If You Had A Real Lightsaber

[Ed]

I bet my house would have burned holes all over it from when I dropped mine.  Like big cigarette burns
-Ed

[Mr Hockstatter]

It would be fun driving down the highway, sticking it out the window, and cutting a few miles of those big concrete retaining barriers in half.  I can just imagine the poor highway department guys who came the next morning to fix it:  "What the f**k!?!"

I'd like a purple one.  Deep violet.  I'd probably sell it after I got bored with it.  Or trade it for a Lamborghini Diablo.  Of course then I'd find out it wasn't worth a damned thing, that's the way it usually goes.

[Eirik]

I'd double-dog dare my worst enemy to look directly into my "flashlight" when I turned it on.  If he didn't go for it, I'd cluck like a chicken until he did.  

And who digs up these ancient threads?

[2xSlick]

Hmm, what color?
Black light anyone?
Nah, that's not cool enough. I wan't a clear blade so I wouldn't be certain if I turned it off or not.
As for wha t I'd do with it. Probably have a few friends chunk baseballs at me and "try" to cut them in half (the balls, not my friends [err, the baseballs, not my friend's balls])

[AndyC]

Ooooo, ultraviolet blade! You want to talk about dangerous, try a lightsaber that never looks like it's on. It's laying on the edge of the coffee table, you walk by, and cut your legs off at the knees.

Funny, my first thought about what to do with a real lightsaber was also to cut a car in half. Wonder how many people would do the same? Might be useful for auto wrecking, or building demolition. Come to think of it, a lightsaber has a lot more potential as tool than as a weapon. Construction, metal fabricating, sculpture - you could do a lot. Torches, plasma cutters, even saws would be obsolete. Makes you wonder why only Jedi seem to want them in the movies.

There is also great potential for crime. Slice a hole in the back wall of a store or a bank, and there you are. Of course it doesn't have the crime potential of, say, a transporter. If I had one of those, people would soon be wondering how money, gold and jewels could just disappear from locked vaults.

[Fearless Freep]

Makes you wonder why only Jedi seem to want them in the movies.

My understanding was that part of a lightsaber's power, or at least the ability to control the level/intensity, was driven from the Force in the wielder

[Neville]

I agree on that. A lightsaber must be a very difficult weapon to master, given its destructive potential. If you remember, when Han Solo picks it at the beginning of "The Empire Strikes Back" to gut his *ahem* horse, he is extremely careful with it. No wonder most characters prefer to stick with laser guns, they are much easier to handle.

BTW, another point that seems to confirm this is that the above mentioned scene is the only one in the whole Star Wars series, where a lightsaber is manipulated by a non-jedi character. Unless you count Siths, of course.

[odinn7]

Ah, but have you seen this non-jedi manipulate a sabre...

   Some funny stuff here

[Master Blaster]

http://www.howstuffworks.com/lightsaber.htm/printable

Did you know you could use a light sabre to light a cigarette?

[Archivist]

hmmm...  methinks there was a reason why a lightsaber was given only to people who had proven themselves worthy of *being* a Jedi  ;-P

I'd spend my time practicing, and chopping the heck out of everything with it.

Which says a lot about my worthiness as 'Jedi'!

~Archivist~

[Writer]

I've seen the movies and read a few of the books, and what I can say from reading them is that probably the reason why only the Jedi and the Sith seem to have lightsabers is that the jewels from which they are constructed are rare and hard to come by and the non-Jedi people already have more widely available tools that can cut through things the same way a lightsaber can. (You'll notice in the fourth episode that the stormtroopers managed to dredge up something to cut through the blast door fairly quickly when Luke and Leia barricaded themselves behind it in that big room with the bottomless pit. The original Star Wars novel suggested that this was something known as a "fusion cutter.")

The Jedi Academy book series indicated that lightsaber designs varied, and that some lightsabers came with dead-man switches, which would explain why these sabers didn't just burn their way through the floor whenever somebody dropped them in the first and second episode movies. I hadn't heard of the red lightsaber's particular qualities, but I did notice that in every movie, it was always the bad guys who had the red blades.

I notice also that until episode two, the blue sabers always seemed to go to an underling while the green saber goes to the the master. Note the symbolism:

In episode one, Qui-gon Jinn's blade is green while Obi-wan's is blue. In episode four, Obi-wan gives Luke his father's old blade, which is blue, and then borrows it back for his battle with Vader. Interestingly, Vader counters Obi-wan's challenge with the declaration "I am the master now" which may be a subtle hint that Obi-wan is doomed to lose because he's holding the blade of an apprentice (or as the prequel trilogy puts it, a "paduan").

