Mass driver

The Mass driver was a primitive United Nations Space Command weapons system and orbital launch assembly.

These consisted of flexible "gimble" assemblies that were linked with magnetic induction devices. They could be loaded with payloads of limited weight, and by means of magnetic induction, mass drivers could propulse low-weight payloads into orbit, such as hazardous nuclear waste, for easy disposal. Mass drivers were used on developing colonies such as Harvest for orbital lifting, but their capacity for loads of limited mass eventually forced colony worlds to adapt more robust mechanisms for lifting.

Sometime after the colonization of Harvest, the shipping operations AI Sif had a critical failure in her data center's power supply. Trying to be as helpful as possible, another AI, Mack, used the mass driver to boost the component into orbit - literally shooting the power supply into the Tiara's coupling station.

The mass driver was also used during a celebration on Harvest.

Mass drivers could also be used as imprompt weaponry, as demonstrated in the Battle of Harvest; their magnetic induction technology could be used to propulse projectiles at extremely high speed with a high degree of accuracy, even going as so far as to disable a Covenant Cruiser, Rapid Conversion, in two well-placed shots. Later, the UNSC Planetary Security Intelligence Loki used a mass driver to destroy Harvest's orbital, the Tiara.

The magnetic induction technology of the mass driver was later applied to a whole field of magnetically-operated UNSC projectile weaponry, such as the M99 Stanchion and the Magnetic Accelerator Cannon.