This just popped out today. What would the tech in the Commonwealth Timeline be like around YC 800? (that would be about now, A.D.) Timeline crossing, computers, etc.? This is about Warrior tech, from a story about a fellow from our Timeline who is 'having an adventure'.
Arrendj returned in a moment, wearing a gambeson-like tunic, padded and quilted, with the sheen of some kind of artificial fabric. She tossed another one like it at him, opened a niche in the wall and began to speak, rapidly.
“Put that on, don’t argue with me, we haven’t any time for that. This place has been compromised, L’Iriquois’ agents are closing in. We are gonna have to bug out, and we’ll be doing some security work as we go, destroying equipment and such. Like this...”
He slipped into the tunic, copied her as she donned a breast-and back plate made of overlapping scales, with shoulder guards and tassets of the same stuff. She bent down and slapped some scaly greaves onto her shins, where they stuck; tossed him a pair, and he did as she had done. Vambraces of a similar material, similarly attached, then a helmet of some heavy plastic-like stuff with a nasal and a clear facemask over all. The helmets were stylized versions of some kind of ancient Greek helms. Heavy padded gloves with no palms completed the outfits.
“This armor will be some protection against the weapons you’ll run into. The tunic is like Kevlar, but it breathes better. Stops most slugs, no good at all against an APS. Don’t ask, I’ll explain.” She slapped the scale armor on her front. “Thus stuff is proof against the APS, any slug you’re likely to get hit with, and reduces your vulnerability to ’waves.” He nodded, silent, waiting for enlightenment on the parts he didn’t get. Somewhere inside him was a guy in a full-out panic, thrashing around and trying to get out. He suppressed that fool, concentrating on the situation at hand.
She handed him a belt. It had no buckle, but when he wrapped it around his waist it stayed there, right where he put it. With the belt in place, he had pockets and sheathes of various sorts all around his waist, as well as a holster that stuck to his right thigh.
“You have some weapons on that belt. Do what I do and don’t point them at me.” She was still talking fast, and began a mile-a-minute demonstration of the equipment. She drew a pistol-like object out of the holster on her thigh: “This handles close enough to a Glock that it makes no difference, except for this,” she said, showing him the grip of the piece. There was a button where the trigger would be. “Power supply is in the grip, double tap here for access. Safety here, and this switch shifts it from slug thrower to microwave projector.” She flicked it back and forth and he copied her. “This red dot is power supply,” she said, indicating a spot near where the slide would be on a 21st Century weapon. “As long as that’s red you have slugs or ’waves. Yellow means you’re low. There are spare power modules in the biggest pouch,” she said pointing. “Don’t worry about that, though, it won’t happen today. You have about a hundred ells effective range on the ’waves, double that with the slugs.”
She holstered the pistol, then pulled out another object from a loop on her left hip and displayed it on her palm. A foot long or so, nearly cylindrical, an easy to grip circumference, slide controllers and several switches. He drew a nearly identical one from his belt. “Looks like a light saber,” he said, amused.
She glared at him: “Pretty close, actually. Pay attention!” She touched the base and it hummed to life, though it showed no blade as yet. He copied her, pointing it away from his body and hers, as she did.
She indicated a glowing red dot: “Power indicator, like on the pistol. This slide is power per second,” she pointed at the largest slide: “This one is length of blade. This weapon is called an Adjustable-range Plasma Sword, or APS.” She slid the power-per-second controller to halfway, then pushed the length-of-blade slide out the same distance. He copied her and she grinned as he started: “That’s quite a feeling, huh?”
“Feels like a real sword,” he said. The ‘blade’ had edges and flats like a sword, and a pointed tip. It glowed in the color of a blacklight, irritating his eyes.
“Yep, handles like it, too, at least in this configuration. Edges have cutting power, the true edge is more effective. Touch the flat you’ll get a huge electric shock, enough to kill you at half power.” She was talking fast again. He could hear some kind of alarm going off. She extended the blade: “Up to about six feet it will handle the same as a steel blade that length. After that it doesn’t change. You have...” she seemed to calculate for a second: “about a quarter mile range at full power: the tip will go through nearly anything out to that range. That’s a real drain on the power supply, though. Twenty of those hits and you’ll be empty.” She reset the blade to about three and a half feet, then forestalled his questions: “With the blade at four ells and at half-power, you can use it continuously for days. Push it to full power and you can cut your way through a steel door in seconds, or a concrete wall; that is a drain as well, though not as bad as the long-range stuff. Double tap the base to get to the power supply. It uses the same modules as the pistol.”
Something big exploded nearby and they were thrown to the floor. He lost the ‘sword’ and the blade vanished. He grabbed the handle and slid both controllers back to zero, then reset the sword. “Good job,” said Arrendj: “let’s get going. Anything or anyone I point at, slice it up or shoot it. Okay?”
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