Page 1 of 2
Question about 'advanced' lightsabers
Posted: 2008-05-19 12:02am
by zivalican_elite
Hello everyone. I have a question about the SW universe. In all of the Canon or non-canon material, was there any mention of an 'advanced' light saber?
By that I mean, something along the lines of a light saber that doubles as a blaster, or a light saber that is similar to the sword that Ivy uses in 'Soul Caliber'? Or a boomerang-style light saber weapon (Yeah I know it sounds silly, but still...)
I have searched this forum and Google for something similar and have come up empty...
Any input would be helpful
^_^
Posted: 2008-05-19 12:06am
by bilateralrope
All I can think of are Lightsabers with blades of different lengths, sometimes with a variable length.
And a boomerang-style wouldn't be useful. It's much better for the Jedi to control its flight directly via the force.
Posted: 2008-05-19 12:27am
by AK-047
Along with variable blade lengths, colours, cutting qualities, the only other modification to lightsabers I know of are hilt designs. Lightsabers are built by their Force sensitive owners, so they would work as their owners intended.
Along the lines of a hidden blaster, that would make a lightsaber too bulky with the mechanisms for firing a blast bolt. The need to have gas and power cartridges to fire a blaster bolt would change the shape of the lightsaber from something like the hilt of a sword to the motor assembly of a chainsaw. Not elegant and not entirely practical.
This page may have more of what you seek.
Posted: 2008-05-19 12:33am
by Darth Raptor
The lightwhip is the closest lightsaber analogue to Ivy's Valentine. While I don't know if known lightwhips can be locked straight and rigid, that doesn't sound like an impossible feat. Neither does a holdout blaster built into a lightsaber's hilt. The only thing preventing that is the idiosyncratic distaste for blasters most Force-users exhibit. As for a boomerang, ordinary lightsabers are used like that all the time.
Posted: 2008-05-19 02:31am
by Kurgan
I'm curious which of these "lightsaber variations" are "canon" rather than just fan fic/game mod creations.
I know the usual variable length, all-the-colors-of-the-rainbow-and-more, two ended, and different sizes (and hilt styles don't even matter because they're just decorative).
But light-axes and so forth? (lol)
(I know "lightsaber-chucks" were a bonus feature in the console version of Star Wars Battlefront II, so I guess those are "canonical," and another game variant was the "staff" with two mini-lightsaber blades on the ends that Leia uses in Masters of Teras Kesaii).
I'll throw in that the ridiculous "Penarii Lightsaber" (a yellow blade, made with "illegal yellow crystals" that cuts through other lightsabers, and coincidentally looks just like a beam sword from Super Smash Bros.) was another hoax created by SuperShadow.
Posted: 2008-05-19 08:13am
by Darth Hoth
Thanks to the
Episode III videogame, there is now a
class of Jedi with sabres made especially for throwing...
Posted: 2008-05-19 11:21am
by Ritterin Sophia
They aren't advanced designs, at least no more advanced than a spear is to a sword.
Of course you have the double-bladed lightsaber, though primarily used by darksiders than Jedi.
Then there's the lightclub, a lightsaber with a three meter long blade made specifically for the mutant Gammorean Dark Jedi, Gorc.
There's the lightwhip and the fibre-chord linked lightsabers.
You also have the lightstaff, a lightsaber attacked to the end of a pole, which creates a glaive or naginata-like weapon weapon.
There's a forked lightsaber with a second emitter just below the primary one set at a forty-five degree angle.
The lightfoil is a small lightsaber with a substantially weaker blade due to poor focusing crystals.
The shoto was just an off-hand lightsaber, however the guard shoto used a perpendicular gripped form that resembled a police baton and was supposedly used for blocking, trapping, and parrying.
Posted: 2008-05-19 12:27pm
by Kurgan
Then there's the lightclub, a lightsaber with a three meter long blade made specifically for the mutant Gammorean Dark Jedi, Gorc.
I just call that a "big lightsaber." And "club" makes it sound like it's blunt.
I suppose then Yoda uses a "lightdagger" ?
Aren't the Darth Maul style lightsabers used for training padawans? (or was that thrown out when Episode II was released?)
My own fanfic stupidity: I'm waiting for the "light bow-n-arrow" (a literal bow that fires lightsabers like arrows from a quiver)!
Posted: 2008-05-19 12:59pm
by Rhoades
Kurgan wrote:My own fanfic stupidity: I'm waiting for the "light bow-n-arrow" (a literal bow that fires lightsabers like arrows from a quiver)!
I'm holding out for saber-chucks!
Posted: 2008-05-19 01:07pm
by Kurgan
Rhoades wrote:Kurgan wrote:My own fanfic stupidity: I'm waiting for the "light bow-n-arrow" (a literal bow that fires lightsabers like arrows from a quiver)!
I'm holding out for saber-chucks!
Yeah, but saber-chucks are in an official addon to an official game!
(Assaj Ventress uses them in SW Battlefront II, for the Xbox, iirc).
Thanks for everyone's timely responses...
Posted: 2008-05-19 02:46pm
by zivalican_elite
Thank you everyone, for your timely responses...that 'light whip' sounds lethal, and who wouldn't want saber chucks?
I guess that answers my question, thanks!
Posted: 2008-05-19 03:47pm
by Illuminatus Primus
Darth Hoth wrote:Thanks to the
Episode III videogame, there is now a
class of Jedi with sabres made especially for throwing...
Is it impossible for Jedi to use good old fashioned ranged arms when the situation requires? At least
Star by Star had the Jedi team armed to teeth besides simply their lightsabers.
Re: Thanks for everyone's timely responses...
