Handheld Graviton Accelerator

The Handheld Graviton Accelerator, commonly called the Force Gun, was a short range kinetic mining tool used aboard the planet cracking fleet and later carried by survivors of the Necromorph outbreaks. Like the Plasma Cutter and the Line Gun, it was a piece of industrial equipment turned to a use its makers never intended.

Design and mining function#

The Force Gun was a short range kinetic booster device. Its role in mining operations was to deliver blasting power beyond that of conventional explosive charges, which made it suited to precise terraforming work. Miners used it to shatter rock into smaller pieces, to send stone between workers during zero gravity operations, and to deflect wayward rocks away from crews working in open space.

Unlike most of the engineering tools of the planet cracking fleet, the Force Gun carried no formal model number in common use; the catalogue designation Handheld Graviton Accelerator recorded its true engineering name. Like the Kinesis module, it worked by manipulating the gravity around it to produce its concussive effect.

Use against the Necromorphs#

In the hands of survivors during the outbreaks, the Force Gun functioned much like a shotgun at close range. Its primary discharge threw a wide kinetic blast that struck everything in front of it, with greater force the closer the target stood. Against tougher Necromorphs the blast rarely tore them apart outright, but it knocked them back and bought space in a desperate fight. Against frailer creatures the same blast could shear off limbs or scatter a swarm.

The tool's secondary function varied between the models carried over the years. The earliest version launched a slow moving concussive bomb that exploded on contact, or rolled and burst after a few seconds if it struck nothing. A later model fired a narrow beam that could punch through several Necromorphs lined up together. The version recovered during the fall of the USG Ishimura instead projected a gravity well that pulled nearby creatures toward a fixed point and held them there briefly, leaving them open to other attacks. One such Force Gun was recovered from the Hydroponics deck of the Ishimura, found beside a dead scientist.