Date: Tue, 12 Sep 1995 20:19:20 +0000
From: connorbd@bc.edu
Subject: Speculations on the nature of the lightsaber
In-reply-to: <199509112211.SAA25962@discovery.igc.net>
To: jae+sw-rpg@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU
Errors-to: jae+sw-rpg-errors@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU
Reply-to: jae+sw-rpg@DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU
Message-id: <"MailDrop1.0b13.950912201919"@st202x229.bc.edu>
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII
Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT

The Jedi Lightsaber, it has been determined, was developed nearly seven thousand
years ago on a Core planet near Kashyyyk known as Artaera, thus predating the
Jedi order as we know it by three millenia. It is a marvel of ancient
technology, with the ability to be used for parrying, slicing, or stabbing, each
with different effects. It is a remarkably efficient device; the typical
lightsaber powercell lasts for nearly five years in regular use and has a
theoretical shelf life of nearly thirty. (They generally use cells designed for
certain types of long-mission maintenance and recon droids, which share the same
phenomenal battery length.)

A properly built lightsaber can actually change the shape of a blade, with an
annular blade to parry energy blasts and solid objects and a flat blade to cut. 
The lightsaber blade up close is a ring of visible-light laser beams and
invisible electromagnetic fields, controlled by an oscillator chip in the handle
that pulses them together so that they cancel each other out by destructive
interference at the tip of the blade.  The result is a hot spot at the end of
the blade that trails flame-like trails of plasma that flow along the blade,
making the normally-invisible laser shell visible as a narrow, swirling cone of
light that looks like a solid cylinder from a distance.  This hot spot is
capable of vaporizing flesh and is what makes those who know how to stab with a
lightsaber so dangerous. 

Most lightsabers, as stated, can control the shape of the blade; where a
parrying blade can scorch its victim, the flattened cutting blade will generally
go right through. The blade is weightless, although most sabers are weighted on
the emitter end to compensate. The electromagnetic component keeps two blades
from passing through each other (although a few older units from the early
Republic have weak spots at the end of the blade). It's uncertain whether the
light component or electromagnetic component does most of the damage; it is
known that somehow they complement each other to increase the driving power of
the beam. 

Lightsabers do produce a host of odd effects while in use. The blade will
occasionaly go through thick glass, leaving only a small melted spot where the
tip passes through but leaving the glass intact as long as there's no thermal
shock involved. It is even known that a lightsaber can scorch the reflective
coating off of the back of a mirror if the mirror doesn't break, although it is
reported that the process often causes the blade to physically bend at the point
it intersects the reflective coating. 

Lightsabers are actually illegal on most planets in the Empire because of their
association with the Jedi, but in practice they aren't especially difficult to
build, the only difficulties being programming the oscillator chip and tuning
the emitter crystal. It is rumored that every Jedi Master had an oscilloscope
for that very purpose; why this matters is unknown.

from Unusual Weaponry by Devta Sharanim, GY30, Celanon.

Enjoy, all.  I put it in the voice of one of the characters I played before I
began GMing; he ought to know.

/Coach