Saber Forum

Ok, as a longsword practitioner, one of our favorite tricks is "half-swroding", grabbing the blade of the sword to change the leverage and add stiffness to the blade for piercing armor and such. Lightsabers pose a problem with the particular strategy, for obvious reasons. It had been proposed to me by a fellow that perhaps through use of the force one could, in fact, perform some half swording techniques.

I put it to you all: valid or in valid? Can the force enable grabbing the blade for a limited time?

My observations: in the first trailer for SWOR, a character blocks a lightsaber with her bare palm.

The idea that one can repel another with the Force seems as good a reason as any to believe it is possible.

I am interested in the responses.

If anyone is unfamiliar with the practice: at about 2:18 they do some nice, full speed half-swording.  The rest is pretty cool too.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKEdcCSz_8c#ws (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKEdcCSz_8c#ws)

Could it happen?  Yes, in theory.  Characters like Satele Shan and Corran Horn utilize an ability to absorb energy, allowing them to perform amazing feats such as grabbing a lightsaber blade.

Practicality, however, is another question.  An ability that's used to provide leverage and stiffness to a sword would, IMO, be rather useless in the case of a lightsaber.  For a weapon which can cut through anything, and essentially has no competition in terms of armor, this kind of technique seems like more work than it's worth.

It's definitely an interesting idea though!

I thought about this for a while. In choreo, we can cheat. But we're also in on the next move in the chain of events. We can sell a person using the force to leverage bladework by doing a clash where the person is clearly miming using the force to push on the blade to block of leverage. In sparring, I'd see it as a cheat.

George Lucas' official take on lightsabers is that they are cutalls. People can talk of the lightsaber resistant materials in the books and comics, but in the end Lucas won't have them in the movies or tv shows because he sees them as being an all cutting weapon. Many casual fans (ie; not us) would see the use of the Force to block as probably the most plausible cheat, but a cheat none the less.

Yes, the piercing ability is unneeded. However, there are some great throws that would turn into horrific dismemberments with a lightsaber instead of a blade. The ability to half sword is also extremely useful in close quarters when you have a long weapon.

So if possible in theory, what would the limitations be? They would have to be pretty extreme, otherwise we defeat the purpose of the lightsaber. ha.

I would say if it would be done at all, it would have to be for seconds, if that.

Objection!
(http://i1066.photobucket.com/albums/u409/IaCthugha/MagnaGuard_CN.png)

Seriously though, I kind of think it would be cheating.... no way to enforce the level of focus it would require to accomplish such a feat with the Force and an actual lightsaber.

Ok, fair point. Exception to prove the rule, they are spitting electricity.

And I agree with the lack of measurement. We had one guy during a training class just nonchalantly block an attack with the force. Like...no effort or anything. It proved two things 1) He was a dick and 2) How does one quantify The Force in sparring? That brings to the question of level of power, skill, focus, etc.

They are made of phrik alloy, which is what deflects the lightsaber blade. The electricity only adds pain to the blow.

And yes, it would require extreme measures to ensure the focus and would hence become pointless.

We had the idea of having a mirror for the palm that we would pull out quick to drive the point home that it isn't "normal" to do such a thing. We also kind of agree that it would be a darkside type of thing.

I occurs to me this: what if you can do it, but all the force will do is allow you to keep your hand but burn the hell out it? That would bring a bit of baddassery into the equation.

It would be more difficult than productive I imagine... Satele was all but immobilized when she was trying to absorb the massive amounts of energy from Malgus' blade.

Not to mention, since a lightsaber doesn't flex, or bend, and it goes through most materials with ease, half swording isn't necessary.

you could use a pair of these instead of the Force

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Crushgaunt (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Crushgaunt)

There's always "that guy" who is gonna be a jerk like that.  Personally, as much as I love a bit of imagination, I don't bring the Force into dueling at all.  It would be awesome to be able to implement Force abilities in combat, but let's face it... we're just not capable of doing them.  In choreo I can definitely understand it (although I seldom use things like that).

