The Continuity GuideDefence
by Martin Willey
The Continuity Guide
Named as a "hand held armour piercing laser" in Alpha Child, and capable of destroying a spaceship (Alpha Child, The Last Sunset). It fires a red-orange beam in The Last Sunset. The blue-grey tube has a transparent plastic collar around the firing end (an Airfix Saturn V rocket part). In addition to a large trigger handle, there is a shoulder brace (a Kaiser camera shoulder stabiliser, also used on the laser rifle), and two handles (attached with black rings around the tube), near the front underside, and the rear right side. The back section of the weapon has the numbers 369 and H-183, and is connected to the rear handle base by a thick white cable. A sighting tube (a telescope) is alongside the left side, and buttons along the top.
Seen on the Eagle weapons rack, this weapon has sights on one side, like the hand held armour piercing laser, plus a arm handle, like the laser rifle. Seen in Death's Other Dominion, The Full Circle, End Of Eternity.
The prop is made from 2 inch drainage pipe. At the rear is a first stage rocket of the Saturn V Airfix model 1:144 scale with domed top; there is another Airfix Saturn V part at the front. The handle is a Chinnon Sharpshooter camera grip, and the scope is a Swift ranger model 706.
On the Eagle weapons rack in The Infernal Machine, this is a variation of the weapon with a white nozzle. It has lost the shoulder brace, replaced with the same pistol grip/shoulder brace as the rocket gun.
Fires an orange beam (War Games, The Infernal Machine) or a red beam (Dragon's Domain) or a yellow beam (The Metamorph). Also seen in The Last Enemy, The Testament Of Arkadia, Brian The Brain, Catacombs Of The Moon, Space Warp, The Beta Cloud, Seed Of Destruction, and often on the weapons rack of Eagles (eg Death's Other Dominion, End Of Eternity, Space Brain, Mission Of The Darians, The Exiles, All That Glisters, New Adam, New Eve, The A B Chrysalis).
The gun is based around a toy machine gun, the Marx Toys "Copter Squad" Rifle/Machine Gun from 1966, with the stock removed and a new trigger handle, shoulder brace (a Kaiser camera shoulder stabiliser), strap, and perspex around the barrel.
The Kaiser cable release/shoulder stock used on the armour piercing laser and the laser rifle. Thanks to Simon.
These fire a flaming shell, used in The Beta Cloud. They are seen in The Immunity Syndrome (on an Eagle; they contain "metalline fibres", with no obvious barrel for the projectile) and The Dorcons. It fires a green beam in The Seance Spectre which causes minor damage to an Eagle in a direct hit.
"Anaesthetic gas guns" are mentioned in The Mark Of Archanon, an "anaesthetic dart gun" in seen in Space Warp, and a "high power injector gun" in The Beta Cloud.
Copyright Martin Willey