Everyone who thinks this is dumb, it’s a crossguard.
Whoever this Sith lord is he looked at the last few decades of lightsaber combat and saw Anakin/Vader, General Grievous, Count Dooku and Luke Skywalker all have arms cut off and went “fuck that, none of that for me”.
This is a smart lightsaber.
Except that a cross-guard’s only purpose is to protect the -hand-, specifically the fingers. In the case when two swords bind (think of a clash of blades that happens in every sword-fighting movie ever) the cross-guard is there to stop your opponent’s sword blade from sliding down your own blade and slicing into your fingers. There is also a technique where you can parry a strike, engage in a half-swording maneuver (gripping the center of the blade with your hand) and striking your opponent with the cross-guard. However with a light saber this wouldn’t be a thing for obvious reasons.
Now in the case of light saber combat, a cross-guard is unnecessary for quite a few reasons. Chiefly that light saber blades seem to ‘stick’ whenever they come in contact with one another meaning that in every instance of light saber combat after a bind occurs the next move is either to use sheer force to maneuver your opponent’s blade into an advantageous position or disengage your blade and strike again. There is only one -speculated- instance of light saber blades ‘sliding’ and it’s during the Dooku-Obi Wan fight during episode 2 and it’s only speculated because Dooku’s style was more ‘sabre’ and less ‘kendo’, meaning that all he had to do was disengage with a flick of the wrist and strike at his opponents arm. Thus the blade wasn’t sliding so much as it was just disengaging minimally to strike Obi Wan in the upper arm, not the hand which is where a sliding blade would strike.
Secondly in order for a cross guard on a light saber to be effective it would need to prevent contact with any part of its emitter base (i.e. the metal bits) because even if a light saber blade COULD slide (which it can’t) then in this instance the blade would slide down and strike off the cross guard and/or into the main emitter of the blade itself, destroying the weapon utterly. Of course someone might make a case for cortosis weave metals or some such but I can’t even begin explain the problems with making a weapon out of a substance meant to defeat said weapon’s intended functionality. I COULD however see a saber-like guard made with cortosis to protect the hand and fingers from strikes BUT this would also change the way in which one holds and fights with the saber as it favors a one handed style rather than the two handed style. Also cortosis happens to be like one of the rarest substances in the universe or something.
In conclusion this is nothing but an “odd” light saber design. There’s a reason that so many light sabers follow a traditional pattern or style: because reinventing the wheel is oftentimes just unnecessary. There’s very good reasons for the style of sabers to be the way they are. What works best is most popular for a reason.
Don’t forget also that in order to generate that power, all it’s doing is diverting energy from the main blade. Not to mention on the topic of cortosis, the material is so rare you’d be lucky to make a ring out of any of it.
Excellently put though. This one segment is getting so much attention, it’s hilarious. XD
iluguys
That, and modern lightsabers can cut right through the usual cortisol weave that made vibroswords useful in ye olde republick days.
It’s also worth mentioning that a guard that can literally kill or maim it’s user is a generally bad idea – see: the reason guards aren’t fucking sharpened.
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