A new Realism Report on exotic weapons of the future.

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From lasers to lightsabers, and phasers to plasma, the armouries of the future offer a wider set of technologies than today. But I know the question that’s on your mind: how realistic are these weapons? Could they every exist? Why don’t they now?

I know it’s on your mind, because otherwise you wouldn’t be here. I wrote some articles on science fiction weapons a while back, and a few more in recent weeks. I’m collating them here for reference and to give a longer-form deep dive experience for readers who might not be familiar with the back catalogue.

I’ve taking a thematic approach, with film, TV, and game examples thrown in as we go along. I’ve drawn particularly heavily from both Warhammer 40,000 and Unreal Tournament since these are two franchises which took up an inordinate amount of my youth.

I started with laser weapons, where definitions are fluid, physics is ignored, and destructive potential is underestimated by filmmakers.

Then I moved on to melee weapons, those futuristic artifacts which simultaneously point past the limits of our understanding and harken back to the age of chivalry.

Finally I talked about projectile weapons, from the vanilla (e.g. bolters in Warhammer 40,000) to the exotic (e.g. a railgun which fires bouncing razor disks).

What do I mean by “science fiction”?

This is perhaps a bit arbitrary, since many science fiction tropes (I’m looking at you, Star Wars‘s Jedi and The Force) can be just like magic. It’s not a clear dividing line, but the difference for me is the focus on technology as a way of driving the plot rather than as a prop. Yes, it’s subtle, but I get to make the rules. If people are interested, we could do a whole deep-dive into the Marvel Cinematic Universe some day. Let me know!

Click here to read the whole thing, and pop the page in your bookmarks for easy access the next time you need to “well, actually” somebody.

Cover picture: Star Wars: Episode 1 – The Phantom Menace, 20th Century Fox (1999)