Javelin Gun

The Javelin Gun was a telemetric survey tool manufactured by Timson Tools, built to fire titanium spikes, or "javelins," at high speed with extreme accuracy and piercing power. Like the Plasma Cutter and the Line Gun before it, this piece of industrial equipment became a weapon in the hands of survivors fighting the Necromorphs on the Sprawl.

Design and origin#

The Javelin Gun was a telemetric survey instrument, one of the many industrial tools that found a second purpose in the outbreaks. It fired titanium spikes that traveled in a straight path until they struck a surface, where each one planted itself and could not be pulled free by any means. The spike's force and accuracy made it as deadly to the Necromorphs as it was useful for survey work: a creature caught by a flying javelin was driven against the nearest wall and held there, immobilized. A target with no surface behind it would instead be carried along the spike's path before slowly arcing down, and in zero gravity it kept flying straight.

The tool had a secondary mode that electrified the planted spike, sending electricity arcing off it to shock any creature, or careless user, standing too close. A spike driven into a Slasher and then charged could clear several Necromorphs that had gathered around the pinned body, making the Javelin Gun an efficient way to manage a crowd despite its slow rate of fire.

Use in the outbreaks#

Isaac Clarke carried the Javelin Gun through the Necromorph outbreak on Titan Station, and Gabe Weller wielded one during the same crisis. Survivors found it especially suited to pinning a weaker Necromorph in place and then electrifying the spike as others crossed its path, and its arc of current could carve a buffer between a survivor and an oncoming pack. It was less suited to a chaotic, close-quarters fight, where its slow firing and single-target spike left a wielder exposed.

The Javelin Gun held a grim distinction among Isaac's tools as the only weapon he ever used against a living human being rather than a Necromorph, when he turned it on the EarthGov director Hans Tiedemann in the final hours of the Sprawl. The tool persisted into the later campaigns on Tau Volantis, where a comparable weapon could be assembled from a telemetry spike fitted to a survivor's makeshift engineering rig.