Gluon Gun

"I just can't bring myself to use it on a living creature. You don't seem to have trouble killing things."

- Black Mesa Scientist

The Gluon Gun is a type of experimental weapon that fires a glowing blue/purple beam that spirals towards a target like a corkscrew or vortex. The gluon is the particle that mediates the strong nuclear force that holds atomic nuclei together; whether the gluon gun actually fires streams of gluons or instead interferes with the gluons already present in an object is unclear, but in either case the weapon interferes with the fundamental interactions of matter. The stresses caused by this reaction can blast almost any living creature to pieces.

Overview
The weapon was developed at the Black Mesa Research Facility, though its designer was unwilling to use it on living creatures, even during the crisis, and therefore Gordon Freeman was probably the first person to put the weapon to use. The prototype gluon gun design consisted of a hand-held beam emitter that was attached to a large backpack by a thick hose. The backpack contained a micro-fission reactor, an advanced nuclear device that was developed at Black Mesa and was capable of using inexpensive depleted Uranium-235 as fuel rather than an enriched isotope. The same technology was put to use in the experimental Tau Cannon that was developed during the same period. Since gluon guns affect the fundamental structure of matter conventional armor offers little defense, but gluon guns are not capable of penetrating walls or obliterating buildings, suggesting that the one factor that matters is a target’s mass or density, as in a large or very dense object the disruptive effect is weakened as it tries to spreads throughout the entire object.

It is unknown whether gluon gun technology survived the destruction of the Black Mesa Research Facility, as there is no evidence of its use during the time of Combine rule. If the design did survive then it is possible that gluon guns may have become redundant, as the Combine’s dark energy technology seems to be capable of destroying the structure of matter to an even further extent. Furthermore the armor of Combine vehicles is able to withstand hits from moderately powered dark energy pulse weapons and it is therefore likely that they could endure fire from a gluon gun to a certain degree. This would limit the gluon gun to being an excessively powerful anti-infantry weapon. Its "brother weapon" is the Tau Cannon, which ultimately survived the destruction of Black Mesa. In Half Life 2, the Tau cannon can be seen attached to the side of a rebel buggy.

Multiplayer
In multiplayer, the Gluon Gun is a poor weapon of choice. Latency issues cause the Gluon Gun attack beam to lag and trail behind and players will have to hold the attack key down for nearly a second for the attack to start. The Gluon gun is also a very clumsy weapon when close to your opponent. Apart from these faults, the Gluon Gun is a very powerful weapon and useful for long range targets where the beam does not bend as much, because the mouse does not move as much compared to close range. Some servers enhance the damage done per ammo point when fired to make it even more powerful. Players with low ping will take advantage of the Gluon Guns accuracy and damage. The Gluon Gun on Valve Maps are very rare and are usually found only in a one place on the map. Compared to singleplayer, the Gluon Gun drains ammo slower, and damage is also dealt to everything near the beam's target.

Behind the scenes
The Gluon Gun was originally to have two fire modes, a wide beam and a thin beam. These would be toggled between by turning the handle 90 degrees. While this feature was cut, the model still possesses the animations for moving the handle. There are also damage settings for both beams in the game's configuration files.

Possible Ghostbusters Reference
The gluon gun is also known by many as the ‘egon’, as many of the Half-Life game files refer to the weapon as the ‘egon’. The fact that the weapon is attached to a backpack by a hose gives it a strong resemblance to the proton packs used by the protagonists of the 1984 film Ghostbusters, as well as its sequel and spin-off cartoon series. The gluon gun’s twisting beam also somewhat resembles the particles beams fired by the Ghostbusters’ weapons. One of the film’s characters is a brilliant scientist named Egon Spengler, who designed the Ghostbusters’ equipment. It is therefore likely that Valve referred to the weapon as the ‘egon’ as an in-joke, since they were aware of its similarities to the proton pack. When the player finds the weapon in the game, a scientist says ‘I designed the gluon gun,’ thereby confirming the weapon’s name. The term can also be found in Half-Life Deathmatch: in the game console a kill from the weapon is recorded as being a death by ‘gluon’. When the Opposing Force Capture the Flag multiplayer game was released the key configuration menu included the option to bind keys to particular weapons; here the weapon in question is listed as the Gluon Gun. Of course, it is possible that the unnamed scientist that built the gluon gun could himself be named Egon.

Trivia

 * The Flamethrower in Team Fortress Classic uses a modified version of the Gluon Gun's model.
 * A cut item, the Large Isotope Box, was to have the same function as the Small Isotope Box, providing ammunition for the Gluon Gun and the Tau Cannon.
 * Pressing the secondary attack key causes the view model to randomly play an idle animation once, then freeze. Releasing the key will stop the animation and return to normal. Other weapons lacking secondary fire modes, such as the Shock Roach, also experience this glitch.

List of appearances

 * Half-Life
 * ''Half-Life: Source
 * ''Half-Life Deathmatch: Source
 * ''Half-Life: Opposing Force (game files only)
 * ''Half-Life: Blue Shift (game files only)