Jedi vs Protoss Zealot

[Lord Revan]

But Star Wars isn't even all that consistent. Jedi are naturally stupid-tough. Falling hundreds of feet means nothing and even an unconscious Obi-Wan suffers no long-term effects from having a platform crush his lower body. But one blaster bolt takes them down? Even bullets don't kill a normal person immediately on something like a lung shot. And there just can't be that much energy transfer since named a protag takes a shoulder hit from Blaster Rifles and was barely hurt. This same gun will blast holes in concrete. It should be blowing/burning limbs off, not sparking a bit.

Re-watch the Order 66 sequence from RotS. Ki-Adi-Mundi takes at least 6 blaster rifle shots to the chest in quick succession. Aayla Secura takes at least 4 before she falls, and they pump bunches more into her to make sure she stays down. In the arena battle in AotC, Coleman Trebor (the green-skinned alien who jumps up to try and attack Dooku) takes 3-4 shots to the chest to knock him over the wall to the floor below, and canonically, the fall killed him, not the shots. That's the same blaster pistol that kills/incapacitates the three-horned reek in one shot.

In other words, fairly typically in the prequels, Jedi do take multiple blaster shots to be taken down. Of note, Leia is also force-sensitive. Some of Jedi toughness may be unconscious, not trained.

also Leia was not hit directly, the bolt hit wall next to her (you can see the scorch pattern when Leia is holding her injured arm) and she only injured due to the side effects of the hit.

[TheFeniX]

Re-watch the Order 66 sequence from RotS. Ki-Adi-Mundi takes at least 6 blaster rifle shots to the chest in quick succession. Aayla Secura takes at least 4 before she falls, and they pump bunches more into her to make sure she stays down. In the arena battle in AotC, Coleman Trebor (the green-skinned alien who jumps up to try and attack Dooku) takes 3-4 shots to the chest to knock him over the wall to the floor below, and canonically, the fall killed him, not the shots. That's the same blaster pistol that kills/incapacitates the three-horned reek in one shot.

Mundi is going down in the first shot, the second makes him drop his lightsaber. I'll grant, he didn't immediately die, but it's a fair bet that one shot would have killed him. Aalya is actually falling before she is shot in a hilarious flub, so it's also not telling if one shot would have done the job. Coleman seems to be hit in the shoulders/arm first, then the side of the stomach next, but the cut is fast. Honestly don't know how he dies so quickly in those two shots, even without being a Jedi.

I've never seen any evidence that a blaster bolt torso hit on a jedi isn't fatal. Just because clone troopers are smart to believe there's no kill like overkill, there's no reason to assume one blaster rifle shot wouldn't have taken down their targets.

also Leia was not hit directly, the bolt hit wall next to her (you can see the scorch pattern when Leia is holding her injured arm) and she only injured due to the side effects of the hit.

The sparks and flames emanate from her arm, not the wall.

[Me2005]

Question to everybody who is opposed to this: why shouldn't the cutscenes be taken as the only real proof we have of weapons power in the SC universe?

I'd take the manual before everything: Chris Mitzen, one of the lead designers for the project, wrote and illustrated for it, and did not do the cinematics. James Phinney is the other lead, he did scenario design and writing for the campaign. The lead cinimatic director doesn't appear to have been involved higher-up in the design of the universe. So while the manual and campaign have the direct influence of the creators, the cutscenes do not.

It'd be like taking a SW game or book as the only real proof we have of their firepower: they aren't movie-cannon, so they'd be disputed wherever they conflict.

[url=http://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/starcraft/credits]Link to credits[/i].

[Batman]

On the other hand, the cutscenes give us visuals to analyze and themanuals seem to be massively at odds with the cutscene visuals. And would it kill people to properly spell canon? Canon: What is assumed to be 'real' inside a fictional narrative. Cannon: A bigass gun.

[Simon_Jester]

They do equal damage to shields and are equally stopped by armor upgrades, not to mention that a bullets smaller cross section should be better than the sword at causing localized failures of the shield than larger claws. The slow blade cuts idea also fails; zergling claws don't do additional damage to shields across the spectrum of Protoss ground units.

Since it's not even clear what one hit point of shield damage means compared to one hit point of armor damage, I wouldn't assume that.

We could equally well go with the idea that Zergling claws are in fact sharp enough and can 'scissor' with enough force to cut steel armor... and that Protoss shields ultimately fail against them because they simply do not react well to having low-mass objects stuck slowly into them over and over. Different damage mechanisms, comparable effect, which is that an individual Zergling can eventually chew/slice its way through heavily armored and shielded structures, with enough patience, if no one stops it.

that and that the most consistent is the gameplay and that's not really a relible source, unless you want to argue that a single marine could kill a Zerg levathian by shooting it from the outside (btw Levathian isn't a bad name for those things as they're huge even compared to Terran Battleships that are quite large to begin with).

To be fair, even in gameplay this would require the Marine to just stand there blazing away for some tremendous span of time, which is not a particularly realistic scenario when dealing with a skyscraper-sized (or larger) flying death monster that spawns smaller death monsters on a regular basis.

