Silly Star Wars Question

[KhaineII]

This has probably been asked before, and may even cause many of you to roll your eyes at the stupidity of the question, but I'm curious damnit so I'm asking anyway.

We were talking about this briefly on campus last night and never really landed on a solid answer, so I figured why not ask the Internet. So, say you had two lightsabers, right? Now take both of them and push them together so that the end that the beam exits on both blades are facing each other. What would happen if you turned them on?

Clearly the two blades can't occupy the same space, so would they explode? I figured the hilt would melt and the crystals would be destroyed. Just curious what you guys think would happen.

Edit: This is the primary thread, the second one is some weird spawn created by campus internet.

 

[JesterRaiin]

Lightsabers are artifacts taken from fantasy world - i don't think that we should to apply normal laws of physics...
I'd go with simply "the blades repel each other".

 

[Mark D. Stroyer]

Lightsaber blades don't, say, 'materialize' suddenly, they build up and down, and become solid enough to repel each other and other energy in the universe. Theoretically if you placed them end-to-end and could start them simultaneously, they'd simply push each other away. The fact that they're projected energy rather than material means blades don't do any exploding. No, nobody really knows.

 

[SkullKing84]

I also have to say that "the blades repel each other" if both light sabers were to be turned on at the same time.

 

[kuzaro]

This is how lightsabers reproduce.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

You'd most likely cut your hands off as the two blades extend.

 

[Macgyvercas]

I'm going to go with "they short each other out temporarily" because that's what happened in Spaceballs, and that movie is awesome.

 

[KhaineII]

Pushing each other away seems to be the answer that reached consensus here at school, which then lead to trying to impose crazy scenarios such as propping them up against objects that would force them to stay attached.

 

[Veylon]

Pushing each other away seems to be the answer that reached consensus here at school, which then lead to trying to impose crazy scenarios such as propping them up against objects that would force them to stay attached.

They'd probably break if you did that. The blades may well be nigh-indestructible energy beams, but the handles are just metal. They'd crumple or break and be unable to maintain the beam, shutting it down. They might explode or throw beam-energy around as they fail, so you probably wouldn't want to be in the same room.

Alternatively, if the handles didn't break, the batteries would probably just run down as they try to force the beams out against each other's resistance. The handles might become hot to dissipate energy or maybe the blades can do that.

 

[SidingWithTheEnemy]

[...]

They'd probably break if you did that. The blades may well be nigh-indestructible energy beams, but the handles are just metal. They'd crumple or break and be unable to maintain the beam, shutting it down. They might explode or throw beam-energy around as they fail, so you probably wouldn't want to be in the same room.

Alternatively, if the handles didn't break, the batteries would probably just run down as they try to force the beams out against each other's resistance. The handles might become hot to dissipate energy or maybe the blades can do that.

While I agree with the first part, I never thought they had batteries in the first place. Are you makeing this up or is there some evidence to this?

Because I thought (aside from the Crystal Color idea) that the color might be an indicator of their lifespan. The Sith always uses their Lightsabers to decapitate foes and thus their energy runs low, turning to red, while the Jedis mostly used these gayish Mind Tricks and avoid lightsaber combat thus their colors are blue (for almost full battery) and green for pristinely charged as good as new.

 

[GundamSentinel]

If they would meet, their containment fields would stop each other and they would keep burning until one of the power cells runs out. That would take quite a long time as the beam is a closed loop and hardly uses energy unless it is cutting something.

Don't quote me on the rest, read it in some fact file somewhere so I can't guarantee its canonicity:
From what I understand of it, though the blade may look solid, the beam itself is actually incredibly thin. The rest is just the glow. This makes for a very small surface area, which is the reason why you don't burn your hand holding the saber and why it only melts things it is actually cutting.

If that would be the case, it would be very difficult to actually get the beams of two sabers to meet on end. They would more likely miss and burn a hole through the other's hilt if activated simultaneously.

 

[twistedmic]

[...]

They'd probably break if you did that. The blades may well be nigh-indestructible energy beams, but the handles are just metal. They'd crumple or break and be unable to maintain the beam, shutting it down. They might explode or throw beam-energy around as they fail, so you probably wouldn't want to be in the same room.

Alternatively, if the handles didn't break, the batteries would probably just run down as they try to force the beams out against each other's resistance. The handles might become hot to dissipate energy or maybe the blades can do that.

While I agree with the first part, I never thought they had batteries in the first place. Are you makeing this up or is there some evidence to this?

Because I thought (aside from the Crystal Color idea) that the color might be an indicator of their lifespan. The Sith always uses their Lightsabers to decapitate foes and thus their energy runs low, turning to red, while the Jedis mostly used these gayish Mind Tricks and avoid lightsaber combat thus their colors are blue (for almost full battery) and green for pristinely charged as good as new.

