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I'm wondering how the heck these things work, if anyone can enlighten me to how, it would be good. I thought that Grievous' bodyguard was great, and their force pikes kicked arse.

IIRC the main body of the staff is made out of some lightsaber resistant alloy (the same one that Palpy's lightsaber was made of if I'm remembering the names right).

The ends produce an EM field/shield (the VD says some can neutralize ray shields but they're normally used to kill via simple blunt-force trauma).

IIRC the main body of the staff is made out of some lightsaber resistant alloy (the same one that Palpy's lightsaber was made of if I'm remembering the names right).

Phrink. The same stuff Dark Troopers are made of.

Another anhti-saber material. Phrink sounds better than Cortosis.

It's not just phrik- the staff also generates a field that blocks lightsabres- RotS novelization. The ends are the lethal part, of course.

Ford Prefect wrote:Another anhti-saber material. Phrink sounds better than Cortosis.

Phrink and Cortosis weave act in pretty much the same way, although pure Cortosis actually disrupts the saber beam and turns it off.

Indeed, I've never really like Cortosis. And I thought the field would have something to do with. And it seems to let it cause some damage. Grievous does shatter one of the transparisteel windows.

I'm guessing it simply takes a lot of energy to break the bonds in Phrik. A lightsaber can probably cut through it, but so slowly that for the intent of a momentary impact in combat, it's solid to a lightsaber blade.
The fact that its name comes from a classic game makes it even better. I remember raiding the vault in the Imperial research lab on Fest to grab a sample of the stuff

Anyway, from what I could tell most of the lightsaber contact with the staffs in the Clone Wars microseries and Episode III were with the fields on the ends, though, so it wasn't really put to the test.

Vympel, does the novelization indicate that the field covers the entire staff, or just the ends?

Ford Prefect wrote:Indeed, I've never really like Cortosis.

I've always thought Cortosis and Ysalamiri were silly, mere props substituting for the lack of more creative villainry. All pale next to the Yuuzhan Vong biowank, of course.

Yeah so Zahn made up Ysalamiri rah rah whatever.

Thank my living in Tasmania. I've never seen anything with the Vong. I have nothing against biotech, so long as no one says it is superior to heavy metal tech.

Ford Prefect wrote:Thank my living in Tasmania. I've never seen anything with the Vong. I have nothing against biotech, so long as no one says it is superior to heavy metal tech.

Despite what the anti-Vong Zealots may say here, Vong tech is not superior.

The anti-Vong folks claim the Vong tech is superior.. interesting times we live in. Eh wot?

Cykeisme wrote:The anti-Vong folks claim the Vong tech is superior.. interesting times we live in. Eh wot?

anti-Vong as in anti-biotech, they say that because it gives them a excuse to blash the NJO series (not that anybody would need a one).

Wait wait... Dark Trooper Armour is probably lightsaber resistant?

Katarn should have stolen Mohc's suit of phase three armour... It would have been useful later. *Imagines various Dark Jedi getting stomped underfoot by Jedi Dark Troopers*

A lightsaber blade has a fixed power output, therefore the stronger the atomic bonds in a material, the longer it takes for the blade to cut through a given surface area. The length of the blade never goes below full extension, therefore it's logical that the user experiences resistance when cutting through materials. Therefore all materials exhibit some degree of resistance to a lightsaber blade.

Qui-Gon's blast door cutting scene agrees with this and I think Darth Wong said something that might amount to agreement with this idea on another thread a while back.

Anyway, Phrik is simply somewhere at the upper end of that spectrum, but yeah, I'm guessing it'll be pretty hard to cut through the thickest armor plates on a Dark Trooper exosuit.

We're still not sure whether the resilience of MagnaGuard staves are due to an energy field (shield?) of some sort, or due to the Phrik itself, though.


Edit: Hell, Kyle should have brought along the Phase III exosuit with him when he left the Arc Hammer anyway! Lightsaber resistant or not, I'm sure it'd come in handy sometime.

NecronLord wrote:Wait wait... Dark Trooper Armour is probably lightsaber resistant?

Katarn should have stolen Mohc's suit of phase three armour... It would have been useful later. *Imagines various Dark Jedi getting stomped underfoot by Jedi Dark Troopers*

That’s the same idea Desan had, but with cortosis.

Was that Force lightning at the ends of the pikes, or was it just energy lightning?

Well, we can actually guess how hard to mine and treatable Phrik is when looking at the facilities in Dark Forces that are responsible for mining and purifying the metal.

-The mining operation for the Darktrooper project on the blood moon was immense, but still the ammount of Phrik fitted into a normal bulk freighter as seen later.
-The purification plant on Anteevy was also huge. It indicates that the process of prifying and working Phrik into armor was very labor and energy intensive.

This also explains why Phrik wasn't used widely. It is simply very expensive to actually get it, and even more expensive to create something useful with it.

Castor Troy wrote:Was that Force lightning at the ends of the pikes, or was it just energy lightning?

