The Tempest thread (confirmed 100% weaponry free)

I just don't get that line of thinking I suppose, that's just an unacceptable reason to not have weapons for me. You don't KNOW for a FACT that species in this new galaxy don't have advanced space radar that can detect your "super awesome, everything hinges on this" stealth system. Maybe they have that, but have shitty armor technology? The likes of which light armaments could defeat. Or maybe, you want to be able to defend yourself long enough to not take substantial damage should you happen upon a pirate band of small fighters.

Maybe it's just to scare off potential threats...

but going in with nothing but... "oh our detection system and stealth systems are the best in the Milky Way, so they're also the best in Andromeda! Meaning we will also detect them first OR be able to run" is asinine reasoning when going into a completely unknown situation. Prepare for as many possible outcomes as you can. There is no going back, there are no reinforcements sufficiently close, therefor, there's no reason to go unarmed. 

You point a marine into an unknown territory (even as a scout) and say, here... here's your equipment and you give him a bag and nothing else. He's gonna look at you like you're an idiot. Even a pistol is better than nothing. 


EDIT: Hell, maybe you are attacked by a scout ship the same speed as you, but they have weapons and they take out your FTL drive first thing... Now all you can do is try to dodge their attacks since you can't outrun them. So, you're saying... you'd rather just kiss your ass goodbye in this situation rather than have a gun and possibly destroy the other scout ship and then call for help and, ya know, survive the encounter?

I hardly call the Ai project run by foolish people.

It may just come down to the decision by the game architects to:
1- no space battles
2- no hot landing zones
3-allowing for the Nomad to disembark and swoosh somewhere to explore... looks cool.
4-and to have only team combat with intelligent enemies or the local fauna.

With the above in mind, the game was designed, or, as you say, they screwed the pooch.

I don't know if I'd call them foolish, but they obviously made some clear mistakes, since the ended up in a cluster that is apparently lacking on resources, compared to their estimation, two Arks at least had problems, people are leaving the station because of the situation, problems and/or lies from the Initiative, and we have at least one alien specie seemingly kicking our asses. And IF the AI truly has no ship with weapons, that is obviously another mistake. Hopefully it won't be like that.

"We aren't giving you a pistol. It's useless because you can't kill a tank with it and it totally makes it harder for you to sneak away."

This is the "it makes sense to have no guns" argument in a nutshell, right?

 Nobody is saying that there aren't ships with weapons in the Initiative. It doesn't mean we can't discuss the possibility.

Well, Nexus briefing does have "once we cross into Dark Space we will be alone with only our kinetic barriers to shield us" in it. I won't be surprised by anything now.

Since humanity has been arming scouts since, well, forever, it is simply bizarre that the Tempest is not armed.

Egyptian officer- 'Hotep, get on your horse and check over that mountain for the enemy'
Hotep- 'Can I have a spear?'
Egyptian officer- 'No! You have a horse! What need do you have for a spear?'
Hotep- 'The enemy have horses as well.'
Egyptian officer- 'But your horse is faster! And smaller! And very quiet!'
Hotep- 'How do you know?'
Egyptian officer- 'Hotep...'
Hotep- 'What about a bow?'
Egyptian officer- 'Get on the bloody horse!'
Etc, etc.

In light of the fact that this debate still rages on, I'm adding in as "food for thought" the literary reference to The Tempest and what that might means for the use of plot devices in Andromeda:

www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/tempest/section1.rhtml