Subanese crystal

Blamite is a crystalline, high-explosive material used in the ammunition of needle rifles and Needlers. The crystals are mined from Suban, one of Sanghelios' two moons.

Overview
Blamite is one of the few unique ammunition types in Covenant arsenal. It is capable of two types of damage to a target; penetration, damage caused by the needles impacting flesh and entering it; and the usually-resulting supercombine, the combined explosion of multiple (usually seven) needles wedged in the body. A crystalline projectile can cause fatal damage to its victim—a single shard can cause internal bleeding or strike a vital organ, with untreated wounds resulting in death. The resulting detonation of the shard upon penetration also spreads micro-shrapnel throughout the victim. Depending on the impact area and angle, several crystalline shards can cause amputation of limbs, and impacts to the chest are in most cases fatal; the supercombine properties can easily crack ribs, damage the lungs or heart, and cause severe flesh damage that can be very difficult and often impossible to repair. If enough rounds impact and detonate simultaneously, the unfortunate target can quite literally be blown apart.

While used exclusively in needle rifles and Needlers, the needles behave differently in both weapons when fired upon. Needles fired from a Needler appear to have some sort of "identify-friend/foe" function, as they will track on hostile targets but not allies of the wielder. Needles fired from a needle rifle lack this function, behaving more like traditional projectiles, but are much faster and require fewer embedded rounds to cause a lethal supercombine. The energy cutlass, a melee weapon used predominantly by Kig-Yar, uses a blamite shard as the blade. When thrust into a soft target, the blade will explode violently similar to a Needler shard.

Following the Human-Covenant War, UNSC and Sangheili researchers collaborated in an attempt to discover the properties and functions of blamite in Kolaar Manufactorum on Sanghelios. However, the results yielded from the research was listed as inaccessible by the Office of Naval Intelligence.

Trivia

 * The name "blamite" comes from Bungie's method of censoring swearing on their forums, which replaces objectionable words with -blam!-. ,
 * Killing 10 enemies in either Firefight or campaign with a supercombine explosion without dying in Halo: Reach unlocks the achievement, A Spoonful of Blamite.

List of appearances

 * Halo: The Fall of Reach
 * Halo: Combat Evolved
 * Halo: The Flood
 * Halo: First Strike
 * Halo 2
 * Halo: Ghosts of Onyx
 * Halo 3
 * Halo: Contact Harvest
 * Halo: The Cole Protocol
 * Halo Wars
 * Halo: Helljumper
 * Halo 3: ODST
 * Halo Legends
 * Homecoming


 * Halo: Blood Line
 * Halo: Reach
 * Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary
 * Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn
 * Halo 4
 * Spartan Ops
 * Halo: Spartan Assault
 * Halo: Initiation
 * Halo: Escalation
 * Halo 2 Anniversary