Just electrical "lightning". It's definitely not Force lightning, since the staves are wielded by droids. They're pieces of technology.


Yeah, good observations, Tribun. Phrik's extremely rare and/or a real bitch to process, making it very expensive.


I don't like the idea of Cortosis (that shuts down lightsabers), nor do I particularly like the idea of channeling Force energy and sensitivity from a location into people using crystals...
And yet the Cortosis-armored Force-enhanced Shadowtroopers are one of the coolest things I've seen outside of the movies tbh.

Where does it state Cortoses shuts down sabers?

Drunk Monkey wrote:Where does it state Cortoses shuts down sabers?

In Zahn's Duology, Vision of the Future and Spectre of the Past, the two books which, if I recall correctly, introduced Cortosis Ore.

StimNeuro wrote:

Drunk Monkey wrote:Where does it state Cortoses shuts down sabers?

In Zahn's Duology, Vision of the Future and Spectre of the Past, the two books which, if I recall correctly, introduced Cortosis Ore.

And the Jedi Council: Acts of War comic mini-series. That one it showed it graphically, and was the cause of death for some Jedi.

Yep.

[rant]
Materials that are unusually resistant to lightsabers, I can deal with.. but shutting down lightsaber blades? Sounds like a lazy way to establish a way villains can be a threat, just like Yuuzhan Vong not being affected even by TK, and Ysalamiri used all over the place.

Now Grievous.. he intimidates and surprises Jedi, preventing the calmness they need to connect to the Force which renders them normal, and proceeds to use his alien reflexes and mechanical physique to beat them down by the dozens. That is impressive.

This is in no way a Movie-vs-EU thing.. I doubt Lucas himself thought up the idea of Grievous being a ruthless Jedi hunter. General G could just as easily have been an EU character, had the fundamentals popped up elsewhere. Hell, his ownage is established more strongly in comics and the Clone Wars microseries.
The fact is, regardless of the origin of the idea, a fearsome inhumanoid Jedi-killing cyborg is simply a superior idea to "lightsabers? Cortosis! The Force? Immunity!"
[/rant]

Cykeisme wrote:Yep.

[rant]
Materials that are unusually resistant to lightsabers, I can deal with.. but shutting down lightsaber blades? Sounds like a lazy way to establish a way villains can be a threat, just like Yuuzhan Vong not being affected even by TK, and Ysalamiri used all over the place.
<snip>
[/rant]

Actually, when Zahn introduced it, it was used as a mere annoyance. Luke and Mara Jade were trying to get through a wall into Thrawn's fortress by using lightsaber slashes. The wall turned out to be made of cortosis ore. I don't have the books in front of me, but don't recall it being used in armor at any point. In fact, it's only strong point is that it can create some sort of feedback effect that shuts down lightsabers. It's a generally weak material and worthless against anything except for a lightsaber.

StimNeuro wrote:

Cykeisme wrote:Yep.

[rant]
Materials that are unusually resistant to lightsabers, I can deal with.. but shutting down lightsaber blades? Sounds like a lazy way to establish a way villains can be a threat, just like Yuuzhan Vong not being affected even by TK, and Ysalamiri used all over the place.
<snip>
[/rant]

Actually, when Zahn introduced it, it was used as a mere annoyance. Luke and Mara Jade were trying to get through a wall into Thrawn's fortress by using lightsaber slashes. The wall turned out to be made of cortosis ore. I don't have the books in front of me, but don't recall it being used in armor at any point. In fact, it's only strong point is that it can create some sort of feedback effect that shuts down lightsabers. It's a generally weak material and worthless against anything except for a lightsaber.

So a blaster could penetrate that stuff, pff some armor, Han and Chewie could take care of that with ease.

Drunk Monkey wrote:

StimNeuro wrote:

Cykeisme wrote:Yep.

[rant]
Materials that are unusually resistant to lightsabers, I can deal with.. but shutting down lightsaber blades? Sounds like a lazy way to establish a way villains can be a threat, just like Yuuzhan Vong not being affected even by TK, and Ysalamiri used all over the place.
<snip>
[/rant]

Actually, when Zahn introduced it, it was used as a mere annoyance. Luke and Mara Jade were trying to get through a wall into Thrawn's fortress by using lightsaber slashes. The wall turned out to be made of cortosis ore. I don't have the books in front of me, but don't recall it being used in armor at any point. In fact, it's only strong point is that it can create some sort of feedback effect that shuts down lightsabers. It's a generally weak material and worthless against anything except for a lightsaber.

So a blaster could penetrate that stuff, pff some armor, Han and Chewie could take care of that with ease.

Exactly. Meant to say this in the last post, but the ore literally crumbled in Mara Jade's hand when she started picking at it. The only person who has a problem with cortosis ore is a Jedi who only knows how to fight with a lightsaber. Sitting there and TKing rocks at the opponent wouldn't be a problem at all.