User avatar
Vader
Topic Author
Posts: 944
Joined: Fri 15 Nov 2019, 14:11
Location: The Frozen North

2019-era LAPD Sidearm (aka. "Deckard's Blaster")

Fri 21 Jan 2022, 20:52

Just to create a little life on this subforum while we wait for further official statements on the upcoming game for us to digest, I thought I'd post a little piece on one small but fascinating piece of hardware from the original movie: the gun that Deckard is seen wielding throughout the movie, and how we might interpret it in the game.

First a little description of what it is we see:

The gun is a large-ish sidearm that doesn't really look like anything we know from firearms history.

In order to be able to visibly fire on set, the "hero prop" was built around a Charter Arms Bulldog .44 Magnum revolver that could be loaded with blanks. It then has the cut-off receiver from a Steyr Mannlicher Model SL .222 bolt-action rifle screwed on top, the magazine from the Steyr attached below the barrel, plus some additional greeblies, as non-functional garnishings to build the outlandish shape of what we see on-screen.
Quite prominently, it also has (a) twin triggers in tandem, just like some versions of the Steyr rifle have IRL and (b) a number of LEDs at the bottom of the Steyr magazine.

Image
From the OP's private collection. Image may not show in certain browsers.

EDIT: To show exactly what it is we're talking about:
Image
Main parts of blaster prop — complete Blaster (OP's coll.), removed complete action of Steyr Mannlicher .222 Mod. SL rifle (with magazine; chamber portion of barrel visible), and a Charter Arms Bulldog .44 revolver. Note that bottom of rifle receiver and bolt are machined off to make room for pyrotechnic effect (i.e. revolver barrel), and the whole chamber and barrel of the rifle are removed.
Image may not show in all browsers. Try opening in separate tab or window.



On screen, what we see of the gun being used tells us that:
  • When fired, it produces a bright muzzle flash
  • It also produces a loud report
  • It doesn’t seem to support a very high rate of fire
  • It can selectively fire explosive rounds
  • In explosive mode, projectiles seem markedly slower than when firing non-explosive
  • Engaging explosive mode takes too long to be feasible in "quick draw" situations
  • In non-explosive mode, unless hit in the head, it seems to take several direct hits to "retire" a replicant


So what is it, in-world?

In early treatments, the gun was described as some sort of "black beam" gun (whatever that is), but what the propmakers built didn't satisfy Sir Ridley. So they built this instead. As they went through extreme lengths to disguise the revolver inside the prop, we can safely assume that it's not supposed to be a revolver in-world, either. It is also abundantly clear that it can't be a conventional pistol with a grip magazine.

Having considered various alternatives over the last 40 years, I eventually landed on the conclusion that it most probably needs to be a Gauss gun — a linear electromagnetic accelerator (not to be confused with a "rail gun").

I envision the Steyr receiver assembly housing the magazine of the gun, storing projectiles in a linear tube, in a manner resembling an inverted shotgun. The Steyr receiver's ejector port would be where you load the weapon, and the bolt handle is used to cock the weapon for the first shot; possibly also to de-cock it.
Operating the bolt handle moves the hindmost projectile from the magazine down to the chamber at the back end of the barrel. For subsequent shots, the reloading action might be either recoil operated or done by electrical actuators.

The Steyr magazine assembly houses the battery; the capacitors to drive the accelerator coils (which are embedded in the barrel) are housed in the bulge where the prop's revolver drum resides.

The muzzle flash and report are products of the electrical arc that occurs when the accelerator circuit is broken by the projectile leaving the barrel.


And what is the secondary trigger for?

To my mind, the most sensible use for it would be to activate the explosive projectile option. For a police weapon, it would make sense for the projectile to be inert by default, in order to avoid collateral damage in a civilian environment.
On the other hand, when hunting Replicants, having the ability to enhance the effectiveness of the projectile when you know that you have a clear shot would certainly be ... helpful.

I'm thinking that by engaging the secondary trigger, the Rep-Detect can elect to turn the projectile currently loaded in the chamber into a micro grenade.

Possible mechanisms for this might include injecting a chemical compound into a chamber in the bullet, or altering the composition of a material already there by introducing said chemical compound, and/or an electrical current, mechanically priming an impact fuse mechanism inside the bullet, or something similar.

(Alternatively, the weapon has a strictly limited number of explosive bullets — between one and three — stashed in a secondary magazine below the chamber, and pressing the secondary trigger returns the chambered round to the primary magazine, and swaps it for an explosive one.)

The slower projectile could then be accounted for by an added mass due to injected explosive compounds (or just a heavier projectile), and/or a deliberately lowered acceleration to not risk the projectile exploding in the barrel.


What does this mean in game terms?

