Tag: weapons

Has there ever been anything like a white phosphorous grenade in Star Wars? I feel like the Empire would have something like it but I cannot find anything.

Well if you’re thinking of the smoke-producing abilities in particular, then yes smoke grenades exist and are called such in the Star Wars universe. These smoke grenades don’t normally seem to be lethal, however, and don’t have the same toxic effects as phosphorous. A gas grenade can be filled with many different chemicals, presumably including white phosphorous if you like. I don’t know of any chemical-based grenades that a) produce deadly smoke and b) throw off chemicals that can burn so deep into tissue, so you may want to take a look at chemical load grenades as a middle ground. 

I hope that helps!

~ Jacen

By chance, do you know if the Empire used anything similar to the separatists’ defoliator canon? If so, do you think this weapon would be effective in destroying a semi-primitive city of mostly wooden buildings, or do you think the Empire employ something like a squadron of flametroopers to do the job?

I don’t know of any weapon resembling a defoliator that was used by the Empire. Flametroopers (called incinerator stormtroopers in Legends) would definitely be a viable alternative, and have been known to take on this role. 

Hope that helps!

~ Jacen

Links / Before You Ask / Tips

Would a lightsaber bayonet be possible/viable (given that the gun it’s attached to is made of lightsaber-resistant materials)?

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

Would it be possible/practical to make a lightsaber whip sword? That is, a lightwhip that can reconstitute its blade into a lightsaber, and vice-versa?

No weapon like this exists canonically, and it would likely be difficult to build given that lightwhips usually have many smaller lightsaber crystals, rather than the one (sometimes two or three) large crystal used by a lightsaber. They also lack the cell barriers necessary to keep the blade contained in a straight line. Theoretically, I believe you could create a weapon capable of turning those barriers on and off, but I can’t see it having a particularly stable blade. If it works for you, it would be exponentially easier to have a hilt (standard length) with emitters at both ends, one for the lightwhip and one for a regular blade, that the wielder could choose from. Naturally, they couldn’t both be used at the same time, but it is a simpler solution.

I hope that helps!

~ Jacen

So blasters do cause impacts and blunt force like bullets do? I got in an argument once in a roleplay cause my character had gotten nicked and I said the blast broke there bone but they argued it would only burn. Also do bolts ricochet any?

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

Hi, just wanted to say I love your blog and, I was wondering, what are torture devices called in Star Wars? Thanks!

Thank you! There are quite a few different kinds of torture devices in the Star Wars universe, so all lumped together they would simply be called torture devices (alternatively, torture technology). Probably the most common device specifically used for torture would be the torture droid, sometimes interchangeably referred to as an interrogation droid. There are a few different types, so I’ll direct you to the Wookieepedia page in case you’d like to look at them.

A lot of other torture methods involve things not really meant for torture. Several times throughout the prequels and The Clone Wars, electrostaves and other electricity-based weapons are used as impromptu torture devices. There are instances of vibroweapons, lightsabers and other bladed/cutting weapons being used. There are even Force techniques that can be used to cause a person extreme pain, physical damage, and a very nasty death. On the less gore-y side, there are also aa few technologies and drugs used to artificially induce pain, confusion, immobility or hallucinations. Here’s a list of a bunch of different torture technologies; the article on torture includes Force powers and devices not meant for torture (be warned, you may find some of these disturbing). Basically, if you need a specific device then you have a lot of options.

Hope that helps!

~ Jacen

xcassianxandorx:

writebetterstarwars:

xcassianxandorx:

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

xcassianxandorx:

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).

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