Firearms and force users

[Naaman]

Actually, that brings up a good point about the pre-lightsaber Jedi:

There is video footage of a Katana slicing bullets in half. That is a "primitive" weapon that, in the hands of a Jedi, could defend against bullets. I know its off topic, but kind of a tangent at least.

It could be reasoned that the Jedi swords of old were made from some special metal or had some force-based augmentation that allows them to be more or less indestructible whole the Jedi wields it, all while using his Jedi reflexes to slice bullets out of the air (kinda like Wade in the first Wolverine movie).

Anyway, ifthe alter thing doesnt quite capture the "Jedi" flavor, perhaps something like this would.

[garhkal]

[Naaman]

I dont know, but we are talking about Jedi with Jedi swords at the end of the day.

AP blaster ammo.... why not? Honestly?

[Scots Dragon]

[garhkal]

[Argentsaber]

[Mamatried]

This seems to be in the same realm as something I have argued here, that the velocity of a blaster bolt and a bullet is totally different.
The bullet is much faster.
We have some back and forth on this, with valid arguments on both sides.

If we look at HOW a blaster works, then it is actually a bolt of plasma that is slunged out of the blaster, here is where tibanna gas comes in etc etc.

I would argue that a "foot-long" plasma bolt has less velocity and more mass to deflect hence is why they did this.

The Katan and bullet is done in a controlled environment and only a master so powerful Sidious would not even count as force sensitive could do this in battle.

So because the blaster bolts are large as a rancor, and slow as a slug, they can be deflected by the lightsaber/force imbued weapon/certain materilas weapon.

You see it travel and can actually track it......hence why that sniper rifle was so dangerous because it fired an invisible bolt.

Now we cant actually judge anything from the weapon ranges in the books, ut we do have some indications that bullets fly faster and longer............

Sam Wessel would have used a blaster if that was superior, she chose it becuse it was a bullet shooter and thus would make the job easier as the shot would not be seen or could be blocked.


How to kill a jedi....use a rapid fire slugthrower

Now could the various force shields and the like be a defense....possibly, but it would not seems to me plausabe to block a bullet, but a blaster is fair game you see it, and it is not like trace ammo

[Zarn]

You're trying to apply real-world physics to a series of movies and a few tv series.

It won't work.

Real plasma has very low density.

To quote Atomic Rocket (a most excellent website):

Plasma is the so-called "fourth state of matter", and is basically hot air. That is, it is a gas heated to temperatures comparable to the interior of a star or the center of a thermonuclear explosion so that all the atoms are ionized. Unfortunately, according to the virial theorem, the plasma wants to equalize its internal pressure with the external, i.e., it wants to expand into a diffuse cloud of nothing.

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunexotic.php , under the heading "Plasma Weapons".

So whatever in-universe explanation of blasters and how they work should be treated as highly suspect at best, and downright silly at worst. Blasters work at the rule of cool. Preferably, the rest should be internally consistent with that, but the technology is a hideous hodgepodge of weird stuff existing at the same time - essentially, the tech level of any Fantasy roleplaying campaign (where plate mail, full plate, and hide armor coexists quite happily).

So your foot-long plasma bolt is way less dense than a bullet, and has way less mass.

When it comes to actually being able to cleave a bullet - well, there's an experiment for that. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qzhs1Z8Rwnk It isn't bullet speed, but then again the guy isn't Force sensitive. An airsoft pellet travels at about 100 m/s, which is about a third to a fourth of the speed of a 9mm projectile with a common load (varies with weapon and so on, but generally 330 - 400 m/s).

Zam Wesell did use a blaster, in addition to the sniper rifle.

[Mamatried]

[garhkal]

[Mamatried]

[Kytross]

A plasma ball has to travel to its target in less than a thousandth of a second. If it takes longer than 0.001 seconds to reach it's target, then the plasma will have expanded too much to be useful. In other words after 0.001 seconds it stops being a lethal plasma bolt and starts being a mildly annoying gas cloud.

Most blaster rifles have a maximum range of 300 meters. If the bolt has to travel 300 meters in 0.001 seconds then it is traveling at a minimum speed of 300,000 meters per second. That's over 984,000 feet per second.

[garhkal]

[Zarn]

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[Kytross]

The average speed of light, in a vacuum, at earth gravity is approximately 3.0 x 10^8 or 300,000,000 meters per second. Change any of those factors and the speed of light changes.

The speed the plasma bolt would have to travel in my example is 3.0 x 10^5 or 300,000 meters per second.

Plasma makes a lousy ranged weapon, but that's in the real world. Star Wars is science fantasy. If you want to ignore the physics of the situation, that's fine. But that seems

Personally, I liked it better when they were lasers. Lasers make excellent weapons with no problems with physical laws. But lasers can't be reflected with laser swords. Plasma can be deflected by a magnetic field.