On 12/4/2019 at 5:47 PM, penpenpen said:

Why would a Beskar round not be possible to reflect with a lightsaber? I mean, if it's a lightsaber resistant metal a lightsaber won't pass through beskar and I'd assume the opposite is true even in a physics light setting as Star Wars. Ergo, wouldn't a beskar round be more likely to bounce off a lightsaber, as it doesn't melt?

On 12/4/2019 at 6:07 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Ah, whoops. I was thinking about it like Cortosis which can deactivate lightsabers.

That's an interesting point. @GameboyAK ,

Normally, you would be correct in thinking beskar would simply resist against lightsabers because of how lightsabers interact with physical objects, but we often forget lightsabers are not solid, but just coherent beams of plasma. Normally, a swing from a lightsaber has the magnetic field act as an 'edge', which is why it stops against certain objects. However, slugthrowers were an ideal weapon against Jedi for one reason in particular: slugthrowers cannot be reflected back like a blaster bolt. Because of that, in certain bits of lore, there are cases where slugthrower rounds go through a lightsaber beam, normally in melted bits of metal from insane levels of heat, but molten metal flying at your face is not a pleasant experience. Beskar jackets would simply ensure the slugthrower round stays intact, and not be liquefied, hence the 'Immune to Reflect' quality.

21 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

That doesn't work with what's currently established in the lore though, whether Legends or new Canon. Beskar is a naturally occurring ore native to the planet Mandalore and Concordia. According to lore, the Taung discovered the metal when they first arrived on Mandalore. And there is nothing in the lore to even remotely suggest it's the least bit radioactive.

Have you seen a canon reference of beskar being an "ore" and/or "naturally occurring" - I haven't. I don't consider Wookipedia a Canon resource - as they aren't affiliated with the story group or Lucasfilm in any way. While they try to maintain familiarity with Canon, they keep their Legends as the main reference and then replace the information as Canon cites things as false - this isn't an ideal situation, and creates inconsistencies.

The canon mentions of beskar (from the sw databank, canon book references and comics) only mentions that it's an alloy native to Mandalore. As the definition of alloy is; "a metal made by combining two or more metallic elements, especially to give greater strength or resistance to corrosion" then "beskar" by definition must be modified from the ores that create it. Even if it was stated as "naturally occurring," being a byproduct of radiation saturation causing an isotope shift would BE naturally occurring ... so ... yea ... science. Not all uranium can be refined into the required isotopes for radioactive materials, so the fact that the specific isotope of the original metal the alloy of beskar is derived from (which is never mentioned) is unique to Mandalore, then it is possible to say that unique isotope is the only isotope that can be exposed to radiation in a refinement process that can create beskar (yea, I have metallurgical experience too! what a wonder that is). The clearest hope you have to defend the core of your argument is that in Legends it was often referred to as "Mandalorian Iron" prior to the term "bes'kar" and later "beskar," all of which come from Karen Traviss, but that only strengthens my hypothesis of it being a unique isotope of iron. The question then becomes what would have produced this isotope shift. The second you get to this point, my headcanon is as valid as anyone else's until a canon reference refutes it.

As for your mention of the Tuang, the original inhabitants of Coruscant (yea, I'm that old and deep in the lore too, thanks) are ONLY ever mentioned in Legends, so there's nothing to your argument there, either because the many nuclear wars mentioned in CANON obviously wouldn't jibe with the lore presented in Legends.

Finally, just because it isn't explicity mentioned doesn't mean it isn't so. You can infer things from style of use, or from real-world analogous materials utilized in similar ways, so "slavish devotion to your opinion of lore" isn't a good argument either. If Filoni was of the same mindset we'd never know that beskar has an inherent damascus appearance, because "nothing in the lore even remotely suggest it's the least bit" laddered in appearance, but low and behold the Mandalorian shows it to be so! In this case, the same argument "nothing in lore" works against your usage too - nothing in the lore states that beskar isn't the least bit radioactive, and the natural world proves that there are many more heavy metals than you'd expect.

I'm sorry if this sounds snarky, but it's arrogant to use such loose arguments as an attempt to explain how someone's personal narrative is "wrong" without providing cited, legitimate counter references that specifically address the gaps that created the narrative in the first place. You basically framed your opinion of me being wrong as "you made stuff up to fill in gaps that have never been explained and you're not competent/authorized as a resource to make these assumptions." No duh, I said that specifically it's my personal idea, and it doesn't invalidate anything I said. As far as how competent or possessing of authority to make these kind of decisions I am ... I am 100% as authorized as you anyone else on these forums are, and until you can show me a canon reference that states beskar isn't radioactive, then you have no more proof it isn't than I have it is, and your argument with me is misplaced and bordering on insulting. The fact that you acknowledge it is my personal belief and still chose to condemn mine implies that you are merely interested in putting your own opinion forward as legitimate instead of creating a narrative resource for the community.

