Ice VII (FGC)

Ice VII is a more stable polymorph of water than common ice (Ice Ih) which instead of melting at 0 degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit), melts at 45.8 °C (114.4 °F). When ice VII comes into contact with liquid water below 45.8 °C (which is thus effectively supercooled), it acts as a seed crystal, and causes the solidification of the entire body of water which quickly crystallizes as ice VII. Aware of the dangers of this substance, when it was synthesized in secret by French scientists in the 1960s, the substance was disposed of by melting the substance. However, the Franco-German Commonwealth re-visited the technology as a possible weapon for use against the OIS forces.

Deployment
A capsule with a small fragment of Ice VII is placed in a desired body of water, usually by hand by a FGC special forces commando. The commando is also in charge of installing heating devices at certain points along the body of water, in order to prevent those areas from freezing. It has many possible applications, from freezing an enemy's water supply, to a quick naval countermeasure.

Currently, this weapons system is only available to the Franco-German Commonwealth, and is one of the nation's most highly guarded secrets. The novel, Cat's Cradle, was popularized so as to provide a veil under which the project could hide.

Popular Culture Influence
The author Kurt Vonnegut credits the invention of ice-nine to Irving Langmuir, who pioneered the study of thin films and interfaces. While working in the public relations office at General Electric, Vonnegut came across a story of how Langmuir, who won the 1932 Nobel Prize for his work at General Electric, was charged with the responsibility of entertaining the author H.G. Wells, who was visiting the company in the early 1930s. Langmuir is said to have come up with an idea about a form of solid water that was stable at room temperature in the hopes that Wells might be inspired to write a story about it. Apparently, Wells was not inspired and neither he nor Langmuir ever published anything about it. After Langmuir and Wells had died, Vonnegut decided to use the idea in his book Cat's Cradle.

What was confidential, and subsequently never mentioned, was that Irving Langmuir's idea inspired the French scientists to pursue work on a real world version of Ice IX.