Boba Fett's Spare Armor

To my knowledge, beskar (mando iron) was talked about as being durable against lightsabers before KT started writing Star Wars books. In fact, I remember one time there was some info (that was later debunked) floating around that it deadened force impacts. There was about 5 seconds worth of movie from AoTC cut out where Jango is actually deflecting Mace's blade with his gaunts before he gets it. I can provide a youtube link if you haven't seen it.


I'd like to see that link.

 

Beskar is a refined metal, but it comes out of the ground like oh say most every other refined metal in existence. Mandalorian Iron = iron mined on Mandalore...cut and dry. Don't let it feel lame to you because it's been humanized a bit. Many of the metals engineered in labs are not durable, but are specific purpose metals made for that fact.

 

Sorry, no linking to pirated Hyperspace content...

Now, because this was an edit room cut...it's not canon. At least the idea is there.

 

Sorry, didn't see your reply.

Heh, that's pretty cool though.

 

It's not the "humanized" thing that's bothersome.

It's the combined silliness of first having a miracle metal that only occurs in natural form on *one planet in the entire galaxy* -- a planet that just happens to be colonized by the badassest warrior race in the whole galaxy, a race that manages to figure out how to make this miracle metal when no one else in the entire damn galaxy can, and keeps the secret from the galaxy for thousands of years. (Including from the full military might of the Galactic Empire during the entire time they occupied Mandalore.)

That's more than "humanized" -- that's Mary-Sue-ified to the Nth degree.

 

So, basically, you're complaining about something that's been canon for a good, oh, 18 years now?

 

There are multiple times in the films when lightsabers have a hard time cutting through something. Luke's lightsaber bounces off Darth Vader's body multiple times without slicing neatly through him. Qui-Gon has to strain to shove his lightsaber through a blast door. Etc.

I don't have a problem with lightsaber-resistant materials -- I have a problem with beskar allowing every Mandalorian in the world to have a suit of lightsaber-proof armor.

The reason I said beskar'gam are worse than beskar is that they introduced the idea that *not only* is beskar super-durable it's also amazingly light and easy to wear. (Presumably this is why beskar'gam is better than armor made of phrik or cortosis.)

I don't mind lightsaber-resistant armor, I mind lightsaber-resistant armor that's so light and workable that wearing it has no downside.

And yes, I *know* that real armor has plenty of weak spots, in case the irony there didn't come through. That's what I meant by things shifting as soon as KT stops writing -- in Triple Zero the beskar'gam basically functioned like God Mode, while in Invincible all the fancy armor in the world can't stop you from being cut down like sheaves of wheat by a determined Sith Lord, which is as it should be.

When we hear the word "powered armor" in real life it tends to mean armor that has motors inside of it compensating for your muscles' inability to support the armor's weight while moving. I have never heard that specific term meaning armor with an energy shield attached to it.

I am aware of all this. I therefore have a problem with inventing a metal that has essentially no downside except that it can only be made by Mandalorians (but among Mandalorians is apparently so plentiful everyone has a suit of

 

I don't remember any 18-year-old sources talking about beskar as the perfect material for making armor. It was just one lightsaber-resistant metal among many.

 

Maybe he scavenges it out of that cave full of dead Mandalorians on Zaadja, murdered by Randy Stradley to shut up Darth_Nuke? Still the best "FU" in all of Star Wars fandom.

Yeah I've always wondered about that, it seemed silly for him to waste an entire set of armor. Especially since it doesn't appear he came back to claim it after he collected his space tokens from Jabba. Perhaps its an "in universe" Halloween (or equivilent holiday) costume? Like those ones they sell for little kids, with the ridiculous looking oversized, thin plastic helmet? That would probably fit Zuck's noggin. I can just imagine Fett shopping in a Space-Mart somewhere, seeing a set of "Mandalorian armor" for 20 credits and thinking it could come in handy as some sort of decoy.

 

I haven't actually read the SotE comic. Does Zuckuss actually take off the Boba Fett helmet and have his own regular helmet on underneath it?

That sounds like a gold mine of unintentional humor to me.

 

One of five, and one of two that're common.

lightsabre-resistant metals are: phrik, cortosis (a nightmare material if there ever was one; they can't even make up their minds if it's actually very dense or just does weird things to circuits ) Mandalorian iron, ultrachrome, and neuranium.

Of those, cortosis is worthless against anything but a lightsabre, phrik and neuranium are exceedingly rare, and in Boba's times, ultrachrome is a rarity as well. None of this has anything to do with "Mary-Sueing" the Mandalorians; they've been an aggressive bunch with lightsabre-resistant armor since the get-go.

 

What's this now?

 

This poster here during the clone wars comics run was whining about a lack of Mandalorians in the comics. So Randy Stradley put a bunch of dead ones in a comic.

 

This is also repeated in the second draft of the AotC shooting script, with Jango's armour deflecting numerous strikes from Obi-Wan's lightsaber.

