Elegant Weapon for a More Civilized Age: Difference between revisions

* The Lenses of the [[Lensman]] series.

* The Claws used by some Mantids in ''[[Shadows of the Apt]]''.

* [[Robert A. Heinlein]] - [[Author Appeal|who was a competitive fencer in his Naval Academy days]] - goes to some length to point out how a sword is really great in several of his books. Never jams, never runs out of ammo, and so on.

** Actually a sword might be a nice thing to have around in some [[The City Narrows|rough parts of town]]. It is long, sharp and intimidating and precise enough to do exactly as much damage as the wielder wishes. For instance by using the flat or a slash cut to the ribcage with a downward inclination(because the bones overlap in that direction and prevent entering the vitals the way they would in an upward blow) someone can make an assailant uncomfortable without killing.

* ''[[Sudeki]]'' references this with Buki's weapons, handheld claws. Despite being a traditional Shadani weapon, they're falling out of use as they require a lot of training to use,and many recruits prefer easier-to-handle human weapons like swords and spears.

* Invoked in ''[[Republic Commando]]'' when the player finds a lightsaber.

* In the ''[[Fallout]]'' series, the Brotherhood of Steel are individually highly trained warriors who use powered armor, energy weapons and combat robots, which are all from a more civilized age. They are fewer in number compared to the raiders, mutants and NCR Army, but one Brotherhood Paladin is the equal of three to five (or for even less developed foes, ten or more) of the aforementioned. However, their inability to quickly replace lost soldiers was a major reason why they lost the Brotherhood-NCR conflict. A similar statement can be said for the forces of the Enclave.

 

* Parodied in [http://xkcd.com/297/ XKCD #297].

* [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]], complete with a ''[[Star Wars]]'' reference, in [http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=020702 this] ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' strip.

'''Torg''' ''(running away)'': Clumsy and random's got my name all over it! }}

** Double Subverted when the sword actually ''does'' prove decisive, in that battle and in others down the road. It saved the characters more than once, in situations where other weapons would obviously fail (soul trading demons in the spirit world for example).