When Luke faces Vader with another blue blade in hand in the fifth episode, he's still an apprentice himself and just as doomed to lose, although he survives the battle. In episode six, however, he returns with the green blade that indicates he is a full-fledged Jedi and wins the fight. From there, he goes on to be a Jedi master in the books.

Episode two is interesting specifically because, although it starts out with Anakin carrying a proper blue lightsaber and his master Obi-Wan carrying a green one, Anakin ends up holding a green blade during his battle with Count Dooku, with Obi-wan holding the blue one. This upset in the blade hierarchy reflects on how Anakin is becoming a renegade, trying to get ahead of his master in more ways than one. Mace Windu's unique purple blade, meanwhile, seems to indicate that he's at the top of this hierarchy as the head of the Jedi council, although Yoda, with his green master blade, is shown doing most of the actual training and administration.

I also read a technical manual which mentioned Exar Kun's double blade design, which it indicated he used to cut down a Jedi master on the Senate floor in front of a horrified crowd of senators. It was my understanding that the second blade was designed as something of a surprise, a little bit different from Maul's carefully coordinated attack with his double blade in episode one. Considering how easy it would be for Darth Maul to cut himself in half if he sliced at his opponent, it rather makes sense that he stabbed Qui-gon Jinn instead of cutting him.

If I could have such a blade? I'd probably use it in place of cutting tools as others have suggested. Considering all of the trouble it normally takes to cut down trees, I think a lightsaber would make an ideal logging instrument. It would also make a good rescue tool, if used carefully: it could cut someone free from a car wreck, among other things. I might personally try my hand at rock sculpturing with the thing. I'd also use it for killing chickens on the farm--the conventional methods are messy and cumbersome. I'd also use it for disposing of documents, since it could slice through whole stacks of paper without much difficulty.

As for selling the thing, forget it--if I have the only one, I'm not giving away such an advanced and convenient labor-saving device for any money. If everybody had one, or could get one, then who would need mine anyway? Since I'm not into Jedi politics, I'd probably want a plain old blue blade, a kind which seemed common enough in the movies such that no one would much notice if one happened to go missing from a Jedi inventory. ("Where's my spare blade? Hm. Oh well, not important. I've got my green one.")

[Scott H.]

Fearless Freep wrote:
>
>
> For the most part that, I'm always sorta amused when people go
> through the trouble of working out and explaining how
> futuristic, alien technology works


If you're interested in futuristic technology explained, read "The Physics of Star Trek." It talks about teleportation, warp drive, androids, phasers, dilithium crystals, and how all of these things are legitimate and then explains how they work. A lot of times Star Trek is notorious for truckloads of so called "technobabble" to cover up bald spots in explaining technology (ex. reversing the polarity of neutrons), but Roddenberry somehow knew what he was talking about when he designed the ships, communication devices, and weapons in the original and then later in Next Generation.

As for the design of the lightsaber, I question how a superconductor would fit inside the handle. Not only is it a large contraption, if you know anything about superconductors, they are COLD. In fact, the hottest (if you choose to call this hot) a superconductor to date is: "To date, the highest Tc attained at ambient pressure has been 138 K." (http://superconductors.org/Type2.htm) - where Tc means critical transition temperature, or the temperature at which the electrical resistivity of a metal drops to zero (http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/solids/scond.html#c2)--
If you remember high school physics, 273 K is 0 degrees C. 0 K is absolute zero, or the point where all matter stops vibrating.... something that can never be attained for other more difficult to explain reasons.

MEANING that at room air pressure (ambient pressure), the hottest the superconductor can be is far below that of freezing water.... approximately -135 degrees C. AND if you read further into the links I posted, you'll read that the type of superconductor that creates these relatively high temperatures for superconductivity is still not understood. However, superconductivity is more than likely the only way you can keep energy flowing with a high output in continuous cycle. The only thing holding this lightsaber back is the identification of these so called "crystals." They must have some very special properties to be able to function as expected in a superconductor (they must have a high Tc) and be extremely high energy, possibly radioactive...... or you could cop out and just say that it's the "force."

[odinn7]

I have a headache...

[Mr Hockstatter]

I read this book about Darth Maul, back in the days before episode whatever.  When they make the crystal for the lightsaber, inside some sort of furnace, the Sith or Jedi stays there the whole time (many hours) focusing his force energy into the crystal, causing it's molecules to be arranged in a certain way.  That's why only people powerful in the force can make a lightsaber.

I'm quite a geek, aren't I?

[Obi Wan Kenobi]

I would blackmail my teachers. If they gave me homework I would ignite my saber. Then I would go to the White House and slash Bush