Unreviewed GHZ-528 "Castellan" Linespinner

[Helix]

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OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To create a special-purpose weapon for the Dzara
• Image Source: Slightly edited from here
• Canon Link: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Primary Source: N/A

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

• Manufacturer: Helix Privateers
• Affiliation: Helix Privateers / The Dzara
• Market Status: Closed-Market
• Model: GHZ-528 Castellan
• Modularity: Yes
• Production: Minor
• Material:
  
  • General Construction: Helsteel
  • Organic Components: Formgel
  • Self-Repair Lattice: Blightsteel
  • Exterior Finish: Helglass
  • Webs: Morphium

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Classification: Web/Restraint Device
• Size: Small
• Weight: Light
• Ammunition Type: Liquid Morphium
• Ammunition Capacity: Large
• Effective Range: Personal
• Rate of Fire: Very High
• Damage Output:
  
  • Default Nonlethal Configuration: None
  • Barbed Restraint Configuration: Low
  • Razor Web Configuration: Very High
• Recoil: Low

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Self-Repairing Structure
• Can be fired one-handed
• Melds with its user's forelimb
• Features a Chimeric cybersec suite
• Aftershock-Integrated

STRENGTHS

• Versatile: The Castellan can be utilized in a wide variety of lethal and non-lethal means, and serves as a multi-purpose field tool.
• Arm Gun: The Castellan partly-integrates with its user's forearm and brain, lowering recoil and allowing the user to fire with increased accuracy.
• Access Denied: Castellan spinners refuse to function in the hands of unknown users, and may even harm said users should they persist.

WEAKNESSES

• Fused: The Castellan's integration with its user's nervous system ensures it cannot be easily dropped or removed. Discarding it takes a decent period of time.
• Whisked Away: The Castellan suffers from a fairly short range compared to most rifle-like weapons.

DESCRIPTION

One of many Helix devices that function as both tool and weapon, the Castellan is nonetheless somewhat uncommonly deployed.

This carbine-sized device is usually carried by a single squad member, or integrated directly into combat droids.

As with many newer Helix-made weapons, the Castellan is semi-organic in appearance, featuring smooth alien lines and few obvious marks of technological manufacture. Internally, the Castellan is a nauseating marriage of restructured organic matter and bizarre technological components of unknown purpose. How these components interact with one another, let alone function, remains unclear to most outside observers.

Even capturing examples for study remains a challenge, as the Castellan features a complex failsafe mechanism similar to that found in the equally-mystifying Monitor. To utilize the weapon at all, the user must insert one forearm into an aperture at the rear of it, prompting the Castellan to clamp down on the offered limb with uncomfortable force.

The device then integrates itself directly with the user's nervous system (or primary processor for droids), allowing them to "see" the trajectory of their own outgoing fire (as well as incoming return fire) as a series of glowing lines. This largely removes the need for a traditional sight, and indeed, the Castellan features no such external accurizing measure.

Needless to say, this can render the weapon daunting to use for those unfamiliar with it. Thankfully, unfamiliar users will soon have larger issues to be concerned with, as its access to its user's nervous system allows the Castellan to easily identify unauthorized personnel.

The weapon might then refuse to function, self-destruct, or turn itself on the impertinent thief in question.

Rather than energy bolts or solid projectiles, the Castellan fires semi-liquid Morphium webbing in various different configurations.

For example, a common nonlethal tactic is to douse a foe in simple liquid Morphium, then trigger the substance to shift states. Immediately entombing or binding a target in suddenly-solid metal is as reliable a restraint tactic as any, and is rarely fatal or injurious in any serious way. Should the user wish to free their quarry, they need only shift the webs back to liquid again.

However, the Castellan's utility certainly doesn't stop with nonlethal capture. Its nastier uses are plenty, as the user can freely alter the thickness and solidity of the weapon's liquid-web strands at their whim.

In the immediate term, this can enable the user to spray webbing festooned with solid barbs, to both restrain and harm, or allow them to project a cloud of thin, razor-sharp wires capable of slicing infantry to shreds. In either case, struggling against these restraints usually only worsens the victim's wounds, and can easily prove lethal.

One particularly-devious usage of this feature was recorded in a routine boarding operation, where one user laid near-invisible wire traps for enemy defenders. As Morphium can alter color as easily as shape and solidity, the resultant wires were almost perfectly transparent, yet still fully capable of bisecting unwary naval security forces.

In a more utilitarian sense, the Castellan can serve a wide variety of non-combat purposes. It can seal wounds to staunch bleeding, though it is by no means a substitute for proper medical attention. Nonetheless, it can buy critically-wounded personnel time for such attention to arrive.

Other uses can include constructing field shelters, cementing small hull breaches, waterproofing gear, creating hammocks or other temporary field shelters, or of course, as grappling hooks.