But Star Wars isn't even all that consistent. Jedi are naturally stupid-tough. Falling hundreds of feet means nothing and even an unconscious Obi-Wan suffers no long-term effects from having a platform crush his lower body. But one blaster bolt takes them down? Even bullets don't kill a normal person immediately on something like a lung shot. And there just can't be that much energy transfer since named a protag takes a shoulder hit from Blaster Rifles and was barely hurt. This same gun will blast holes in concrete. It should be blowing/burning limbs off, not sparking a bit.

Re-watch the Order 66 sequence from RotS. Ki-Adi-Mundi takes at least 6 blaster rifle shots to the chest in quick succession. Aayla Secura takes at least 4 before she falls, and they pump bunches more into her to make sure she stays down...

In both cases this seems to be the acts of soldiers with automatic rifles sensibly not firing single shots and instead firing bursts; it does not prove that the Jedi would survive a single shot.

In the arena battle in AotC, Coleman Trebor (the green-skinned alien who jumps up to try and attack Dooku) takes 3-4 shots to the chest to knock him over the wall to the floor below, and canonically, the fall killed him, not the shots. That's the same blaster pistol that kills/incapacitates the three-horned reek in one shot.

...I saw two bolts hit him, one in the general neighborhood of the shoulder (by his sabre arm) and there's really not much evidence that he would have survived the blaster bolts. Even if he was still alive when he hit the ground, he might not have lasted after that.

In other words, fairly typically in the prequels, Jedi do take multiple blaster shots to be taken down. Of note, Leia is also force-sensitive. Some of Jedi toughness may be unconscious, not trained.

While this last note is definitely valid, I question the part where Jedi "take" multiple blaster shots. They get hit multiple times, yes, but so do plenty of mooks and villains. It's hardly out of the ordinary that in a setting where everyone uses automatic rifles and semiautomatic pistols, people often get shot multiple times.

Question to everybody who is opposed to this: why shouldn't the cutscenes be taken as the only real proof we have of weapons power in the SC universe?

Because they're an afterthought done on a low budget as an ancillary to the real artistic content?

It'd be like treating the novelizations as a higher level of canonicity than the actual Star Wars movies.

[Jub]

Since it's not even clear what one hit point of shield damage means compared to one hit point of armor damage, I wouldn't assume that.

We could equally well go with the idea that Zergling claws are in fact sharp enough and can 'scissor' with enough force to cut steel armor... and that Protoss shields ultimately fail against them because they simply do not react well to having low-mass objects stuck slowly into them over and over. Different damage mechanisms, comparable effect, which is that an individual Zergling can eventually chew/slice its way through heavily armored and shielded structures, with enough patience, if no one stops it.

So you're making assumptions that energy shields are somehow more negatively affected by love taps than they are by high energy impactors, all based on gameplay which has handfuls of marines killing buildings by standing around them in a semi-circle, but you're unwilling to entertain the simpler idea that gauss rifles simply don't carry as much energy as you first assumed. Sounds like you're bending the evidence to fit your view rather than looking objectively at all sources.

Because they're an afterthought done on a low budget as an ancillary to the real artistic content?

It'd be like treating the novelizations as a higher level of canonicity than the actual Star Wars movies.

Please cite a source for the low budget and afterthought status of Blizzards cutscenes. Given that they were one of two companies known for cutscenes I find it rather unlikely that they didn't view them as important.

[Simon_Jester]

So you're making assumptions that energy shields are somehow more negatively affected by love taps than they are by high energy impactors, all based on gameplay which has handfuls of marines killing buildings by standing around them in a semi-circle, but you're unwilling to entertain the simpler idea that gauss rifles simply don't carry as much energy as you first assumed. Sounds like you're bending the evidence to fit your view rather than looking objectively at all sources.

Thing is, by your logic bursts of fire from automatic Marine gauss rifles are little or no more dangerous than being hit by a baseball bat. Which makes the "Marines can destroy buildings" result even more stupid and preposterous. We can at least imagine a building or capital ship being taken apart slowly by massive volumes of fire from individual rounds that can penetrate a few inches of steel plate or bust up reinforced concrete. It's absurd to imagine a bunch of guys with baseball bats knocking down a building made out of modern reinforced materials unless given days to do it.

So we simply cannot do kinetic energy calculations on a Zergling's claws (since that's not how damage from sharp pointy things causes harm to people at all, direct energy transfer is the least of your problems), and go "well, Zergling claws cannot realistically transfer more than a few hundred joules, therefore Marine gauss rifles transfer only a little more than that."

The methodology is so flawed it's like a solid slab of halfassery.

So from my point of view, just to pass the laugh test I have to posit that different threats undermine and damage Protoss personal shields in different ways.

Because they're an afterthought done on a low budget as an ancillary to the real artistic content?

It'd be like treating the novelizations as a higher level of canonicity than the actual Star Wars movies.

Please cite a source for the low budget and afterthought status of Blizzards cutscenes. Given that they were one of two companies known for cutscenes I find it rather unlikely that they didn't view them as important.

It's not that they were unimportant, it's that they were less important than making the actual game.

They had like seventeen people working on cinematics for Starcraft 1. Just casually looking at the credits they had several times more people working on the actual game. So let's not be obtuse about this; the cinematics are an extra, not the 'core canon' of the limits of the possible in Starcraft.

