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What's up with Cortosis Weave?


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The Cortosis weave prevents lightsabers from penetrating their blades.

 

Question 3: Why are the Clone Troopers and the Stormtroopers in the SW Movies do not have "Cortosis weaves"? Or, more to the point, why do the Jedi in the SW Movies no longer have "Cortosis weaves"?

 

And don't pull the old fashioned "But the Empire caused a dark age in technology"! I'll just pull the, "What about the clone war era?" question.

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^

Perhaps it was just too expensive to purchase "cortosis-weaves" for an entire army of clone/storm troopers. And they are quite expendable, IMO, because most are clones. Thats the first thing that comes to my mind. :)

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Question 3: Why are the Clone Troopers and the Stormtroopers in the SW Movies do not have "Cortosis weaves"? Or, more to the point, why do the Jedi in the SW Movies no longer have "Cortosis weaves"?

 

And don't pull the old fashioned "But the Empire caused a dark age in technology"! I'll just pull the, "What about the clone war era?" question.

 

Probably because of the same reason why Kolto is no longer available.

 

Eventually, my guess is, the producer of Cortosis was either contaminated or destroyed.

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Question 3: Why are the Clone Troopers and the Stormtroopers in the SW Movies do not have "Cortosis weaves"? Or, more to the point, why do the Jedi in the SW Movies no longer have "Cortosis weaves"?

As said before, Cortosis wasn't ever used on armors.

 

Edit: My mistake. Some Dark Troopers did. But it was a very specific ore. Not all have that characteristic.

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In the game Jedi Outcast, Galak Fyyar processes cortosis ore into a black armor that is used by his Shadowtroopers. He also builds a suit of power armor that he uses himself. It is unknown whether all cortosis ore deposits are capable of such processing; the ore Fyyar used was smuggled from Cloud City.

 

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Stormtroopers didn't have Cortosis armor because it wasn't invented till 1997, plus you cant have the faceless bad-guy cannon fodder being unbeatable. Also "there are two types of cortosis—cortosis ore and cortosis alloy. Cortosis ore deactivates the lightsaber, and cortosis alloy simply blocks the blade, making cortosis something of a marvel of metallurgy, as nothing known about how the ore accounts for the relationship between the actions of circuit-interruption or energy-blade blocking. It should be noted, however, that cortosis is very brittle, and breaks easily. This is why it is mixed with other metals, to form cortosis alloy. However, the alloy loses the shut-down capability of the ore. Even when mixed, however, cortosis still makes the alloy weaker. At one point in Darth Bane: Path of Destruction it says that cortosis is incredibly hard, and even resistant to lightsabers"

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It's not that complicated, really. They didn't outfit Clones or Stormies with Cortosis gear because they were a mass-produced army of mooks who weren't going to be fighting Jedi or anyone else with a lightsaber enough to warrant arming them with stuff that expensive. Sure, Asajj Ventress and Grievous probably killed their fair share of Clones, but arming them all with Cortosis Armor would have been mostly pointless and likely would have also bankrupted the Republic. Just because you can print your money doesn't make hyperinflation something to strive for.

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Well, from what I know pure cortosis is not a great metal to make things with, other than its special property against lightsabers. This is on top of them being expensive.

 

Remember, lightsabers are a rare sight in battle usually, and chances are your troopers would be attacked by various blasters, dakkas, kabooms, cannons, angry monsters, huge mecha, vibroblades... well before lightsabers. So instead of expensive anti-saber equipment it would be more practical to in stead provide them with economical equipment that would work well against regular danger they would face. Now, there is no saying that elite troops may have access to such equipment. So I am not at all surprised if some Red Guard pops out a cortosis shield or something.

 

An alloy with enough cortosis content can resist lightsaber, much like phick or red lobsters, but they are still too expensive to be mass produced for fodders.

 

That having said, there was cortosis droids(coated with cortosis stuff) built designed to fight jedis during Clonewars. Oh and various characters have small vambraces of cortosis, like Vos and those Yinchorr elite forces. Those things are deadly against those sabernuts, much more than those force gauntlets in Kotor.

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I honestly can't imagine an explanation better than Jasper's. His statement doesn't over-analyze stuff like I've seen elsewhere.

 

In addition to Poiuy's and Corinthian's points, I'm pretty sure that cortosis is pretty rare by the time of the movies in addition to being expensive. I'd say that the explanation for that is that most of the sources of the material were used up by then (same thing happened with yellow and orange lightsaber crystals).

