Why Doesn't The Prometheus Ship Have Weapon Systems?

To make you guys be realistic, I would say travelling at near speed of light is impossible. You would destroy yourself during the trip when a tiny particle like dust and ice in space would destroy your vehicle.

But it is not implausible - nor, necessarily, worthy of wild conjectures based on that Timeline? We don't know there aren't any but, even if there are not, if you believe you are sending a team of Scientists and Archeologists on a Mission to the Supreme Being's backyard, why [i]would[/i] you design your ship with apparent weapons? 1] You are, clearly, not an idiot. Whatever any undisclosed agenda you have may, or may not, be; you either firmly believe, (or, perhaps, require [i]others[/i] to firmly believe), that you are proceeding on the basis of an invitation. 2] A vehicle bristling with weapons does not really send the right "peaceful first contact, under terms of invitation" kind of message [give it a try] - and it would certainly undermine the belief you might be trying to instil in others at 1]. 3] As you are not an idiot, you would probably already have determined that you cannot really imagine what would be weapons that are big and plentiful enough, or defensively powerful enough to have any actual meaning at all, if push came to shove and the [i]Supreme Being[/i] you are hoping to come across were to decide that he doesn't like you, your ship, your team or your attitude?... A Supreme Being, being Supreme, is highly likely to be able to dismiss all weaponry you can imagine with some contempt, no matter what you could do: and even if he could not do so immediately, it's highly likely he will be able to do so, eventually: which means that all you will have achieved by equipping your ship with weapons, is to increase the likelihood that your intentions are misunderstood and increased the likelihood that those weapons are actually used, either by intention or by accident. If those weapons are used, you increase the chances that you enter into some kind of conflict that you are quite unlikely to be able to win - and none of this Intergalactic drama will be the quickest, best, easiest and cheapest way to serve your objectives: [i]exactly,[/i] the opposite. So, rather than have big guns all over the ship like so many chocolate chips, (guns that will, probably, be quite useless and may actually work against you), you would probably consider it a much wiser investment to spend your money on smart people, [i]inside[/i] the ship: their job being to establish communication effectively and diplomatically enough such that the issues of weapons, potentially confused intentions and conflicts are removed - sometimes, the best means to "conquer", is with a smile. The crew do seem to have access to sidearms and light weapons - there may be the equivalent of wild dogs where they are going, so that is reasonable enough: and that is also, very likely, the way a Supreme Being of obviously high intelligence would interpret light personal arming: weak creatures, far from home, taking reasonable personal precaution. Allowances would be made - and the crew may carry, stow, or deliberately set aside personal side-arms - which is, itself, a very potent form of communication: but to go there, in a weaponized ship?....That's a statement made before you even touch down - one that can only be clarified or explained [i]after[/i] the fact, at which point it may be too late as it may already have been interpreted as hostile or potentially hostile - either way, it's a bad and risky look. Overall, you might view any attempt at weaponry as a distinct and overwhelming disadvantage in terms of what you're hoping to achieve.

Well when we send out a ships to explore new places on Earth hundreds of years ago, we never sent out battle ships to do that task. Maybe it has some weapons but just not nothing that can take out a large ship. And as far as weapons for defence against asteroids or small meteors in its trajectory. Well this leads to one flaw in Faster than Light Speed Travel, at those speeds you would not be able to locate Astriods fast enough, no man could react to take aim at them and no weapon would move to target them at Warp or what ever speeds. And anyway at the Speed of Light running into just a golf ball would Destroy the ship.

Exactly, this is why ANY sci-fi story will always require COMPLETE suspension of disbelief because MAN will never be able to achieve FTL travel or devise a way to survive in space when hyper-accelerated protons are passing through our bodies. We would be turned into a puddle of goo.

You would think that after years of Humans making movies about Hostile aliens, that the first mission to meet aliens that they would take some weapons with them. If the universe is full of life I would expect that most of that life to have abilities of survival that would make them very dangerous...Flamethrowers would be only a precautionary tactic to deal with nasty creatures that want to suck out your brains through your eye balls and lay eggs in your digestive track.

@DAVIS I believe that’s mistaken. Isn’t it a matter less of "speed" and more of relative Mass? A vehicle at near light-speed would not be affected by impact with particles like dust and ice because of the effect upon its relative Mass - and if there’s a reason that traveling at near-light speed in normal Space is, literally and practically, impossible, it’s that fact, not any potential for impact with specks of dust and ice - or golf-balls for that matter. In any case, due to that fact, we now know that Weyland Industries have defeated Physics for the purpose of this story in order to exceed the speed of Light, many times - so, I'm not sure there is any great need to worry too much about everyone being “realistic”.

We might not be able to reach light speed but we might be able to reach half way if they shot a space ship out of a giant Magnetic Rail Gun with a Nuclear powered Laser. Half way is not bad... If a star system is 4 light years away and your travelling half the speed of light if would take 8 years to get there. We have only just reached the outer sheath of the solar system and who knows....maybe there is a funny effect in outer space between Galactic streams that causes speed to increase because it acts like a skate on ice due to less friction from particles and stuff. If spaceships can harness the sucking power of a black hole contained in a force shield and direct the pull, like ride a cosmic vacuum cleaner.

@allinamberclad Check out Weyland page, about resources, you saw a never exist element is made for Captain America shield and also Wolverin claws. I believe they used this element to justify travelling near speed of light.

@DAVIS Is it "Unobtainium", or something?... I know: LOL. [Wolverine's claws...*smh*...]

@allinamberclad Sorry, I was meant here. https://www.weylandindustries.com/#/information http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adamantium