Generally I think of it in game terms - any ability that broken would have a great cost associated with it.  People can't just casually grab lightsabers without exerting a tremendous amount of focus and energy, otherwise EVERYONE would do it.

The exception, of course, is a frustrated girlfriend.  You start beating her in a duel and she'll just grab your blade because she can.

It shouldn't be nonchalant.  The problem is that to properly deflect/block an attack would require a deep concentration to use the Force properly to block the strike.  And another saber wielder ought to be able to use the Force to maneuver around the block...

it should also be noted that the ability to absorb energy like that is EXTREMELY rare

corrans whole family line had it, but they had no telekenisis to offset it, and well bastilla is the great great grandaughter of two of the most powerful jedi from the old republic era

i dont honestly think it should be used at all, because even they couldnt do that, they dont grab the blades or energy, they absorb it

That's a very good point.  This isn't an ability that just any Jedi or Sith could use, it's something you see in very rare cases.  In Satele's case, it was to display her innate power as the Revan's descendant.  Additionally, she blocks a saber strike with her ability... which is different from grabbing the blade for the purposes of manipulation.

Of course, if you wanted to implement this tactic, you could look into designing a saber around it!  Perhaps put some kind of guard, with a short section above it for this very purpose.  I've seen katana lightsabers, but never longsword ones!

I've seen quite a few longsword sabers. One friend even has a Claymore saber.

A Crushgaunt wouldn't work, as I figure the grab of the blade would cause the metal to heat up as the user held.

You'd have to use some sort of glove with a cortosis weave, I'd say, that would disrupt the blade enough to allow the wearer to grab a blade.  

Really?  Guard and all?  That's pretty epic... I'd love to try and wield a claymore lightsaber.  Then again, from what I've heard about the Raven it probably counts...

Artorius has a saber of his own design I call the "light tachi."  The thing has a hilt made from MHS parts that's like 14" IIRC, as well as a 40" blade.

These materials are still only lightsaber resistant. Meaning they will only take so much damage from a lightsaber before being rendered useless. Cortosis or Beskar would not withstand the rigors of half swording.

I offer the following...

(http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111114211614/starwars/images/thumb/c/c5/ForceAbsorb-TORHope.jpg/830px-ForceAbsorb-TORHope.jpg)

its not something she can do every time, and if you watch again, she absorbs the energy, she doesnt actually end up touching the blade

Hmmm. I could imagine a few uses for this ability. like a Bo staff block. You grab your saber toward the edge, and block a downward blow. Two, is grabbing your opponents saber, to gain the upper hand in a fight. however I agree, it couldn't be used often. Not at all.

I remember seeing a youtube video where someone uses force lightning to block a lightsaber, granted he was using two hands but still..
That and force lightning does seem to resist the lightsaber blades in movies, example when doku was zapping obi wan, obi was was putting some effort to keep his saber up~

while wookiepedia isn't always 100% accurate, the article i linked says that a crushgaunt would allow a user to catch or deflect a lightsaber strike.  Now, it doesn't say whether any heat is dissipated or whatnot, i'll give you that.  Also, repeated strikes could go through them but I'd imagine that you'd be able to at least smack the blade away once or twice.

They pull this from the Karen Traviss novels. She writes the Mandalorians out as Jedi killing gods who can never be defeated. She also writes Mandalorian Iron to be lightsaber proof... Meaning a lightsaber cannot even scratch Beskar'gam... Which is not the case, while Mandalorian iron is incredibly strong, and incredibly difficult to penetrate with a lightsaber. It wouldn't lend well to actually grabbing a lightsaber blade. I imagine heat dissipation would be an issue, as well as wear and tear on the crushgaunt itself. I'm sure you could half-sword a few times, but it would quickly deteriorate your armor, and Beskar isn't particularly easy to come by, even by Mandalorian standards.
 
