Jedi and blasters

Disclaimer: I pop in and out of this place pretty irregularly, so feel free to roll your eyes and redirect me if this has been discussed before.

You know what irks me for reasons that I don't quite understand? Jedi using blasters. It's just so un-jedi like (and uncivilized, of course ). I don't know, it's just always been my belief that in all but the most extreme situations a jedi should only need the Force and his lightsaber to defend himself. Not to mention the philosophy and symbolism of a lightsaber being a more defensive weapon, and requiring more skill to use than a simple blaster.

In the films, other than the one special case of Obi-wan finishing Grievous, we never see jedi use blasters, even in war. In fact, in the OT, as Luke's training progresses in each film he uses blasters less and his lightsaber more.

But it struck me while reading Vortex that some authors (yes, Denning in particular) have jedi wielding blasters as weapons quite casually and with no special circumstances. Am I the only one who finds this a bit weird and inconsistent?

 

I thought the "Jedi...with a gun!!" tag for Quinlan in the Republic comics was a rather cool selling point. Makes the universe more credible that occasionally Jedi use a gun rather than a saber every single time.

Besides, as PoD shows, Force-based shooting can be quite formidable.

 

Blasters, like modern handguns, are supposed to be very simple to use effectively (at short range). Likewise, a far larger number of people in the Star Wars universe have a basic familiarity with blasters than say, the average American or western European does with firearms (once you get past the core worlds, everyone has a blaster). So it's not at all unreasonable that most Jedi could casually use blasters when necessary, especially in the current incarnation of Luke's order with most members joining in their late teens or later. As time goes on and more and more are recruited at a young age, blaster proficiency should fall off.

Now, a lightsaber wielding Jedi has huge advantages over a blaster wielding opponent. So when an opponent has a blaster, it makes sense for the Jedi to respond with the lightsaber.

This equation changes when other, somewhat more esoteric, weapons enter the mix. Lightsabers cannot deflect disruptor shots, full flechette spreads, concussion blasts, hundreds of rounds of metallic bolt ammunition, or various other devices. With such weapons proliferating around the galaxy, it makes some sense for Jedi to carry a weapon capable of suppressing fire at range in order to handle such technologies (though a Jedi can yank the weapons from the hands of their enemies, but that presumably takes more focus than simply snap-firing with a blaster).

A blaster is also a good secondary weapon to have when in a situation where drawing a lightsaber (and revealing oneself as a Jedi) would be a bad idea. Old Republic Jedi had such an embedded reputation that even their enemies were terrified of them (the opening sequence in TPM is demonstrative of this), Luke's Jedi have no such benefit. Where killing a Jedi was once inconceivable, many groups are now openly hostile to the order.

Ultimately the anti-blaster stance of the prequel-era Jedi was a matter of tradition not function, and was a symptom of an order that had not innovated at all in close to one thousand years. Luke's Jedi have a different heritage, so they take a different approach.

 

Luke shows how useful a blaster is when he pulls his out to make use of it. See blaster use on Abeloth's planet. Also I couldn't imagine Mara Jade without a blaster no matter how proficient she was with the blade.

The blaster has come in very handy for the post YV War Jedi. The whole "uncivilized" thing came from the sole opinion of Obi-Wan in ANH as we all know. And Obi-Wan was a)very old school and b) from an era where Jedi often didn't even need their lightsabers forget about blasters. Course I doubt Kenobi was complaining when a blaster was the only thing that would have killed Grievous and saved his own life. "So uncivilized" is a throwaway line I think Obi-Wan uses to elevate himself in a tongue in cheek way above those that rely on a blasters lack of precision. I mean even he must know that a weapon is a weapon.

And we all know how civilized lightsaber combat can be. Arms and torsos flying akimbo. Lightsaber combat is just prettier than a blaster fight is all.

 

These are all good points, but I still have some issues. For one, jedi seemed to get along fine without blasters during the Clone Wars. Second, authors are inconsistent. As I mentioned, Denning is one of few authors who has jedi use blasters regularly. Finally (and this is where I get a bit opinionated) while I understand that blasters are practical, they just aren't as defensive in nature as lightsabers. Remember, jedi aren't actually supposed to be soldiers. I know you could say that they're kind of like police, and police carry guns, but jedi have abilities and responsibilities that police don't.

 

Which is why they don't need guns. British police traditionally didn't carry guns.

I personally can't make much comment about certain authors using Jedi and blasters more than others but in the case of the Clone Wars, why would a Jedi need a gun in that situation? They were generals in charge of torrents of troopers armed to the teeth with guns and projectiles yet no one but a Jedi could use a lightsaber in the melee of battle. The troopers and Jedi worked in tandem most of the time with their various weapons.

 

A matter of personal preference really. Plus, the New Jedi aren't tied up in the traditions of the Old Jedi Order, at least at first, and many of them come from military or intelligence backgrounds, so using blasters feels natural to them.

As for the Jedi "doing fine" in the Clone Wars...a lot of them died. They did manage to do a lot of damage to the CIS, but maybe they would have done even better had they been more conventionally armed.

