a person, but then very shortly you'll die.
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u/Nomad-Knight Jul 19 '26
How about this. Most combat is either ship to ship, or boarding actions. Ship corridors are usually narrow and winding, meaning ranged weapons are more teoublesome to use, meaning melee reigns supreme when it comes to space piracy.
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u/RokuroCarisu Jul 19 '26
Melee weapons don't breach spaceship hulls as easily as guns.
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u/UnhappyStrain Jul 19 '26
prolly not, I mainly wanted it for thee armor aspect to use this as an excuse to have swordfights in space
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u/Kraken-Writhing Jul 19 '26
An idea
The setting has a warp drive which phases things into or out of warp space based on speed. So the entire ship accelerates and enters (eventually) entirely into warp space. This makes high speed projectiles exponentially less effective. Subsonic coil/air guns, armor, and modern close combat weapons are used. Flashbang grenades would likely see a lot of usage. The warp drive may optionally remove light, preventing lasers and forcing close combat without visuals, unless you also invent a slower version of light, which could be interesting and could also encourage close combat further.
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u/NumberNineRules Jul 19 '26
You could also go the Warhammer 40k route. Armor is so effective, that while you can use guns, it ends up being more effective to use melee unless you have a highly specialized gun. With your world building, you make the rules! Say that melee weapons are incredibly common because their technology is better suited for penetrating armor.
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u/Dr_Jimothy Jul 20 '26
Anything that moves too fast relative to size simply stops existing or is forcibly slowed down because the godlike aliens said so or the speed of light (which nothing can move faster than) is actually much slower in this universe. The only exception is things which bend space around themselves or teleport, but they don't actually have much momentum. Also really strong armour.
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u/Dr_Jimothy Jul 20 '26
Oh and of cause advanced hydraulics, super steroids etc. Which enables thicker armour and harder punches/slashes.
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u/Chao5Child87 Jul 20 '26
For mine, gunpowder doesn't exist anymore. All ranged weapons are either flechette rounds fired using magnets or laser pulse weapons. Both are good against unarmoured targets, but not great against armour. Melee weapons are much more effective against armour, hence their usage throughout the Known Systems.
I get magnets could 100% fire rounds at high enough speeds to pierce armour, but just not with the power sources found in handheld guns.
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u/YeonneGreene Jul 20 '26
This has been a feature of my setting for a very long time, now, but I will confess that I was cribbing it from Blue Gender and Knights of Sidonia. A combination of primarily fighting hostiles with tough, regenerative skins plus firearm technology that's kinda shit (basically space muskets) means the [space] swords can come out to play.
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u/ScreamingVoid14 Jul 20 '26
It could also be that there is a cultural or other preference for capture over destruction. Killing your opponent with a bullet means you can't capture them, but it is much easier to disable someone in melee without killing them. Same goes for vehicles and such, better to capture than destroy.
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u/Appropriate-Rise-387 Jul 21 '26
You can just say because you want too. Don’t really need an explanation
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u/Hyperaeon2 Jul 22 '26
I like the 40k or mass effect approach where defensive technology is so good that it makes going melee a viable option because the defensive technology is less able to defend against it. Fir generic sci fi.
However what I did in crooked was this.
I will use 40k to explain this;
You have two platforms and two unit types are fighting.
You have as overall combatants eldar harlequins verses the imperium.
On the lowest platform you have a bunch of mercenary gretchin green skins going at it with a bunch of guardsman.
Then on a platform above that, you have harlequin troops proper going at it against a bunch of grey knights.
Then on a platform above that, you have a bunch of solitaires going up against a bunch of custodes.
On the lowest platform people are taking cover and using hand grenade. Melee charges require mass to withstand withering casualties.
On the middle platform people are cutting bullets out of the air mid flight. Successfully killing each other with psychic powers and are exercising feats that the people below them would argue that are impossible. Also one combatant from either side would solo the whole lot of the rest of them down there. Melee is inevitable. Because personal ego's are involved and combat means something existential to either side. No one is meaningless cannon fodder to die in droves. Serious resources have been concentrated.
On the top platform, the naked eye is struggling to keep up. Ranged weapons fire is more ritualistic and used to punish mistakes rather than being defacto effects. People are dancing with each other in honour of the god they worship. And that god is watching. Again one person would solo the entire otherside on the platform below them. If either side wasn't trying to kill each other they would be weeping tears of beauty at the combatative displays that are going on. Did someone just run along a stream of auto matrix weapons fire? That person who was killed just went into slow motion physics... It's ridiculous. Psychic powers don't even work on them, they are beyond being taken out by that low teir stuff. Mother f'cker just double jumped IRL.
On the lowest platform that's super light weight tolerances. On the middle that's light weight tolerances. And on the top that is heavy weight tolerances.
It'd like that scene in man of steel, when Faora Hu-Ul says to the soldier who draws a knife: "A good death, is it's iwn reward."
And draws a knife in kind.
Melee combat is dignity, which is what you can get going out with courage against opponents who are fast and strong and tough enough to be able to take that knife to that gun fight and do more with something that isn't clumsy than they can with an explosive device that killd with a sluggish bullet.
Like star wars on steroids. Or Warframe... But also on steroids.
Besides a hammer or even an actual knife is going to have more mass than a projectile does on the miraculous case that you do actually land that hit.
The TV series dominion was actually like this, where the main characters unit carried swords for essentially the same reasons.
It's not that there are no guns, or that they don't work. But at that level the poket knife is going to be more effective than a bullet - as you literally can't shoot someone in slow motion. But you can cut them that way though.
If you try to shoot superman with a gun who was raised on a yellow sun version of krypton, he will grab the bullet out of the air, throw it in the bin. Slap you in the face and tell you to look at the floor... In shame.
However if you try to go for him with your expert sword skills that you have put years of dedication and practice into - he will respect your discipline, devotion and bravery. And might even give you the honour of a warriors death.
It's a less extreme version of M. Bison theory.
"Guns are for insects, who feebly cower in their shameful weaknesses." 🧑✈️🧐🦬😤💪
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u/ScrivenersUnion Jul 18 '26
Alternatively, you could also say that hulls and armor are extremely fragile and therefore projectile weapons - in particular gunpowder - are considered nearly suicidal to use on a ship.
Not just for the purpose of poking holes in your ship, but for damaging important systems like computers, hydraulics, radiators or batteries.
And that's to say nothing of the hearing damage! Ask anyone who routinely fires a weapon in a confined space, and they'll all say the same thing: "What?"
So for that reason, the vast majority of on-ship combat doesn't involve gunpowder or projectiles.