Lightsabers in Star Trek?

[JALU3]

I've been playing with a group now for 3 months . . . and we do D&D, White Wolf, and Marvel.

However, they refuse to play ST: RPG LUG. The keep insisiting they want to be wookies, not have the prime directive, and to have light sabers. That there already irks me.

However, I have to wonder . . . what would be the rules of creating a Lightsaber in the Star Trek Universe . . . and should I even allow them to do that?

Cause already I am not feeling comfortable running this game where all they want is SW . . . and I have over $100 invested in ST:RPG LUG.

[Ergi]

About the lightsaber question:

I assume that, in order to achieve the results seen in Star Wars in the Star Trek universe, the weapon would be a phaser sword.
Lasers don't seem to be strong enough to do much damage to the kind of metals usually used in starship construction. However, there are also some alloys phasers have problems with. Therefore you will either have to accept that the sword won't be able to slice through every security door or have the swords based on some strange technology that can. This creates an other problem. Since a phaser would have to be used on a continuos high setting to create a constant beam a lot of energy would be required. Since phasers are used as the standard weapons we can assume that they are relatively energy-efficient, to minimize reloading. It could be that anything stronger than a phaser would require even more energy, limiting the amount of operating time even further. Anyway, I would try to keep the battles short.
An other problem, which has to do with energy is overheating, but this could probably be solved.
I just had the idea of an antimatter sword. It creates a forcefield allowing normal matter to pass through. Within the tube-shaped energy field a constant amount of antimatter is kept. This should solve all problems I've mentioned above.

Should you allow them to do that?
It is your game, the question is if you want to run it. My group had to decide between playing SW and ST. Since I was to be the narrator and I knew a lot more about Trek than SW they decided to play Trek. One of them would have preferred SW and is now playing a Han Solo type mercenary in a Starfleet campaign.
I think that a single character like that can be integrated into a Starfleet campaign, more than one will be difficult. But maybe you intend to run a non-SF campaign, anyway. I am afraid, however, that anything resembling a lightsaber would destroy the atmosphere of your game.

Evil sidenote : Allow them to play the characters they want. They will see very soon that trying to get their sword between their bodies and enemy fire isn't as easy as it looks on the screen. And even if they should succeed, there is no guarantee that they will be able to deflect incoming attacks with their swords. The first fight scene will probably end with a fluffy brown carpet with smoking scorch marks lying on the floor.

[Sho-sa Kurita]

Frankly, ST sounds like a lost cause with this group (for the time being). To me, ST and SW are both fun, but never the twain shall meet. I really dislike mixing my fictional universes.

That said, if you barrel ahead, I'd say make the sabres (cringe) into plasma swords. It's basically a giant version of a cutting torch, or a small version of a Gundam's plasma blade. Plus the Trek universe is chock-full of uses for 'plasma.'

[Evan van Eyk]

How about simply doing a holo-novel, where they can meet their SW ideas but leaving the rest ST like. On the other hand you could easily say that at the beginning you would like to have it ordinary Trek to become comfortable with the game and pülayers and hopefully they will like ST then as well enough without SW stuff.

[Capt Daniel Hunter]

Hate to say it, but I think if this group is so set on playing Star Wars as opposed to Star Trek, you may just have to bite the bullet, and go Wars.

Alternatively, you could try a Renegades and Rogues, or maquis campaign. Maybe let them find some alien tech that includes light sabres, or some such thing.

[USS Kochanski]

If it were me, i'd do a holonovel series intermixed with normal trek.

[Cptn. Taggart]

If you are looking for lightsabers then look in the Starfleet Intel book, The First Line is what I think it is titled. There is a phaser knife with a variable length blade that is essentially a lightsaber. If you needed a longer blade you could always modify the stats.

But really it looks to me that these guys could care less about Trek. It sucks but that's the fact you need to face.

[JALU3]

Honestly, they know their Star Wars Cannon pretty damn well. However, they have never been TRUE fans of Star Trek except for the Wife, and one of the groups members, of one of the male players. However, she lacks the in depth knowledge of trek past TNG.

All but the Wife has GMed . . . and they are looking for me to GM something. However, I know what I know. And that is LUG Trek.

So if they want to play, they will play in my universe. I'll give some consessions . . . but besides that . . . it's my turf. This is what I think.

[KillerWhale]

One concession you could consider is reinforce the presence of Peregrine-class fighters and other types aboard larger vessels, such as Akiras. That may give the space battles a bit more of a Star Wars feeling.

You might also consider running a Dominion War campaign, if fighting a tremendous foe is what attracted them in SW.

Just my two cents

[JALU3]

No worries . . . I have a premade campaign that I have ran before that I shall tweek. But I wont reveal it here. ;-) I might run it for my possible new group in San Diego when I get back.