 

Actually it can very easily be argued that blasters are more defensive than lightsabers, because they have a little something called a stun setting. While a lightsaber can occasionally be used to knock someone out, that's true of any heavy hunk of metal. As a weapon, lightsabers have no way to take down an opponent short of maiming.

In the Clone Wars this was not an issue, since the overwhelming majority of Jedi opponents were droids who could be gleefully obliterated with no real consequence. Luke's NJO faces different opponents with different circumstances, and exists in a different historical moment, but there have been other authors who've had Jedi use other weapons. Karen Traviss had Etain carry a concussion rifle, Micheal Reaves introduced the Grey paladins, a Jedi offshoot that preferred blasters over lightsabers (and my memory of it is rusty, but Jax Pavan may have used a blaster at points during Coruscant Nights), and Corran Horn probably carried a blaster for much of I, Jedi. Also, being fair the majority of EU authors who have dealt with the Jedi at all have used only Luke, and he's a special case (likewise the NJO doesn't count, since hand blasters didn't do much against the Yuuzhan Vong).

And Jedi are not even close to being police, they have a much more free-ranging and higher level responsibility. The role of the US Marshals service or certain FBI agents is much closer to what the Jedi do, though the closest real world analogue is actually probably members of the secret police organizations of various totalitarian governments.

 

British Police are still not routinely armed except for specialist armed response officers and as posted above jedi are not police, they do fulfil a wider range.
in the pt the fear of being hunted down by the thousands of jedi and brought to justice problably supressed the creation of anti jedi weapons that palpatine and co would design later- it seems that if attacked it was usually by a small group motivated by revenge or something and lightsabers were sufficient

theres always been mandos but depending of which bits of cannon you prefer they were either largely pacifists or low in number by the end of the pt

as the jedi werent engaging in "police actions" or wars they didnt need to fight like soldiers- in fact thats why so many fall in the clone wars- as part of palpatines plan, the transformation of them into generals opened them up to their vulnerabilities and defeat.

i think lukes jedi are more realistic about the threats facing them and since the yv war have accepted technology is a valuable ally (along with the force)

hence the occasional use of blasters- but i still prefer the use of a saber and the force

 

I'd like to see some Jedi Gunslingers, think of Roland Deschaine from Stephen King's Dark Tower series but with the Force, and even Christian Bale's character from Equilibrium.

My thought is that those gauntlets of Zayne could block a blaster bolt as well as a lightsaber strike so just outfit some Jedi with them and a pair of blasters.

Or if you really wanted to mess with readers minds, a scaled-down form of Mando armour could do the trick.

The blasters could be handmade specials, even good old-fashioned slug throwers.

 

"Jedi Palidan's" or Grey Palidans are literally Jedi gunslingers who have several defensive uses for the blaster. See: Laranth Tarak and her twin DL-44 blasters found in The Coruscant Nights Trilogy.

 

@Mechalich - Even secret police seems like a bit of a stretch. Personally, they are more like the warrior monk groups of Days gone by. Knights Templar, the Shaolin, Sohei etc... Problem is trying to fit in an archaic concept like that into an otherwise modern society.

As for coolness, I would like to see someone use a blaster in one hand and a lightsaber in the other. Always a cool, if impractical combo.

 

Cheers Manisphere, I obviously haven't read the Coruscant Nights trilogy but this has garnered my interest.

 

I guess I just have a preference for old-school jedi. I think that Obi-wan is the best example in the entire saga of what a jedi should be.

 

What's the diffenence between a Jedi useing a blaster and a Jedi flying a starfighter or a Jedi gunner in a ship like the Falcon? Isn't it all the same but on different scales? It just seems like cheating when it's a hand held blaster. Like the Jedi are stooping down to fight on the same level as the baddies, but in a starfighter its different somehow.

 

In space combat, there is no feasible way to make close-range weapons of any real effectiveness, because space is so vast and spacecraft have to move so fast to move through it. Further, spacecraft are relatively fragile shells that are all that separates their crew from the harsh vacuum of space. Putting a Jedi at a range that's basically GUARANTEED to cause crashing is suicidal at best. Ranged weapons are basically your only real game in space.

On the ground, it's a different story. You can get away with melee weaponry because the medium is more forgiveable- you and your opponent are going to be closer together, moving MUCH slower, and you're not going to BAM! crash, puncture your hull, and die instantly like you would if you tried to create a ship-mounted lightsaber or something.

The difference is thus that Jedi can get away with it on the ground- they can't in space. There's no feasible way for them TO do so.

 

Personally, I thought Outlaw Star did melee space combat pretty well.

 

Who's talking about lightsabers? What's the diffence between a Jedi useing a gun vs a starfighter? Why does it seem wrong for them to use a gun but not a starfighter? Seems like every Jedi has his/her own starfighter. They're almost like horses in SW. Jedi don't just have starfighters, they have stealthX's. If they didn't already have the advantage of the Force, now they also have advanced stealth tech. It's like giving Jedi blasters when everyone else has a Colt 45. (with appologies to Billy D. )