Lucidly Unsane
The Warhammer 40K entries seem to be dedicated to explaining how "awesome" the weapons in the game are. There's no real detail as to how any of this is actually Inefficient in-Universe.
Thoughts before editing?
"Silent Hill always gives the best presents." -agentjr "Death feels like acoustic guitar." -helloween Hide / Show Replies
Also some entries are rambling messes. I removed the most egregious one, because i don't have the time (not playing the game myself) to work through it and make it readable:
- On the other hand, the Imperial Guard is known for fielding tonnes of less elite, and lightly armed and armored infantry - humanity's numbers in 40K are at least in the trillions. They may have a laser gun, but in 40K, said laser guns' lack penetrating and stopping power against most of enemies of the Imperium(then again, said laser gun still has greater penetration than most modern guns, it's only Cool But Inefficient versus the incredibly powerful enemies you might run into in the 40k universe), its redeeming traits being very reliable, easy to maintain and make, (not to speak of that you can recharge the magazine by placing it in the sun or somewhere else that's reasonably warm which actually makes them Awesome But Practical) so you can arm those trillions.
Sorcerer in training
"Truth In History, also. For hundreds of years, long bows were significantly more dangerous than GUNS on the field of battle. Back then, guns were horribly inaccurate and had slow reload, while a longbow could be fired more times per minute than a gun by a large margin. Even a properly fired arrow could pierce armor that early firearms could not. Technological advancements, combined with deforestation, eventually led to the adoption of guns by armies. The greatest advantage of guns was always that you could train a man to use one in a span of weeks, where building the muscles and accuracy of a skilled archer took decades (There was a saying, "To train a longbowman, you started by training his grandfather"). Maybe those future weapons just haven't evolved enough? But then you'd think a lot of people would still be using boring old bullets... Damn you, Rule Of Cool!"
While this is an excellent illustration of how something can move out of 'Cool, but Inefficient', it strikes me as possibly nattery and maybe not necessary to the trope description. Thoughts?
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- "This is lampshaded in Star Trek: First Contact. The Borg bad guys can develop immunity to their energy weapons, but Captain Picard kills two of them with holographic bullets fired from a holographic tommygun from a historic holodeck simulation. Even when they're not real, our guns are still better. Unless the drones simply hadn't adapted yet.*
The holographic bullets would possibly be some form of 'hard light' -which the Borg might be able to adapt to. Real bullets would be real copper/lead (possibly with other materials) that would cause physical damage that would need to be repaired. That would depend on how fast and efficient the Borg nanites/system are. Then the question would be, could they learn/develop a shield.
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- "Which brings up the question of why don't more Jedi just use blasters as well? Especially since we know the Force can help them aim."
Because they're Space Knight-Mages. They gotta have their swords.
Edited by Candi Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett
Under Harry Potter:
"Check the dates given for some major events: the most obvious examples are the birth and death dates on the graves of Harry's parents. Also, Harry's date of birth. In-universe, the events take place in the '90s and early '00s; the clock starts with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, published in 1997. Back then, phones were the size of tablets, computers couldn't do even one tenth of the things they can do now, there was no Facebook, no Twitter, no Internet... Alright, there was Internet, but you needed a modem to access, so... But the worst part was that computers still used floppy disks. If you don't know what that is, look it up. In that light, the lack of technology is not so surprising."
This seems like a vast underestimation of 1997 technology or a vast overestimation of how far technology has advanced since them compared with how far it has advanced from wizard-level untill 1997. Back them ICBMS were very, very old news, computers were already capable enough so that banks, stock market, credit cards etc. were run with them and landlines were already more convenient than owls. It wasn't so long ago that the trope is averted, I believe.