Canon

Gravity hammer

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Keyart for the Jiralhanae Chieftain, Avitus.
Avitus wielding his Akelas Workshop gravity hammer.
“ The Gravity Hammer is a Brute melee weapon that combines a bladed war hammer with repurposed gravitic impellers integrated onto the striking face. These impellers give the weapon its namesake, and each smash produces a devastating area-of-effect pulse.[1] ”

Gravity hammers are a class of two-handed melee weapons developed by the Covenant and inherited by its splinter factions. To their users, the Jiralhanae, they are formally designated as war hammers.[2][3] The Office of Naval Intelligence has typically type-classified encountered gravity hammer variants under the designation of the Type-2 Energy Weapon/Hammer (T-2 EW/H).[4][5] Nicknames for the gravity hammer include the Hammer and the Club.[6]

Overview[edit]

A screenshot of the Jiralhanae fighting the Flood outside High Charity. Screenshot taken from the closing cinematic in What Could Go Wrong? in Halo Wars 2: Awakening the Nightmare.
A Jiralhanae use his gravity hammer's impact to generate a pulse to repel the Flood during the Outbreak on Installation 00.

Design details[edit]

"One hit from that hammer and you ended up a puddle of bones and blood."
— Private Aaron Landvik[7]

A gravity hammer typically consists of a two-meter long haft,[5] a hammerhead, and a tungsten-alloy blade on the reverse side of the head.[4][8] A counterweight is attached to the bottom end of the haft.[9] A short-range, shock-field-generating gravitational energy drive is integrated inside the head of the hammer,[6][10] while the head's striking face is lined with repurposed Covenant gravitic impellers,[2] which release a concussive force upon impact.[3] Together, the devices allows the wielder to briefly displaces local gravity at the point of the hammer's impact with impressive knockback,[2][11] while producing an area-of-effect kinetic pulse (of approximately 4.5 meters).[4] The gravitational energy drive's effects allows the user to displace objects of greater weight or power than what a normal blow might do.[6] The gravity drive can also manipulate localized energy fields,[9] granting the user the ability to pull a target towards themselves or push the target away.[12][13][14] However, the Jiralhanae's brutal nature, along with the increased damage from the impellers,[10] means that they often prefer to use the weapon in melee combat.[5] Although humans first encountered the weapon in 2526,[15] the exact mechanism by which the gravity hammer functions was still under investigation by United Nations Space Command in 2552.[4]

History[edit]

The gravity hammer evolved from traditional Jiralhanae-bladed war hammers,[2] dating back to the war-totems wielded by war chieftains on Doisac.[3][15] Within the Jiralhanae's barbaric culture, in addition to being a powerful weapon, the war hammers serve as the ultimate symbol of clan leadership,[8][5] taking on an almost religious significance among the Jiralhanae.[6] The ceremonial hammer of a pack or a clan is only passed to another Jiralhanae if he can best his chieftain in ceremonial combat; the mantle of leadership passes along with the weapon.[5]

Tartarus with the Fist of Rukt in Installation 05's control room. From Halo 2: Anniversary campaign level The Great Journey.
Tartarus holding the Fist of Rukt, with its modifications by the Covenant.

Following the Jiralhanae's absorption into the Covenant hegemony in 2492,[5] the war hammers were modified with Forerunner technology reverse-engineered by the Covenant.[2][3][11] The first gravity hammer and the template for the standardized weapons of this type was the Fist of Rukt, an ancestral war hammer of Maccabeus' clan which was upgraded with Covenant gravity technology after Tartarus was appointed the Chieftain of the Jiralhanae in the Covenant.[16] After Tartarus was granted the Fist of Rukt, many minor chieftains commissioned similar weapons, with components of the ancestral hammers incorporated when possible.[15] Over the course of the Human-Covenant War, a variety of hammer variants were produced in workshops and war forges, sporting performance upgrades and individual stylistic tweaks.[2] The gravity hammers inherited the war hammers' totemistic and ceremonial significance,[8] with wielders being expected to treat their gravity hammer with great care.[17] Furthermore, some hammer have been aesthetically-tailored to the use of specific clans, families, or packs,[5] resulting in numerous variants. During his rise to power within the Covenant, Tartarus used his relationship with the San'Shyuum to reward loyal lieutenants with similarly-advanced hammers secretly forged within the Sacred Promissory.[18]

In 2552, only a few months before the Great Schism and the fall of High Charity, the Sacred Promissory began producing gravity hammers en masse,[8] likely as a part of the Prophet of Truth's order to expand the Sacred Promissory's scope to the production of all Jiralhanae matériel for the impending purge of the Sangheili.[19] Following the dissolution of the Covenant, the Banished seized the design templates for nearly all Covenant gravity hammer variants. The Banished contracted war-forges to reproduce and modify existing designs or create new variants, with the number of variants being employed reaching upwards of 50.[3]

Usage[edit]

Avery Johnson: "Heavy pistols, and a hammer."
Ponder: "Say again?"
Avery Johnson: "A giant hammer, sir. On their leader."
— Avery Johnson describing Maccabeus with the Fist of Rukt, to Ponder[20]

The gravity hammer serves dual purposes as a weapon as well as a defining ceremonial vestige of clan leadership, and is thus typically wielded by a chieftain or other high-ranking members.[5] Within the Covenant, the gravity hammers were commonly wielded by Chieftains.