A mixed class of Humans and other Deathworlders have joined a space marines corps within the Alliance. It's a lot harder than it looks, even for the Human cadets. -- Anon Guest
They say that war never changes, but the fields of conflict do indeed change. The arms race is one that cannot be won, only lost. Eventually, some smartarse invents the ultimate defensive capabilities and too much money is spent on looking for something that could get through it.
Firstly, the defense against micrometeors, macrometeors, and any other space debris will also snap up any incoming ordinance. The processes involved also disassemble anything it grabs into collections of stable elements.
Secondly, the defenses against plasma storms can easily absorb any energy weapons' output, turning it into the ships' own power.
There were experiments with gengineering, but any creature smart enough to be a decent weapon is also smart enough to rebel. Therefore, warfare as it has gone on for centuries, is almost extinct.
Almost.
There is still ground-based warfare. Taking territory and doing horrible things to innocent civilians. The Galactic Alliance Space Marines are there to stop anyone silly from even trying.
Livesuits generally stop stunner rounds, but a low grade electromagnetic pulse can render a livesuit completely inert. Humans have known this for some significant time, and invented the EMP grenade.
"What do you mean, we can't use that?" complained Human Ion. They tried and failed to retrieve the confiscated grenade. "It stops the enemy."
"And sometimes it stops them dead. This is generally frowned upon in these armed forces," the instructor fed it to a nearby molecular disassembler, hir expression unconcerned.
The watching Humans howled in mutual outrage.
"Believe it or not, cogniscents, you are not encouraged to kill in this job. If you have to kill, something went very wrong. We are not Pax Humanis, understand?" Ze waited for acknowledgement. "Our organisation exists to preserve life. So rather than a brute force solution, you get to shoot these at enemy livesuits."
It looked like a flat round disk, as might be shot by a child's toy. Indeed, even the gun that shot it looked like a child's toy.
"This... is the immobiliser. It shuts down all motor functions of any livesuit and, if a cogniscent is not wearing a livesuit, also negates all voluntary motion by a cogniscent from the neck down. They can still breathe, they can still swallow, but they will be rendered harmless."
"No kills?" boggled a non-human Deathworlder.
"No kills. You get to round them all up for later judgements and reparations. Or in some cases, ransom. There are no more deaths via 'friendly fire'. There are no civilian casualties. All mistakes can be mended. There are no deaths from Alliance forces."
"What if they're using deadly force?"
"Then you stop them. Your suits will stop most things that could kill an unprotected cogniscent, so you have that advantage. The lot of you have faster reflexes and pack hunting tactics pre-installed. Use them."
Someone asked the inevitable question. "Do they hurt?"
The instructor shot them with a disk. The questioner went down in a heap.
"Okay, that was more of an insult," said the stricken trainee. "Little bit terrifying but... Wow. These things are kind'a awesome."
"We are here to preserve life and civilisation as we know it," the instructor retrieved the disk and helped the trainee back on their feet. "That means fighting by those principals as well."
War has changed. There are a lot less deaths because of it now.
[Image (c) Can Stock Photo / Garry518]
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