Hammer of Eden

The Hammer of Eden is a class-5 ionic pulse-array beam weapon situated on the warplanet of Khanr. It is a long-range anti-voidcraft defensive weapon capable of firing a destructive beam up to 10.678 light years away. Its projectile is still capable of causing damage up to 20.4 light years away, but accuracy begins to dwindle. It was first conceived by the Starsmith, hired by the warplanet to develop a variant of the Godmight Laser-Energy Bypass Cannon (GL-EBC). Ultimately, the Starsmith convinced a design using the power of red lightning to accelerate the electrobeam projectile to FTL speeds. The weapon was to be deployed uniformly across a variety of warplanets, but the cost of both producing the weapon and firing it made such plans obsolete.

The Hammer of Eden is used mostly on slow-moving battlecruisers or for precise planetary glassing, as the weapon takes up to 10 minutes to charge based on the target’s distance, and a further 2 minutes to fire the beam. Because the weapon’s firing coordinates must be delineated before charge-up, groundcontrol must exactly predict the location of enemy ships or planets so that the gun can fire at that position accurately. It is situated on the Wall of Iron, an interplanetary artillery battery.

History

The Hammer of Eden is a far larger version of the Godmight Laser-Energy Bypass Cannon utilized by the Scythnan on their warplanets, particularly Khanr, Drask, and Emble. Project Eden was a series of schematics and plans to create a more powerful, accurate, and quickfiring version of the GL-EBC. However, Scythnanite engineers failed to create any such weaponry that had any of these attributes in significant magnitude. The plans were ultimately suspended when the Scythnan entered wartime with their allies.

Following the wars, the threat of long-range attacks became increasingly prevalent. And so, in desperation, the Scythnanite government agreed to employ the Starsmith to lead a revised version of Project Eden. The exact specificities of how the Scythnanites managed to acquire the work of the Starsmith remain expunged. The Starsmith, alongside numerous anonymous Scythnanite engineers, would continue production of the gun. Together, they would create numerous working prototypes including the Apollyon Railgun and the Long-Range Gammaburst Autocannon (LRGBA). These weapons did not see any use in combat as the former’s design was extremely costly and the latter’s ammunition was too expensive to produce. The primary issue with the weapon’s production was finding a way to accelerate the projectile(s) at fast enough speeds to reach their targets before they moved. This issue would result in multiple years of delays, and ultimately a massive exodus of engineers as they were relocated onto other projects.

Eventually, the Starsmith elected to use Red Lightning, an exotic form of matter, to accelerate an electrobeam through a long tube to refine the beam and hasten it to FTL speeds. Concerns were raised about the cost of firing the weapon, as Red Lightning is extremely hard to acquire and contain. These concerns were de-ratified during the testing phase of the gun, when the weapon successfully fired on targets 10.678 light years away with 100% accuracy and fired on targets beyond that point with decreasing returns. The weapon was deemed a success and mounted on the Wall of Iron to defend the outer rims of the Scythnanite starborders. However, the gun was too costly to reproduce.

The weapon was later used to glass the world of Eurka over a series of 13 years through slow but perpetual firing of the beam. It would also be used to disrupt enemy trade routes during the Apothekin Skurge. The Hammer of Eden was eventually denied from being used by the Sythnanite government, which cited concerns about rare resource shortage and the increasing prevalence of other more effective but less devastating long-range weapons.

Firing Mechanism

The Hammer of Eden is an electrobeam weapon, which is a tesla-arc based weapon which fires bursts of electricity when a hammer inside the weapon smacks the electrocatalyst inside. The electrocatalyst releases an eruption of electricity the only way it can: through the barrel. The Starsmith used Red Lightning, delivered to the gun in canisters, to both accelerate the electrobeam and refine it into a cylindrical beam shape. The Hammer of Eden’s electrocatalyst is nearly quadrupedal the size of even those situated on starship electrobeam guns; and the striking-hammer is bludgeons the catalyst with an extremely high speed and pressure. The presence of Red Lightning in the refined electrobeam give the weapon’s projectile a blinding red color, and Red Lightning storms will often tear apart whatever remains of the struck target.

Targeting Mechanism

The weapon is controlled by a groundcontrol team located inside the Wall of Iron. The weapon has a surprisingly primitive form of targeting, lacking any form of autolock. Instead, the weapon is fed exact stellar coordinates to delineate the area of fire. The Hammer of Eden’s slow and extremely unforgiving, but precise, form of lock-on makes the weapon only effective on extremely large or extremely slow targets. This slow targeting was one of the primary reasons as to why the weapon was not reproduced elsewhere in the Scythnan territories.

This manual targeting is the only form of lock-on possible, as Red Lightning disrupts both psi-targeting and standard AI-targeting. Indeed, Red Lightning is both a blessing and a curse to the weapon.