> From: Simon Anderson [email removed]
> Subject: (3165) Lightsabres
>
>
> Thinking about a tech level for lightsabres, what would one be in
> Traveller terms ?
If everybody promise not to come with any nasty comments about space opera I
have a thing to reveal:
There are something superficially similar to a lightsabre in my Traveller
campaign. It is a hollow length of very thin pipe, one inch across and seven
inches long with three buttons and one ring on the outer surface. One button
switches it on and off. When it is on, a black weightless tube extends from
one end of the contraption. The second button causes the whole thing to
juggle around. A check revealed that this was done by gravitics. The third
has no effect. The final control is the ring: with it, the length of the
tube can be varied from about one foot to four feet. It appear that it
originally could go further than to the four feet position.
The thing that intrigued the players was that the tube anihilated everything
it touched, and it immediately found a niche as a tool and weapon.
The real story is that this, of course, was an Artifact done for a very
different purpose than to be a handy tool to cut up walls with namely as a
survery drill. The second button originally locked it in place with regards
to the planetary gravitic field, the third button brought up the drill-core
(both the 'handle' and the 'force field' was hollow, remember?), and the ring
could originally lengthen the field to several kilometers.
Voila, a gimmic complete with justification.
> Simon Anderson
- -bertil-
- --
"It can be shown that for any nutty theory, beyond-the-fringe political view or
strange religion there exists a proponent on the Net. The proof is left as an
exercise for your kill-file."