[Tobian]

Just as a note - the antimatter sword would not work, because when the antimatter hit matter there would be an instantaneous anihilation effect and a massive ammount of energy would be created, which would likelly be more than a small hand held forefield generator could hold!

As an alternative you could have a negative matter projector, but then that becomes rediculously powerful

[Ergi]

Originally posted by Tobian
Just as a note - the antimatter sword would not work, because when the antimatter hit matter there would be an instantaneous anihilation effect and a massive ammount of energy would be created, which would likelly be more than a small hand held forefield generator could hold!

As an alternative you could have a negative matter projector, but then that becomes rediculously powerful

there would be an instantaneous anihilation effect
That's what I was counting on.

and a massive ammount of energy would be created, which would likelly be more than a small hand held forefield generator could hold!
All you would need is a molecular thread of anti-matter molucules.
I don't know how much energy would be created by some atoms interacting, but since the amounts of anti-matter that can be created today ARE very small, and they don't suffice to light a match I think, theoretically, it could work.

But I am no physicist.

What would certainly work is negative matter, at least if what I have read about it on these boards is correct. A collision of normal and negative matter should also result in total anihilation, but without any exothermic reaction.

[Tobian]

Ok bottom line is that Startrek is super science, but it's still based on modern day science in some areas. Take what you want and ignore the rest..

However the point is was trying to make was that if you are trying to make antimatter anihilate matter as a means to cutting through something, then you are basically totally converting all of the mass of the matter and antimatter present into pure energy. This is effectivelly like saying you are making a warp core. You are then trying to contain all of this energy inside a forcefield which is being driven on batteries.. How is this supposed to contain that much energy?

Yes in a warp core they can contain that much energy, because it employs massivelly powerful supermagnets to suspend the resultant plasma and send it on it's way to the warp Nacelles.. all of these things do not fit in a small hand held device!

If you don't have as much antimatter as matter then you would effectivelly create a high energy plasma that could possibly cut through some materials, but not all, because Startrek has advanced difractive metal composites which deal with this kind of dammage.. and then you have a problem of an ever growing ammount of plasma energy building up inside a forcefield, untill it can't cope and explodes ! Where do you dump all of the energy that you created by anihilation!

Realistically a sort of lightsaber is not going to work for one simple reason and that's because in Starwars they never had internal forcefields for security. These kind of make a nonsense of the 'cut through anything' point of having a lightsaber in the first place!

I mentioned negative matter for sake of completeness, but it's probably something I wouldn't consider adding to a game because it totally unbalances gameplay, as it can effectivelly counteract trek science. Pass through forcefields, destroy a ship in a single hit etc. it's also well above the ability of the Federation to produce!

[Owen E Oulton]

"Negative matter?" Just another term for antimatter. So's "contraterrene," the term used by Jack Williamson in his novels. And no, you're not creating a Warp Core, you're creating a photorp - sorta. The biggest problem with using this as a hand weapon, even if you control the flow to reduce the energy output to reasonable amounts, is that the one inevitable product of a matter/antimatter reaction is gamma radiation. The resultant festering radiation sores and hair loss will definitely ruin your whole day unless your name is Bruce Banner.

But back to lightsabres - I've used them in Trek in my Mirror Star Wars campaign - USS St. Roch travels through a wormhole to a Star Wars mirror universe. I essentially treated them as a phaser or disruptor beam jacketed in an annular confinement beam. Use a heavy disrupt setting as a guide to doling out damage, and Primitive Weapons (Sword) Skill (or its equivalent in whatever rules set you're using) for usage. Of course, without the Force, don't let the characters do anything like parry beam weapon fire or throwing them, but using them as swords and cutting tools should be alright - after all, Han used one in TESB to open up a Taun-Taun (thus disproving the silly fannish notion that you had to be a Jedi to even activate a lightsabre).

[Tobian]

Well as I said the whole point would be cancelled in Trek... But if you used them in an actual Starwars setting then you can use whatever description you like because it doesn't have to conform to Trek Lore / Logic. different game universe different rules.

That's also an interesting point about the radiation: exactly the problem the Malon had. The federation uses manifolds (basically an 'any energy' transformer of sorts) but how again would you deal with this in such a small thing. Though you could 'contain' it with the forcefield.

The difference between a photon Torpedo and a warp core is pretty much Zero - same thing on a different scale - ejecting a warp core is just a better weapon, only you don't have such a large arsenal ;-)

While I think the whole issue about 'only' Jedi being able to use lightsabers has been poluted by lots of fan ideas and various other fictional materials, i would say that you would need to have SOME training in it - because one slip and you loose a limb! Jedi have that training...