Skip to main content

Did anyone in the Star Wars universe wear effective armour?


The Storm Troopers are the main case here, they get killed easily by blasters and even the Ewok arrows go straight through their 'armour'.


The AT-ST and AT-AT use armour to repel blasters of different strengths so they don't pass through all materials. I understand though that the armour used on these is likely much heavier.


From the prequel trilogy we also have the droidekas, which have a shield when not moving. Does anyone other than these droids use this technology?


You may use any of the Scrapped EU, Current EU and the normal U to answer.



Answer



In Legends, there are some people/droids who did wear effective armor, but such armor was made out of rare and/or expensive materials.


There is an ore called cortosis which is resistant even to lightsabers. It was used in the armor for various troops and droids, such as C-B3 cortosis battle droids, purge troopers, and shadowtroopers.



C-B3:


enter image description here


Purge Trooper:


enter image description here


Shadowtrooper:


enter image description here


The C-B3 battle droid, for example, is a variation of the B2 battle droid, with the main difference being the armor. They were so effective that Palpatine believed they could tip the balance of the war for the Separatists and sabotaged them (recall that Palpatine was playing both sides of the war and had an interest in keeping the war "balanced" between both sides).


However, cortosis ore is rare, and the use of cortosis in armor is even rarer because of the Jedi:



Close at hand sat a stubby treddroid tasked with monitoring the progress of a mining probe that was sampling a rich vein of cortosis ore at the bottom of a deep shaft. A fabled ore, some called it -- owing to its scarcity, but even more for its intrinsic ability to diminish the effectiveness of the Jedi lightsaber. For that reason, the Jedi Order had gone to great lengths to restrict mining and refinement of the ore. If not the bane of the Order’s existence, cortosis was a kind of irritant, a challenge to their weapon’s reputation for fearsome invincibility.



Legends novel Darth Plagueis, p. 10 (emphasis added)



Note that cortosis has been depicted as having wildly different effects among conflicting sources. See Wookieepedia's "Behind the scenes" section in its cortosis article for more information about this.



Another ore that is resistant even against lightsabers is Mandalorian iron (called beskar by the Mandalorians). This ore can only be found in the Mandalore system, and many Mandalorians (but not all) used it in their distinctive armor. For example, this is Kal Skirata with his beskar armor:


enter image description here



Phrik is yet another material used to make lightsaber-resistant armor. It was used in the armor for Imperial dark troopers:


enter image description here




The orbalisk parasite could also be used to form armor capable of deflecting lightsabers (though this armor proved weak against electricity). However, the orbalisks had a tendency to grow over the entire body of their host and in doing so suffocate him. Consequently, the only known users of this armor are the Sith Lords Darth Bane and Freedon Nadd. Orbalisk armor proved particularly helpful to these Sith Lords as the orbalisks fed on the dark side of the Force -- Darth Bane's orbalisk armor made him stronger and allowed him to heal faster.


Darth Bane in his orbalisk armor (in the lower left corner with the red-bladed lightsaber and Force Lightning):


enter image description here


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Did the gatekeeper and the keymaster get intimate in Ghostbusters?

According to TVTropes ( usual warning, don't follow the link or you'll waste half your life in a twisty maze of content ): In Ghostbusters, it's strongly implied that Dana Barret, while possessed by Zuul the Gatekeeper, had sex with Louis Tully, who was possessed by Vinz Clortho the Keymaster (key, gate, get it?), in order to free Big Bad Gozer. In fact, a deleted scene from the movie has Venkman explicitly asking Dana if she and Louis "did it". I turned the quote into a spoiler since it contains really poor-taste joke, but the gist of it is that it's implied that as part of freeing Gozer , the two characters possessed by the Keymaster and the Gatekeeper had sex. Is there any canon confirmation or denial of this theory (canon meaning something from creators' interviews, DVD commentary, script, delete scenes etc...)? Answer The Richard Mueller novelisation and both versions of the script strongly suggest that they didn't have sex (or at the very l...
1 comment
Read more

Why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize Missy right away?

So after it was established that Missy is actually both the Master, and the "woman in the shop" who gave Clara the TARDIS number... ...why didn't The Doctor or Clara recognize her right away? I remember the Tenth Doctor in The Sound of Drums stating that Timelords had a way of recognizing other Timelords no matter if they had regenerated. And Clara should have recognized her as well... I'm hoping for a better explanation than "Moffat screwed up", and that I actually missed something after two watchthroughs of the episode. Answer There seems to be a lot of in-canon uncertainty as to the extent to which Time Lords can recognise one another which far pre-dates Moffat's tenure. From the Time Lords page on Wikipedia : Whether or not Time Lords can recognise each other across regenerations is not made entirely clear: In The War Games, the War Chief recognises the Second Doctor despite his regeneration and it is implied that the Doctor knows him when they fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

story identification - Animation: floating island, flying pests

At least 20 years ago I watched a short animated film which stuck in my mind. The whole thing was wordless, possibly European, and I'm pretty sure I didn't imagine it... It featured a flying island which was inhabited by some creatures who (in my memory) reminded me of the Moomins. The island was frequently bothered by large winged animals who swooped around, although I don't think they did any actual damage. At the end one of the moomin creatures suddenly gets a weird feeling, feels forced to climb to the top of the island and then plunges down a shaft right through the centre - only to emerge at the bottom as one of the flyers. Answer Skywhales from 1983. The story begins with a man warning the tribe of approaching skywhales. The drummers then warn everybody of the hunt as everyone get prepared to set "sail". Except one man is found in his home sleeping as the noise wake him up. He then gets ready and is about to take his weapon as he hesitates then decides ...
Post a Comment
Read more

warhammer40k - What evidence supposedly supports Tau as related to the Necrontyr?

I've heard of rumours saying that the Tau from Warhammer 40K are in fact the Necrontyr. Is there anything that supports this statement, in WH40K canon? I just found this, on 1d4 chan 1 : Helping Necrons? Or are they Necrontyr descendants? An often overlooked issue is that Tau have no warp signatures, just like Necrons, hate Warpspawns and Warp in general, just like Necrons, have the exact same skull shape,stature and short lives, and the overwhelming need for Technology and beam weapons, JUST LIKE NECRONS. GW may have planned a race that simply prepares a pacified, multiracial galaxy for Necrons to feast upon, supported by Ethereals that have a C'tan phase blade. Then there is a reference of "dark seed in east" by the Deceiver, so the tricky C'tan might give Tzeentch the finger in the JUST AS PLANNED competition. Or maybe GW just has so little creativity that they simply made a new civ conforming to an Old One's standards without knowing it. Is this the connec...
Post a Comment
Read more