Thanks for the link, BTW. That's pretty darn nifty. Maybe we'll see it in an extended edition some day.

No, it's not. It's par for the course in the GFFA.

I have a problem with lightsabers allowing every Jedi in the galaxy to have a weapon that can cut through virtually everything.

Sorry, I think you're getting a little confused here.

"Beskar" is just the raw metal, so far as I know. "Beskar'gam" ("iron skin") is the armour made from it.

Not necessarily.

And it should be remembered that not all Mandalorian armour is completely uniformic. A Mando wearing Supercommando after the style of Boba Fett is going to be consequently more vulnerable than one wearing the full suit as Jango did, and Supercommando armour as a whole is less comprehensive than Neo-Crusader armour.

Lightsabers....

Mandalorian iron as a "miracle metal" is essentially equivelent to having Mandalorian armoursmiths manufacture the best phrik armour in the galaxy, and in any case, Mandalorian iron as a lightsaber-resistant material predates both cortosis and phrik by several years at least.

Yeah, gotta love thos

 

It's kind of like Peter David deciding to kill Betty Banner because of his divorce.

 

Is there any specific incidents of beskar actually showing itself to be nearly-indestructable under all circumstances? Why is it that it suddenly looses much of its supposed effectiveness once Mandalorian combatants start getting killed in combat in Invincible?

 

It's a Sith Lord. Anyone but a Jedi Knight attempting to engage one in a close-range battle is either suicidal or stupid.

 

And even then it's a bit of an iffy proposition (see Kolar, Agen, Tiin, Saesee).

 

Mandalorian iron, or for that matter any Mandalorian technology, has been considered in canon to be very advanced stuff. It's lightsabre resistant properties first appeared in 1995-1996, making it pretty much a decade older than anything Karen Traviss has ever written for Star Wars. You'd think a warrior-centric culture who have been at odds with supernaturally strong people would pretty much adapt to fighting them.

I don't think it's mary sueish at all. Because by the same logic, the Jedi are as well - and they don't usually wear any physical protection.

 

Like this one?

[image=http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/d/d6/Galactic-phrase.jpg]

 

Not just whining, but wheedling, cajoling, threatening, and being a total annoyance in nearly every darn post he made. So they gave him what they wanted. Not just the cave full of dead Mandos that was never explained (and hopefully never will be), but they also put in a throwaway line in one comic where Bly says to Aayla "the Mandalorians are in full retreat, General Secura." Be careful what you wish for.

 

I vaguely remember him. Did he get banned?

 

It's actually backwards. The guy was whining to Stradley for a long time about how they needed, in order to be true to the canon, to have at least some mention of Mandalorians in the Clone Wars story even though Stradley was adamantly against it.

So finally he had occasion to mention some CIS force being in retreat in one of the comics, and Leland Chee kind of winked to him and told him that one of the forces available at this point in the timeline was the Mandalorians, and so a Mandalorian reference it became.

At which point, if anything, the guy got *more* hysterical, claiming that this was a "fake" Mandalorian reference because it didn't show the Mandalorians in their "full glory" and that Mandalorians would "never retreat" (!) because they "don't lose battles" (!!!).

Which just pushed Stradley over the edge and led to the cave full of corpses in the next comic.

He's been known, since then, to put up mocking pictures of Mandalorians in pink armor or to dumbly ask people "What's a Mandalorian?" if asked about the subject.

He is, in this respect, my hero.

 

Meh. Lightsabers have been de-magic-ed by the prequels themselves, which go out of their way to show a scene where Qui-Gon has a tough time getting his lightsaber through ordinary starship metal.

The idea that anything, even a lightsaber, can "cut through any material with no difficulty at all" has always been fanboy nonsense from my perspective. The EU has been pretty good about showing that lightsabers have limitations because they are, after all, just technology like any other technology.

And my problem was never with Mandalorian iron/beskar as, say, a building material in the comics but with the proliferation of beskar'gam and the modifications made to beskar in the process (making it ultra-light, making it ultra-workable, having them discover a rich and plentiful seam of it in Sacrifice -- and remember Abel G. Pena saying that Mandalorian iron is "naturally resistant to the Force", and having to hastily backpedal on what that means when Mandalorian iron became a basic part of standard-issue Mando armor?)

It is neither necessary to be a Jedi to make a lightsaber nor to use one. See General Grievous or the Imperial Knights.

Cortosis and phrik have, in their canonical depictions, had weaknesses that made it difficult to use them as God-Mode-suits. (Weakness against anything other than a lightsaber for cortosis, weight and unwieldiness for phrik.) The introduction of beskar'gam in Triple Zero basically makes them function as God-Mode-suits.

It's still pretty far from full-coverage. Vest, helmet, gloves, boots.

Althou

 

Ah, but you forget, Bly also notes that the casualties inflicted by this presumable handful of Mandos have reduced the manpower of the entire 327th Star Corps by 40%.