Non Lethal Weapons for Pacifistic Species

So far I have outlined several non-lethal "weapons" used by a pacifistic species which I feature in several of my stories. Please note that as this is a species of humanoid aliens, the sci-fi in these stories is somewhat on the soft side. I'm more interested in exploring their culture than their technology. This is an empathic/telepathic species, and because they can all feel each other's pain, they developed an extremely nonviolent culture, channeling their competitive natures into other fields like science and the arts. They consider any form of killing short of euthenasia to be cold blooded murder, and totally unacceptable to their society.

Ship-mounted weapons include several types of defensive shields, a repulsor beam, and a longer-range teleportation cannon.

They're a caste society and have a soldier caste, despite being pacifists. A soldier would typically arm him or herself with a blowgun and various types of darts with stunning venom or other non-lethal functions, or a handheld weapon based on intense sound waves or pockets of compressed air.

I need some help thinking of other non lethal "weapons" that this species could make use of. Assume that they are pretty advanced technologically, at least 1000 years ahead of present day Earth.

By the way, they do have wormhole travel, but turning wormholes into a non-lethal weapon could prove difficult, and they already have the teleportation cannon I described, which has a range of about one light year.

Note that all of these weapons are designed to avoid causing death or direct injury, and even causing a painless and dignified death to an opponent (for example, creating a black hole that trapped their ship) would be considered unacceptable, cold-blooded murder. Whatever weapons they use have to be expected to keep their opponents alive.

Sticky polymer gun. Shoots a web of strong, sticky material that constricts movement. Originally devised as a law enforcement weapon.

The first rule of non-lethal weaponry is that there IS no non-lethal weaponry. By now people have wisely started to call it 'less-than-lethal'. Tranquilizer dart? Hit somebody with the wrong kind of allergy and they're dead within minutes. Taser + heart condition = RIP. Glue-gun? Wait until somebody takes a shot to the face and suffocates.

Hell, even if your entire armament consists of soft fluffy pillows that you slowly wave in the general direction of your opponents, in a combat situation you will end up killing somebody eventually.

If they're empathic to the point of everyone feeling everyone else's pain, "Non-lethal" isn't going to cut it (Sorry). Non-lethal doesn't mean painless. A taser hurts like a sumbitch, so would being hit with a blast of compressed air or sound; if a sound wave is strong enough to work as a weapon, it's going to hurt. The empathy is more likely to make them look for ways to incapacitate an opponent as close to painlessly as possible.

Therefore the goal is to make weaponry less than lethal. The police have a number of such weapons. Many are just area denial systems that make sitting around in the area of effect flat out unbearable. Think tear gas but there is also this microwave emitter that makes it feel like being roasted alive without doing more damage than a sunburn. Other systems depend on overwhelming the target. Pepper spray overwhelms the immune system, causing it to over react. Tasers overwhelm the nervosystem, causing every muscle to contract at once and drowning out the proper nervosystem. Kinetic weapons disperse impacts over a larger area in order to prevent penetration. Bean bag rounds are a typical type. However, at short range they still carry enough power to kill or injure and at long range they lack enough power to do anything. There are also vulnerable spots in human anatomy (e.g. the temple, the throat, and the eye) which can be fatal if struck too hard.

No. Lethality and Pain do not have a one-to-one correlation. A lethal weapon may not hurt much at all. A less-than-lethal one is not going to be painless.

Here's an example: A beanbag round is designated as a "less-then-lethal weapon" (As was noted above, law enforcement doesn't consider anything "non-lethal" anymore.) but it can break bones, and it hurts like hell — you are, after all, being hit with "a small fabric 'pillow' filled with #9 lead shot weighing about 40 grams (1.4 oz)... at around 70 to 90 metres per second (230 to 300 ft/s); ...[it] distributes its impact over about 6 square centimetres (1 sq in) of the target." And just to make it clearer how hard that hits, 230fps — the low end of the velocity range— is 156mph (251kph, if you're not American). 300 fps — the high end— is 204 mph (321 kph).

Every single less-than-lethal weapon you listed in the post above mine hurt like hell. That's how they work. They make the person they're used on hurt to the point that they stop doing whatever it was they were doing. You're conflating "lasting damage" with "immediate pain".

A race that is empathic to the point that "everyone feels everyone else's pain" is not going to opt for weapons that are designed to cause severe pain.

edited 20th Aug '13 9:39:12 AM by Madrugada

Something that might work — albeit that it would presumably involve quite impressive technology, and perhaps be somewhat iffy when used on species not yet accounted for — would be to produce a weapon that essentially enforces on the brain (or whatever performs the appropriate functions in the species) a sleep state; something like the "halos" in Minority Report.

I would expect such a species to develop in a radically different way to humans. By necessity they would have much more communal societies: if your neighbour starving hurts you just as much as starving yourself, there's much less of an incentive to hoard food. You're going to share that stuff.

By a similar token, everything from tribal life onwards would be very different. There would be much less conflict; tribes meeting would almost always be peaceful, and if they were in the same place for a long period, they would effectively become one.

