Darth Spock wrote:Well, I agree that none of those materials could actually support a saber lodged in them by resistance to the blade, but I think they add to the idea that there is at least some resistance to some degree. When I first saw Yoda's saber in the clone, I wondered if perhaps the forward flange had actually wedged into the softened armor in order to support the weight. The idea is more that looking at these examples, not to mention the distinct lack of interaction between the blades and the water in the Water War arc in the Clone Wars, there seems to be more that the slightest twitch needed to slice through many materials.
The problem being that the hilt itself, acting as a prolongation of the blade and making the weapon a complete system, has its own mass and moved very quick.
F=ma and all that, the blade beingstuck still makes no sense. It would require the fact that a lightsabre's blade is solid and, above all, requiring a serious amount of push for the blade to start eating at stuff.
Then you have gravity itself, once the weapon's blade is lodged into the guy's torso.
Perhaps the novelization has a word or two about that specific moment.
Yoda sends his blade spinning and it's the hilt isn't pressing against the clonetrooper's chest once hit. Plus the guy moves but the weapon does not.
But then, perhaps the force field that contains the blade gets, I don't know, intertwined with more solid matter. It kinda "bonds" with it and the force field, passing through said matter, actually reinforces it?
That's a problem, because theories about lightsabre blades rely heavily on the force field for containing the blade's destructive power and also isolating that power from surrounding matter.
But there's something else: the blade, despite being stuck in the trooper for more than one second, doesn't melt his guts and has them splash out from both hole ends.
This would suggest not further contact with the blade beyond the initial piercing and above all, a minimal amount of piercing as well. I mean, the blade perhaps cut a really tiny tiny tunnel through the torso.
Honestly, although it sounds convenient, due to the way the blade really stays in the same place once inside the guy, I prefer to say a wizard did it, literally. :)
But it's even worse with that TCW episode wherein, if I get it properly, the sheer pressure of water didn't even manage to push into the the blade on its own. At which point you wonder when would matter finally fail under the pressure applied
through a blade.
I didn't get the feeling that Solo had to make any particular effort when slicing through the Tauntaun and that's a very useful although unfortunately rare event, movie wise, because it's the only one which features a human using such a weapon.
Now, what I'll say doesn't count, but I think in Jedi Knight II (which as much more technologcally advanced than Dark Force II and thus allowed for more effects and accuracy), there was a level with rain and they had the blade vaporize the drops.
I didn't watch TCW but perhaps the Force was used to strengthen the blade and repel the water?
Then when we saw Qui-Gon melting his way through the door in TPM, it seemed to me he was doing a lot of twisting and manipulating with his saber to cause more damage, while the point of entry on his side was no where near as damaged.
This is easily explained because his weapon's blade didn't stick out of the other end. It only went as far as the door's other side and then the first extra layer. From there, the tip of his blade had to melt the second extra layer by radiating heat.
But yet, if heat radiates at the tip, you'd expect it to do the same at the point of entry.
Now, it's totally true (and awesome) that he could withstand the heat that much (alongside the fact that there was minimal ejecta despite the amount of matter being destroyed at such a speed). Proof that Force was massively used at the atomic level, and therefore largely trumps any theory about technological reasons beind behind the odd behaviour of such weapons, when the Force-imbued users can clearly "cheat" a lot with them.
Also, going back Yoda's saber in the clone, and Mauls saber stab against Qui-Gon, it seems a disproportionate amount of effort would have to have gone into minimizing the amount of damage by keeping the blade steady in the wound, as apposed to there being at least some resistance helping along.
Only if the matter is really dense?
Such as door Qui-Gon wanted to get down. But not as much with people, which are mostly composed of water.
It's even more easily brushed away if we go with the idea that the really damaging section of the blade is extremely narrow.
In the end I think it makes sense too, considering sabers don't pass through forcefields, each other, or
matter for that matter, they either cut it or stop, no passing through like you would expect from a normal beam or particle stream. And there has to be limits, like the Zillo scales or the barriers Mundi faced in "Landing at Point Rain," anything that is beyond or near the limit of the saber's output will either take longer to cut or bounce off.
Perhaps something closer to something you said at one point about there possibly being a force field of some sort surrounding a more volatile core:
http://www.starfleetjedi.net/forum/view ... 308#p51308
Ooooh, thanks about that one, I had almost forgotten it.
Admitedly, the force field is a recurring idea, it's old, but the NDF sliver at the center, down blade's length, is more original.
But I guess we could still go with the super thin sliver of superhot plasma as well, and explain the lack of sparkles and ejecta being due to the force field maintaining all that in place.
But with the force field being perturbated by matter going through, wouldn't a large section of the blade being on the tip side lose its containment and release said plasma violently?
