Type-IV Rifle Mk.1 by Triple-Fiction Productions

The video game tying into J.J. Abrams' rebooted "Star Trek" film and comic franchise debuted in April 2013, just before "Star Trek: Into Darkness" was released in theaters.  The plot of the game also took place just several months before the movie, involving a mission to New Vulcan that becomes mired in danger when the Gorn get involved - essentially making the game something akin to the Alternate Reality version of "Arena," one of the most famous TOS episodes.  The game introduced several new Starfleet weapons, including the Model 2258 Type-3 Phaser Rifle, which had also been used extensively in the IDW Comics "Star Trek: Ongoing" series, the Captain's Phaser, a weapon unique to Captain James T. Kirk, a type of Vulcan Phaser carried by Commander Spock, the Academy Phaser, a variant of the "barrel-flipper" weapon from ST:2009 in red and silver colors, and the Federation Sniper Rifle, known in the game as a Type-IV Stealth Rifle.

www.startrek.com/uploads/asset…

Initially only available to players through the pre-order "Elite Officer Package," the Type-IV Stealth Rifle is not a Phaser at all but a bullet-firing, long-range sniper rifle.  It could be seen as a mid-23rd century Alternate Reality precursor of the infamous TR-116 sniper rifle seen in "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."  In the game, the weapon can fire not only bullets but also various types of specialty ammunition.  It is best known for appearing in a single cutscene where Dr. McCoy loads one with a medicated dart and uses it to deliver an antidote to the Gorn's mind-control toxin to Mr. Spock, who had been infected with it and forced to fight Captain Kirk.  That version of the rifle was using the blue/black color scheme that is also seen in this physical prop.  However, when the rifle is utilized by players, it usually takes on an alternate silver/black color scheme as seen in this concept artwork:

s.cghub.com/files/Image/510001…

The rifle is actually somewhat versatile in the game.  Like almost all of the guns that are usable in the ST:2009 video game, the weapon has a selective fire feature that can alternate between two distinct firing modes.  The default firing mode uses the weapon as a traditional sniper rifle.  The wielder sights targets through the long, curving scope mounted at the top of the weapon and presses the trigger, causing the weapon to fire a single long-range kill shot.  However, the weapon also has a "spread" function, something akin to a shotgun firing a burst of buckshot, but with greater range and precision.  In this firing mode, the weapon fires a simultaneous three-round spread.  As the Type-IV is a bullet-firing rifle and not a Phaser, I can only explain this as the weapon using a type of ammunition that explodes upon firing and splits into three bullets that spread out and fly in different directions.  These abilities are described in this page from the online preview of Prima's game guide, but please note that they made a big typo and called it a "Type-III" instead of a Type-IV:

www.primagames.com/games/star-…

The weapon's specialized nature would, hypothetically, allow it to do things that a Phaser can't do.  I can easily imagine the Type-IV being loaded with several different types of ammunition including non-lethal rubber bullets, armor-piercing flechettes, explosive rounds, chemical pellets, smoke screen pellets, miniature photon grenades, medicated syringe darts or even miniature transporter tags (something that was seen in "Insurrection," one of the TNG movies).  On the other hand, because it is a bullet-firing weapon and not a Phaser, it must rely on ammunition and only has a magazine capacity for five rounds.  The shooter must carry ammunition and reloading is slow, leaving the user vulnerable.  If the shooter is switching between different types of ammunition, they must also take the weapon out of action in order to change the ammunition.

***

Unfortunately, much of this information was not available back in early April 2013 when I first contacted Triple-Fiction Productions to see if they would be interested in trying to build the first solid physical prop version of a Type-IV Stealth Rifle.  At that time, the only images available of the prop were a single, small CGI image from the video game's pre-order advertisement and a handful of very low-resolution screen shots.  Despite that being all we had, and the staff at Triple-Fiction Productions not being entirely sure about whether or not they would be able to take on the project, they ultimately decided to give it a try.

Sadly, I was unaware that the TFP team was actually going to try to build the rifle, and by the time they suddenly let me know that they had actually gone ahead and made the attempt, I had joined a "Star Trek" cosplay group for Anime Weekend Atlanta 2013 and was suddenly spending a lot of time and money acquiring TWOK-era costumes and props in my attempt to build an entire "locker" containing pretty much every single uniform that a Starfleet Captain would have had at his disposal during the Classic Movie Era (2278-2350).  I no longer had the kind of budget available to pay nearly $180.00 for a Type-IV Stealth Rifle, and because I am not a ST:2009 cosplayer and have a fairly strict rule against buying anything that I'm not going to use or at least "test-review," I could not justify buying the weapon, either.

Therefore, I was forced to congratulate my friends at Triple-Fiction Productions for building the first-ever Type-IV Stealth Rifle (now one of only two Type-IV's in existence throughout the world), and watch as they put it up on eBay and sold it.  I do not know who they sold it to.  I only know that TFP has a lot of customers whose personalities and attitudes I do not approve of.  That's because these people are collectors who seem to have an exorbitant amount of money.  They buy almost everything the company makes... but never seem to go on to use any of what they buy.  The prototype Mk.1 Type-IV Stealth Rifle was no exception.  The images seen in this collage were taken directly from the eBay listing that Triple-Fiction Productions put up and, to this day, they remain the only photos of the rifle.  After it was sold, it practically disappeared and has never been seen again, leading me to suspect that whoever bought the thing was one of those greedy packrats who put it up on a wall and never brought it out in public.

Props are meant to be used, not hoarded.  And that's why I have my rules: never buy anything you don't intend to use, hold as an emergency backup for someone else, or test-review for feedback, and never buy more than two of anything that you do intend to use.  I firmly believe that there are so many people in the world who deserve props like these, but don't have the means to get one, that it isn't fair for a few particularly fortunate people to hog all of these rare treasures.  And trust me, this is a fanbase with many "more fortunate" members due to the fact that we seem to be a wealthier, older fan base with a good number of members having disproportionately more disposable income.  If any of you are wondering why I spend so much time, money, and effort developing and purchasing props for my friends and other cosplayers to use (I recently spent close to $330.00-$340.00 to equip a friend with a rifle and two pistols from TFP), that's why.

My editorial rant aside (and I will take no debate on the matter whatsoever - "I do the telling here," as Harry Mudd would say), I know very little about the prop itself because I don't know who it went to and I never got a chance to see it up close.  The original Type-IV Stealth Rifle did have a powerful LED light, but because Triple-Fiction's level of prop-making skill at that point in the late summer of 2013 was not quite where it is now in early 2014, they were not able to accurately incorporate the light system into the main body of the prop.  The shape of this early Type-IV is also highly inaccurate; it looks crude and almost like a toy compared to the actual CGI model and its controls are completely inaccurate.  It isn't as curved as the final CGI rifle's shape was, and its rear handguard and stock are completely out-of-proportion.  

Although the relative levels of skill displayed by the TFP team back then (compared to what they can do now) is certainly part of it, these inaccuracies were largely due to the fact that this was the first time anyone ever attempted to build the prop, and because there were almost no good reference images available for Triple-Fiction Productions to work with.  Remember, we did not get the actual concept artwork (including variants) for the Starfleet Type-IV Stealth Rifle until early 2014, and there are still no screen shots of the weapon that are available online.  Once we got ahold of the concept art, and after I found a new reason to commission another rifle, Triple-Fiction Productions agreed to try again - and the results would be amazing to behold.