Plasma Cutter

The Plasma Cutter was a family of similar mining tools built to cut hard, mineral-laden rock, and it became the most common improvised weapon used by survivors during the Necromorph outbreaks. The first of them, found on a bloodied workbench aboard the USG Ishimura, was the tool with which Isaac Clarke learned to dismember the Necromorphs and survive.

Function and design#

The Plasma Cutter was built for mining work. When fired it delivered a cohesive pulse-stream, or bolt, of ionized plasma. On impact the bolt's cohesion failed front-first, driving a focused jet of superheated matter into the target and producing intense localized shear together with a tunneling thermal expansion. Against brittle, frozen rock riddled with faults, a skilled hand could split a slab open in one or two shots. Against pliable material the same shot did little, the thermal expansion stressing the area around the impact rather than cutting it, sometimes needing several consecutive hits.

The tool was very accurate, using three blue laser pointers to mark the desired cutting plane, and it could fire its bolt vertically or horizontally so the user could cut without turning the whole tool ninety degrees. The two alignment blades flanking the emitter appear to have served as spacers, suggesting the cutter was meant to be set against the surface to be cut, much like a nail gun, before a bolt was fired into it. It ran on an internal power source and on variable-capacity cartridges of plasma energy, was compact and light enough to be carried easily, and could be used one-handed. Across its history the design grew steadily smaller, from the bulky original to a model little larger than a handgun.

Models and improvised use#

Three versions of the Plasma Cutter were recorded. The first and most common was the 211-V, designed and manufactured by Schofield Tools for mining operations. Isaac Clarke found his 211-V on a bloody workbench aboard the USG Ishimura and carried it through the outbreak there. Ellie Langford also wielded an officially produced cutter of the same line.

The second was a makeshift cutter that Isaac built during the Necromorph outbreak on Titan Station. He took a stationary medical tissue laser, a plasma emitter used in surgery, and joined it to a flashlight he had picked up earlier to serve as a power source, assembling the two on the spot to fight off an attacking Slasher. Smaller than the 211-V, it carried retracting covers over its emitter to guard against accidental discharge, and he used it through the rest of his escape from the station. The third was a later model of uncertain make, sized between the 211-V and Isaac's makeshift build, which he first used while escaping militant Unitologists on the New Horizons Lunar Colony. It was never established whether this was a newer Schofield Tools design, the product of a competing manufacturer, or simply a redesign of the familiar tool.