Asgard Firearms

[Melanie Wendelberger]

Iwanted to have it so that the human weapons were almost as effective as the alien ones, while costing less energy. But that brings up the question of why the aliens would be using the energy weapons in the first place.

We humans evolved on a planet where celulose evolved millions of years before the enzymes required to digest them came into being. For this reason, or other various factors, we have TONS of fossil fuels which might be exceptionally rare on other worlds. We also have a lot of the elements you would get from, sources like exploding white dwarves and supernova, but an alien world that formed in the wake of an exploding neutron star or low mass star might have a lot more of certain elements that are pretty rare on Earth like xenon, tungsten, lithium, and gold to work with which would make high energy electrical components much more accessible.

Basically, when Humans entered our industrial revolution, we switched from a cottage industry reliant on wood and charcoal to one based on petro-chemicals which incidentally made our crappy musket type weaponry cheap and easy to develop into the assault weapons, missiles, and long range cannons we have today.

Most alien worlds however may not have had a Carboniferous Age; so, when they entered their industrial revolution, there was no coal or petroleum to work with. Basically, a lack of fossil fuels meant that their scientists would have very few petrochemicals to experiment with like humans did. So, where we went for things like internal combustion engines, and coke stack smelted steel, they went instead for things like solar powered electric engines, and electrolysis smelted aluminum.

Because of this disparity of resources, you don't just get different costs, but you also get a disparity in how much effort has gone into studying these resources for practical applications. So while human history is full of petrochemists and a relative handful of electrical scientists, your alien history would have a lot of electrical scientists, and very few petrochemists.

So, when the aliens see a human assault rifle, they don't see a primitive back-water weapon, but rather a highly advanced piece of technology made out of exotic materials. On this level, their perception of a gun is exactly the same as our perception of a laser. These weapons are comparable because both races have invested the same amount of time and effort over hundreds of years to get really good at making weapons this way or that, and once you find something that works well, it's hard to introduce a more experimental alternative that costs more and lacks the maturity to be as good. So, both races continue to make THEIR weapons, even as space travel makes both sets of resources more attainable.

Not only did the Asgard not think to make kinetic weapons, but they showed a sheer lack of understanding in regards to ballistic technology by thinking we would use steel bullets. They also seem to have missed the fact that we stopped making weapons grade gunpowder from potassium nitrate, charcoal and sulfur over 150 years ago. In this quote, it seems that the Asgard tried to assume they knew how to make a human gun based on what they knew about our technology in general and maybe some historical records, but if they tried to make a gun that worked in this way, it would be an utter piece of garbage... and that is assuming they could get all the other stuff right like riffling, gas repeaters, percussion caps, etc.

Likewise, if your aliens think as the Asgard do, then if they try to make their own knock off versions of ballistic weapons, they will remain sub-par compared to their human counterparts barring a lengthy period of R&D.

Bullet based weapons have a strong recoil*. Humans have a skeleton and a structure that allows to withstand the recoil without damage.

If the aliens are a kind of octopus or mollusk, they would find it difficult to shot a rifle without being injured by the recoil (and developing a recoil-less technology would seem to them a waste of time and resources).

At the same time, plasma weapons use a technology that is inherently unreliable: there is a small chance that the weapon explodes, killing the soldier. Aliens have a hive mentality, so the small chance to die killed by own weapon is an acceptable risk, while humans would never bear it

A long time ago, your aliens perfected kinetic defense to the point that "traditional firearms" were all but useless. Generations passed, and the aliens, who haven't used such weapons in a very long time, stopped defending against them and forgot about them. Everyone uses and defends against energy weapons. Meanwhile, those plucky humans came along and... their kinetic weapons are quite effective.

Okay, so that covers why the humans don't just get their sorry backsides handed to them. Why, then, do the aliens use energy weapons? Well... has quite a few suggestions, though the above also gives another; because at one point, kinetic weapons became useless. Since energy weapons still work, why change what isn't broken? (But also, all the other reasons in other answers here and in the question earlier in this paragraph.)

Supply chains

Humans have been using projectiles weapons and have manufacturing processes for them. We dabbled in portable energy weapons but never could perfect them enough to overcome their drawbacks, so it was more practical to continue using what we knew.

