Mark 7240 Thanix Cannon
Production information
Manufacturer:	Reapers
Type:	Mass Accelerator Cannon
Cost:	14,000,000,000 credits
Introduced:	December 19, 11000000000 BCE
Discontinued:	August 12, 2520 CE
Technical information
Damage per hit:	Lethal
Maximum ammunition:	Unlimited
Fire mode:	Continuous
Operation:	Electrically powered
Rate of fire:	Continuous
Accuracy:	Pinpoint
Range:	16,000,000km
Usage
Era(s):	Across all cycles
Counterpart:	Mark 6400 thanix cannon Mark 9204 thanix cannon Mark 529 thanix cannon Mark 7241EP thanix cannon
Affiliation:	The Reapers

"A loud thrum...a red lance of light. It seems so beautiful, so graceful. But its touch is deadly, able to shred armor and shields like a hot knife to butter. There is no defense against it, and while its often erroneously labelled as a laser beam, its actually just a jet of molten metal accelerated to extremely high kinetic speed: it's a highly advanced MAC gun, plain and simple. And its a weapon any ship crew should fear."

— A turian military strategist describing the thanix.

The 13 Magnetohydrodynamic Magnetic Accelerator Cannon, classified by the Turian Armed Forces as the Mark 7240 Thanix and colloquially titled the Thanix cannon or Thanix gun, is an extremely advanced, high-powered MAC used by all Reaper ship classes. The weapon is quite often misunderstood as firing a red hot beam of plasma that simply melts through even the toughtest ship shields and armor in seconds, obliterating the target upon impact. This is not true however, as the weapon actually fires a rod of superheated molten tungsten, accelerated at thousands of kilometers per second, and hitting a target with the force equivalent of 132 to 450 kilotons of TNT, dwarfing the firepower of the main gun of a Ascension-class dreadnought. The weapon was developed by the Reapers, and every capital ship is equipped with a full array of the weapons, allowing it to fire from any direction. The firepower is so intense that it has been seen to penetrate the shields of a Vanguard-class dreadnought in just 4.2 seconds of continuous contact-to-contact impact, while tearing through its armor in half of that time.

Numerous variants of the weapon exist. A smaller, less powerful variant is outfitted on smaller Reaper vessels, such as the Destroyer-class, while an even more powerful variant is exclusively employed by the Harbinger-class (although the Atlas-class is outfitted with one bow mounted variant in addition to the standard version). An infantry mounted miniturized version nicknamed the '"Sabaton" was utilized by elcor-husks, chosen due to their strength being needed to handle the weapon's massive recoil. Finally, after the Battle of the Citadel in 2183 CE, the turians obtained parts of Sovereign's debris, with a focus on acquiring its main gun. Through reverse-engineering, a working prototype of a more power-hungry, but just as powerful turian variant was tested in late 2184 CE, and preparations were made to begin outfitting them on their Tribune-class dreadnoughts. Cerberus managed to acquire blueprints of them in 2185 CE, where one was built and mounted on the SSV Normandy SR-2, with plans to mount them on all of their Normandy II-class vessels, but not fully realized due to their defeat in the Reaper War.