[Jub]

Thing is, by your logic bursts of fire from automatic Marine gauss rifles are little or no more dangerous than being hit by a baseball bat. Which makes the "Marines can destroy buildings" result even more stupid and preposterous. We can at least imagine a building or capital ship being taken apart slowly by massive volumes of fire from individual rounds that can penetrate a few inches of steel plate or bust up reinforced concrete. It's absurd to imagine a bunch of guys with baseball bats knocking down a building made out of modern reinforced materials unless given days to do it.

So we simply cannot do kinetic energy calculations on a Zergling's claws (since that's not how damage from sharp pointy things causes harm to people at all, direct energy transfer is the least of your problems), and go "well, Zergling claws cannot realistically transfer more than a few hundred joules, therefore Marine gauss rifles transfer only a little more than that."

The methodology is so flawed it's like a solid slab of halfassery.

So from my point of view, just to pass the laugh test I have to posit that different threats undermine and damage Protoss personal shields in different ways.

Or we could assume that gauss weapons are little more than modern firearms that fire DU rounds. It fits with the cutscenes, still gives them guns with more punch that real life, and makes the zerglings attacks fit better. If we set the same 21.8 gram round's velocity to 665 m/s, in line with a real bullet, we get a sensible 4,820 J of energy per round.

The zergling still needs to be firmly super human to make their claws impart the correct energy, but now they only need to be between 3 and 5 times stronger than an athletic human to impart the needed energy into a zealot's shields.

Your point about marines wrecking buildings is majorly flawed. No military destroys buildings by sending squads of dozens of men to stand in an arc around them and dump bullets into them. If you want to clear a building you end teams in with guns and grenades. If you want to destroy a building you look into setting demolition charges, using artillery, or sending in an engineering team.

The same goes for vehicles. If your basic soldiers armor can withstand several bursts of fire from your own small arms, your tanks will not be threatened by them. This is basic logic that you're ignoring for the sake of tunnel visioning on gameplay and poorly written fluff. If we were talking about Command and Conquer instead I can bet that you wouldn't be arguing that infantry could down a tank with rifles, so why are you trying to make that fly here?

It's not that they were unimportant, it's that they were less important than making the actual game.

They had like seventeen people working on cinematics for Starcraft 1. Just casually looking at the credits they had several times more people working on the actual game. So let's not be obtuse about this; the cinematics are an extra, not the 'core canon' of the limits of the possible in Starcraft.

If we really want to go with gameplay over all else like you suggest we do. We take it as canon that marines literally cannot fire their weapons more than 6-8 body lengths, scaling from an 8-foot tall marine that means these 'hypersonic' gauss weapons can't even incidently damage anything more than 64 feet away from them. It also means that marines have no reloads for their main weapon, no sidearms, no grenades, no transports beyond drop ships and medevacs... If you really want to hold up gameplay as the gold standard it means that the Protoss were on an even footing with dudes that can't fire weapons at distances greater than 100 feet, and at that point even a hero like Fenix has to be of extremely limited skill.

[Simon_Jester]

Sigh...

Okay. Let me try to explain how I approach canon in Starcraft, because this idiotic bullshit approach of taking everything and turning it into reductio ad absurdum is childish. This way I can hopefully at least convince you to put vaguely honest words in my mouth...

Basically:

One:

The visuals in the cutscenes are not a promising or particularly reliable way to determine the exact performance parameters of weapons. From a Doylist point of view the cutscenes, while good for their day, were made by a small team of people as an ancillary to the main project, and were not made by the people who were dominating the game's artistic vision. From the Watsonian point of view, and here I'm mainly talking about Starcraft 1, we see all sorts of equipment in the cutscenes that simply does not appear in the game itself (Terrans with wheeled patrol vehicles, Terrans not wearing powered armor or fancy survival suits, Terrans with self-propelled howitzers that look nothing like any unit in the game, Terrans being a bunch of panicky hicks when most of their military units seem to at least be fairly brave if not especially professional otherwise).

Now, it is logical to suppose all these things exist in the universe of Starcraft- just because we don't see game units pull out pistols or drive around in dune buggies doesn't mean those things don't exist. Certainly the technology to make them is available. But as a result, it's hard to determine the relationship between the hardware in the cutscenes and the presumably frontline military equipment referenced in the manual, used by units portrayed in the game, and discussed in versus debates.

On the other hand, the cutscenes can be a good aesthetic guide, in that they serve as some of our most detailed looks at the physical size and shape of things we know canonically exist, such as Wraith starfighters, or Marine power armor.

Gameplay

It is blind stupidity to even try to use the exact numbers in gameplay as direct guides to military capability. Doesn't matter what the numbers are. You end up with the conclusion that being clawed by a genetically enhanced animal is almost as injurious in some objective sense as a burst from a heavy automatic rifle, and that the heavy automatic rifle is in turn roughly half as injurious as being shot with a burst from a pair of 30mm autocannon, which are in turn roughly 40% as injurious as being shot with a pair of medium-caliber cannon from a tank. And that's just from Starcraft 1.

This stuff just doesn't fit together well. Gameplay mechanics never do.