Imagine both sides have the technology for energy and conventional weapons, which are equally effective. They will use what they have infrastructure for. If you already have large amounts of factories and knowledge in your armies on how to use them, you would not go for the other weapons suddenly.

But building it can have their own problems. Possibly the resources to build conventional weapons is much more prevalent for humans, while the resources to make abundant batteries or other energy holding/discharging resources are easy to come by.

In relation to that they might focus on less weapons and military, but with higher effectiveness. That means higher resource cost and time investment for effective troops. Humans might just build a ton of weapons. Much like Germany vs Russia in WWII. Russia had much less modern and effective tanks than the Germans. They did have good front armour at an oblique angle and ok guns on their tanks so they could damage the German tanks. They had parts found in tractors and the like, making them easy to repair and build in their massive factories. And they fielded so insanely many tanks that the German tanks were simply overwhelmed. This made them exceedingly effective for multiple engagements, while individually they are very much lacking.

There might also be a certain doctrine against a certain enemy. We can see in the HALO series that humans have conventional weapons, while aliens have energy weapons. This is correct for them, as humans only had unshielded humans to fight against. The bullets are great at penetrating flesh, but not shields and does little against electronics. The aliens however often have shields on their individuals and vehicles. Energy weapons are great to take out shields and electronics, while being slower to damage flesh. They still have some aliens that don't use shields and you see they often have some flesh penetrating weapons added. They didn't know each other before, so the effectiveness of their weapons is based on what they encountered. Themselves.

Even if conventional weapons would be less effective you might continue to use them. Difference in tactics can determine a great deal. See the Vietnam war. High tech and overwhelming forces lost to an enemy who knew the land and had older weaponry, with a few exceptions like the AK47, which was everywhere at the end of the war. Even if they could've used modern tanks and artillery, it might've lost them the war. Their strength was invisibility, guerrilla tactics and psychological warfare.Your human tactics might be with conventional weapons also because of tactical reasons. Maybe the loud noises, flashes and explosions more than make up for the lack of effectiveness. Humans are trained to be used to it, while the possibly more effective, more quiet and less flashy energy wielding aliens might go straight to panic when a pistol goes off.

Simple solution: the exotic weapons aren't any more effective than the projectile weapons overall, when you take into account things like logistics, durability, field operations, and weapon characteristics. There's a rock/paper/scissors relationship, and as a result there's no real benefit to either side switching to what the other side uses when their own logistics and training is set up for their own weapons.

Hypothetical example: say one side uses portable energy weapons, powered by a non-removable battery pack and firing an energy blast with similar characteristics to a laser in terms of speed and particle mass vs humans with combat rifles. Because of the technobabble technology used, field-replaceable battery packs aren't optional.

In damage, not much difference. Getting hit by the energy blast and hit by the bullet will both ruin your day. In terms of penetration, a wash as well. They both have similar characteristics, so you're not blasting a hole through a half-meter of concrete to get the enemy on the other side.

Advantages the energy weapon has over the rifle: the battery last a hell of a lot longer than the number of magazines the soldier can carry on them, so for a given mass, the alien will be able to shoot a lot more. Also, because it shoots some kind of energy, it isn't going to be effected by bullet drop, time to impact, wind, or many other environmental considerations. Essentially, if you can see it, you can hit it.

Advantages the rifle has: it doesn't have to be recharged. As some point the alien weapon has to be connected to an power source, and power sources make targets. A pile of magazines or cases of bullets are inert and thus can be stockpiled and not attract any attention, and in combat can be brought forward to the soldier on the front line so they don't have to move to continue fighting. The alien has to be pulled back for the weapon to be recharged, or else a new weapon brought up to him. This makes logistics more complicated because you need a greater number of weapons per soldier, or tie them down to some kind of infrastructure. And it might be able to have a faster rate of fire because the energy weapon has to cool down between shots or the heat builds up too rapidly, preventing it from doing something like firing the equivalent of full-auto, meaning that while a combat rifle can fire single precision shots and can also lay down heavy suppressive fire, the alien weapon cannot.

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