Gluon Gun


 * Weapon category: 4
 * Range: Long
 * Primary attack: Continuous beam, 14 pts/uranium ammo unit
 * Secondary attack: Charged-up shot, none
 * Ammunition: Depleted uranium
 * Capacity: Ammo reserve of 100 units

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.

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 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 armour offers little defence, 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. Another disadvantage of the gluon gun is its very high rate of consumption of depleted uranium – if the weapon is fired carelessly it will deplete the micro-fission reactor’s stock of depleted uranium within seconds.

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 armour 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.

Ghostbusters?
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 in 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.