Thanix Cannon

The Thanix was a line of turian-designed weapons used primarily in ship-to-ship combat, developed by reverse-engineering the salvaged main gun of the Reaper Sovereign. Compact enough to mount on a fighter or a frigate yet powerful enough to rival a cruiser's armament, the Thanix spread rapidly through galactic fleets in the years after the Battle of the Citadel and saw widespread service during the Reaper War.

Development#

The Thanix had its origins in the aftermath of the Battle of the Citadel in 2183. For three months after the battle, human and turian volunteers worked to clear the station's orbit of debris. During the cleanup the turians quietly salvaged Sovereign's powerful main gun along with much of the weapon's element zero core. Eleven months later they unveiled the Thanix, a scaled-down adaptation of the Reaper weapon that put a fraction of Sovereign's destructive principle into a form usable by conventional warships.

Design and operation#

The Thanix worked on the same principle as the Reaper gun it was derived from. Its core was a liquid alloy of iron, uranium, and tungsten suspended in an electromagnetic field powered by element zero. When fired, the molten metal was accelerated to a significant fraction of the speed of light and solidified into a projectile in flight, striking with enough force to pierce any known shield or armor. The weapon could fire reliably about once every five seconds. Its relatively small size was its great advantage: it could be mounted on most fighters or frigates, giving even a vessel the size of the Normandy SR-2 firepower rivaling that of a cruiser.

Proliferation and variants#

The Thanix did not remain a turian secret for long. By the time of the Reaper invasion in 2186, the weapon and its variations had entered widespread service across Systems Alliance fleets and beyond, becoming a standard answer to the heavy defenses of larger ships. An up-scaled version was produced for mounting on dreadnoughts, allowing the largest warships to carry the same Reaper-derived firepower in proportionally greater measure.

A ground-based derivative, the Thanix missile, appeared during the final battle for Earth. Built on the same operating principles as the starship-mounted cannon, it brought the weapon's armor-piercing capability to bear against Reaper forces on the surface.