The Importance of the Lightsaber
What follows is a series of excerpts from the novel I, Jedi by Michael A. Stackpole:
The lightsaber, while an elegant and deadly weapon, was not that complex. Getting the parts to put one together was not difficult at all. To serve as the hilt, for example, I salvaged the throttle assembly and handlebar tube from a junked speeder bike.
(...) I got the dimetris circuitry for the activation loop from an old capital-ship-grade ion cannon fire initiation controller (...) The recharger port and wiring came from a comlink. A milled down Tri-fighter laser flashback suppressor became the parabolic, high-energy flux aperture to stabilize the blade and I pulled the dynoric laser feed line from the same broken laser cannon to act as the superconductor for energy transference from the power cell to the blade.
Buttons and switches were easy to find, and dear old Admiral Tavira, with her gift of the brandy decanter and snifters, provided me all the jewels I needed to make half a dozen lightsabers.
(...) Before I could figure out how to put Tavira off for another month, Elegos decoded an annotation to the instructions for constructing lightsabers. It turned out that during the Clone Wars, Jedi Masters developed a way to create a lightsaber in two days. Nejaa included this method, noting it was to be used only in times of pressing need, but not in haste. I read it over and felt a certain peace settle upon me. I knew the words had not been written for me, but they sank deep into my core. Urgency without panic, action without thoughtlessness.
(...) I sat in the middle of the floor, with the parts for the blade laid out in a semicircle around me. I studied each one and used the Force to enfold it and take a sense of it into myself. My hands would fit the pieces together, but I wanted the parts to mesh as if they had been grown together. The lightsaber would be more than just a jumble of hardware, and to make it I had to see the parts as belonging together.
I fitted the activation button into its place on the handlebar shaft and snapped the connectors into the right spots on the dimetris circuit board.
I worked that into the shaft itself, then inserted a strip of shielding to protect it from even the slightest leakage from the superconductor. Next I snapped into place the gemstones I was using to focus and define the blade. At the center, to work as my continuous energy lens, I used the Durindfire. That same stone gave my grandfather’s blade its distinctive silver sheen.
I used a diamond and an emerald in the other two slots. I wasn’t certain what I would get in the way of color tints from the emerald, and with the diamond I hoped for a coruscation effect.
Onto the end of the hilt where the blade would appear I screwed the high-energy flux aperture. It would carry a negative charge which would stabilize the positively charged blade and provide it a solid base without allowing it to eat its way back through to my hands.
(...) I clipped the discharged energy cell in place, then connected the leads to the recharging socket.
I screwed the recharging socket into the bottom of the hilt, but didn’t fasten on the handlebar’s original butt cap that would protect it because I needed to charge the power cell for the very first time.
In what amounts to just a handful of pages in a singular book, Stackpole so vividly describes not only the physical process of constructing a lightsaber, but the spiritual essence of what it means to be a Jedi, in its purest form:
(...) With my finger poised on the transformer button that would start the energy flowing, I drew in a deep breath and lowered myself into a trance. I knew that manipulating matter sufficiently to meld the part and forge the weapon would have been all but impossible for anyone but a Jedi Master like Yoda, but doing just that as part of the construction of a lightsaber had been studied and ritualized so even a student could manage it. It was very much a lost art, a link to a past that had been all but wiped out, and by performing it I completed my inheritance of my Jedi legacy.
I hit the button, allowing the slow trickle of energy to fill the battery. I opened myself to the Force and with the hand I had touching the lightsaber’s hilt, I bathed the lightsaber with the Force. As I did so subtle transformations took place in the weapon. Elemental bonds shifted allowing more and more energy to flow into the cell and throughout the weapon. I was not certain how the changes were being made, but I knew that at the same time as they were being made in the lightsaber, they were being made in me as well.
In becoming a conduit for the Force for this purpose, the final integration of the people I’d been occurred. The fusion became the person I would be forever after. I was still a pilot: a little bit arrogant, with a healthy ego and a willingness to tackle difficult missions. I was still CorSec: an investigator and a buffer between the innocents in the galaxy and the slime that would consume them.
And I was Jedi. I was heir to a tradition that extended back tens of thousands of years. Jedi had been the foundation of stability in the galaxy. They had always opposed those who reveled in evil and sought power for the sake of power. People like Exar Kun and Palpatine, Darth Vader and Thrawn, Isard and Tavira; these were the plagues on society that the Jedi cured. In the absence of Jedi, evil thrived.
In the presence of just one Jedi, evil evaporated.
Just as with the lightsaber, the changes being made in me were not without cost. What the Force allowed me to do also conferred upon me great burdens. To act without forethought and due deliberation was no longer possible. I had to be very certain of what I was doing, for a single misstep could be a disaster. While I knew I would make mistakes, I had to do everything I could to minimize their impact. It was not enough to do the greatest good for the greatest number, I had to do the best for everyone.
There was no walking away from the new responsibility I accepted. Like my grandfather I might well choose when and where to reveal who and what I was, but there was no forgetting, no leaving that responsibility and the office. My commitment to others had to be total and complete. I was an agent of life every day, every hour, every second; for as long as I lived, and then some.
(...) I nodded and brandished the lightsaber. I punched the button under my thumb, giving birth to the silver blade 133 centimeters in length.
“A lightsaber and robes. Looks like a little justice has arrived on Courkrus, and it’s about time.”
This is what almost everybody gets wrong about the Jedi - never mind the Prequels, the Sequels, or the vast majority of EU novels - the Jedi are an absolute good. They are life. They bring order to chaos. Every moment of their lives is spent, their spirits grappling against the disorder of a universe torn between Dark and Light.
If you haven’t read I, Jedi, you might consider picking it up.
As I’m sure many of you have already deduced, the accompanying images are of my own personal Corran Horn lightsaber. I’ve just recently finished a complete overhaul and rebuild of it, and I just had to show it off. I’ll be posting more info & pics about it soon, but I want to address one key aspect of saber building here, as it pertains directly to my own personal journey and growth.
This portion of the book holds incredible significance for me; it allows me to imagine, however briefly, that I’m undertaking a similar spiritual ritual, imbuing my own sabers with the same energy that Stackpole so flawlessly describes here. It’s so rare to feel so seen and be so moved by a piece of fiction. For the discerning Sabersmith, it’s very much like Corran says:
I knew the words had not been written for me, but they sank deep into my core.
Thank you for this book, Michael. 🥂
