Skip to main content

star wars - Why are the colors reversed between some blasters and lightsabers of the Republic/Rebels and Empire?


To my knowledge, in all the movies, the good guys use green/blue lightsabers and the villains prefer red. This is reversed though for the blasters on the TIE fighter, Star Destroyer, and even the Death Star doomsday weapon, where they all fire green and Rebel/Republic ships red.


Is there an in-universe explanation for this?



Answer



If I recall, the color of a blaster bolt (character-scale or starship scale) is determined by the quality of the gas used in it - higher quality gives you green, lower quality gives you red. The Rebellion didn't have access to the highest quality gas, and had to make do with the lower quality ammunition.


(An aside: Yes, gas. That's what they collected at Cloud City - Tibanna gas, essential for the creation of blaster ammunition)


With lightsabers, it's all decided by the color of your focusing crystal. Blue, green, and red are most common, but other colors aren't unknown. Synthetic red crystals are also common among the Sith, who prefer the speed of synthesizing to the quality of those you can discover naturally. Vader and Palpatine both used synthetic crystals in their lightsabers.



Interestingly, if you put enough time and effort into creating a synthetic crystal, it can end up any color - both Luke's lightsaber from ROTJ and Jaina's lightsaber (from the Young Jedi Knights book Lightsabers) are synthetic. Luke is described as spending months on his crystal in Ben's hut on Tatooine, and Jaina spends considerable time and effort on hers.


In the era of the Old Republic, the color of lightsaber a Knight used was a mark of his caste - Guardian, Consular, or Sentinel. This tradition was NOT carried over into the New Republic era, and may have fallen out of use by the time of the Clone Wars - it's never made explicit if such distinctions between Jedi were still made (other than Padawan/Knight/Master).


Edit: References:
Lightsaber color has been extensively referenced. Off of the top of my head, look at KOTOR (the original game and sequel, as well as The Old Republic RPG), I, Jedi, the Young Jedi Knights book Lightsabers, and the Jedi Academy Trilogy.


There's also references in the Wookipedia article for Blaster Gas that help explain the different colored bolts.


Edit the second:


All of this is 'Legends' or 'Infinities' now, and may be completely overturned by Episode VII, now that Disney owns Star Wars and has changed Star Wars canon rules. Episode VII may 'reveal' that lightsabers are powered by worms that feed on your midichlorians, and this answer may end up completely wrong as a result. As it stands, it is accurate to the best of my knowledge, using sources which are no longer considered 'trustworthy' with regard to future works.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...
Post a Comment
Read more