guns

Trope-a-Day: Mugging the Monster

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Mugging the Monster: Oh, this happens all the time.  Mostly with tourists, in either direction.

Well, I say tourists, when I mean “people visiting the Empire with crime in mind”, which does happen occasionally due to their “just turn up” visa policy.  Such people – on the occasions that they make it through the alethiometric screening – almost always find themselves on the wrong end of Everyone Is Armed with considerable prejudice and usually fatal result.

Also happens fairly often with Imperial tourists elsewhere, given both that martial arts of various kinds are part of normal education in the Empire, and that they often take a… less compliant attitude to various people’s restrictions on the means of self-defense, and indeed other-defense.  (And who, even if they don’t bring their own weapons, or build them on the spot [see Hyperspace Arsenal], can more than likely kill you with their brain [see Psychic Powers].)  Such incidents are an ongoing headache for the Ministry of State and Outlands and an ongoing revenue stream for such specialized travel insurance/mercenary/retrieval consortia as Wolfhound Emancipations, ICC.

Also happens on a rather bigger scale.  See the Burning of Litash, and in a general sense, Disproportionate Retribution and Make an Example of Them.  And, of course, Q-ships.

Trope-a-Day: Everyone Is Armed

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Everyone Is Armed: Due to cultural tradition and the mutual agreement in the Imperial Charter that you will defend the rights of other citizen-shareholders as if they were your own, played very straight in the Empire.  (See also: Guns in Church and Apathetic Citizens.)  It’s actually a not inconsiderable social faux pas not to be armed (for the traditional fashion, see Choice of Two Weapons), in fact, especially when you go calling on someone.

(The Empire’s spectacularly low rate of violent crime, even in the pre-Transcend days, had a lot to do with the lack of people who were that (a) insane or (b) completely unable to grasp the concept of, or (c) recognize a force majeure when they saw one; much the same goes for why their military forces aren’t the only reason people are reluctant to consider invading.)

Trope-a-Day: Guns in Church

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Guns in Church: Averted in the Empire, in the direction that there is pretty much no inappropriate place to take a pistol, reasonably compact carbine, or either or both of the two swords, except for technical reasons, specifically including banks, grocery stores, airports, starports, in transit, in school, in court, in government buildings, or even attending the Court of Courts, and all the temples.  (Even that of the eikone of peace, who knows perfectly well where peace comes from, and that disarmament is not it.).  On, of course, the perfectly reasonable grounds that if you’re going to acknowledge people’s right to defend themselves and others, you have to acknowledge that that includes having the means to exercise it.

In fact, you’re likely to get in more trouble by not carrying one, since that makes you look like a pacifist or other shirker of their social duty – the one explicitly called out in the Imperial Charter, concerning defending your fellow soph’s rights as your own – which is why you find gun stores at most ports of entry, to permit visitors to comport themselves like civilized sophonts.

Heavier weapons may raise a few more eyebrows, and while it’s still not perfectly polite, are much less likely to result in gross offence should you ask someone to leave them in their vehicle.  (Doing this with the standard personal weapons, inasmuch as it’s telling someone that you won’t trust them until they render themselves harmless, is very much a serious insult.  You can insist on disarmament on your property, nonetheless, but the social consequences… ouch.)

The rest of the Associated Worlds, of course, can vary substantially.

Trope-a-Day: Sword and Gun (also, Bow and Sword in Accord)

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Sword and Gun: As they say, it’s a flexibility-maximizing classic for those who find it easy to handle a weapon with one hand (and, y’know, there are some biomods that do that).  It’s usually pistol and the longer of the Two Swords for formal dress, and pistol/carbine and the shorter in its utility/fighting knife role (and yes, there are plenty of people who will say that any legionary who goes into battle without his sword is improperly dressed) when dressed for combat, but either way, this is how a lot of people roll.  In the old days, this was sometimes done as Bow and Sword in Accord, with a hand-clockbow in place of the pistol.

And, of course, there’s no rule that says you have to use any kind of conventional blade on that sword…