The Obelisk of Light
The Brotherhood is a militant organization with a fragmented material base. A fair part of their equipment consists of outdated, obsolete, or obsolescent designs - such as their main-line light tank, based on a chassis more than 50 years old. Some of it is of more recent origin, such as their standard issue assault rifles or attack helicopters, while other elements are based on more advanced material sciences - like their new body armor system. All of these are in stark contrast to Nod's bewilderingly advanced Visionary Weapons, the secrets of which were delivered directly to Kane by God himself.The Obelisk is one such weapon - a static, directed-energy weapon capable of inflicting massive damage on a target with little disturbance to its surroundings. This weapon takes the form of a concrete building, twenty feet in height and taking the general appearance of a scorpion's tail - poised to strike - is the most potent weapon in Nod's arsenal for denying approach to its enemies. Affixed at the tip of the tail is a mighty emitter pyramid, which projects a short-lived energy beam capable of cutting through all but the most resilient of materials.
Utilizing a technique somewhat similar to the Borrmann-Mössbauer effect, coherent photons are sent at a target like a "laser", leaving behind a collapsing muon pathway (emitting visible - typically red - light as a side effect). In terminus, the beam bores a narrow path through its target - destroying everything on the way through until the energy is fully absorbed.
Terminal effect against organic targets is massive tissue destruction - basically everything around the intersect site is completely disturbed, always resulting in loss of life and limb (usually both). Vehicular destruction in primary is through personnel kill and/or the destruction of critical systems (cutting fuel lines, bisecting engine or mobility components, weapons, etc), while secondary terminal effect usually starts as a fuel or ammunition "cook off". Curiously, the weapon's beam itself does not generate heat - any arising from the attack is evidently generated entirely from local matter breakdown (thus combustions or cook-offs are the result of unpredictable chemical interactions, rather than the weapon's impact).
The earliest prototypes appear to enter Nod's (available) written record in 1991, and the earliest CIA photographs with the device - then of completely unknown function - date to 1993. First operational examples of Obelisks were encountered by GDI forces in early 2001. What what can be gathered, the Brotherhood produced rapid-construction kits for these towers at a facility that was never uncovered, then trucked or flew them in to key strategic locations. A prepared site could, with one of these kits, have a fully operational tower inside of 48 hours from arrival - presuming the considerable power requirements could be met for it. Much like all of Nod's Visionary Weapons, the true origin or history of these technologies are unknown, but they appear to be organic to the Brotherhood, rather than external purchases or developments.
These weapons were extremely dangerous against point targets - with a range in excess of 4 miles, the beams emitted by them were regularly capable of severely damaging GDI's medium tanks, all but obliterate an armored troop transport, and kill any person it struck - it even dealt considerable damage to GDI's late-war super-heavy tank, the Mammoth. The height of the tower essentially assured it would strike a vehicle's vulnerable top armor (though at a non-optimal angle, usually at around 45 degrees for most of the approach), allowing it to work its deadly effect with even greater reliability.
The weapon was notably ineffective against aircraft, however, seemingly unable to fire its weapon against them at all (this is because internally the weapon needs difference-to-ground metrics to calculate Ξμ-phase decay rates - sky being infinite, this can't happen) - this required some form of local anti-aircraft support to be deployed in the immediate area around it. The tower's emitter was also not very rapid-firing, capable of about one projection every 90 seconds (though of little comfort for approaching vehicle crews). The structure's weapon has considerable power loads - usually meaning these cannot simply be constructed in some remote wilderness location, as it must be connected to a mains power. The height also makes the device easily spotted - though with a 5.5 mile horizon and a 4.5 mile targeting range more than makes up for it. Actual weapon targeting mechanism was - evidently - an integrated, LIDAR-esque component of the two-foot Projector Apparatus adorning the top of the structure, though they could also take remote GPS co-ordinates as well for manual discharge, and an array of cameras was often attached below the emitter, 15' off of the ground (giving a 4.7 mile horizon). Specifics as to the primary targeting or even basic operations remain a mystery to all those outside the select few chosen to operate the device.
Direct crewing for the weapon appears to be two, though only one seems to have been a trained operations technician. Internal space is not much to comment on - 150 square feet at 15' x 10', mostly taken up by monitoring equipment and the Conduit. Ground level entrance is one 3" thick, armored steel door; some base facilities connected the tower back to the nearest operations base with a 7' high tunnel, usually of concrete tubes handling the power lines as well - this will also feature an armored door partitioning off the actual operations center. Crews will bunk inside the tower, ready to answer any alert with immediate action.