If you were truly interested in creating a narrative for the community, and were in disagreement with my proffered idea, then appropriate ways to open this narrative would have been to say things like, "where did you come up with the idea to say that beskar is radioactive? Is there a reason or did you just throw it in there?" or "but Kyla, I was under the impression from (source a) and (source b) that beskar was a naturally occurring metal, how do you explain that inaccuracy?" These things start good conversations that inform and enrich all of our stories. You didn't though, you spoke from the position of being an authority and learned individual, but used arguments that cherry picked canon and legend sources to put forth your opinion in a manner that appeared to be researched but in reality has many holes, whose only purpose was to refute the world-building of someone else. This isn't the first time you've done it, and I'm not your first target. I spend time on these forums in an effort to help create a richer, and more pervasive community narrative. To make all our games more interesting and give life to places and things that we want to create for our players. Posts that create conversations are AWESOME ... a lot of people on these forums have disagreed with me, and a lot of times I've had my eyes opened to ideas I've held that were wrong, unfounded, or just ill-informed. In the process of learning this, so many good ideas and collaborative visions were created that it was fuel for many sessions of material. This is what this community is as it's best. At it's worst, are posts that just try to "shut-down" someone else's opinion without good reason or justification. There's nowhere to go from there, and making absolute statements (and false ones) like you did can make people shut down and stop posting. Please don't do that, Tramp.

On 12/6/2019 at 2:23 AM, GameboyAK said:

Normally, you would be correct in thinking beskar would simply resist against lightsabers because of how lightsabers interact with physical objects, but we often forget lightsabers are not solid, but just coherent beams of plasma. Normally, a swing from a lightsaber has the magnetic field act as an 'edge', which is why it stops against certain objects. However, slugthrowers were an ideal weapon against Jedi for one reason in particular: slugthrowers cannot be reflected back like a blaster bolt. Because of that, in certain bits of lore, there are cases where slugthrower rounds go through a lightsaber beam, normally in melted bits of metal from insane levels of heat, but molten metal flying at your face is not a pleasant experience. beskar jackets would simply ensure the slugthrower round stays intact, and not be liquefied, hence the 'Immune to Reflect' quality.

But we don't actually see lightsabers pass through solid material, or vice versa, without the lightsaber melting it. As far as bullets go, I always saw it as some molten material going around the blade, not through it.

While lightsabers are indeed plasma, that plasma is contained in a magnetic field. So for all intents and purposes, they are solid. Hence them bouncing off stuff they can't cut. Ergo, small stuff they can't cut, would bounce off them.

10 hours ago, penpenpen said:

As far as bullets go, I always saw it as some molten material going around the blade, not through it.

If the round is larger than the width of the blade, I would agree, much like how we see in some action movies sword slice bullets in half. However, most slugthrower rounds are maybe half the width of a regular lightsaber blade at the largest (assuming they're not the McQuarrie design blades), and that's assuming they are not the thin pieces of metal that are gravitationally or magnetically accelerated. If the magnetic fields were that strong to affect a piece of metal moving at super sonic speeds in such a short amount of time, there wouldn't be any pieces left to get around the lightsaber.

Edit: And that's also before you consider the fact that the magnetic field may even have little to no effect on the rounds because (as a comparison) bullets here on earth are made of non-magnetic materials. Assuming Star Wars has a similar line of thought, it would be even more difficult for the actual magnetic field would be strong enough, on it's own, to affect a bullet to curve around it.

This is a really cool video on the magnet/bullet interaction ...

But to be fair, any magnetic affect on a slugthrower slug would deviate the shot towards the blade, making reflecting it very difficult, as it would take even more velocity than usual to leave the field and travel to the reflected target, though by understanding the magnetic fields involved, this would mean that it would be potentially possible to deflect or reflect the slug without ever having to come into contact with the slug itself, especially if you combine physical relocation and personal angling to both minimize the needed angle of deflection and maximize the distance away from you that the field makes contact with the slug. There would, theoretically, be a "sweet spot" that would most deviate a shot away from you, and towards another target. Given a space opera universe, then this be a good working theory.

2 hours ago, Kyla said:

There would, theoretically, be a "sweet spot" that would most deviate a shot away from you, and towards another target. Given a space opera universe, then this be a good working theory.

I mean... yeah, fair enough, hence why Improved Reflect could work but I already house rule it to where slugthrowers can't be reflected back at their users (and my players rarely have lightsaber wielders against slugthrowers anyways).

