What You Have to Know About The Acolyte’s Lightsaber-Shorting Metallic

With a swing of a wrist gauntlet, and the head-butt of a sinister helmet, The Acolyte’s mysterious dark Stranger carved a path into Star Wars history this week with a single, surprising transfer: strikes that despatched the laser blades of his Jedi foes sputtering out of existence. However whereas we’ve seen lightsaber-resistant materials in Star Wars lots already, what might trigger this unusual impact? An notorious materials from the Expanded Universe.

What Is Cortosis?

A really uncommon and really brittle materials, cortosis was first launched in 1998 novel I, Jedi by Michael Stackpole. On high of its rarity, cortosis was extraordinarily tough to mine attributable to its conductive properties. Like a number of different supplies within the galaxy far, distant, it was able to resistance to straightforward vitality weapons like blasters—however in contrast to others, cortosis discovered a distinct segment with the invention that it might additionally conduct the vitality of a lightsaber blade, shorting out the weapon for a interval of as much as a number of minutes.

Though cortosis featured closely within the Expanded Universe as a premiere anti-Jedi materials—though some interpretations of it handled it like another energy-resistant metals—it did additionally make its method again into present continuity fairly early on. After first being canonized within the 2015 Rebels prequel novel A New Daybreak, by John Jackson Miller, cortosis has made appearances in a number of comics, primarily Darth Vader and Aphra, however its most distinguished look previous to its use in The Acolyte as the fabric the Stranger’s helmet is made out of was in Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn: Alliances in 2018.

There, Anakin Skywalker, Padmé Amidala, and the Chiss Expansionary Protection Pressure officer referred to as Mitth’uncooked’nuruodo—the longer term Grand Admiral Thrawn—found a cortosis mine on the planet Mokivj, which was getting used to develop a spread of cortosis-enhanced Tremendous Battle Droids (in addition to, on the behest of Darth Sidious, cortosis-enhanced Clone Trooper armor for use throughout Order 66). The trio destroyed the mine, however at nice value to Mokivj itself, when Anakin did not account for cortosis’ distinctive energy-redirection properties, sparking volcanic exercise that finally radically reworked a lot of the world’s ecosystem.

How Does Cortosis Work?

In each the previous Expanded Universe and present continuity, cortosis fibers had excessive vitality absorption and conduction properties, making the directed vitality of a blaster bolt that struck the fabric dissipate throughout the fibers with minimal injury. Whereas this trait is widespread in different supplies within the galaxy far, distant, cortosis’ excessive absorption and conduction is exclusive, to the purpose that hanging it with an vitality blade like a lightsaber’s would trigger the vitality discipline sustaining the blade to dissipate, inflicting a suggestions loop that will quickly shut down the lightsaber itself. Earlier Star Wars materials has been inconsistent in simply how lengthy a lightsaber is disabled by cortosis—in some cases, it’s solely a stop-gap, and a de-activated lightsaber might be instantly re-activated; in others, the weapon is rendered inoperative for a number of minutes.

Whereas The Acolyte supplied our first on-screen take a look at cortosis in motion, it additionally seemingly launched a property it’s by no means had earlier than. Whereas dueling Jedi Grasp Sol, the Stranger implies that his cortosis masks additionally inhibits telepathy by some means, telling the Jedi that he refuses to take his masks off so Sol can’t learn his ideas. Whether or not that’s grandstanding on the Stranger’s half or an precise new property of cortosis itself, nevertheless, stays to be seen.

What Different Supplies Resist Lightsabers?

Like we mentioned, cortosis is way from the one materials in Star Wars able to blocking a lightsaber blade in both the Expanded Universe or present continuity. In fact, now we have the Mandalorian iron, beskar, however there’s additionally phrik—the steel alloy used to assemble electrostaffs. Different metals able to resisting a lightsaber blade from each continuities embrace:

• Neuranium, which the statue Palpatine hid his lightsabers in was made from
• Songsteel, briefly canonized within the 2022 novel Shadow of the Sith as the fabric an amulet owned by Rey’s father, Dathan, was made out of
• Armorweave, a kevlar-esque materials that might be common into garments and undergarments

The Expanded Universe additionally launched Vonduun crab armor, the spiked gear worn by the footsoldiers of the Yuuzhan Vong—which was described as having a crystalline construction that made it able to blocking blaster hearth and lightsaber bolts—in addition to Ultrachrome, an historic steel with excessive superconductive properties utilized in crafting starship armor that seems in Star Wars: The Outdated Republic and is talked about within the Mace Windu novel Shatterpoint.

Why Use Them Over Cortosis?

But when cortosis might each dissipate blaster hearth and disable a lightsaber for a time period, why was it so sometimes used in comparison with different supplies? Properly, like we mentioned, in each the EU and the present canon cortosis is an especially uncommon materials. However even in case you can discover it, it’s very tough to develop right into a lightsaber-resistant materials at scale. Cortosis required cautious refining because it was additionally extraordinarily brittle—making it tough and infrequently ineffective to craft entire weapons or fits of armor out of it, in comparison with one thing like beskar or the extra widespread armorweave.

Small blades, or helmets and gauntlets like these utilized by the Stranger, have been the popular deployment of cortosis—particular person items that might be used for the fabric’s particular properties alongside common armor. Nonetheless, cortosis is also utilized in a smithing approach referred to as cortosis-weave, the place a mesh of fibers of cortosis ore might be bonded to armor and weaponry created from different supplies. Whereas this is able to assist grant sufficient vitality conduction to dam a lightsaber blade, cortosis’ distinctive capability to brief the weapon out can be reliant on the quantity of cortosis itself used within the weave—given its rarity and issue to make use of, extra typically cortosis-weave gear was solely able to resistance.

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