Just two quick updates. Earlier this week, StarWars.Com posted a preview for Issue #1 of Darth Vader and the Lost Command, which comes out later this month. You can click on the images below to see the larger versions. Rick Leonardi is doing a fantastic job with the art.
And here’s the cover for Issue #3, which I realized I never posted…
Also this month, the writing in the The Force Unleashed 2 was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award. We won a few years ago for the first Force Unleashed, and I’m humbled to be nominated again.
Hey Mr. Blackman! I’ve read the New Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, and think you did an incredible job on it, especially the description for the seismic charges Jango Fett uses against Obi-wan. I wondered how those things worked!
But I have a question about blaster weapons, one that has bugged me for a long time. How does the actuating module work? An actuator is a mechanical device that converts energy into motion, so how does the actuator in a blaster convert the energized Tibanna gas into a particle beam? Hopefully you can clear it up for me.
Thanks!
Robbie –
I had the same question when I was working on the book! A lot had been written about blasters and blaster technology before I wrote my guide, and this was one thing I caught that bothered me a bit too. For me, I got comfortable with the term after looking up the definition of “actuator” (or, in this case, “actuating module”). Since we’re dealing with a galaxy far, far away, I felt that we could use the broadest possible definition for the term, something like: “a servomechanism that supplies and transmits a measured amount of energy for the operation of another mechanism or system” or even something that “motivates or incites into action.” Given that definition, the gas actually moves through three actuators — the conversion enabler that basically starts the process of converting the gas to energy; the actuator that breaks it down into a particle stream (really, I think of the actuator as “compressing” the excited gas into a particle stream); and the focusing device. I don’t know if that makes perfect sense given what *we* know about technology, but hopefully gives more insight into how it might work on the SW universe…
I went to Wookeepedia, and they came to the same conclusion that you did, saying that the actuating module magnetically compresses the gas into a particle stream. Now I understand how it works. Thank you!
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Actuating_module
Now my next question: What does the inside of a blaster look like? That’s the one thing I felt the New Essential Guide was lacking, there were no cross-sections.
Thanks!
Thanks for the link!
Yeah, I wish we could have included cross-sections too… But there’s only so much space. 🙂
Do you have an idea of what a blaster would look like on the inside?
Roughly. I’m sure each make / model would be a little different, but I imagine the internals to basically break down into a series of chambers – almost like a really tiny particle accelerator.
http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/photos/2010%5C01%5CSRCs-300.jpg
Like that?
So in that case, the Xciter/actuator is basically a single combined module? In each successive chamber the gas is charged/accelerated. That’s exactly how a particle accelerator works!
Cracken’s Rebel Field Guide has a cross-section of a blaster! And it’s just like you said, two separate chambers. One is the Xciter, and one is the Actuator.
Check it out! http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/3524/85678602.jpg
But then there’s the Visual Dictionary, which says that blasters convert the gas into plasma and release it from a magnetic bottle effect.
Now that makes a lot more sense, but which one is correct? We have two contradicting sources here.