@WR: It's not wooden. I think I mentioned it was metal when Araches beat Uberbob over the head with it. Or at least I said it was really heavy... anyway, no, not wooden.

I shuffled through the snow over to Araches. She had swiped Conquista's battlesuit from Uberbob some time ago, and now had it wrapped around herself like a giant blanket.
"Why don't you just Lightning the whole darn thing?" I asked.
Araches nodded, her eyes turned black, and she called down a bolt of lighting. The bolt struck the rod on the machine and nothing else.
"Lightning strikes the highest thing around," L33tz4n explained. "In this case, it's the rod." Indeed, the rod was about fifty feet higher than the gate itself.