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Spoilers for the unwary.

Yellow and orange crystals are alive and well! The fact many prequel Era Jedi prefer Adagen (Ilum) crystals that produce green or blue blades is one oft ignored. Besides, literally dozens of yellow and orange sabers appear in the New Jedi Order.

Back on topic, there are three main 'lightsaber proof' substances. The best known is Cortosis, a very rare mineral that, like Stygm cloaking crystals were sold at very high prices by the time of the Empire. Since Jedi and Sith were considerably more numerous then (4,000-1,000 BBY) than they were during later days it would make sense for companies to advertise the 'saber proof' feature to anyone in the underworld or overworld who might want such insurense if they met with a saber. Cortosis's other features have been discussed already on this thread, though I'd like to point out that it always seems to wind up used by bounty hunters or Jedi killers in Dark Horse comics.

As for the others, there's Phirik (spelling?) alloy which is what General Grievous's body guards have their staves made of. Again, this is not a common material.

The third is Mandalorian iron (beskar) which is only available on Mandalore. Freddon Nadd's tomb was plated with the stuff and it took Exar Kun a lot of effort wit ha powered up lightsaber to cut his way through. (Tales of the Jeid Dark Lords of the SIth) The Mandies kept the stuff to themselves or very high bidders until the Empire cameand strip-mined the planet so Palpatine could have the monopoly on such a valuable substance. In the Legacy of the Force series Mandalore Boba and his people unearth a new vein of the stuff. Why on earth the Neo-crusader armor in KotOR isn't made with it I don't know, the later suites of beskar gam in Republic Commando Triple Zero and True Colors has actual Mandalorian iron in it.

Okay, we all know it's just game mechanics. If they made lightsabers able to cut properly, you'd have to install more acurate and dealy blaster to compensate then factor in fatigue, vital organs and oh... Such a mess in our once tiddy mechanical rules ins't it?

 

-Bearer of the Krijinia.

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  • 5 weeks later...

I think that the metal cortosis is kind of like gold, soft, but can be cut, eventually, through with a lightsaber, or anything else. If it becomes an alloy, it will be actually stronger than the original ore. The problem, near as I can tell, is that it is costly to mine, refine, and put into items.

 

As for, Kolto, I believe that bacta takes it's places. If you look further down on the page that ctrl-alt-del provided us, that you find kolto on there, as well as bacta. Just read bit further, you might find interesting things on there.

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As for, Kolto, I believe that bacta takes it's places. If you look further down on the page that ctrl-alt-del provided us, that you find kolto on there, as well as bacta. Just read bit further, you might find interesting things on there.

I have no doubt. Especially seeing how the galaxy couldn't rely on a substance that comes from only one place.

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I do agree that cortosis was overused, especially since it's suppose to be a rare mineral. Anyway, they should have done more of what they did with the Force Pike's.

 

pikeub0.jpg

 

Notice the energy field around the blade? That would have made it more Star Wars like if more of the melee weapons were like that.

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Notice the energy field around the blade? That would have made it more Star Wars like if more of the melee weapons were like that.

 

Plus, we see that effect in ROTS, with the Electrostaffs that Grievous' guards use.

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The electrostaff was constructed of lightsaber-resistant phrik alloy (Same as some Lightsaber Emitters) equipped with electromagnetic pulse-generating tips. Some staffs could penetrate and neutralize ray shields, most were simply used as blunt-force melee weapons. They were designed to be longer than most lightsaber blades, enabling the user to fight Jedi while remaining out of the Jedi's range.

 

A Force Pike was more of a Tazer/Crowd controller than a Melee weapon I think

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A Force Pike was more of a Tazer/Crowd controller than a Melee weapon I think

Indeed. But it could be charged and used as a lethal weapon. I believe the Handmaidens used it for sparring.

 

The tip of the pole was a vibro-edged head with a stun module that could knock a full-grown Wookiee unconscious using a concentrated nerve impulse similar to that featured in the stun setting of a blaster rifle. The impulse worked by overloading the central nervous system, effectively knocking the victim unconscious.
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In any case, the energy thingamabob wasn't what protected it from lightsabers; it too was made out of some lightsaber-resistant metal. This makes sense for the Handmaidens' staffs, but not for any others (aren't Jedi supposed to be the ones controlling the crowds?).

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