Nod would erect around one hundred of these over the course of the conflict, mostly in Europe. Their ability to ruin tanks with precision from ranges far beyond anything else in the Nod arsenal helped to even the odds, especially against GDI's M1s and Mammoths. These stoic beacons of faith would light the way all the way to Nod's final stand at Sarajevo. Actual impact on the war's course is debatable. It was never really viable to cluster many of these in one location, owing to production bottlenecks during the conflict and the device's power consumption, so casualties per tower per battle were relatively low. One tower is a terror to one tank, or even a platoon of them. Against a full-on armored onslaught, a tower mattered much less - though GDI's assault through Hungary did need to be rerouted to take into account a particularly dense cluster of these devices near Vác. Morale effects cannot be understated.
GDI never successfully captured an Obelisk intact. If they were not destroyed in combat by GDI, Nod themselves tended to rig them for detonation before GDI operations teams could get close enough, or given time were able to hollow out all of the actual operational elements from the concrete husk. In two instances was GDI able to briefly hold a tower. The first, outside of Cairo, was destroyed via Nod artillery batteries less than 20 minutes after GDI special operations team breached the structure - a massive, concentrated barrage that must have involved twenty guns - this was likely a pre-planned fire mission, and the tower possibly even a fake. In the second, a GDI engineering team was beginning preliminary investigation of the structure after GDI performed an overrun in Szeged, Hungary when they (and the structure, and the GDI forces guarding it) were eliminated by what was probably Nod special operatives.
Ultimately, the towers revealed to the world - and the conquered populations - that Nod was capable of things GDI could not even conceive, perhaps suggesting there was much more to the Brotherhood than anyone could possibly understand from the outside. This was an impression that would last a long time, and no doubt added to the organization's substantial credibility growth in the post-war era. Obelisks would adorn various strategic locations lorded over by Nod splinter factions in the wake of Kane's death, and models (or even functional examples) would be erected in town centers in Nod-controlled regions as a symbol of their power (and the population's collective faith).
The Obelisk of Light in GURPS
For the weapon, the Acc, Weight, ST, and Bulk stats were basically lifted from Area Defense Laser in GURPS Ultra Tech, pg 116. The rest were basically my determination, with the important ones just being the Range, Damage, RoF, and Shots. For these stats, there was not much to go on, but I did get a few important hints from the folks over at /r/commandandconquer that let me settle on a weapon strength. In the video game, the laser pulse will almost completely destroy an APC - putting it deep into "red" health territory (on rare occasion, flat out destroying it). It will also take about 1/2 the HP off of a Medium Tank.
I've already covered the APC in an earlier article and had its roof DR figured out, so I went and did the same for the M1 and M60 (both being medium tanks in GDI, by my telling, to show up in future articles) - though I must point out the M1 is based mostly on Hearsay. Now, I figure it would be attacking from above but at an angle, so I calculated the top armor as if it were at a 45 degree angle of incidence. This makes the targets a little tougher. Then, I messed around with numbers, trying to figure out how strong of a hit would get through APC DR and leave it in the -4xHP territory, and also get me something in the -2.5x(ish) territory for the M1 and M60. That is to say, "nearly completely destroyed" and "about half way destroyed" for these vehicles, respectively, somewhat like we see in the game. Answer there was 562 damage with (10) - thanks M1, with your gobstopper armor...
Range was just taking the attack range for medium tank and the Obelisk in the video game and getting a ratio - 1.5x and some change - and using that to extend off the range of the 105mm in both the M1 and M60. Hey, it works...and definitely makes them a dangerous defense structure against individual targets.
For the structure, we are looking at a 2' thick wall of reinforced concrete comprising the exterior. The entrance door reflects a 3" thick, armored steel gantry, lockable from within - this may vary from structure to structure, but is the apparent norm. The projector itself is significantly less resistant though difficult to hit; it is constructed of a strong, glass-like material.
Building particulars are just made up as felt right - the video game just gives it 1/2 the HP of a medium tank, and...that's all we have to go on. Rather at odds with most of my stuff here, which is sometimes an exercise in hair splitting.
Closing
Putting this one together was interesting, though without a lot of hard stats to crutch content along it feels lacking to me. Totally fictional articles have lots of freedom, but little guidance! Close enough for our purposes, here, anyways - ultimately, only the Damage and (maybe) the DR/HP would ever actually come into play, if anything ever did.This has been ready since 20180404, but kept it around for whenever I hit something like a dry spell. This seemed like a good time to post! Though, I am working on more C&C setting stuff - we'll see that out eventually.
Not a lot of good art to glean for this, either...I suspect that'll be an issue for pretty much all articles like this. That's the downside to these sorts of things.
Thanks for reading!
Cheers!
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