Problem is that most slugthrower rounds are traveling at incredible speeds... and isn't being fired directly next to it at a precise angle to curve said round at that precise angle and even in a Space Opera, it's a stretch to consistently pull that off, in my opinion, but you do you

6 hours ago, GameboyAK said:

I mean... yeah, fair enough, hence why Improved Reflect could work but I already house rule it to where slugthrowers can't be reflected back at their users (and my players rarely have lightsaber wielders against slugthrowers anyways).

I have no problem with bullets not being able to be accurately thrown back.

6 hours ago, GameboyAK said:

Problem is that most slugthrower rounds are traveling at incredible speeds... and isn't being fired directly next to it at a precise angle to curve said round at that precise angle and even in a Space Opera, it's a stretch to consistently pull that off, in my opinion, but you do you

Well, I agree it would take some kind of supernatural space magic to pull that off.

...

Heeeey.....

10 hours ago, GameboyAK said:

If the round is larger than the width of the blade, I would agree, much like how we see in some action movies sword slice bullets in half. However, most slugthrower rounds are maybe half the width of a regular lightsaber blade at the largest (assuming they're not the McQuarrie design blades), and that's assuming they are not the thin pieces of metal that are gravitationally or magnetically accelerated. If the magnetic fields were that strong to affect a piece of metal moving at super sonic speeds in such a short amount of time, there wouldn't be any pieces left to get around the lightsaber.

Edit: And that's also before you consider the fact that the magnetic field may even have little to no effect on the rounds because (as a comparison) bullets here on earth are made of non-magnetic materials. Assuming Star Wars has a similar line of thought, it would be even more difficult for the actual magnetic field would be strong enough, on it's own, to affect a bullet to curve around it.

The thing is, lightsaber blades interact with solid material as if they themselves are solid. You cant push the blade through a piece of metal without melting/cutting through it, so you cant push a piece of metal through the blade either.

If beskar bullets can pass straight through a blade, then a lightsaber blade can pass straight through beskar armor, or a beskar blade used to parry. So a beskar bullet striking the blade of lightsaber would react as it struck as solid object. Of course, for the wielder to be precise to actually parry a speeding bullet out of the air would require reflexes so fast it's basically precognition.

And hey, as it turns out, Reflect is a force talent. It's quite literally magic.

19 hours ago, penpenpen said:

The thing is, lightsaber blades interact with solid material as if they themselves are solid. You cant push the blade through a piece of metal without melting/cutting through it, so you cant push a piece of metal through the blade either.

If beskar bullets can pass straight through a blade, then a lightsaber blade can pass straight through beskar armor, or a beskar blade used to parry. So a beskar bullet striking the blade of lightsaber would react as it struck as solid object. Of course, for the wielder to be precise to actually parry a speeding bullet out of the air would require reflexes so fast it's basically precognition.

Unless you're telling me they're swinging a lightsaber at super sonic speeds, I don't see how the two are comparable. Lightsabers connect with things that are solid, yes, because the magnetic field has time to interact with it, but with tiny projectiles moving at incredible speeds, the math changes. It's not a one to one comparison of "oh, it hits this so it must be solid".

22 minutes ago, GameboyAK said:

Unless you're telling me they're swinging a lightsaber at super sonic speeds, I don't see how the two are comparable. Lightsabers connect with things that are solid, yes, because the magnetic field has time to interact with it, but with tiny projectiles moving at incredible speeds, the math changes. It's not a one to one comparison of "oh, it hits this so it must be solid".

I really don't think that's relevant to the psuedo-physics at hand. A lightsaber is for all intents and purposes solid when activated. Nothing has ever been shown to dispute that.

If you want anti-lightsaber bullets, refined cortosis would work great, or maybe something that splatters lead more than usual when melted. Not sure it would catch Jedi by surprise though considering Reflect is partly precognition. Also, rather than bullets, sonic blasters are supposedly not reflectable, and I don't think a flamethrower would be either. The latter might be vulnerable to being countered by force push(ouch!).

Beskar bullets would probably be excellent penetrators though. I'd say dropping 2-3 points of damage and adding Pierce 5 would overall make them a better bullet but perhaps prone to overpenetrating soft targets.

On 12/7/2019 at 7:03 PM, GameboyAK said:

but you do you

Thanks, I will! However, I never claimed that this was how I would rule it, merely stating that it's a possibility since Star Wars already threw physics out of the window from the start. When dealing with the speed of the slug and the associated need to move the lightsaber at super sonic speed, you're forgetting that Jedi who use reflect aren't moving to match an event that has occurred, instead, they are (as Qui-Gon put it) "seeing events before they happen," meaning that they are placing the lightsaber were it needs to be before the shot is ever fired.

I am of the camp that can see things go either way, depending on what lore/science you want to accept, bend, or outright ignore. Generally speaking, I use the "rule of cool" at my table and weigh on a situation by situation basis to ensure a good story.