RATIO

RATIO is an ongoing Laundry project which has developed so-called banishment rounds – bullets engraved with Dho-Na banishment invocations specific to various exonomic entities. The invocation-engine is charged by heat and friction from the bullet’s passage through the gun-barrel and (hopefully) delivers the invocative payload when the round hits, permitting easier banishment under field conditions than before1.

RATIO systems are still buggy: the initial roll-out required the invocation to be customized to the target entity (limiting usefulness due to long lead-times for micro-engraving at 90nm resolution), and the recently introduced "general package" - intended to work on a far wider array of entities - has had a higher-than-anticipated failure rate in the field. There are still occasional failures due to mis-engraving, although improved quality control procedures are catching most of those. Also, banishment rounds are expensive. They are currently only being manufactured in calibers designed to fit weapons in standard issue throughout the British Army.2

The project takes its name from the Latin epigram Ultima ratio regum(“the final argument of kings”) which Louis XIV of France had engraved around the mouths of all of his cannons.


QV: EMERALD LANCE


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