I haven’t really made up my mind on exactly how I’d want to represent the gun in the game yet (there not existing a game yet). Therefore, for the moment, I’ll just settle for presenting a number of factors I see need to be taken into account in the process:

In ordinary "inert" mode, it should be possible to treat the weapon pretty much as a conventional pistol, never mind its outré design. I'd say it most likely can house about 8-12 rounds in its magazine.
As noted earlier, you probably couldn’t fire off a very rapid volley of shots with it, whether this be due to high recoil alone, or compounded by the recharging time of the capacitors.

It's the optional explosive round capability that renders it truly exotic...

Depending on how long one postulates it takes the mechanism that engages explosive mode to cycle, we might posit (a) that it takes a full turn to accomplish, (b) that it can be done in the same turn as the round is fired as a "minor action", or (c) that it can be done "for free" as part of an aimed attack action.
The only definitive limitation we know is that it is not possible to do in a "quick-draw" situation — e.g. with a Replicant bearing down on you doing flip-flops...

Another parameter to take into consideration is, is the explosive capability built into every bullet and merely primed by pressing the secondary trigger, or is the charge somehow fully or partially inserted into the chambered round?
If the former, the option can obviously be activated as many times as there are rounds in the magazine.
If the latter, there may be a limitation. In that case, how severe?
With the secondary magazine concept, the limitation is obvious.

Similar considerations pertain to the battery that drives the gun. I’m thinking that the LEDs might be indicators for the status of the battery and the explosive charges, assuming that the clip carries both.

Then there’s safety distance. At how close a target can you fire an explosive round without risking injury to yourself? On-screen, the explosion doesn’t seem extremely powerful, but it could certainly throw debris at you if you’re unlucky…
Last edited by Vader on Thu 30 Jun 2022, 14:43, edited 1 time in total.
Before you use the word "XENOMORPH" again, you should read this article through:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/aliens-throwaway-line-confusion
 
Balou1917
Posts: 29
Joined: Sun 07 Jun 2020, 22:45

Re: 2019-era LAPD Sidearm (aka. "Deckard's Blaster")

Tue 25 Jan 2022, 22:45

I like the line of thinking you were taking. Until told otherwise I just figured the gun held five rounds like in real life, the super charger element could be a small rail gun like device that needs time to "warm up" second trigger activates that, LED indicate when the charge is achieved. Normal round/uncharged does typical would ballistics, supercharged does "Magnum" ballistics. Lind of the same concept between .44 Special and .44 Magnum. Also, if the supercharger the supercharger gets the velocity up to the say 2700 fps, then you have very different wound ballistics. That is why lighter and faster rifle rounds do so much damage compared to heavy and slower handgun rounds. Although on paper the .44 mag and the 5.56 are ballistically identical..
 
User avatar
Vader
Topic Author
Posts: 944
Joined: Fri 15 Nov 2019, 14:11
Location: The Frozen North

Re: 2019-era LAPD Sidearm (aka. "Deckard's Blaster")

Tue 03 May 2022, 19:52

Been a bit of development here. Of sorts, at least...

Remember what I wrote in the OP a few months ago?

So what is it, in-world?

[...] As they went through extreme lengths to disguise the revolver inside the prop, we can safely assume that it's not supposed to be a revolver in-world, either.

Now, after all that ... take a wild guess, what would you think Ligan in the end seems to have elected to go for as their in-world "rationalisation" for the weapon...?

Image
Image may not show in certain browsers. Try right-click and open image in new window or tab.

I mean... :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:


Oh, well. Perhaps it's just a placeholder graphic...? One would at least hope so, because what it actually depicts is — just to be entirely clear on this — the pyrotechnic effect functionality of the on-set filming prop … which, reasonably, ought to be quite different from the futuristic in-world actual firearm.


Just makes one wonder though ... given the above, in their ALIEN RPG — why didn't they "explain" the Pulse Rifle as a Thompson? The Smart Gun as an MG42?
It amounts to the same thing, after all. Exactly, in detail, the same, utterly ludicrous, thing.

...can't help but feel that words like "Epic" and "Fail" very prominently start coming to mind here...
Before you use the word "XENOMORPH" again, you should read this article through:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/aliens-throwaway-line-confusion
 
rennarda
Posts: 94
Joined: Fri 20 Dec 2019, 15:28

Re: 2019-era LAPD Sidearm (aka. "Deckard's Blaster")

Mon 09 May 2022, 10:14

Regardless of all the interesting research you did - as someone who just watched the movie I always thought it was just a revolver! A high tech one, but a revolver. Heck - I even thought it had a wooden handle....
 
User avatar
Vader
Topic Author
Posts: 944
Joined: Fri 15 Nov 2019, 14:11
Location: The Frozen North

Re: 2019-era LAPD Sidearm (aka. "Deckard's Blaster")

Mon 09 May 2022, 14:19

Regardless of all the interesting research you did - as someone who just watched the movie I always thought it was just a revolver! A high tech one, but a revolver. Heck - I even thought it had a wooden handle....

That is interesting! (But Terry Lewis and his assistants are weeping bitter tears... :mrgreen: They did, after all, work very hard indeed trying to hide it!)

