Pax Zerdana with her trusty sidearm, a Zerdan ion burst pistol.

Unlike most of my other space-faring races, whose blasters make use of some sort of plasma, Zerdans use ion-based weaponry, firing concentrated bursts of ionzed particles. These weapons are surprisingly powerful for their size, and are able to have their power output adjusted from a low-power setting meant to deliver painful but non-lethal stings (typically used for warning shots or in a similar capacity to the rubber bullets used by riot police on Earth to disperse crowds), to a "stun" setting which alters the energy profile of the ion burst to disrupt motor function in its target, to the high-energy setting used to inflict actual damage.

The main disadvantages of this technology are that the ion bursts tend to have shorter range than plasma bursts, and areas with high magnetic interference can cause the ion burst to dissipate even faster. Also, while quite effective against flesh, body armor and machinery (and able to quickly overload or disrupt many types of deflector shields and forcefields), the bolts tend to do little damage to thicker metals, glass, and stone and concrete--actually an advantage onboard a starship or space station, as this drastically reduces the likelihood of collateral or structural damage, aside from damage to electrical and mechanical systems. This leads to an interesting conundrum where their weaponry is great at incapacitating vehicles through sustained fire, but require far larger weapons firing far more bursts than typical blasters to do any significant structural damage to them.