Posted: 2008-05-19 03:53pm
by Jaevric
zivalican_elite wrote:Thank you everyone, for your timely responses...that 'light whip' sounds lethal, and who wouldn't want saber chucks?
Someone whose imagination is good enough to imagine all the ways you could chop your own limbs off with lightsaber-chucks?
Honestly, that seems like a horrendously bad idea. How would you use them effectively? Your range of motion would be very limited, and if your opponent could use telekinesis to redirect one of the 'hilts' when it got loose you could easily end up losing an arm or leg or your head to the blade.
Sounds like a potential Darwin Award waiting to happen.
Re: Thanks for everyone's timely responses...
Posted: 2008-05-19 06:01pm
by Ritterin Sophia
zivalican_elite wrote:Thank you everyone, for your timely responses...that 'light whip' sounds lethal, and who wouldn't want saber chucks?
I guess that answers my question, thanks!
Anyone who thinks light-chucks are a good idea is the kind of moron who doesn't know the purpose of nunchaku in the first place.
Posted: 2008-05-19 06:48pm
by montypython
The closest weapon I can think of that fits that description would be a Force Lance from 'Andromeda'.
Posted: 2008-05-19 07:45pm
by Darth Ruinus
Illuminatus Primus wrote:Star by Star had the Jedi team armed to teeth besides simply their lightsabers.
Tell me more about this
Star by Star.
Posted: 2008-05-19 08:02pm
by Straha
Somewhere out there was a WEG SWRPG fan-made "Light-Chainsaw" which I always thought was amusing.
Besides dual-sided sabres, there are "Light Foils" in a corner of the Star Wars galaxy... and that's about it off the top of my head.
Posted: 2008-05-19 08:05pm
by Jaevric
Darth Ruinus wrote:Illuminatus Primus wrote:Star by Star had the Jedi team armed to teeth besides simply their lightsabers.
Tell me more about this
Star by Star.
One of the New Jedi Order books, in which a bunch of the younger Jedi launch a commando raid against the Yuuzhan Vong.
They all wore body armor and carried grenades and blasters as well as lightsabers. One of them had a "power blaster" which sounded like the SW equivalent of a SAW (as I recall.) One of the better NJO books, though admittedly that's not saying a great deal.
Posted: 2008-05-19 11:19pm
by Illuminatus Primus
They also were supported by very heavily-armed-and-armored battle droids.
Posted: 2008-05-20 02:56am
by nightmare
Kurgan wrote:Then there's the lightclub, a lightsaber with a three meter long blade made specifically for the mutant Gammorean Dark Jedi, Gorc.
I just call that a "big lightsaber." And "club" makes it sound like it's blunt.
I guess the reference is more appropriate if you think of Gorc as a troll. A more normal but large lightsaber would be Darth Malaks. I don't recall it having any special name in the game.
Kurgan wrote:I suppose then Yoda uses a "lightdagger" ?
Luke's short lightsaber was called a
shoto.
Kurgan wrote:Aren't the Darth Maul style lightsabers used for training padawans? (or was that thrown out when Episode II was released?)
That was probably never the case since Exar Kun used one.
Edit - fixed quote tags.
Posted: 2008-05-20 03:19am
by Havok
Aren't lightsabers advanced enough?
In the hands of a Jedi, they can block and deflect blaster fire, even back at the original source. They can cut through almost anything. They can melt almost everything. They are about as small as they need to be to still be usable. Hell,they can even deflect and sometimes absorb electricity. They can also work underwater.
Posted: 2008-05-20 04:33am
by Darth Hoth
Illuminatus Primus wrote:Darth Hoth wrote:Thanks to the
Episode III videogame, there is now a
class of Jedi with sabres made especially for throwing...
Is it impossible for Jedi to use good old fashioned ranged arms when the situation requires? At least
Star by Star had the Jedi team armed to teeth besides simply their lightsabers.
I think one could assume that the old, doctrinaire Jedi Order forbade its members from using "secular" weapons, much like they were not allowed to wear armour after the
Tales of the Jedi period. This would be an artificial limitation perhaps comparable to those surrounding the equipment of the Blue Guards. Thus, that ruling may well have died with Master Windu and the rest of the old Order, explaining why it did not apply to Luke Skywalker's more "back-to-basics" interpretation of the Jedi tradition. I do not know whether this theory is explicitly corroborated by any official source, however.
Posted: 2008-05-20 04:33am
by Napoleon the Clown
havokeff wrote:They can also work underwater.
They need to be designed to handle the water, actually. Or that's what I read, anyway.
Posted: 2008-05-20 04:44am
by Darth Raptor
Darth Hoth wrote:I think one could assume that the old, doctrinaire Jedi Order forbade its members from using "secular" weapons, much like they were not allowed to wear armour after the Tales of the Jedi period.
It's highly unlikely that those are actual rules instead of cultural preferences. Obi-Wan made it clear that he simply didn't
like blasters (but would still use them if cornered, see Grievous) and he wore full plasteel throughout the Clone Wars without getting excommunicated.
Posted: 2008-05-20 04:51am
by Stark
havokeff wrote:Aren't lightsabers advanced enough?
In the hands of a Jedi, they can block and deflect blaster fire, even back at the original source. They can cut through almost anything. They can melt almost everything. They are about as small as they need to be to still be usable. Hell,they can even deflect and sometimes absorb electricity. They can also work underwater.
That's not advanced. A boomerang is advanced. A hopelessly impractical whip is advanced. Absurd chainsaws are advanced.
Not bullshit like 'extremely small' or 'versatile' or 'nigh unstoppable'. Ask any teenager; it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that bling.