Normally you would have a knife or a vibroblade attached to the barrel of the rifle, but there’s no reason you couldn’t replace that with a laser knife. (You couldn’t have a lightsaber—it would be much too long—but a short plasma weapon would be fine.) However, I don’t expect it would be necessary for the rifle to be made of a lightsaber-resistant material as the blade should never touch the barrel, especially because that technology tends to be very expensive.
Hope that helps!
~ Jacen
Yup, Imperial officer battle armour around that time period should have been identical or very similar to either that of an Imperial combat driver (including AT-AT pilots) or snowtrooper armour, depending on the variant. It likely looks sturdier because some of those chest plates included heating/life support systems, which added to the bulk but didn’t provide much extra shielding. Either would be vulnerable to a high-powered blaster rifle at close range.
Hope that helps!
~ Jacen
I am not aware of any source that says an AT-AT pilot’s armour is significantly sturdier than a stormtrooper’s, so yes, a direct hit from a high-powered blaster rifle could easily burn through a chestplate. That wound could certainly be life-threatening, but it’s just as likely that the pilot would be killed, especially from a close distance. We’ve seen such blaster rifles kill clone troopers from hundreds of feet away, and AT-AT pilot armour is said to resemble Phase II clone pilot armour.
Hope that helps!
~ Jacen
Sorry about the wait! Basically, blaster bolts may or may not cauterize the wound they make. There will certainly be burning, but they can still bleed. Due to the physics of a blaster bolt, blunt force injuries can also occur. (I discuss this in a bit more detail here and here). Most often, however, the wound is largely cauterized by the heat of the bolt. As a result, they are very difficult to treat without the regenerative properties of bacta, and thus the default treatment is application of a bacta bandage or, if the injury is serious enough, submersion in a bacta tank. The bandages must be changed regularly, and the patient may need surgery if the bolt has hit and burnt any organs, but if they can survive long enough to get treatment they often make a full recovery.
Hope that helps!
~ Jacen
Blaster pistol and blaster rifle ID charts (from The New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology)
Yes, they can. I would say a glancing blow would have little to no impact force, though, and would probably just cause a burn. I can’t recall an instance of any character getting shot and it breaking their bone, but I suppose it’s possible if they took a direct hit to a bone that isn’t shielded by a lot of muscle or is particularly fragile (like the collarbone). Blaster bolts can ricochet, though its unclear exactly which surfaces can reflect them, except, obviously, for the magnetically sealed walls of the trash compacter seen in ANH.
~ Jacen
BLASTERS DO NOT SHOOT BULLETS OR OTHER PROJECTILES. THEY ARE LASER GUNS. They burn and cauterise. They don’t make giant bullet holes and they don’t run out of bullets. There ARE NO bullets.
@writebetterstarwars, please reblog. I just read my third fic of the day that mentioned Rebels shooting Imperials with bullets and one mentioned a through-and-through.
No problem! I’ve seen that a few times myself. Blasters indeed do not fire any solid projectile; they fire small amounts of energized gas called particle bolts or, more commonly, blaster bolts. A blaster contains a gas cartridge (which usually has enough gas for 500 shots) and a power pack (enough power for 100 shots). However, those amounts change according to the type of blaster and its power setting, as well as any modifications made.
I should also point out that they don’t actually fire lasers (lasers are coherent beams of light and are considered archaic) but are based on the same principles. They most often cause burn wounds but the bolts can also hit with physical force (like a bullet), explosive force, or both. This can cause bleeding and damage around the actual wound and, because there is mass involved, can supposedly go right through a person’s body and cause burn wounds upon entry and exit (we already know they can go through armour, so a body should work the same, assuming the bolt has enough power to do it).
Calling it a laser gun was a vast over simplification but kinda gets the point across. They can act like projectiles, sort of, but there’s no ammo magazine, and they don’t do the thing bullets do with a small entry and large exit, is what I meant. I should have been more clear on that but I’ve had a long day and after two hours in rush hour traffic (even on a Saturday), I was extra irritable.
Also, blasters can overheat and/or explode from overuse or tampering, but simply being in a firefight won’t automatically cause that to happen. I’ve seen that described multiple times, but blasters are *designed* for this kind of thing. Unless the blaster is absolute crap and cobbled together, twenty shots isn’t going to make the handle get hot enough to burn the protagonist’s hand.
Very true. Using a blaster as intended will almost never cause it to overheat to the point of destruction
BLASTERS DO NOT SHOOT BULLETS OR OTHER PROJECTILES. THEY ARE LASER GUNS. They burn and cauterise. They don’t make giant bullet holes and they don’t run out of bullets. There ARE NO bullets.
@writebetterstarwars, please reblog. I just read my third fic of the day that mentioned Rebels shooting Imperials with bullets and one mentioned a through-and-through.
No problem! I’ve seen that a few times myself. Blasters indeed do not fire any solid projectile; they fire small amounts of energized gas called particle bolts or, more commonly, blaster bolts. A blaster contains a gas cartridge (which usually has enough gas for 500 shots) and a power pack (enough power for 100 shots). However, those amounts change according to the type of blaster and its power setting, as well as any modifications made.
I should also point out that they don’t actually fire lasers (lasers are coherent beams of light and are considered archaic) but are based on the same principles. They most often cause burn wounds but the bolts can also hit with physical force (like a bullet), explosive force, or both. This can cause bleeding and damage around the actual wound and, because there is mass involved, can supposedly go right through a person’s body and cause burn wounds upon entry and exit (we already know they can go through armour, so a body should work the same, assuming the bolt has enough power to do it).
Write Better Star Wars 