What you can use gameplay for is a rough guideline to what general sort of equipment the armies have. And to identify which weapons on the battlefield are 'big and scary' versus which are 'relatively light.' The scaling may be thrown off by the fact that the game engine doesn't let you spawn 1000 Zerglings that are then sent to swarm enemy Marines at 20:1 odds and have this be a fair fight, even if that would arguably be realistic. But you can still get a distorted sense that, for example, the Protoss use blade-armed Zealots backed up by energy weapon armed Dragoons as their frontline ground troops, that they have these big crawling Reaver units for reducing enemy fortifications. Strategically they like to teleport troops around, futz with spacetime, and so forth. Likewise, Terrans rely on a mix of power armored infantry with ranged weapons, employ ballistic artillery, can put up a pretty nasty SAM network, and sometimes clock you over the head with tactical nuclear warheads capable of causing widespread devastation.

Three

Now, if cutscenes are often not true to what the factions have canonically, and if gameplay is useless for precisely gauging what units can and cannot do, that leaves... the manual. Which is at least vaguely internally consistent with itself even if it sometimes plays up weapon capabilities in ways that are not supported by gameplay.

Therefore, if trying to do a versus comparison I would go with the manual first (among other things because it is our ONLY source on much of the backstory and basic functions of things like Terran psionics or interstellar drives in the setting). Then I would consider applying relevant bits of cutscenes, while using gameplay as a broad guide to the general parameters- such as noting that eight foot suits of power armor and heavy machine guns make Terran infantry at most competitive with the frontline infantry of the aliens, suggesting that, oh, modern US Army soldiers would fare rather poorly.

[Jub]

Nice fancy post, now what's your excuse for ignoring the fact that the cutscenes for SC2 show the exact same levels of firepower. Did Blizzard just not explain their vision for a second straight game or could it be that terran gear just isn't that great and StarCraft is a low powered universe?

[NecronLord]

Dude, there's a reason no army in the world has ever strapped blades to wrists as a key part of their doctrine. Being able to change the angle of attack at the wrist is a pretty key thing in swordfighting. In this case, you can't grab me by the wrists, even though your hands are empty, because if I parry your blade, I parry your whole fucking arm.

Except the Marathas. Debate exists to the exact use of the pata, a gauntlet sword, often based around imported straight european blades with a gauntlet-hilt, but it was most certainly used, and successfully so, alongside more conventional swords such as tulwars, shamshirs and khándás.

The Pata is more practical than the protoss sword (as is common with fantasy swords compared to real ones) in that it provides full protection to the hand, but functionally it is similar. The Marathas were not known for being foolish or ineffective swordsmen, nor did they reserve patas to a ceremonial role. Nor were these low status weapons, they were used even by the Shivaji, Sovereign of the Maratha Confederation (Note the conventional sword in the other hand), who established his dynasty, along with many high status fighters. They were sufficiently useful that the Marathas would import european swords (often of Spainish toledo steel) and disgard the european hilts entirely to re-build them as Patas. During Shivaji's era the Maratha fought successful wars against the Mughals.

There are several reasons for conventional swords such as tulwars being more common, among which are that they are easier to equip or sheathe, essentially being sidearms, while a Pata requires two-hands to equip on one's arm, making it far less convenient, it's been speculated to be either a skirmishing sword or a cavalry sword, but it certainly exist, and was used in combat successfully. There is evidence of two Patas being used simultaneously, also, which is unlike most conventional swords, where dual wielding is exceedingly rare.

Not all examples of patas extend up the arm, or include a wrist strap, but many do. Here is an example of one with a shorter hilt, held only by the hand, which features some commentary on the resources used to create these swords.

While this is not a well known sword, it did exist, and was used to fight and win in combat. The idea that an alien race could favour something similar is in no way far fetched. There's no reason to believe that Zealots' armament is not very effective, even as dual-wielding weapons.

[Simon_Jester]

Nice fancy post, now what's your excuse for ignoring the fact that the cutscenes for SC2 show the exact same levels of firepower. Did Blizzard just not explain their vision for a second straight game or could it be that terran gear just isn't that great and StarCraft is a low powered universe?

The problem is that the high-end firepower is still there- large nuclear warheads, power armor made of metallic substances on a scale that really ought to be nigh-immune to real life small arms, and on the ship to ship level interplanetary missiles with heavy nuclear warheads for the Terrans. Blades that supposedly can cut any normal matter and the ability to raze worlds and exterminate all life with shipboard energy weapons for the Protoss.

Unless you reject ALL other Starcraft material and focus ONLY on the cutscenes, which is intellectually dishonest, you're still left with certain basic realities from the manual and from the broadest outlines of gameplay.

[Terralthra]

Dude, there's a reason no army in the world has ever strapped blades to wrists as a key part of their doctrine. Being able to change the angle of attack at the wrist is a pretty key thing in swordfighting. In this case, you can't grab me by the wrists, even though your hands are empty, because if I parry your blade, I parry your whole fucking arm.

Except the Marathas. Debate exists to the exact use of the pata, a gauntlet sword, often based around imported straight european blades with a gauntlet-hilt, but it was most certainly used, and successfully so, alongside more conventional swords such as tulwars, shamshirs and khándás.

The Pata is more practical than the protoss sword (as is common with fantasy swords compared to real ones) in that it provides full protection to the hand, but functionally it is similar. The Marathas were not known for being foolish or ineffective swordsmen, nor did they reserve patas to a ceremonial role. Nor were these low status weapons, they were used even by the Shivaji, Sovereign of the Maratha Confederation (Note the conventional sword in the other hand), who established his dynasty, along with many high status fighters. They were sufficiently useful that the Marathas would import european swords (often of Spainish toledo steel) and disgard the european hilts entirely to re-build them as Patas. During Shivaji's era the Maratha fought successful wars against the Mughals.

There are several reasons for conventional swords such as tulwars being more common, among which are that they are easier to equip or sheathe, essentially being sidearms, while a Pata requires two-hands to equip on one's arm, making it far less convenient, it's been speculated to be either a skirmishing sword or a cavalry sword, but it certainly exist, and was used in combat successfully. There is evidence of two Patas being used simultaneously, also, which is unlike most conventional swords, where dual wielding is exceedingly rare.

Not all examples of patas extend up the arm, or include a wrist strap, but many do. Here is an example of one with a shorter hilt, held only by the hand, which features some commentary on the resources used to create these swords.

While this is not a well known sword, it did exist, and was used to fight and win in combat. The idea that an alien race could favour something similar is in no way far fetched. There's no reason to believe that Zealots' armament is not very effective, even as dual-wielding weapons.

Mea culpa, I did not know about that one. The last link, the one with the shorter hilt, seems to bear some resemblance to a Katar or punch dagger, but with more of a basket-style hilt to protect the entire hand. I can't tell from the images you linked: are the gauntlets of the patar segmented or jointed? That is to say, once I have the patar on my hand, can I bend my wrist, and in bending it, alter the direction of the tip? A katar, I know can do so, but for the patar, it would depend on the gauntlet design. If so, it bears much more resemblance to a basket-hilted broadsword than to the wrist-braced blades of the Protoss. It has the blade projecting out from the fist, which could give thrusts a bit more force due to the biomechanics involved, at the cost of the ability to use it as a sidearm (as you correctly point out).

That ability to redirect from the wrist for faster parry-ripostes, feints, and so on, is a large part of the art of swordplay over the millenia, from what we can tell from various fighting manuals. I'm not sure dual-wielded arms are so rare. The katana/wakizashi, rapier and main-gauche, eskrima, and a few other combinations were temporally limited, but very widespread within their milieu.

Without meaning to discount it entirely, though, it was used by some fraction of their army, and did not entirely replace tulwars, daggers, and other assorted weaponry, as shown in this image. To me, the idea that Zealots all use the wrist-mounted psiblade indicates one of a few possibilities:
1) The wrist-mounted blade is actually completely superior to any other form of weapon, despite lots of evidence from our own history that this is not so.
2) There is some limitation on psiblades that keeps them from conforming to more typical sword styles. Maybe the machinery that generates it is too large to fit into a hilt, and can't be separated and connected with a cable, or some similar issue.
3) The other military doctrinal, technological, and industrial strengths of the Protoss are such that they overpower other combatants to such a massive degree that it doesn't matter how they style their swords. It doesn't matter if your sword is more effective if my psiblade just cuts right through it as if it weren't there. Similarly, if my zealots only engage as shock melee troops once the dragoons and air/space forces have reduced you to whimpering remnants of an army, our melee combat skills aren't as immediately relevant.
4) (related to one or more of the above) The Protoss have been using this style for so long, with success due to other causes, that their martial experimentation has stagnated. The psiblade as it exists is idealized and romanticized such that questioning its superiority never occurs to them, similar to katana-wanking by Japanophiles.

I lean towards 3, with a healthy dose of 4. Keep in mind, this is all from the Watsonian point of view, rather than a Doylist "it seemed cool to the concept artist."

[NecronLord]

Mea culpa, I did not know about that one. The last link, the one with the shorter hilt, seems to bear some resemblance to a Katar or punch dagger, but with more of a basket-style hilt to protect the entire hand. I can't tell from the images you linked: are the gauntlets of the patar segmented or jointed? That is to say, once I have the patar on my hand, can I bend my wrist, and in bending it, alter the direction of the tip? A katar, I know can do so, but for the patar, it would depend on the gauntlet design. If so, it bears much more resemblance to a basket-hilted broadsword than to the wrist-braced blades of the Protoss. It has the blade projecting out from the fist, which could give thrusts a bit more force due to the biomechanics involved, at the cost of the ability to use it as a sidearm (as you correctly point out).

Actually, both. Pata swords seem to vary between a very simple bar handle like a Katar within the gauntlet, to versions that include a wrist strap making them fully immobile extensions of the arm.

1
2a
2b
3

Some examples showing wrist straps, which seem to sometimes be metal, sometimes leather, and sometimes entirely absent as shown earlier.

That ability to redirect from the wrist for faster parry-ripostes, feints, and so on, is a large part of the art of swordplay over the millenia, from what we can tell from various fighting manuals. I'm not sure dual-wielded arms are so rare. The katana/wakizashi, rapier and main-gauche, eskrima, and a few other combinations were temporally limited, but very widespread within their milieu.

Without meaning to discount it entirely, though, it was used by some fraction of their army, and did not entirely replace tulwars, daggers, and other assorted weaponry, as shown in this image. To me, the idea that Zealots all use the wrist-mounted psiblade indicates one of a few possibilities:
1) The wrist-mounted blade is actually completely superior to any other form of weapon, despite lots of evidence from our own history that this is not so.
2) There is some limitation on psiblades that keeps them from conforming to more typical sword styles. Maybe the machinery that generates it is too large to fit into a hilt, and can't be separated and connected with a cable, or some similar issue.
3) The other military doctrinal, technological, and industrial strengths of the Protoss are such that they overpower other combatants to such a massive degree that it doesn't matter how they style their swords. It doesn't matter if your sword is more effective if my psiblade just cuts right through it as if it weren't there. Similarly, if my zealots only engage as shock melee troops once the dragoons and air/space forces have reduced you to whimpering remnants of an army, our melee combat skills aren't as immediately relevant.
4) (related to one or more of the above) The Protoss have been using this style for so long, with success due to other causes, that their martial experimentation has stagnated. The psiblade as it exists is idealized and romanticized such that questioning its superiority never occurs to them, similar to katana-wanking by Japanophiles.

I lean towards 3, with a healthy dose of 4. Keep in mind, this is all from the Watsonian point of view, rather than a Doylist "it seemed cool to the concept artist."

Oh absolutely they were never the most common sword; not a death sentence for the user, either, though.

For the Protoss: I would generally imagine it's a little of #4 along with a possibility that the protoss have different biomechanics and posture that favor its use?

I think #4 is pretty much certain. Their way of making war is obviously extremely ritualized and reticent. The backstory about the Colossus being the only purely war-machine used by the protoss in SC2 is also perhaps relevant to favoring #4, it seems likely a lot of protoss infantry equipment may also be designed to avoid being wholly warlike; perhaps they avoid conventional swords for this reason or some similar religious proscription?

They charge around without any ranged weapon, and are called zealots, they're probably not the most reasonable people with regard to equipment.

[Tribble]

All Protess are psychic, and the psiblade is just challenged psychic energy via the aid of technology. The device may have to be closely physically attached to the Protoss at all times in order to work. I would imagine that channeling psyhchic enMounting it on their wrists would make it less likely for the device to be knocked off compared to requiring Zealots to hold it at all times.

Also it should be noted that the psiblade could be created without equipment if the Protoss was skilled/powerful enough, with Tassadar being an example (in the novels).

[Imperial528]

Indeed, it's also quite possible that the very first Protoss to discover the ability did channel it from their forearms, and given how traditional Protoss culture is, they simply never found any reason to change it, especially since their advanced technological enhancements of their psi blades and shields (which can also be generated naturally, IIRC there are wild creatures on Aiur that have shields as well) would put them at such an extreme advantage to anyone less advanced that they would never see a reason to doubt their implementation.

In the lore the ancient Protoss did hunt creatures and made tools and weapons out of bone and later stone, metal, etc. (Strangely enough they don't need to eat) However with the advent of technology that can directly enhance their innate psionic talents I don't find it surprising that they may have abandoned traditional weapons in favor of the psi blades. A sword may have superior handling and a much broader range of possible actions, but if it's a choice between that and an energy blade that cuts through just about anything without too much trouble, well, suddenly the sword seems much more limited in comparison.

Now, to the topic of the fight, I personally think it's mostly a matter of terrain. In an open area with loose, easy-to-TK objects, my bet would be on Obi-wan. I feel he has an advantage in an open environment because regardless of how effectively he might be able to TK Fenix (I don't think this is a given), he can use force telekineses on himself, which would allow unexpected and unnatural movements to keep an adequate distance, all while using the terrain to corner and eventually pin Fenix then close in for the finish.

However in a closed environment, say the interior of a structure, starship, etc. I would expect Fenix to come out on top, as he can use his physical size and reach to back Obi-wan into a corner and leave no avenue for escape.

Both of these presumed scenarios assume relatively equal footing, with Obi-wan having a superior overall mobility (Though in a chase I would expect Fenix to be able to keep up) while giving Fenix overall superior physical strength due to his larger build and powered armor. It also relies on the technology involved to have rough parity with each other (Fenix's shields able to block lightsabers at least twice before depletion, psi blades and lightsabers interacting, etc). I do not think that we'll really be able to establish any concrete baselines for Protoss infantry armor and the full capabilities of psi blades until Legacy of the Void comes out, unless we have any references in the StarCraft literature that could be empirically analyzed.


One last point, it should be noted that not only are all Protoss psychic, they are all natural mind readers and have to learn both how to block others from reading their minds, and how to refrain from attempting to read the minds of everyone around them, lest they get overwhelmed and distracted by others' thoughts.

Biologically, we also have no idea of the layout of Protoss internal organs except that the brain is located in the skull as it is in humans, and according to the lore they get sustenance from absorbing sunlight (somehow) so it's hard to know what, exactly, is a fatal wound to a Protoss outside of the obvious (brain trauma or rupturing a major vessel).

[Lord Revan]

well we know that it's not impossible to create psi-blades that are mount on more traditional hilt (the Dark Templars have either the traditional twin wristblades or a twin blade scyche like weapons their weapons function more or less identical to those of the Khala protoss the source being the only difference), how ever as it was stated the Protoss are very conservative and didn't bother to change anything they absolutly didn't have to.

