- « "Properly chipped, it's no more dangerous than a car or airplane." »
- — Oliver Leek[src]
The Neural Clamps were devices presumably from the future, which could be used to control creatures such as the Future Predators via radio signals.
Properties[]
The Neural clamps were a small silver cylindrical device, around 2.5 inches in diametre and 1.5 inches tall. On the base, there were several metal spike-like probes and from the back protruded two black tubes. In the center, on the top and on the rounded edge was red transparent material that allowed a fierce red light to glow from within when the clamps were activated.
The clamps were designed to control a creature by tapping into the central nervous system, overriding its instincts and allowing the clamp's user to manipulate the creature via radio signals. The devices had to be surgically implanted by cutting a hole into a creature's skull, attaching a metal base plate to the skull over the hole, and joining the clamp's probes onto the center of the plate, right over the brain. The tubes inserted into the skull separately behind the baseplate. Forceful removal of a clamp would cause fatal brain damage.
The clamps were all apparently controlled by a single network and would remain active even when removed from the creature it was controlling. This wound up being a fatal design flaw as when Nick Cutter jammed a clamp into a fuse box, the electricity short-circuited it and this was transferred to all other active clamps, disabling them and freeing the Predators from their control.
History[]
The Neural clamps were presumably created in the future by humanity. At some point, Helen Cutter apparently traveled to the future time period and retrieved the technology for Oliver Leek's organisation. At least twenty devices were attached to the heads of Leek's captive Future Predators so that he could control them and make himself "untouchable". (Episode 2.6/2.7)
Episode 2.6[]
Oliver Leek arranged for a one of his neurally clamped Predators to be put in a van and driven to the Anomaly Research Centre. Once Leek had departed the ARC, he released the Predator and ordered it to kill all of the ARC personnel saving James Lester for last. Unfortunately for Leek, before it killed Lester, the Predator was killed and the ARC team removed the device from the creatures skull and examined it. As Connor Temple commented that he had never seen any technology as advanced as the clamp, Nick Cutter speculated that Leek was not smart enough to create such a device. It is unknown what the ARC did with the clamp.
Episode 2.7[]
After the main ARC team was taken hostage at the Creature Prison, Helen showed her husband; Nick, one of the clamped Predators. She explained the devices properties and he theorised that she had obtained the clamps from the future and given them to Leek, though she neither confirmed or denied it.
Position of a Neural Clamp on a Future Predator.
Later on, Nick escaped into the Prison, so Leek sent a clamped Predator after the former. When the Predator cornered Nick in the "Dinner Theatre", he distracted it with the blood on his hand, then ripped the Neural Clamp from the Predator's head; causing the Predator to quickly die from brain damage. Leek appeared and sarcastically applauded Cutter, but said that the fault in the devices would be improved in the others, before showing him the dozens of other Neurally clamped Predators hanging around the room's ceiling.
While Leek was threatening with Lester via a video link, Cutter inserted his clamp in a damaged circuit box where the electrical charge short-circuited all of the other devices, deactivating them and freed all of the Predators from Leek's control. The deactivated clamps remained in the skulls of the Predators when they returned to the containment room. It is unknown what happened to the devices after the Predators and the other captive creatures presumably turned on each other.
Trivia[]
A Neurally Clamped Future Predator action figure.
- There was minor difference between the Neural Clamp prop and the CGI model. The prop had 8 small circular discs on the top whereas the animated device had a larger single ring.
- A Neurally Clamped Future Predator was made as a 5inch Primeval action figure by Character Options.
- As the Neural Clamp and the Future Predator are both from the future, and the Future Predators in Leek's Creature Prison were the only creatures wearing the Clamps, it is believed by fans that the Neural Clamp were designed only to work on Future Predators.
- Given that one future led to the ARC genetically engineering the Predators, it is possible that they were intended to act as some kind of advanced super-soldier and the clamps were created in order to control them to that end. Alternatively, the clamps could have been created in a frantic attempt to control the Predators when they broke free and began massacring humanity, but it was too late to implement this by the time they had been made.