SPLICED STUFF /
ISSUE 02
THE SCIENCE OF / LIGHTSABERS
LIGHTSABERS
An elegant weapon for a more civilized age
A
dmit it, if you’re even just
someone vaguely familiar with
the premise of Star Wars, we've
all wanted to wield a lightsaber.
It's a weapon of elegance and
pageantry from a bygone era,
but with the added awesome of
being able to burn through plated mega-armour,
deflect lasers and make sounds that totally
invented Dubstep decades before it inexplicably
became popular.
According to Star Wars lore, each weapon
follows a general structure, which is then
customised by its specific user. Each weapon is
hand-made, so no two are ever alike.
The blade is made of pure energy and hence has
no mass, but the lightsaber itself uses gyroscopic
effects via the electromagnetically generated
'arc-wave' (the reason why the blades adopt a
triangular shape when being swung isn't just to
look cool, but also to provide a sense of balance
while the energy fluctuates). Lightsabers are
notoriously difficult to wield because of this
effect and require extensive training, otherwise
there'd be a lot of limbless Jedi wandering around.
SABER SCIENCE
Pure energy blade
1 DIATIUM POWER CELL
Energy from a 'Diatium power cell'
is converted into plasma by the
2 PRIMARY CRYSTAL
(hand-hewn into a rough diamond
shape) and then emitted through
the second 3 FOCUSSING
CRYSTAL and 4 CRYSTAL
ACTIVATORS.
The condensed plasma is
then sent through a series of 5
CYCLING FIELD ENERGISERS
(or gyroscopes) and finally into
the 6 BLADE ARC TIP (so
that the blade isn't infinitely long)
and emitted as a light blade.
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Both the power and length of the
blade are controlled by a series
of 7 DIALS AND ENERGY
MODULATORS (Blade length
adjust and blade power adjust),
but you won't often see a blade
longer than a metre, which is
then cycled back to the hilt by
the blade containment field into a
negatively charged fissure in
the 8 STABILISING RING.
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