Trope-a-Day (R): Agony Beam

Agony Beam: Averted.  While assorted algetics doubtless exist in the research labs of the IMRB and ISS, they’re not deployed – partly because torture is, well, In Poor Taste and not terribly useful for actually extracting useful information, and partly because in a polyspecific universe, not everyone’s pain receptors are alike, and having to carry around 297 of the things and fumble through them in the heat to find one that both works and isn’t lethal on this target – and don’t even ask about crowds – doesn’t make for a very practical weapon.  Whereas slugthrowers, lasers, and plasma boluses don’t require any particular properties of the target, and so work on damn near everyone.