The RCB-5 'Steadfast' is Arcturus Defense Solutions' workhorse riot control baton — the weapon that appears in more Meridian enforcement photographs, incident reports, and civil rights documentation than any other shock device in the city. First introduced in 2181 and now in its fifth hardware revision, the Steadfast has become the de facto standard for contracted security forces across Tiers 2 through 4, with Arcturus holding supply agreements with forty-seven distinct security contractors, transit authorities, and corporate facility operators. It is, in the most literal sense, the face of institutional enforcement in Meridian.

The Steadfast's design philosophy prioritizes durability and operator survivability over maximum discharge capacity. The baton's outer shell is a high-impact polymer rated to survive being run over by a standard transit vehicle, submerged in water for up to 30 minutes, and struck against concrete at full force without structural compromise. The discharge system delivers a consistent 150,000 volts — lower than many competitors — but Arcturus's engineering team has optimized the waveform for reliable neuromuscular disruption across a wide range of body masses, augmentation levels, and clothing thicknesses. The grip is contoured for extended one-hand carry and integrates a wrist retention lanyard mount as standard. Every unit logs discharge events with timestamp, duration, and charge level to a tamper-evident internal memory that Arcturus provides to contracted operators as part of their liability documentation package.

Civil rights organizations have a deeply ambivalent relationship with the Steadfast's discharge logging. On one hand, the logs have been used to hold operators accountable in documented abuse cases; on the other, Arcturus retains access to all discharge logs as part of its service agreement, creating a data collection architecture that critics describe as 'a comprehensive map of every enforcement action in Meridian, owned by a private defense contractor.'