Railguns in science fiction

Railguns are a popular device in science fiction. However, they are rarely portrayed accurately, often being confused with coilguns or directed-energy weapons.

Books

• The Big U (by Neal Stephenson) A character builds a mass driver as part of an academic project.
• Buck Rogers (novel series): Uses mass driver railguns on Luna.
• Count Zero (by William Gibson): The characters speculate that a huge explosion was triggered by a railgun, and they describe the railgun's inherent instability: "You can rig a railgun to blow itself to plasma when it discharges."
• Crest of the Stars and Banner of the Stars (by Hiroyuki Morioka): Railguns are called Irgymh in Abh Empire, and used as a main armament of the combat warship in the Laburec.
• HaLo universe: in the first novel (Halo: The Fall of Reach): Railguns, or MAC (magnetic accelerator cannon) guns as they are known, are the main weapons of the human fleet.
• Snow Crash (by Neal Stephenson): Reason is an extremely powerful gatling type handheld railgun weapon.
• StarFist series: Railguns are used to great effect by the alien Skinks in combatting human soldiers.
• Succession series (by Scott Westerfeld): Railguns are fired from the Lynx to kill the Rix hostage takers who took Child Empress Anastasia Vista Khaman captive so that their compound mind could propagate unmolested by Imperial forces.

Film

The blockbuster movie Eraser starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is based on a defense contractor employee who has stumbled on a secret government plot to sell a deadly new weapon to terrorists. This weapon is the railgun.

Television

Battlestar Galactica

In the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, the weapons systems on the Battlestars Galactica and Pegasus act very much like rail guns, firing destructive rounds at a fast pace from large cannons located on the top of the battlestars. Pegasus, (the more advanced of The Two ships) has more batteries placed in other locations on the hull, albeit smaller in size than her main batteries.

Macross

In the anime Macross, the SDF-1 has 4 heavy rail guns on its "shoulders" when it is in the transformed humanoid form (Attack mode). Also its complement Monster Mark II Destroid have 4 heavy rail guns on their top mounts that travel 4000 km/s in space, so fast that making the warhead explosive would be redundant.

Mobile Suit Gundam SEED

In the anime Mobile Suit Gundam SEED and its sequel Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny, railguns and coilguns of various sizes are commonly mounted on both space warships and smaller one-man machines called mobile suits and mobile armors. The projectile is typically animated as a yellow streak, and doesn't have the speed and destructive properties of railguns depicted in other mediums.

RahXephon

In the anime RahXephon, the Vermillion is equipped with a combination weapon containing a continuous fire railgun and a beam weapon.

Stargate Atlantis and SG-1

In the first season of the TV series Stargate Atlantis, a railgun prototype is used against the Wraith's Darts. Intended to be used in the first generation of Earth's space ship, Prometheus, Stargate Command (SGC) was ordered to send the prototypes to Atlantis in the Pegasus galaxy before the Wraith attack. Commented as having a magazine size of 10,000 rounds and delivering an impact velocity of mach 5 at a distance of 250 miles, the weapons were a natural choice for defending the city from the waves of Wraith darts. The fully-motorized railguns were mounted onto wheeled trailers, much like field guns to allow them to be moved to tactical locations around the city. At the beginning of the second season, the Earth battlecruiser Daedalus arrived and displayed an armament of similar railguns. In Season 9 of Stargate SG-1 (the show of which Stargate Atlantis is a spin-off), the Prometheus and Odyssey are equipped with railguns.

Incidentally, the use of railguns chiefly as a form of anti-aircraft gun and artillery rather than a handheld weapon make the Stargate portrayal of the device closest to the way it would actually be used.

Tabletop role-playing games and wargames

• In the tabletop version of Heavy Gear, railguns are often found on main battle tanks and landships while the largest gears can carry a smaller version.
• In the post-apocalyptic role-playing game Rifts, the Occupational Character Class Glitter Boy is an individual piloting a large armoured suit equipped with a huge railgun (called "Boom Gun" in the game). Notably, the suit anchors itself into the ground when firing to maintain its position. Additionally other Rifts Occupational Character Classes have access to rail guns, specifically robots and cyborgs. While not the most powerful weapons available in the world of Rifts, railguns are touted as the futuristic replacement of modern projectile firearms.
• In the world of Warhammer 40,000, the Tau make use of rail technology with one of the largest and strongest guns in the game, and have recently perfected hand-held rail rifles. Tau Rail Guns come as Sub-Munition, firing a packet of hyper-velocity solid slugs(only on vehicles), or Solid Shot, firing one hyper-velocity rod. The Manta Missle Destroyer and Tigershark aircraft employ these in a long barreled version, and the Tau Hammerhead gunship has two different variants.

Computer and video games

Some computer games feature railguns as weapons. The most popular type of ammunition for these railguns are depleted uranium slugs. A common trait shared buy many railguns in different games is the ability for a slug (or other ammo type) to hit and pass though multiple enemies with one shot as well as allowing you see and/or shoot though solid matter.

