Tag: terminology

Hey, so I’m writing a story (obviously) and I’m really confused on some of the technology our Star Wars friends use, and what they’re called. For example, the little devices the Clones carry in Episode III during Order 66. They produce a hologram/message, and then there’s also the device that played Galen’s message in Rogue One. I was wondering if there were any specific terms for these types of devices?

These are called holoprojectors. They can come in a bunch of different sizes, but they’re generally all called the same thing. There are some instances of handheld holoprojectors being referred to as holopads (which comes from the term holoprojector pads). If you’re talking about, for example, the ones the clones carry, it’s your choice which term to use.

On that note, I’ve been working on a list of vocabulary which will be linked in my blog description and home page when it goes up. If you or anyone else would like to suggest stuff to include, go ahead and do it! @pomrania especially, because you gave me the idea to do it in the first place.

I hope that helps, and don’t be afraid to ask if you need more help with terminology!

~ Jacen

If a character is giving written stuff to somebody else (with no expectation of getting it back), would it be on a datapad or a flimsi? What’s the plural form of that latter word, anyways? What’s the primary method of personal data storage? What form would “books” be in?

For your first question, it’ll depend on the context. Both are quite popular (although flimsi declined in use through the time that the Empire was in charge), but if your character isn’t getting it back then I would say a flimsi would be better than a datapad, especially if you don’t want a trace of the information. Flimsiplast dissolves, by the way. However, you could use a datacard for the other character to put in their own datapad instead of giving them an entire datapad, that would probably be much more common.

The plural of flimsi (referring to the sheet, not the material) is not mentioned as far as I know. I believe the word itself is never actually pluralized, so you might say “sheets of flimsi” rather trying something like “flimsis” which is kind of awkward.

Data storage is mostly digital, be it personal or on a government-wide level. Most people own a datapad because they’re pretty cheap, and datacards are very widely used. Plenty of people do still keep stuff around in a hard copy form, like flimsiplast journals, but most day-to-day things are done digitally. It’s basically a lot like how we store our data today.

Books as we know them are considered pretty archaic in Star Wars. When printed, books and other large compilations of data are done on flimsi, but these are rare. Holobooks are much more popular, and those are stored on thin crystalline boards or, if you don’t want to be so official, in the form of a file on a datapad.

Hope that helps!

~ Jacen

So I’m planning to write a Star Wars crossover fix and I’m having trouble deciding a characters weapon. She fights with a staff and I would like to give her a saber but a saberstaff just feels to deadly for her. I’ve given some thought to a light saber pike. Do you have any suggestions?

I certainly do! Let’s see if we can find a weapon that works.

First, I think a lightsaber pike would likely fit well with your character’s background with a staff. You could give her either a double or single-bladed one; the double-bladed ones are typically associated with the Jedi Temple Guards of the Old Republic, and the single-bladed ones are used by Sith and associates. That’s just historical, though, and I don’t think your character’s alignment with either side has to influence her weapon if you don’t want it to. If you went with a traditional lightsaber pike, with two blades, there might be some question as to how she got it, just because it was used pretty much exclusively by the Temple Guard. Also, the fighting style is nearly identical to that used with a double-bladed lightsaber (saberstaff). Really, the only difference between the two weapons is the length of the hilt and blades, so if you think a saberstaff would be too advanced then the double-bladed pike might not work. A single-bladed one might be used more like a lightsaber than a staff, so take that into consideration as well.

Something else you might want to look into is a force pike. They’re somewhere between a lightsaber and a staff, with a vibro-edged tip to deliver strong electric shocks. The settings can be adjusted; at the lowest, it’ll give a very painful shock, higher settings can cause paralysis or death. Turning it all the way up will let it slice through bone and thin armour. The style of fighting required by a staff, which involves a lot of stabbing motions, would fit well with this weapon. It’s also a whole lot cheaper than a lightsaber pike, if that would be an issue for your character.

And perhaps one of my personal favourites, a vibrostaff could also suit your character well. Like other vibroweapons, the vibrogenerator in the hilt causes the blade to vibrate so fast that a glancing blow could take a limb off. Most are double-bladed, but you can get single-bladed versions, and while it is a light weapon, you’re not going to get the problem where a staff-wielder has to get used to the weightlessness of a plasma blade. A lot of them also have cortosis weaves, which allow them to block blows from a lightsaber or deflect a blaster bolt. It’s not deadly in the way one would consider a saberstaff deadly, but it would definitely get the job done. It is quite long, though, with a three-foot hilt and a two and a half-foot blade, so consider if your character might be too short for it.

This has gotten long, but I also want to propose an electrostaff. If you’ve seen The Clone Wars, they’re the things that Grievous’s droid guards carry. They can block lightsaber strikes, and they have emitters on each end with different power settings, ranging from incapacitating to deadly.

So yeah. There are tons of options for you to choose from. Feel free to ask for specifics or more recommendations if you want, I could probably talk about this all day. A lot of these weapons are very similar in design and/or purpose, so consider the image you want for your character and pick something to match.

I hope that helps!

~ Jacen