Really exploitative systems, like feudalism and slavery, just wouldn't develop. Beating a slave would be like beating yourself. Letting a serf suffer and starve in the field while you sat in relative luxury would also be impossible.

Likewise, if it ever developed (it probably wouldn't, because the historical industrial revolution relied upon the forcible eviction of thousands from their homes in the country to provide a hungry workforce in the cities — which would probably be impossible for these people), I would expect that they would avoid the worst excesses of children getting their limbs torn off in mills and so on.

I really think some kind of anarchist/socialist system would be the most likely outcome. I wouldn't expect armies or militarised police (or police at all).

Anyway, this is just a very long-winded way of saying that I don't think the people you describe would have weapons at all, except maybe for hunting.

There's also defence against less empathetic species.

^

"I would expect such a species to develop in a radically different way to humans. By necessity they would have much more communal societies"

That's how they are portrayed. Their family units and communities are more spread out. They're a semi-amphibious species from a planet that's mostly ocean and island chains. They can swim up to 100 KM per day, so they can casually visit friends or relatives on other islands, and their seafaring technology develeoped very early in their civilization's history.

"By a similar token, everything from tribal life onwards would be very different. There would be much less conflict; tribes meeting would almost always be peaceful, and if they were in the same place for a long period, they would effectively become one."

I'm making them a deconstruction and reconstruction of both space elves and planetary monocultures

"I really think some kind of anarchist/socialist system would be the most likely outcome. I wouldn't expect armies or militarised police (or police at all)."

This, too, is how they are portrayed.

Do they have this empathic sense with the animals of their world? If not... well, most humans are perfectly willing to be really shitty to animals, because we consider them sub-human. If, on top of that, there is a magical link that these people feel amongst themselves, then the othering effect with the animals could be greater. They may not even consider hurting each other, but think nothing of being cruel to animals.

This would obviously also affect how they relate to alien species. They might consider us to be intelligent-but-soulless beasts, for example; then they would just use the same kinds of weapons as everyone else. It wouldn't even cross their minds to attack each other, but they also wouldn't hesitate to use them on us, just as we wouldn't think twice about shooting a dog that was threatening a child.

edited 20th Aug '13 4:41:50 PM by imadinosaur

That's a good question (about the animal life on their world). I'd say probably yes. The exact details of their culture, technology and history vary from story to story, but they are generally snobbish.

They call themselves "Paragons."

edited 21st Aug '13 10:36:49 AM by fulltimeD

Yeah, with a name like that you know right away that they're not exactly underendowed in the ego department.

If the intent is not to puncture, bisect, burn, suffocate, poison, crush or stop heartbeats, if the intent is not to kill...

I suggest anti personnel shock mortars designed to freeze and thaw belligerents fast enough that they receive minimal physical damage but their bodies go into shock, forcing immediate medical attention or death. (hey the intent is not to kill) Spasm RP Gs designed to cause uncontrollable hiccups in wide areas of effect, a fast acting laxative thrower, which fills the air with a gas that gives everyone uncontrollable bowels, a laser designed to cause permanent blindness in aggressors and siren for deafness. Warp grenades, whose explosion tears through space time and drops all that is caught in it into an already locked cell. For close quarters combat they should outfit their skunk spray guns with fingers instead of bayonets in order to tickle the opponent into submission. They should also train mosquitoes who are bred in captivity to prevent them from picking up deadly diseases.

No one will casually pick fights with this people, nobody who sees them will want to end up blind and covered in bugs while smelling like skunk and uncontrollably defecating. Perhaps if the aggressor willingly surrenders they will offer to give them an MIB style neuralizer so they will forget the whole thing...at the price of also being compelled to buy the Paragon's crappy made gas guzzling cars.

I think some may have already been said but the best I can come up with is:

Muscle paralyser- a pulse which disables skeletal muscles so they can't contract them. This should leave the individuals core functions intact but render them immobile on the ground. It is potentially dangerous depending on the situation but it has safe uses.

Wormhole gun- open a worm hole around them to teleport them into some kind of containment facility where they would be unable to fight any more. Unless they can find some large, safe location to cheaply store them this could be a little impractical. This could be used as a final resort weapon- if they find an enemy to dangerous to peacefully interact with they could choose to teleport them to a random point on the other side of the universe where they are out of range of their empathic abilities.

Stasis weapons- don't know if they are advanced enough for it but they could have the ability to freeze locations or people in time until they are able to release them.

Make a sonic weapon that operates at the resonant frequency of cerebrospinal fluid. At short range, it will induce a miniature concussion across the entire brain, causing disorientation and loss of consciousness.

The brain contains no pain-sensing nerves, so at worst it would feel like a minor headache. The only problems are that it indiscriminately affects everything with cerebrospinal fluid, and that it could kill people or cause permanent brain damage if you use it at high volume or repeatedly on the same target.

edited 21st Aug '13 6:49:43 PM by Muramasan13

The brain itself may not but all the othe fluid filled organs in your head sure do. Like your eyes. Also there is a key part of the phrase Cerbrospinal your are missing out on. The Spinal part. You start messing with fluids with sonic weapons by vibrating you are going to cause pain.

edited 22nd Aug '13 6:13:59 PM by TuefelHundenIV

These are all great ideas, thanks guys!

