The Jedi and Sith of the Star Wars universe wield probably the most highly effective weapons within the galaxy – however even lightsabers will be ineffective towards sure beings and objects. The enduring image of the Star Wars mythos, these “elegant weapons from a extra civilized age” can cease nearly each type of weapon the Empire can create. However in a single Star Wars story, the franchise reveals lightsabers fail to work on one key race…and fail to cease a key villain from amassing a military.
Launched in Episode IV: A New Hope in 1977, lightsabers have been instantly iconic, with solely Luke Skywalker, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader seen utilizing them. The prequels solely expanded what lightsabers may do, exhibiting them deflect blaster bolts again at foes, minimize by practically any stable objects, and show unimaginable to cease by something however one other lightsaber. However followers could not notice that one traditionally vital droid proved too highly effective for even a lightsaber to cease.
In Star Wars: Revelations #1 the mysterious Eye of Webbish Lavatory reveals to Darth Vader a imaginative and prescient of a single droid: Ajax Sigma, a being who impressed a revolution amongst his folks. Centuries in the past, the Jedi of the Excessive Republic minimize down Ajax Sigma’s insurrection and his followers in a pitched battle… however his core processor was preserved, handed down from individual to individual, and finally put in the core into a brand new, extra highly effective droid physique.
So given all their energy, why have been the Jedi unable to kill a easy droid? Star Wars: Revelations #1 revealed this story of droid survival due to Marc Guggenheim, Salvador Larroca, Paul Fry, Emma Kubert, and Justin Mason. However proving it wasn’t a one-off little bit of luck, a villainous droid’s miraculous survival towards a lightsaber-wielding foe has occurred earlier than.In Star Wars: Darth Vader #1, Darth Vader engages the droid ZED-6-7 in battle, however fails to completely destroy it – and the identical actual scenario performs out in Star Wars: Darth Vader #13 towards the well-known IG-88.
A lightsaber can take an natural opponent out of the battle with a single stroke to a non-vital organ, however the identical can’t be stated for droids. The destruction of a droid’s limb merely doesn’t matter when it may be repaired in minutes (or after years, or centuries). Until the core processor sustains a direct hit, the person droid will proceed to perform, possessed of all its character traits and motivations. Making them more durable to kill, as demonstrated in Revenge of the Sith towards Basic Grievous’ Magnaguards, who continued to battle even when headless and limbless. However when rising to a top of particular person menace and menace, it means an immortality that can survive even a flawless, elegant Jedi weapon.
Merely put, a lightsaber is just too exact a weapon to effectively minimize down droids for good. Even when a Jedi or a Sith slices off all their limbs and stabs them a number of occasions within the heart mass, the droid’s “mind” can nonetheless be recovered and positioned in a brand new physique; the identical can’t be stated for a human opponent. That is why Ajax Sigma is a real menace towards lightsaber-wielders: a single stroke isn’t sufficient to defeat him (or his many followers).
Since a droid’s core processor can theoretically be positioned wherever (the top, the physique, and even miles away in one other ship), Jedi and Sith should both waste their time chopping every robotic opponent to ribbons, or lose the lightsaber in alternate for a traditional blaster – gadgets that these Star Wars organizations, steeped in custom, would not often use on precept.