• Ace Combat 4: "Stonehenge" is a battery of railguns.
• Armored Core games (from Armored Core: Nexus onward): "Linear Rifles" and "Linear Cannons" are part of an ACs inventory of equippable weapons. They fire high-powered rounds at speeds high enough to visibly distort the air around them.
• Battlefield 2142 (computer game): There are stationary anti-tank guns with railgun weapons.
• Command & Conquer: Renegade (first-person shooter): When playing as NOD forces in multiplayer mode, selecting the character, General Raveshaw, will enable you to use a Rail Gun as an extremely lethal weapon shot anywhere on the body.
• Command & Conquer: Tiberian Series: The units "Ghost Stalkers" and Mammoth Walker Mark II are equipped with weapons called rail guns. These railguns sport the same bullet trail (tight spiraling smoke in a straight line between shooter and target) as those in the film Eraser. Though this visual effect is considered impressive by some, such smoke patterns are not representative of actual railgun operation.
• Dark Reign (game): Several Freedom Guard units and buildings use railguns, including Mercenaries, Triple Rail Hover Tanks and Railgun Platforms.
• Deus Ex: Invisible War: A weapon called The Mag Rail can fire a powerful energy beam which can kill most human targets with a few shots. An alternative fire is an EMP blast which can be fired through walls and other obstacles, and which does heavy damage to all non-shielded electronic components.
• Eve Online (a space-based MMORPG from the Icelandic Software house CCP): Railguns are a popular turret weapon fitted to a variety of ships particularly favoured by the Caldari and Gallente races.
• Escape Velocity Nova (a space role-playing game developed by Ambrosia Software): The Auroran Empire makes heavy use of railguns as ship-mounted weaponry. The railguns are offered in 100 mm, 150 mm, and 200 mm varieties, and are the farthest-shooting projectile weapons in the game. The 100 mm comes in a turretted version, found on the AE Carrier.
• Extreme-G 3 (videogame): A railgun weapon that shoots a round with such velocity that the kinetic heating turns it into a white-hot stream of plasma.
• Final Fantasy VIII (game): A railgun is used at Lunar Gate on the Esthar continent to launch pods containing individual persons into space.
• GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (game): The Mag-Rail is a rail-handgun that fires a depleted uranium spike roughly the size of a tent peg. Though capable of passing through multiple enemies, walls, and objects, they are unable to pass through vehicles and energy shields. They can be dual-wielded and cause roughly the same amount of damage as the Harpoon RL's rockets. When fired, the barrels open as a new spike is loaded and then close, venting what is possibly a coolant gas through the gill-shaped holes behind the barrel.
• Half-Life modification Team Fortress Classic: Railguns are the secondary weapon for the engineer class. Although the projectile moves at a slow rate and leaves a green trail behind it.
• Heavy Gear: Railguns can be used by the largest of the game's mecha while even bigger railguns are used by tanks and landships.
• Heavy Gear II: The New Earth Government (the antagonists in the game) use a large orbital mass driver to propel asteroids at planets.
• Heli Attack 2 and Heli Attack 3 (games): Railguns fire a green beam of light, which can go through walls. In Heli Attack 3 there is also a railgun called the Anytime that shoots explosive projectiles.
• Madness Interactive (game): A railgun that fires green tinted beam causing damage to multiple targets in a straight line.
• Metal Gear Solid (videogame): The main weapon on the massive bipedal walking battle tank, Metal Gear REX, is a railgun (although the way it is described it seems more like a coilgun in operation) mounted on the tank's right "arm." that fires rocket-less stealth nuclear warheads.
• Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (videogame): One of the boss characters, Fortune, a member of Dead Cell uses a railgun as her weapon.
• Mission Critical (a 1995 science fiction adventure game by Legend Entertainment): Railguns are portrayed in considerable detail as part of the CICS. This a suite of relatively short-range weapons employed by early 22nd century U. S. Navy warships in space.
• Oni (computer game): You can equip your character with a weapon called the Mercury Bow. The Mercury Bow is an advanced sniper rifle that uses railgun technology to propel a frozen mercury sliver. In addition to the trauma caused by impact, your enemies are purported to suffer from mercury poisoning afterwards.
• Outpost 2 (a strategy game by Sierra): Eden's medium weapon is a railgun.
• Parasite Eve 2 (videogame): Aya Brea, the main character, can use "Hypervelocity", a railgun as a secret weapon. It also appears as a secret SDI weapon used by the US Government to rescue the world from a pandemic on a global scale, but proves fruitless as the main character ends up stopping it herself.
• Perfect Dark (for Nintendo 64): One of the available weapons, the Farsight, is a railgun with an X-Ray scope, allowing the player to shoot and see through walls.
• Quake series:-
  • Quake II: A railgun (having the appearance of a small vacuum cleaner with red-tinted electronics on top) was included as a weapon in the game. It fired a radioactive slug with a silver smoke trail and a blue spiraling plume.
  • Quake III Arena: A nearly identical weapon. The spiraling blue plume was eliminated and the color of the smoke trail was customizable by the player.
  • Quake 4: The railgun has a more compact ReDeSign and recolored to red. It still takes uranium slugs as ammo but now shoots a momentary green line which fades quickly. The weapon later gets a long distance scope and the strength to turn weaker enemies into a small cloud of blood in one shot.
• Red Faction and Red Faction II (computer games): Railguns that fire through walls with a heat-detection scope.
• Shadow Warrior: The rail gun found in the game shoots pieces of metal at near light speed, propelled from a magnetic field. This weapon will penetrate multiple enemies, making it powerful and very useful in certain situations. This gun is a direct lift from the (then recent) Arnold Schwarzenegger film, Eraser.
• Spy Hunter (game): The Interceptor has a railgun that you can earn late in the game.
• Star Wars computer game Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II: One of the available weapons is a "rail detonator", a handheld railgun used to launch explosive charges over long distances.
• System Shock: Has railgun
• Vendetta Online: has railgun

See also

• Weapons in science fiction
• Kinetic energy penetrator
• Scram cannon