I wonder if you could help me with a theory?

[David Alan Abramczyk]

As the Movie section seems to have become the de facto Star Wars section, I thought it best to put this here.

I was in a Role-play once, where a Jedi encountered a group of soldiers armed with early-20th Century level firearms (Bolt-action rifles, revolvers, etc.). This got me thinking:

A lightsabre can deflect a blaster bolt with no problem, as we all know. But, what about bullets? What do you think would happen if a Jedi tried to deflect a bullet?

My personal theory is: The energy beam would melt the bullet, and possibly heat the metal so hot that some of its' mass would become gas. But for the most part, the Jedi would get white-hot metal splattering over them.

Any thoughts, opinions?

 

[SoulGriever13]

Likely, the bullet would vaporize, and I think pretty much no matter what it would be made of. Dunno what'd happen to the gas, but that's a bit too hard-science a consideration for a space opera setting. Could handwave it away while citing something about how the magnetic bottle keeps the energy beam of the saber from scattering and, as a side effect, lets if 'feed' on gaseous substances.

Slugthrowers aren't that uncommon, or at least I don't think they are, that the sabers would be ineffective against them. The only thing I couldn't see being given this treatment would be a railgun firing DPU solid slugs/bolts - fast and massive/dense enough to make it through the energy beam without losing too much mass, with the added bonus of white hot molten death added to the equation. But then again, railguns aren't in the techlevel you speak of.

On the other hand, if you send them against people with shotguns, the saber-wielders are pretty much screwed, gently, with a rusty chainsaw.

Similarly when faced with a spray-and-pray weapon, or a squad support MG. Rate of fire + spread of the onslaught of lead, baby. If they managed similarly rapid firing _and_ spreading blasters, I imagine the results would be like that too.

For grenades, mortar fire, and so on and so forth, there's the Force.

-Griever

 

[SotF]

Unfortunately slugthrowers are only slightly better than blasters against Jedi because they don't get sent back at you (But some jedi can telekineticly block them as well). Of course one concept is the cortosis bullets that can eliminate the lightsaber temporarily and can be quite nasty in combination with a blaster.

Also grenades and other explosives can make a jedi's day very bad because lightsabers tend to set them off.

 

[Mighty Bob]

Interesting question. Problem is, I'm pretty sure they'd train a Jedi to know when to block and when to dodge/run/use some other force power. Not like physical projectile weapons are unknown, or even entirely uncommon. Just my 2 cents.

 

[SotF]

Interesting question. Problem is, I'm pretty sure they'd train a Jedi to know when to block and when to dodge/run/use some other force power. Not like physical projectile weapons are unknown, or even entirely uncommon. Just my 2 cents.

Gun type projectile weapons are extremely rare and the rest are still quite rare. Even explosives are rare.

They can still be deflected rather easily.

Boba Fett had a habit of mixing projectile and explosive attacks in with blaster fire when hunting Jedi.

 

[Steel]

Considering the lightsabers don't instacut through various metals in the series (ie blast doors), I'd say a high density rail slug would probably work quite well.

 

[Solarman]

Considering the lightsabers don't instacut through various metals in the series (ie blast doors), I'd say a high density rail slug would probably work quite well.

Use the Force. Super-dodge if you aren't powerful enough to stop or deflect the damn thing. And I've never heard of any jedi trying to use a lightsaber to cut through a blast door, though I haven't had anything to do with Star Wars for years now.

Just my two cents there.

 

[GenocideHeart]

Lightsabers don't instacut through blast doors because blast doors are incredibly thick and compact - they must resist vacuum and high-powered explosions, among other things.

You can't hold it against a lightsaber that they take a while to pierce some of the heaviest armor in the Universe. If anything, you should give them credit for actually managing it.

 

[Solarman]

Also, how thick are blast doors? Because if they're thicker than the lightsaber is long, no wonder it takes time. That'd require at least two cuts per lightsaber-length-thickness to get through, and if they're, say, ten feet thick (armored blast doors to shuttlebays, let's say, so armored because if the forcefield goes down and they're not armored...) it would take the average jedi ages to get through. I may revise this statement when I'm not deliriously tired, but it makes sense to me right now.

 

[roting_CORPSE]

blasters has considerably slower rate of fire than say an ak47 in full auto

so if you empty a clip on a jedi using full auto fire then the jedi will lose.

also a blaster fires a visible laser fire compare to the invisible super sonic projectile of an assult rifle. the jedi may sense them but he may not doge all of them.

 

[Lord Raa]

blasters has considerably slower rate of fire than say an ak47 in full auto

so if you empty a clip on a jedi using full auto fire then the jedi will lose.

also a blaster fires a visible laser fire compare to the invisible super sonic projectile of an assult rifle. the jedi may sense them but he may not doge all of them.

One does not see the light in transit from its source. One sees the light bouncing off objects.

The "visible light" from a blaster/other laser weapon is for cinematic effect.


Or that is how I remember my physics lessons from over ten years ago.

 

[JiigarGhen]

I believe I read somewhere that the light coming from the lasers in Star Wars was supposedly not the actual beam itself; it was a sort of afterimage that the laser left. IIRC, that was an explanation Lucas gave for having visible lasers.

 

[David Alan Abramczyk]

Maybe it's the Tibanna Gas that they use to power blaster cells?

 

[knight_of_ni]

That doesn't make any sense. Basically it is a cinematic affect, or else no one would be able to do anything about a blaster shot. It is much like the blasters having recoil, there is no explosive force to cause the projectile to move forward, and so there is no force to move the gun backwards.

 

[SotF]

blasters has considerably slower rate of fire than say an ak47 in full auto

so if you empty a clip on a jedi using full auto fire then the jedi will lose.

also a blaster fires a visible laser fire compare to the invisible super sonic projectile of an assult rifle. the jedi may sense them but he may not doge all of them.

The Jedi can use the force to throw the bullets away from him as they move. It happened in the novels and in the Clone Wars series.

As for the Blast Doors, you also have to remember that while it's melting the door and cut through, he's trying to open a path through said superheavy door that is melting, meaning that as he cuts he needs some time to keep the cut from filling in.

 

[David Alan Abramczyk]

Or indeed, they could crush the rifles' barrel, causing blowback...

 

[roting_CORPSE]

there is a type of metal in the star wars universe that can can disrupt lightsaber energy.

i forgot what it was called but it is seen in one of the conics set during the jedi purge and was used by one of the jedi against darth vader

it was also made in to an armor in the game jedi knghts 2 jedi outcast

 

[David Alan Abramczyk]

Cortosis?

Yeah, but it's brittle as hell, bloody hard to work, and makes anything it's alloyed with flimsy as paper. Not to mention being bloody rare, and expensive.

 

[roting_CORPSE]

Cortosis?

Yeah, but it's brittle as hell, bloody hard to work, and makes anything it's alloyed with flimsy as paper. Not to mention being bloody rare, and expensive.

yeah thats it.


but in game cortosis was plentiful enough to be used to re-enforce specialized storm tooper armor. im guessing the empire used some to re-enforce blast doors during the clone wars as a peperation and precaution for order 66.

 

[SotF]

Cortosis?

Yeah, but it's brittle as hell, bloody hard to work, and makes anything it's alloyed with flimsy as paper. Not to mention being bloody rare, and expensive.

Not totally, functional melee weapons have come about made with alloyed Cortosis. It probably depends on precise alloys though to figure out which is how strong. Other materials that can ignore lightsabers are Phrik (The Magnaguards electrostaves and the darktrooper armor was made out of it) and Mandalorian "Iron" which is just pretty damn near indestructible when processed correctly.