CKF Blade

Written by Jacob Sullivan

The Compact Kinetic Field Blade has been heralded as a technological miracle of the modern day. Despite originally revolutionizing the manufacturing industry in the early 1900s, the CKF in recent years has been implemented in militaries across the world. The Great War has been a cause for rapid innovation in gravitational weaponry, and the CKF and its developers have proved crucial to all sides of the conflict.

History

The CKF was originally created by Nordin & Stehndal LLC in Oxelösund, Sweden. The invention was the result of a number of top engineers and scientists working together to find a solution to cutting through large steel beams with the least amount of resistance. The original model was quite large, and used a long flat piece of sheet metal rather than the typical straight or curved-edged blades so common among military officers. These large-scale blades were found to be extremely useful in the manufacturing industry and became in extremely high demand. As a result, Nordin & Stehndal quickly became the richest corporation in the Nordic Union, selling their product to nearly every major nation. In 1926, the Japanese government requested that the design be further miniaturized so that it could be used in one hand by a single operator. After about a year of R&D, the first handheld variant was created and shipped off en masse to the Japanese army, where it would make its debut on the Korean front. These miniaturized variants afforded a way for infantry to cut through light vehicles when engaging them close up. These smaller versions proved quite effective on the battlefield, and Nordin & Stehndal began contracting with other nations for use in their armies.

Blade Functionality

The CKF blade works by amplifying the gravitational field of an object ahead of a small surface area. This effect is achieved through the use of two alternating Balfour Circuits that run along the flat of the blade. These Micro-Balfour engines are turned to very low and precise settings to disrupt the normal effects of gravity on the blade. This tuning results in the oscillating amplification and abatement of gravity in the attacked portion of a target. In initial testing of man-portable blades, it was found that the amplification effect on the blade was too strong for a normal human to wield as it caused the weapon to move erratically. By reworking the circuits to create a more compact field of oscillation this behavior became much more controllable. The result of the amplified gravitational field is that the attacked object is subjected to hundreds of changes in weight and force instantly, causing a breakdown in the molecular bonds across the cutting edge. This weakens the material dramatically, allowing the blade behind to pass through. The basic principles of the CKF blade in recent years have begun to be applied to other forms of weaponry across the globe. A notable example of this is the use of the Balfour-Amplified High Explosive bombs used by French dive bombers at the Siege of Frankfurt. These bombs were a proto-type sold to the NFR by the Nordic Union with the hope that this new technology could bring a swift end to the conflict. Instead, it merely redefined the tactics for Aether warfare, with the non-Alliance nations developing their own versions of these weapons within two months of the Siege of Frankfurt.