Earlier I mentioned my backyard fence-removal project. I have three sections of fence down. Huff. Huff. Wheeze.
Sweet mercy this is a pain in the butt.
While I’m doing a job like this I can’t help thinking that I could turn days of back-breaking labor into a ten-minute job if I could just get my hands on a lightsaber. I could lop the fence posts right off with little or no effort. The only real work would be hauling the sucker away. I could also use the lightsaber to chop up the remaining scrap metal so it would be easier to transport or dispose of. Sure, lightsabers are a little dangerous, but are they that much worse than a chainsaw?
If lightsabers were possible, what would they be like?
Well, first off: They would make terrible weapons. A lightsaber is like a sword that acts as both a noisemaker and a beacon. Waving around bright colorful lights is usually a bad idea in modern combat situations. If you’re in a fight, you’re much worse off once you turn the thing on. Unless you have The Forcetm, then you are going to be filled with bullets long before you get anywhere near your opponent.
Pzhhhhhhz! Vwoom. Vrrrwwooooom. Pksh! Mwwahooom. Pxskz! Vrmomwoooom. Mwwahooom. Pksh sizzle!
No, lightsabers would not be weapons: They would be tools.
You could go to the hardware store and get a nice Black & Decker lightsaber, which could cut right through trees or metal beams in no time. It would cost a couple hundred. They would be a bit shorter than the ones in the movies, since you shouldn’t need anything more than 2 feet long unless you’re cutting down some really big trees, in which case you’d need to buy one of those industrial-grade lightsabers. Or, you could go for the inexpensive off-brand at Wal-Mart, which would have a handle made of cheap plastic and the blade would flicker or dim if you tried to cut anything heavy-duty. It would cost around $49.95 and the blade would only be a foot long. This would only be useful for small jobs, since it would be annoying and perhaps dangerous to use for big things like trees.
Handles wouldn’t be made of metal like in the movies. You really don’t want one of these slipping while you’re cutting, so the grip would be made of rubber. All of them would be designed with a safety switch that would need to be held down to keep the blade on, so if you dropped it the thing would turn off instantly. They would also require a key to operate, just to keep kids from playing with them. You’d probably insert the special key at the base of the handle and turn it to enable the lightsaber, and then grasp the handle and squeeze the dead man’s switch to turn it on. Some models might even be set up with two dead-man switches so that both hands were needed to keep it on. This would greatly reduce the primary risk, which is taking off one’s own forearm in a stray movement.
You’d need to wear insulated fireproof gloves for safety, because the stuff you’re cutting is going to get very hot and it’s going to be close to your hand. (Qui-Gon Jinn must have fire-proof hair and eyebrows, judging by how close his face gets to the molten metal of the door he cuts in Episode 1) Safety goggles or glasses are a good idea too.
I can’t imagine how the battery would work because the power requirements are going to be way beyond what the typical house can deliver (particularly through an outlet) and it’s many orders of magnitude beyond what current battery technology can hold. The power required to instantly melt metal is huge. Needless to say, this sucker’s going to be on the charger for a long, long time between uses.
Okay, this post went to a wierd place. Sorry about that. I don’t know how that happened.
UPDATE: Steven made some facinating comments below, be sure to check them out.
Shamus Young is a programmer, an author, and nearly a composer. He works on this site full time. If you'd like to support him, you can do so via Patreon or PayPal.
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