Skyward - (NaNoWriMo 2013 Novel)

There is an Arc - (Nov 5, Tuesday)

"What happened back there?" Jacob asked. He was glaring at Benedict. The older man was too preoccupied with being hunched over--wheezing, struggling to catch his breath--to be able to give much notice to Jakob. The boy took the opportunity to survey the man, examining every part of him, checking if any lingering trace of the dark power that had seemed to envelop him back in that room remained. He was almost content that this was his friend, free and clear, when his eyes settled on a flash of metal at Benedict's hip.

It was that weapon. Gun, Jakob's memory filled in. Revolver. Holster. It was coming from an old adventure vid he'd once seen about a group of seven cowboys.

When your entire world was a closed system, supposedly designed to shield you from a rampant contagion and wild beasts just beyond your windows and walls; when you spent that closed life up several hundred meters, at the zenith of a tower, chaotic projectile weapons like guns were not conducive to a continued harmonius existence. Guns had been one of the first things the Corps behind the MegaDos had banned. Guns. Open flames. Unsanctioned Organic Vectors (any pets or plants what weren't provided by your local property management council). Since their state hadn't been a particularly warlike one to begin with, most people didn't have to worry about the harsh sanctions against firearms as they had never owned any. Those who did had gladly given them up to be allowed access to the MegaDos.

In the place of firearms, the Peacemakers who policed the Skyward carried pacifiers, far more artful weapons that had been created to provide all of the stopping power of a firearm in an energy weapon that wasn't as liable to cause an explosive decompression by blowing out a window. With the myriad settings possible on a pacifier, you had a range of options from the temporary paralysis of a single target (probability of lasting cerebral distress: negligible) to the long term pacification of an entire room (probability of lasting cerebral distress: mid to high). When pacifiers had been introduced, the closest referent people had for the way they functioned were "stun guns"; rudimentary devices that fired fragile, electro-conductive filaments at the target in order to deliver an electric jolt to the target's central nervous system. The whole system was rather low-tech, and the initial models of pacifier that relied on a similar design eventually gave rise to a roaring black market trade in personal foam rubber armour that could absorb the invasive electric shocks.

These shock-proof suits provided no protection against the final pacifier design. Nothing seemed very capable of standing up to a pacifier, and the armour that the Peacemakers wore was mostly meant to intimidate and provide protection against physical assaults.

Also, though pacifiers were meant to stun, subdue, disable, that wasn't to say that they weren't also deadly. If lethal force was warranted, the weapon could have its safeties disabled. This option was used rarely due to the optics of it, and setting a pacifier to lethal levels produced a readily recognizable, unique mark on the target that could be linked directly back to the specific pacifier licensed to a specific peacemaker. Every time a pacifier was discharged with lethal intent, the PeaceCorp was required to perform a complete investigation that proved so time consuming and banal that it was generally understood among the ranks of the peacemakers that anyone who lethally discharged a pacifier at anything less than a rogue genohulk or a sky pirate was signing his own resignation request.

This isn't to say that rogue peacemakers didn't sometimes get overly creative with the non-lethal ends of the pacifier's spectrum. There was absolutely no penalty for mortal trauma caused by a pacifier functioning within "acceptable parameters."

With such a precise and versatile weapon available, with so little potential for unintended collateral damage, even if traditional firearms had not been banned, they likely would have been abandonned for being useless relics. They were messy things that needed to be kept dry, needed to be oiled, consumed external ammunition, could misfire catastrophically.