The battery/energy source things was mentioned in the EU (novels and 'technical manuals'), but weren't mentioned in the movies.
And the crystal color was brought up, I think, in the EU as well. The Sith had red blades because they typically used mass produced crystals whereas the Jedi (or non-Sith) used either naturally formed crystals or ones they forged themselves.


As for the original question, I think that when the lightsabers were switched on, they'd overload and detonate (or burnout) both power cells.

 

[WarDialler]

[...]

They'd probably break if you did that. The blades may well be nigh-indestructible energy beams, but the handles are just metal. They'd crumple or break and be unable to maintain the beam, shutting it down. They might explode or throw beam-energy around as they fail, so you probably wouldn't want to be in the same room.

Alternatively, if the handles didn't break, the batteries would probably just run down as they try to force the beams out against each other's resistance. The handles might become hot to dissipate energy or maybe the blades can do that.

While I agree with the first part, I never thought they had batteries in the first place. Are you makeing this up or is there some evidence to this?

Because I thought (aside from the Crystal Color idea) that the color might be an indicator of their lifespan. The Sith always uses their Lightsabers to decapitate foes and thus their energy runs low, turning to red, while the Jedis mostly used these gayish Mind Tricks and avoid lightsaber combat thus their colors are blue (for almost full battery) and green for pristinely charged as good as new.

A lightsaber blade, in universe, is a coherent beam of plasma energy contained within a magnetic field. The blades themselves have no mass but they DO repel each other, so if you pointed two sabers emitter to emitter and turned them on, the extending blades would force them apart and you'd probably disembowel yourself in the process.

Go read the wookiepedia entry on lightsabers. All of you. Now. I expect a 1500 word essay on the history and workings of a Lightsaber by the end of the day.

 

[Kopikatsu]

[...]

They'd probably break if you did that. The blades may well be nigh-indestructible energy beams, but the handles are just metal. They'd crumple or break and be unable to maintain the beam, shutting it down. They might explode or throw beam-energy around as they fail, so you probably wouldn't want to be in the same room.

Alternatively, if the handles didn't break, the batteries would probably just run down as they try to force the beams out against each other's resistance. The handles might become hot to dissipate energy or maybe the blades can do that.

While I agree with the first part, I never thought they had batteries in the first place. Are you makeing this up or is there some evidence to this?

Because I thought (aside from the Crystal Color idea) that the color might be an indicator of their lifespan. The Sith always uses their Lightsabers to decapitate foes and thus their energy runs low, turning to red, while the Jedis mostly used these gayish Mind Tricks and avoid lightsaber combat thus their colors are blue (for almost full battery) and green for pristinely charged as good as new.

In the expanded universe, it's revealed that lightsabers have a focusing crystal inside of them. The color of the crystal determines the color of the blade. Sith's red blades come from some kind of special crystal only found on a few planets. Jedi actually have a BUNCH of different colors in the EU. (Windu has purple, Chewbacca's son has gold, one of Solo's kids has white, I think, etc)

 

[Yugeky20]

As the blades build up they would either saber lock or quickly push eachother and your hands would be like WTF?!?!?!?!?!!?!?!?!

 

[ace_of_something]

I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to do that... according to Leviticus anyway.

 

[Adultism]

Unrelated: Crap now I want to play KOTOR

I'd go with they would reproduce, that's how lightsabers are made right?

 

[SidingWithTheEnemy]

Well, It just crossed my mind that the color might have been a nice indicator of the battery status although I perfectly well know that it involves the kind of crystal used. It's not that I haven't built enought of them lightsabers already...
It's not my fault that George Lucas didn't came up with my rather brilliant idea but used his quite boring explanation.
I'm well aware of that fact. It's not even my fault that Han shot first.

Anyway:

[...]
Go read the wookiepedia entry on lightsabers. All of you. Now. I expect a 1500 word essay on the history and workings of a Lightsaber by the end of the day.

Coming from a Krogan with what? Four testicles I rather skip class, thank you...

Go have fun with your squishy fish, my vision is augmented!

Spoiler: Insincere endorsement

You have not experienced Dovakhin until you have heard him in the voice of allmighty Cthulhu.

Fus Roh Fhtagn

Now, go get pills against my orders!

 

[WarDialler]

SidingWithTheEnemy....
FEAR MY MIGHTY KROGAN GONAD!

 

[Guffe]

Well IF you somehow get both of them turned on at the same time I'd say the repell each other like when hitting normaly, but since getting them on exactly at the same time is kind of difficult the one which is first turned on would destroy the other sword.