I agree that it does have somewhat ... revolver-y proportions, in that the grip sort of juts out from the rear corner of the frame, giving the weapon a roughly boomerang-shaped profile in a way that only revolvers have had IRL, post-1820.

But everything else is of course way off for a revolver, or indeed for anything else. Although, for some reason, Ligan seems to have chosen to go for the ever so slightly "off" shape of certain earlier prop replicas in their picture.

There being a revolver somewhere in there to fire the pyrotechnics was far from a foregone conclusion for decades. To the point in fact, that it was only (highly controversial, to boot) speculation in the fan community that the prop actually was built around a revolver, all the way until one of the original "hero" props turned up in 2006 on Worldcon, to be sold at the Profiles in History auction in 2009.

The grips are amber though, but you probably already saw that.
Last edited by Vader on Mon 16 May 2022, 13:57, edited 1 time in total.
Before you use the word "XENOMORPH" again, you should read this article through:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/aliens-throwaway-line-confusion
 
Vagrant
Posts: 32
Joined: Sun 23 Jan 2022, 12:55

Re: 2019-era LAPD Sidearm (aka. "Deckard's Blaster")

Sun 15 May 2022, 12:19

Google Adam Savage and Blade Runner ;)
Now there's someone that loves the Blade Runner blaster prop 8-)
Although pretty much all the talk is about aesthetics and how the prop was constructed rather than its properties within the setting :)
 
User avatar
Fenhorn
Moderator
Posts: 4429
Joined: Thu 24 Apr 2014, 15:03
Location: Sweden

Re: 2019-era LAPD Sidearm (aka. "Deckard's Blaster")

Sun 15 May 2022, 17:05

Google Adam Savage and Blade Runner ;)
Now there's someone that loves the Blade Runner blaster prop 8-)
Although pretty much all the talk is about aesthetics and how the prop was constructed rather than its properties within the setting :)
Adam Savage Meets the Blade Runner Blaster prop!

And he has more videos about Blade Runner.
“Thanks for noticin' me.” - Eeyore
 
User avatar
Vader
Topic Author
Posts: 944
Joined: Fri 15 Nov 2019, 14:11
Location: The Frozen North

Re: 2019-era LAPD Sidearm (aka. "Deckard's Blaster")

Mon 16 May 2022, 13:56

Google Adam Savage and Blade Runner ;)
Now there's someone that loves the Blade Runner blaster prop 8-)
Although pretty much all the talk is about aesthetics and how the prop was constructed rather than its properties within the setting :)
Adam Savage Meets the Blade Runner Blaster prop!

And he has more videos about Blade Runner.

Indeed — Dan Lanigan is the fellow who bought the blaster prop at the Profiles in History auction I mentioned earlier, for $270,000.

Adam Savage (of MythBusters fame) is a well-known nerd in the prop replica building and collecting community. Dan is a bit different, in that he actually has the financial muscle to buy the original props.
There were a bunch of other prop replica nerds (most prominently a gentleman named Richard Coyle) who actually got an opportunity to make very close observations of it at Worldcon.

But it is nice to see how the video Fenhorn posts to so prominently demonstrates the exact point I have been making: the revolver cylinder Ligan's image shows pivoting out from the weapon is merely a mechanism of the real-world on-set filming prop.

Just like the ALIENS Pulse Rifle surely isn't simply a dressed-up, conventional .45cal submachine gun, or the Smartgun a conventional 7.92mm GPMG on a Stedicam rig, like the filming props in reality are — surely the actual futuristic Blaster must be something more exotic than a 5-shot revolver? Especially bearing in mind how hard the Bladerunner props department worked to hide that particular aspect of the prop's pyrotechnical effects mechanism?

Why does Fria Ligan want to destroy their artwork?
Before you use the word "XENOMORPH" again, you should read this article through:

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/aliens-throwaway-line-confusion
 
User avatar
Fenhorn
Moderator
Posts: 4429
Joined: Thu 24 Apr 2014, 15:03
Location: Sweden

Re: 2019-era LAPD Sidearm (aka. "Deckard's Blaster")

Mon 16 May 2022, 14:33

The weapon looks the way it looks because the prop-makers wanted to have a weapon that had a futuristic look and at the same time a retro-look and that also could shoot blanks. That is the reason it had some steyr parts and some .44 revolver parts and some extra things on top of that that just look cool. They didn't try to hide anything. If they really wanted to hide it, they would have used a pistol and not a revolver and then put some extra things on it to make it look futuristic.
“Thanks for noticin' me.” - Eeyore
 
Vagrant
Posts: 32
Joined: Sun 23 Jan 2022, 12:55

Re: 2019-era LAPD Sidearm (aka. "Deckard's Blaster")

Mon 16 May 2022, 16:11

I don't mind the revolver based origin of the blaster.
If anything, it's far more in keeping with the Film Noir stylistic choices.

I've had a very casual Google, but there seems to be very little information about the intended functionality of the blaster.
Or, if you see all of its potential in the actual film.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests