Is cortosis (a material that is at least in part resistant to lightsaber blades) a good idea? I think it deffinately can be. In the EU the limitations of a lightsaber have only been trickled out one-by-one. It seems most authors don't want to mess with the mythically powerful aspect of the famous weapons. I think it's a good idea to play it safe and only add limiting details if it's absolutely necessary. Cortosis, as long as it doesn't crop up everywhere, like kryptonite for Superman, could be a great addition. It is featured prominently in SW: KOTOR, and is necessary to explain why melee weapons could still be effective. It wouldn't be a fun game if lightsaber strikes destroyd every non-lightsaber weapon. KOTOR takes place 4000 years before the rise of the Empire, so it seems plausible that the existence of the material could have been lost to legend.
Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Chelmsford, Essex, UK
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Can't stand it.
I am not against the principle of dense materials being able to better resist sabres, but I would be thinking in the sense of huge blast doors and the like, being slower to cut through. To translate that into building effective sabre-proof armour and- even worse- WEAPONS- really annoys me. It seems to be violating a principle of how Star Wars works. In most ways a lightsabre is a ridiculous weapon (a melee weapon in an era of hi-tech ranged weaponry) so you have to put it in the context of a Galaxy where it works and the way cortosis has been applied has gone against that.
And hell yeah you should have your melee weapons cut in half if you go up against a Jedi with a conventional weapon! Why the heck WOULD any sane person do such a thing? Melee weapons are overpowered in KOTOR anyway.
It is also such a lazy development, Lighsabre =best weapon... oh... let's make something that resists it...
Writers should make more effort than that.
Still, I don't want to sound like I am deifying lightsabres. They should have plenty of liabilities. A material that effecitvely resists it on a personal level should not be one, though.
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Well cortosis first came out in Jedi Knight 2:Jedi Outcast. It was used to make shadowtrooper armour, so that it would be lightsaber resistant. You could still kill them with a lightsaber though, so I suppose it could be official and I think it already is.
__________________ I know what you're thinking punk. You're thinking: "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, I've forgotten myself in all this excitement. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya punk?
I've little problem with cortosis showing up occasionally to spice up saber combat, but if it acts as an insulation against force powers, I am completely against it. Few things bother me more than finding hackneyed reasons to prevent a Jedi from using the Force to make a story more suspenseful. I'm fine with yslamari, they were used as necessary, and the Yuuzhan Vong being separate from the Force is interesting and a logical conclusion. A person just being able to slap on a cortosis vest and be invulnerable to a power that can crush throats from across a room, or strike lightning at an opponent, or read minds is uninteresting and could send Star Wars literature down a slippery slope. If cortosis can insulate against Force powers, then what? ÜberForce, which is immune to the powers of cortosis? Ridiculous.
I do not much like the idea of it no, but on the other hand if people can use the force, why not animals? and why not animals who have to defend themselves from these creatures?
but people making weapons for that, that's kinda showing the authors are rather lazy in finding more interesting ways of keeping suspence
The way they explained the Vong being able to block lightsabers was much better. It's not that the saber can't cut the amphistaffs, it's just that the amphistaffs heal so damn fast that it won't go through.
Official is not cannon Yerssot. Official stuff mostly doesent have Lucas'es approval, like EU books and comics. Those are not canon but OFFICIAL.
__________________ I know what you're thinking punk. You're thinking: "Did he fire six shots or only five?" Well, to tell you the truth, I've forgotten myself in all this excitement. But being as this is a .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you've got to ask yourself a question: "Do I feel lucky?" Well, do ya punk?
Last edited by Dirty Vader on Feb 6th, 2004 at 02:53 AM
If you'd read my post you would have seen that I specifically mentioned yslamari, citing that the circumstances under which they were introduced (i.e. the quality of the Thrawn books) justified their existence perfectly. It isn't accurate to assume too many parallels between yslamari and cortosis objects, though, because the simple nature of a living thing generally makes it more difficult to use effectively. It's easy to put on a cortosis helmet to insulate yourself from Force powers (assuming, for the sake of argument, that cortosis can block out the use of Force powers at all) but getting an yslamari to stand on your head is an entirely different affair.
Someone mentioned lazy authorship and for a time I'd have agreed with them. Since then, though, it's occurred to me that strictly obeying a formula is also lazy authorship. A truly excellent work that exists within a collective setting has to carefully balance new material with an adherence to the spirit of the larger saga. Perhaps cortosis, or the Vong's separation from the force, or yslamari effectively utilize the collective setting and break new ground. Perhaps their use simply suggests 'lazy authorship' (although I'm sure you'd find plenty of Zahn fans that would eviscerate you for suggesting such a thing). Perhaps any deviation from the formula of (lightsabers=near invincible) and (the Force=all powerful) will ruin the EU forever.
Personally, I don't think any of those things are terrible, if they aren't overexposed or conjectured upon too far.
Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Chelmsford, Essex, UK
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Well, I really do not like Zahn, so his fan base does not interest me.
And yes, their use is lazy. If you are going to challenge basic concepts of the setting, far more effort has to be made than 'x that counters it'. Frankly, however, you should not need to do anything of the sort to create an interesting story, and to challenge such precepts purely just to break new ground is, again, lazy authorship.
It is simply a culture of authors trying to break through a setting for their own purposes rather than work with it, and I deplore it. And to call working within a setting 'strictly observing a formula' strikes me as very strange, and to call it lazy simply untrue. A good author can push boundaries without creating lazy nonsense like cortosis and yslamari.
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Feb 6th, 2004 at 11:51 AM
Jan 13th, 2004 02:40 AM
it's not the saber that makes the weapon so dangerous, it's the wielder.