[Me2005]

Indeed, it's also quite possible that the very first Protoss to discover the ability did channel it from their forearms, and given how traditional Protoss culture is, they simply never found any reason to change it, especially since their advanced technological enhancements of their psi blades and shields (which can also be generated naturally, IIRC there are wild creatures on Aiur that have shields as well) would put them at such an extreme advantage to anyone less advanced that they would never see a reason to doubt their implementation.

I'd agree to that.

Now, to the topic of the fight, I personally think it's mostly a matter of terrain. In an open area with loose, easy-to-TK objects, my bet would be on Obi-wan. I feel he has an advantage in an open environment because regardless of how effectively he might be able to TK Fenix (I don't think this is a given), he can use force telekineses on himself, which would allow unexpected and unnatural movements to keep an adequate distance, all while using the terrain to corner and eventually pin Fenix then close in for the finish.

However in a closed environment, say the interior of a structure, starship, etc. I would expect Fenix to come out on top, as he can use his physical size and reach to back Obi-wan into a corner and leave no avenue for escape.

The arena is the Genosis arena, and I think you've got that totally backwards. Fenix's size would be a disadvantage in a closed-in environment, while Obi-Wan's would be a limitation out in the open. Look at Darth Vader vs. Luke in the Emporer's throne room vs. in Cloud City. In cloud city (relatively open) Luke gets stomped by the larger Vader, while in the throne room he hides in places Vader can't see/reach/fit and ambushes him. Throwing things to further confuse a closed-in area would give Obi-Wan an advantage there for sure, while in the arena Fenix can just sidestep.

And in this arena, we see that there isn't much to throw. I don't remember ever seeing a Jedi TK themselves, so I'd ask you to prove that's a real thing.

Both of these presumed scenarios assume relatively equal footing, with Obi-wan having a superior overall mobility (Though in a chase I would expect Fenix to be able to keep up) while giving Fenix overall superior physical strength due to his larger build and powered armor.

If by this you mean that Obi-Wan has more options (run, jump, climb where Fenix cannot easily go), then I'd agree. I think Fenix is probably consistently faster, excepting possible short-sprints from Kenobi, with greater endurance (helped by his power armor) however.

[Lord Revan]

The thing is that we've seen A protoss fight hand to hand and while fast he wasn't really any faster then we've seen Jedi fight, sure it was a Black Templar and not a zealot but if the armor gave Khala Protoss that much on an advantage then why didn't the dark temlars adapt it like they did with good chunk of the other Protoss tech.

[Purple]

Mea culpa, I did not know about that one. The last link, the one with the shorter hilt, seems to bear some resemblance to a Katar or punch dagger, but with more of a basket-style hilt to protect the entire hand. I can't tell from the images you linked: are the gauntlets of the patar segmented or jointed? That is to say, once I have the patar on my hand, can I bend my wrist, and in bending it, alter the direction of the tip? A katar, I know can do so, but for the patar, it would depend on the gauntlet design. If so, it bears much more resemblance to a basket-hilted broadsword than to the wrist-braced blades of the Protoss. It has the blade projecting out from the fist, which could give thrusts a bit more force due to the biomechanics involved, at the cost of the ability to use it as a sidearm (as you correctly point out).

You should check the first 3 videos in this link: https://www.youtube.com/user/scholaglad ... query=pata
They should tell you all you need to know about the type of sword, how it was constructed used etc.

[Tribble]

The thing is that we've seen A protoss fight hand to hand and while fast he wasn't really any faster then we've seen Jedi fight, sure it was a Black Templar and not a zealot but if the armor gave Khala Protoss that much on an advantage then why didn't the dark temlars adapt it like they did with good chunk of the other Protoss tech.

Pre-zerg part of that may have been due to technological limitations. The dark templar were exiled with a bare minimum of resources, and I highly doubt they were given zealot armor to take with them, let alone the manufacturing capacity to build more. Also, the energy they draw from is quite a bit different, and it's possible that regular zealot tech is incompatible with void energy. Just being able to modify and/or develop the tech required to focus void energy must have been a difficult feat for the resource poor dark templar.

Part of it is training / culture too. From the very beginning a key Dark Templar trait was their ability and desire to hide from other protoss - the alternative was execution, so it's not like they had much choice. Adun furthered this by teaching them how to cloak . Their entire lifestyle revolves around remaining hidden and using stealth tactics to win rather than brute force. I don't see how zealot armor would help them in that regard, if anything it's just going to add more mass that needs to be cloaked.

Plus dark templar may be better trained and/or have more experience than the average zealot, so the armor is no longer necessary. If I remember correctly, zealots are simply younger/less powerful /less experienced protoss, and they might need the armor to be truly combat effective. higher level protoss like tassadar certainly didn't need it.

IMO one can't really use dark templar as examples of what zealots can do. It's like trying to equate a typical us infantry soldier to a cia agent - sure they are both human and probably speak English , but there are some pretty big differences between the two.

[Lord Revan]

The thing is that we've seen A protoss fight hand to hand and while fast he wasn't really any faster then we've seen Jedi fight, sure it was a Black Templar and not a zealot but if the armor gave Khala Protoss that much on an advantage then why didn't the dark temlars adapt it like they did with good chunk of the other Protoss tech.

