At first I read "marital". How about a marital martian martial community ? Jokes aside, I am not sure that martial art really fits in this universe very well. Martial arts is the "advanced manual" for the morph you get. It will be very different depending on the different morphs. I could see competitions where people get to use the exact same models, but I'm not sure how it should be called... In the meantime, people who are serious about becoming a kickass killing machine,(I mean those that today make their fingers harder by hitting random hard things until they reach blood) they would probably undergo at least surgery to get better, stronger, faster, and double-jointed on unexpected articulations. What is a safe joint lock in a universe where the skeleton structure of people can be so variable (if existent) ?

I've been museing on this for a wile. The setting seriously changes hand to hand combat. Here's what I've been thinking about. Freefall JiuJitsu Sword fighting in vacuum Capoera in mars or lighter gravity. Melee in light gravity strikes me as being a frusterating pain in the ass. I expect strikeing to be much less effective; you can't bring your power from the ground, and strikes that rely on centripital force are subject to Newton's 3'rd so they're less effecive too. How do you duck/dodge in freefall? By my calculations, at lunar gravity it takes a body about 1 second to fall one meter so you can forget about trying to suplex your opponent. Some JiuJitsu techniques, like an arm bar would still work but the tactics of manuvering an opponent into that situation are all fucked up. Attaining some type of mount position then striking might work out ok because you could then strike against the center of mass of both fighters. Morphs with the "prehensile feet" mod would be supreme in gravities of Lunar G or less. There should be an advantage in the rules mechanics for low G fighting when a morph has the prehensile feet mod. [edit]I'm 5'10" and I can just touch the rim with a standing jump. If I understand correctly, on Luna I should be able to Jump about 10 meters. Meaning it would take me about 3 combat turns to get back to the ground. Something to think about.[/edit] I belive it was Pierse Anthony who wrote about fencing being a popular melee method of fighting in vacuum. But the vacuum suits he was writing about were not self healing, so a fencing foil wouldn't be as effective at ruining a vacsuit. A slashing weapon would work better, but since vaccume and microgravity often coinside you'd want the lightest weapon available or each strike you make disrupts your own position. With a foil you could thrust from your own center of mass essentially putting your full mass into the strike. With a slashing weapon the force of the attack is at some tangent to your own mass causeing you geater positional displacement. There should be mechanics for weapons like foils. Something with a higher AP but a lower DV. The one thing I did like about DnD was the Weapon Speed mechanic. I think it would be cool to represent that some weapons are slower to deploy and follow up than others. In all it's a really intrigueing subject and I would really enjoy having some really crunchy tactical rules for melee combat in the varied environments of EP [b]Mifune[/b] (and anyone else here) PM me if you'd like to work on a CC martial community supliment together.

Ok, I will not manage to convince martial artists fans without being trollish :-) Whatever floats your boat... I for one consider martial art to have the same utility in EP as equitation in WWII.

Just rememered a transhumanist literary tidbit. Morgan's 'Tanindo' in the book called [i]13[/i] (actually the title is 13, in the US. apparently it's called Black Man everywere else.) Anyhow, in Morgan's fiction, Tanindo is the Martian martial art. It seems to be based on centripital motion and aikido like moves developed due to Mars' low gravity. quote: an earth native describing the Tanindo attack of the protagonist; "He was like a fucking [i]wheel[/i] man!"

Mifune wrote:

Okay. Lets take all the martial arts that are in EP out right now. So there went the skills Beam Weapons, Blades, Clubs, Exotic Melee Weapons, Exotic Range Weapons, Kinetic Weapons, Spray Weapons, and Unarmed Combat.

Risking to seem like I want to argue just for the sake of it, I feel like venting my opinion on this :) Combat is a much wider concept than martial arts, unless you interpret "martial" and "arts" according to their literal meanings. So you can most positively have offensive weaponry in EP without maritial arts in its traditional meaning. Having said this, I don't see any reason why there would not be martial arts in the EP universe. Perhaps predominantly as philosophies or "ways of life", but also for combat / self-defence. I agree that it would be tricky to lock an octomorph in a grip, or throw a swarmanoid. But since most transhumans use humanoid biomorphs this only means that these techniques would be useless in some situations and useful in most. Given the strict weapons regulations in the inner systems and the fact that most habs don't like people carrying heavy weapons for fear of hull breaks, there would most def be use for martial arts!

Mifune wrote:

I simply want information on transhuman martial arts, and the martial communities that exist in a transhuman society.

We'll be getting some of that in Q1 2010 ! :) I expect Sunward to include at least a couple paragraphs on Direct Action. It should also include a good chunk of data and fluff on the Barsoomian insurgency too. (not to hijack the thread again but; which novel do the barsoomians take their name from?)

I agree with the above speaker. Mifune, first you define martial arts _very_ widely to encompass all kinds of warfare, then you say that one of the few still existing organised warfare organisations is _not_ a martial community? I am puzzled, but also intrigued :)