And @ Matt Stryker: LOL, yes, they definitely have huge egos, or at least their culture collectively has a huge ego. Individual Paragons probably vary but this is a species that sees itself and the universe as so incredibly Platonian that when they invented spaceflight they rationalized the discovery that their homeworld was not the center of the universe, they decided the visible universe was a mere reflection of a realm of ideal forms in which obviously their homeworld lies at the center, orbited by their sun, their moon(S), the stars, and all the planets in their system. So basically the whole visible universe is just inside Plato's Allegory of the Cave.

Rather than create alien terms for them, since they're so close to humans, I prefer to use words from English to describe the most closely related concept. That's actually why in ttheir development I kept renaming the species until I came up with "Paragons" and decided to do this.

They are definitely not opposed to devices which would cause temporary paralysis, and they would see any incidental pain or damage as being worth the price of not going against their culture and nature by using lethal weapons.

Just how advanced the Paragons are technologically over humans varies from story to story but is usually between a couple hundred years and a thousand or even more. They are NOT much older evolutionarily speaking than modern humans (between 100,000 and 200,000 years), but it's implied they had an early start technologically when it comes to seafaring (and other tech developed from that practice) because of their oceanic homeworld. They might even have invented the sail before the wheel, since their planets contains mostly archipelagos of islands that are more walkable than even a very small continent (or the Paragons might have mounted animals similar to horses).

edited 24th Aug '13 5:29:51 AM by fulltimed

( @ Cider: The intent is to use as little violence as necessary. The intent is not to kill, but the Paragons are pragmatic enough to accept that an accidental death doesn't invalidate their entire culture and philosophy. Despite their egos they know they're not perfect and neither are their weapons, though an individual who kills by accident would still feel remorse and guilt).

Most of these ideas (muscle paralyzers, etc) for personal combat would be accomplished by the different kinds of darts available to them (paralysis, blindness, etc). The Wormhole Cannon idea is similar to the teleporter cannon idea and I may use that or a combination of the two since I've stated this species can manipulate wormholes to travel (other species use less advanced FTL techniques like Alcubierre Warps or hyperspace travel), but the Paragons can travel instantly through wormholes which gives them a tactical advantage. They can even teleport themselves through microwormholes without the need for spacecraft.

Telepathic/Telekinetic Abilities: Stasis wouldn't require a weapon depending on how advanced Paragon psionic abilities are in a given story. Sometimes I restrict them to Touch Telepathy, with the rare telekinetic born, other times I give them much broader psionic powers, which would include the ability to render a person's voluntary muscles useless for a period of time (like so many aliens in the original Star Trek), even the ability to telepathically augment their wormhole technology to travel through time. The more advanced versions of the Paragons can also teleport, and it's implied this is a telekinetic rather than a technological feat (though it could easily be technology or a combination of tech and psi powers.

Their ability to commune with and control animal life on their homeworld would depend on how strong their psionic powers are in a given story... whether they are mere touch-telepaths (which is the case case for "harder" stories, where they use neurochemical receptors on their fingers and other parts of their body for "telepathy") or more like Sufficiently Advanced Aliens with true, superpowerful psionic abilities. So that's another detail that varies story to story. I suppose, the more powerful their abilities, the more empathy they would possess, especially if they're empathically tied in with other higher life forms on their planet.

My Blowgun Obsession: As a general note, I try to use as few unrealistic Energy Weapons as possible in my sci-fi; hence my Dart Gun idea (in addition to owning a blowgun myself which I am rather fond of); their blowguns could load and automatically like today's military rifles and they could use different clips for different purposes/effects on the target: blind, paralyze, neural-scramble, memory-wipe, etc.

edited 25th Aug '13 4:34:52 AM by fulltimed

Something like Larry Niven's TASP (remote stimulation of the pleasure center) might be ideal.

What's this non-lethal weaponry being used for? Against rival sapient species? Fending off wild animals? For combat sports?

A projected train of thought that forces the target to gain empathy, or consider the harm that they are about to do. Something that forces a My God What Have I Done moment. That would both be painless and non-lethal, while also stopping the threat.

Or perhaps a device that messes with the target's sense of balance, through their inner ear.

^^ Planetary defense. They're a very technologically advanced species, they meddle with other planets' affairs, they think of themselves as a galactic police force and judicial system, subjecting other people to their rules and their beliefs. In stories where this species have time travel, they also act as Time Police. So naturally, they have a lot of enemies.

Ah! Then you want the Angel Halo from Mobile Suit Victory Gundam. A buncha brains in jars in a space vessel that can 'pacify' a very large portion of a planet right back down to diapers. (Plus the 'bike battleships' and early-on use of the guillotine. The Zanscare Empire's all about 'called shots to morale'.)

edited 11th Apr '14 11:50:46 AM by DeusDenuo

Hallucinations are a possibility too. Like the Mutants in "Beneath the Planet of the Apes," or Star Trek's Talosians.