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy some of Karen Traviss' material, she is a decdent writer, however.... she's cuckoo, and she has no respect for the other hard working authors in the SW genre, or the fans for that matter.

She's space sick, and if I recall she was canned as a sw author over her mando love.

What exactly is the point?

I mean, the blade is weightless, so essentially you're just swinging around a lightsaber hilt, without a blade attached.

There would really be no need for leverage or moving the blade faster or stronger as it wouldn't exactly change anything.  A lightsaber is a lightsaber.  A slow moving blade would still cut through the same metal as a fast moving one, the only difference is maybe the force or speed in which it cuts.

I understand the idea of leverage, but if the blade is completely weightless then it would be extremely easy to change the direction of the blade in mid-swing to swing it in a completely different direction.

Obviously, we never really saw that in any of the movies whatsoever, at least to my knowledge, and even video-games treat lightsabers as if it were a real sword such as the Jedi Knight series, most specifically, JK2 / JK3 in which Strong Style has the player moving really slowly to emphasize the strength even though technically, those movements are pointless and wouldn't add anything to power or strength.

I disagree.  It's lightsaber resistant, not proof.  And the Mandos got built up quite a bit before Traviss got involved - they're presented as pretty nasty in KOTOR and its sequel, able to take on Jedi there...

And yes, Beskar is rare - the major deposits didn't get found until after the Vong carpet-bombed Mandalore.  I imagine that working beskar is similar to katana manufacturing - rare, treasured, and difficult at best.

I think it'd be a shame to can her, really - I like how the Mandalorians got defined more as a culture through Traviss' work.  Improved on the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy.

I think she quit when they retconned a lot of her backstory work for the Mandalorians in TCW... That being said, I'm not particularly familiar with terms of her career... I have read her blog enough to know the woman is certifiably insane.


Well, if we examine how a lightsaber works, it's quite different from a weightless blade attached to a hilt.

Apparently the gyroscopic effect makes a lightsaber nye impossible for anyone who isn't trained in the Jedi arts to wield.

A lightsaber has been shown to need more strength to move through certain types of armor. Think ESB when Luke tags Vader in the shoulder armor. He doesn't hit him hard enough to go all the way through his armor. There are numerous other instances in books and such. I'd have to read more to find them though lol.

Strength is also needed to power through an enemies defense... A lightsaber will stop on another blade, so strength is necessary when dealing with an opponent's strength.

Just some things to think about... I agree with your point though that half swording is unnecessary with a lightsaber.

Edit:
Mandos got built up, but they didn't get mary sued until Karen showed up... Mando's have always been Jedi killers... Hopefully that will never change, but there are some things that they are, and some things that they aren't.

I like some of what Karen did for the Mandos... She developed much of their culture and story, but some of it even was counter intuitive to how Mando's are often portrayed.

If I remember correctly, she went against everyone's wishes and killed off Mara Jade. Not her character, not her place to do so. Her hatred of Jedi pushed her to do so. She also frequently berated fans who expressed any opinions other than hers. She then proceeded to cry foul and quit when they retconned the slightest bit of her work. She's rather unprofessional if you ask me, and while she wrote some cool stories, she wasn't worth the trouble.

I was making the point that in the Karen Traviss novels she wrote that Beskar'gam was lightsaber proof.... One excerpt actually describes a lightsaber making contact with a crushgaunt, and barely scratching it's surface. My point is, that from Lucas' vision, nothing stops a lightsaber absolutely. While we see things that are resistant, he never intended anything to be impervious to a lightsaber blade.

As I said though, I really do like some of T

Well, if Traviss couldn't handle the fact that whatever Lucas puts out wins, that's unfortunate.  Sometimes so are George's choices, but meh - it's his baby, since he retained the rights to everything.

Anyhow, to the point at hand - I do think that someone other than Traviss added to beskar's legacy and made it more lightsaber-resistant than lightsaber-proof.

And most metals conduct heat, so I can't see that crushgaunts could HOLD the blade.  Slap it away, yes, as someone suggested, but not hold.