Pre-zerg part of that may have been due to technological limitations. The dark templar were exiled with a bare minimum of resources, and I highly doubt they were given zealot armor to take with them, let alone the manufacturing capacity to build more. Also, the energy they draw from is quite a bit different, and it's possible that regular zealot tech is incompatible with void energy. Just being able to modify and/or develop the tech required to focus void energy must have been a difficult feat for the resource poor dark templar.

Part of it is training / culture too. From the very beginning a key Dark Templar trait was their ability and desire to hide from other protoss - the alternative was execution, so it's not like they had much choice. Adun furthered this by teaching them how to cloak . Their entire lifestyle revolves around remaining hidden and using stealth tactics to win rather than brute force. I don't see how zealot armor would help them in that regard, if anything it's just going to add more mass that needs to be cloaked.

Plus dark templar may be better trained and/or have more experience than the average zealot, so the armor is no longer necessary. If I remember correctly, zealots are simply younger/less powerful /less experienced protoss, and they might need the armor to be truly combat effective. higher level protoss like tassadar certainly didn't need it.

IMO one can't really use dark templar as examples of what zealots can do. It's like trying to equate a typical us infantry soldier to a cia agent - sure they are both human and probably speak English , but there are some pretty big differences between the two.

actually the difference between a Zealot and Dark Temlar warrior is more like that of raw recruit and a special forces operative, both are soldiers but they have really different mission profiles.

however my point is that even when facing Queen of Blades when he didn't yet know of her importance Zeratul did not move at speeds people are implying Protoss can move trivially.

Also how Zealot armor help the Dark Templars, speed, if it truly gave as big of speed boost as people are implying it would be vital for a stealth operative, being able to get in and out faster means a smaller risk of being detected by the enemy and thus a greater chance of getting the job done.

[Simon_Jester]

The arena is the Genosis arena, and I think you've got that totally backwards. Fenix's size would be a disadvantage in a closed-in environment, while Obi-Wan's would be a limitation out in the open. Look at Darth Vader vs. Luke in the Emporer's throne room vs. in Cloud City. In cloud city (relatively open) Luke gets stomped by the larger Vader, while in the throne room he hides in places Vader can't see/reach/fit and ambushes him. Throwing things to further confuse a closed-in area would give Obi-Wan an advantage there for sure, while in the arena Fenix can just sidestep.

And in this arena, we see that there isn't much to throw. I don't remember ever seeing a Jedi TK themselves, so I'd ask you to prove that's a real thing.

What else would you call Force-assisted jumping, running, and dodging?

Both of these presumed scenarios assume relatively equal footing, with Obi-wan having a superior overall mobility (Though in a chase I would expect Fenix to be able to keep up) while giving Fenix overall superior physical strength due to his larger build and powered armor.

If by this you mean that Obi-Wan has more options (run, jump, climb where Fenix cannot easily go), then I'd agree. I think Fenix is probably consistently faster, excepting possible short-sprints from Kenobi, with greater endurance (helped by his power armor) however.

On a side note, this arena is also short on things Obi-Wan can use for cover or hiding places, as Obi-Wan himself demonstrated in Episode II.

The thing is that we've seen A protoss fight hand to hand and while fast he wasn't really any faster then we've seen Jedi fight, sure it was a Black Templar and not a zealot but if the armor gave Khala Protoss that much on an advantage then why didn't the dark temlars adapt it like they did with good chunk of the other Protoss tech.

Pre-zerg part of that may have been due to technological limitations. The dark templar were exiled with a bare minimum of resources, and I highly doubt they were given zealot armor to take with them, let alone the manufacturing capacity to build more. Also, the energy they draw from is quite a bit different, and it's possible that regular zealot tech is incompatible with void energy. Just being able to modify and/or develop the tech required to focus void energy must have been a difficult feat for the resource poor dark templar.

Although the Dark Templar apparently were able to retreat to a hidden homeworld where they have some fairly large-scale settlements. And they can clearly build their own spacecraft given that we encounter them on multiple worlds, and that the Corsair spacecraft is a Dark Templar design which apparently predates most of the interaction between the two halves of the Protoss race.

So I imagine they could build power armor if they wished, but choose not to, favoring invisibility and their own even more devastating form of psi blade.

[TheFeniX]

So I imagine they could build power armor if they wished, but choose not to, favoring invisibility and their own even more devastating form of psi blade.

Not that they really need it. In the two dust-ups between Kerrigan and Zeratul, the later seems to be about as resistant to blunt trauma as Obi-Wan is/was in the Prequels. Human Kerrgian roundhouse kicks him hard enough to send him flying 30 or so feet back, then TKs him into a rock formation. He then eats a flying punch strong enough to cause a small shockwave. Of course, Blizzard dials it up to 11 as always, and he seems dazed but really just looks like he's trying to get close enough to Kerrigan for a Vulcan mind-meld. After the vision, he doesn't seem hurt at all.

Same thing with Obi-Wan, he spends most of EPII and III getting his ass kicked, but is none the worse for wear. Jango and Grevious can stun him with physical attacks and Dooku can drop a platform on him and he's all spiffy a few second later.

Like Jedi, DTs seem much more about not getting hit with energy weapons, rather than absorbing them.

[Simon_Jester]

Although with Protoss, for all we know they're all that tough physically, and the only real difference is in Zeratul being exceptionally good at avoiding injury.