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How a lightsaber works.....
Here's a cool illustration.....
Attachment: lightsabera.jpg
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Oct 17th, 2003 at 01:56 PM
Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Chelmsford, Essex, UK
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That is the model of Dr. David West Reynolds sketch of the inside of a sabre from the Visual Dictionary, which I shall provide below. He said:
"I had always wanted to see the inside of a lightsabre, and I had been working on a design for years, this project [SWVD] came along, and I thought, I bet I can get my lightsabre done. So I handed over a detailed design to Don Bies of ILM, and he followed my plan exactly and did a beautiful job of bringing the cutaway sabre to life. It was quite a trip to have an ILM modelmaker executing my design."
He based his description and design of a lightsabre on West End Game's description of one in their Star Wars role-playing game- defintions WEG made up without any reference to Lucasfilm whatsoever.
Bob Brown notes the following about this interpretation of sabre design:
- the crystals are mounted about halfway down - well away from the emitter - they may in fact never be anywhere near the actual sabre blade, which could be generated at the tip.
- the crystals are NOT jewels - they are rough and irregular with NO clear facets and obviously NO simple optical function.
- the crystals SEEM to be some sort of linkage between the power source and the blade generating components.
- the segmented bronze rods in the forward half of the sabre are said to produce the 'gyroscopic' effect ... which may be some sort of field effect designed to contain the blade, or to assist it in its self-containment properties.
It does, of course, contradict the only canonical evidence we have of what is in a lightsabre, but that is not very important as this was never envisaged as anything other than a personal project of Reynold's that ILM agreed to make a model of for him.
(BTW, I shrank the original pic so the thread was still readable)
Attachment: swvd-ls.jpg
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Last edited by Ushgarak on Oct 17th, 2003 at 01:57 PM
Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Chelmsford, Essex, UK
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Bob Brown also notes the similarities with this, equally un-canonical and very contradictory 'inside of a lightsabre' diagramme provided under similar circumstances for the magazine MECHANISMO in the late 70s. Dr Reynolds changed several ideas.
This sabre interpretation apparently had:
- A 'neucleonic pill' power cell (embedded in a 'resinated organic shield') at the base of the hilt
- a series of degausing lenses in the centre of the hilt
- a directional coil assembly (electromagnetic?)
- a 'rubionic' laser crystal
It was an Optical model sabre which even further contradicts the films.
No doubt there will be further EU interpretations of sabres as time goes by...
Attachment: mek-ls3.jpg
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"We've got maybe seconds before Darth Rosenberg grinds everybody into Jawa burgers and not one of you buds has the midi-chlorians to stop her!"
Just to add to what Ushgarak said about the crystal never being anywhere near the part where the blade is projected from-In the back of the Dark Horse comic book entitled Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi The Golden Age of the Sith #0 of 5 there is a really weird picture of a lightsaber. It has a "power cord" attached to the end and teh crystal is shown as a sort of "nozzle" I thought that was really weird
Why aren't there other "light" weapons like "light axes" or "light pikes?" Looking at the labels in the original picture, there is a sort of dial titled "blade length adjust." It seems like if you found a crystal that was the right shape or chisled one down you could get it to project in a different shape.
Registered: Sep 2000
Location: Chelmsford, Essex, UK
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Blade length adjust is, again, an invention of West End Games subsequently adopted by the EU.
Other weapons really just don't fit the style of the thing. If you want some logic, though, a lightaxe would be a rubbish weapon- you only made axes in real life if you were using it as a tool rather than a weapon or if you did not have the sophisitication to make a good sword. And pikes are only any good in formation. Jedi normally fight more personally, where the sword is the superior weapon.
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I don't know much at all about this stuff, but wouldn't it technically be possible to create blades of different thicknesses? Depending on style, maybe you'd want a thick blade to go with your powerful wide swings, or maybe a thin blade for speed and versatility?
Or perhaps a rogue Jedi-turned-assassin would carry a lightdagger for close and efficient kills?
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the blade doesn't really affect much, so I'm not sure what benefit that would bring. The blades are said to be weightless so you really only have to worry about the hilt's weight and all.
Actually, in KotOR, there is a crystal that you can add to your saber which makes the blade a little thicker and longer. Still, mephistodesigns is right. The blade is weightless, so a larger blade would not have any effect on your dueling style. I think I read somewhere that the red crystals the Sith use are synthetic, more powerful, and more difficult to control. So, there are things that affect control, but blade size is not one of them. The crystal that I first mentioned would just make it easier to reach your opponent. Here's a question for people to argue about: since a saber blade is weightless, couldn't you theoretically line up a whole bunch of crystals (say 6 or 7) and have a really, really long weapon? The hilt would be quite long, but the idea is that you would only do as many as you could fit in a single hilt.
I could think of some weapons that might be SOMEWHAT good as lightweaponry. But, Jedi being Jedi Knights, I think the lightsaber fits them fine. I've seen ideas for a lightscythe, lighttonfas, and lightmace, though I could see some flaws there. The lightstaff was welcome though...
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Oct 15th, 2003 03:45 AM
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