Everything Lightsabers CAN'T Cut Through In Star Wars
The lightsaber. The iconic weapon of the Jedi and the Sith. Its blade was so immensely hot it could cut through most materials with ease. As we discussed in a recent video over on my shorts channel, lightsaber blades burned with the heat of a star. Or around 25,000 degrees Celsius. However, despite this, there were many materials that were completely, or at least partially resistant to the blade of a lightsaber. In today's video, we will discuss every single material that was lightsaber resistant in the whole of star Wars, drawing both from legends and canon.
We'll roughly be going from the least effective to the most effective material. So make sure to stick to the end to find out the best defense against a Jedi or a Sith Lord. Anyway, let us begin.
First off we have armor weave. The most flexible of all the materials discussed in this video. This cloth-like material dissipates energy across its surface, allowing it a degree of protection against blaster bolts and even Lightsabers, although it wasn't particularly effective. Count Dooku and Vader both used it in their capes while Mandalorians often made their under armor out of this stuff.
Although Armourweave was rather limited in protecting against lightsaber strikes, it's flexibility made it very useful. As was the case with Vader, the Armourweave cloak simply added an additional layer of defense, while also giving the dark lord his signature dapper appearance.
Another cloth-like lightsaber-resistant material was Noris Root. Noris Root was a rare and beautiful plant native to the planet of Almar. During The days of the Jedi Civil War, a highly sophisticated method of crushing up the root into red dye existed. This dye could then be applied to clothing, creating energy-resistant robes that could resist lightsaber blades and blaster bolts.
Orbalisks were another biological lightsaber-resistant material. Orbalisks were essentially parasites that fed off of the dark side of the force. Once attached to the host, they would grow and multiply until eventually the host had been completely consumed. However, Freedon Nad discovered how to prevent the parasites from covering one's face, hands and feet, creating a biological suit of lightsaber-resistant armor. However, although highly lightsaber resistant, it did have some drawbacks. Unsurprisingly, a suit of armor made of dark side parasites was very painful, meaning it could only be used by the greatest of all dark siders such as Darth Bane. However, it's use was even limited for the Sith as these creatures were not lightning resistant. In fact, Darth Bane was eventually forced to remove his Orbalisk armor as he ended up killing much of it accidentally with his own force lightning.
Another whole category of lightsaber-resistant materials is those used by the Yuuzhan Vong.
These genetically engineered biological monstrosities were designed for a whole range of different tasks, from defense to offense.
The most notable example of this was Vondun Crab Armour. Similar to the Orbalisk armour, it would engulf the user entirely. This armor was almost completely resistant to blaster fire and lightsabers. However, this did have it's weaknesses. Because it was biological armour, it could suffer from biological issues. For example, the armour was allergic to some kinds of pollen. Like the Orbalisk armour, it was also highly vulnerable to force lightning, making this ability the Yuuzhan Vong's greatest weakness.
The Yuuzhan Vongs main weapon was also highly lightsaber resistant. The Amphistaff was a genetically engineered snake-like creature that doubled up as both a melee and a ranged weapon. The sides of the Amphistaff were razor thin, measuring in the atoms, meaning that it could cut through objects as easily as a lightsaber. Like Vondun Crab Armour, it was almost completely impervious to lightsaber attacks. The only reason this isn't further down the list is because of its major weaknesses. Like most Yuuzhan Vong biotech, It was suspectable to allergies, viruses and electrical currents, which dramatically decreased its effectiveness.
A lightsaber-resistant material from the force unleashed games was Felucian skull blades. Using the bones of an unknown creature native to their planet, the Felucians were able to create immensely strong blades that could resist the immense heat of a lightsaber. It is believed that the creature's bones contained many microcrystals with similar properties to kyber crystals. Once they were imbued with the force, it allowed for an extremely deadly and almost indestructible blade.
Next up we have Ultrachrome, a lightsaber resistant material used by the inquisitors in legends as well as by the Sith during the great sith war. Ultrachrome was a superconductor, meaning that energy from slugs, blasters and Lightsabers was instantaneously dispersed across its solid mass. This prevented the energy from concentrating in one place and cutting through. While this was much more lightsaber resistant than the two previously mentioned materials, it had one major drawback. If enough energy was pumped into the armour or shield, it would all simultaneously melt, leaving the wearer in a very precarious position at best or covered in molten sludge in a worst-case scenario. This is likely why most opted to use this material in vibroshields rather than armour, allowing them to quickly discard it without injury if it became overheated.
Phrik was another lightsaber-resistant material that probably saw the most use during the Skywalker saga era, especially in legends. Phrik was mined on gromas 16 producing an extremely light and durable metal after it had been processed. In fact, it was so strong, a phrik container survived the destruction of Alderaan.
It is thought to have been invented during the Mandalorian wars by a scientist named Gorman Vandrayk. Vandrayk was also known for his experiments on the weaponization of exogorths. However, that's a story for another day, so make sure to hit the notification bell for that upcoming video.
Phrik was also known for dispersing electrical currents. This made it a near-perfect material for the use in the Magna guards electro staffs, and was also used in Palpatine's lightsaber.
After the rise of the Empire, every phrik mine was nationalized and the material saw extensive use in the legends version of the dark trooper project.
The next lightsaber resistant material on the list is Neuranium, an incredibly dense metal used to shield from radiation and plasma.,Its density was so great, gravity-sensitive species noted how it warped space-time around it a bit like a black hole.. This made it pretty impractical to be used as armour. Due to its scanner-resistant properties, Palpatine used this material in the statues of the Four Sages of Dwarthii, using it to secretly house his lightsaber inside. Unfortunately, that is all we know about Neuranium in both canon and Legends, but hopefully, we will see more of it very soon.
Another lightsaber-resistant metal we know very little about is song steel. This luminescent silver metal was extraordinarily light and resisted lightsabers to a similar degree as phrik or the soon-to-be-discussed Cortosis. Songsteel was very rare and could be crafted into swords or staffs that were almost completely resistant to the heat of a lightsaber.
The next material was predominantly used long ago during the ancient days of the Jedi order. In fact it was so long ago, the Jedi were known as the Je'daii and the lightsaber hadn't even been invented yet. Force imbued metal blades were created through a complex ritual that channeled the force into the blade, realigning the metals molecular structure into an unbreakable lattice. Similar to lightsabers that came many thousands of years after, a crystal was placed inside the hilt. This allowed the wielder to bond with the force imbued blade. How resistant it was to lightsabers greatly depended on the force powers of the user. Powerful users of the dark side were able to create powerful blades that acted very similar to lightsabers, cutting through most objects and even deflecting blaster bolts. Force embued swords were used for thousands of years after the invention of the lightsaber, particularly by the Sith. However, by the time of Darth Revan almost all force users had ditched them in favour of lightsabers.
As well as swords force embued metal was used by the Ziesan Sha to create disk blades. This fearsome force sect would use the force to guide these disk blades into their victims at great speed and with terrifying accuracy, with not even a lightsaber able to properly defend against it.
Next up we have the most famous lightsaber-resistant materials. Mandalorian iron, commonly known by its mando’a name of Beskar, could only be found within the Mandalore system. The Mandalorians saw this metal as sacred and would not allow those outsides of their culture to wear it. In addition to this, forging weapons such as spears with this metal was highly frowned upon, as Beskar weaponry was one of the few things that could pierce Beskar Armour.
However, in legends, the Mandalorians used Beskar to make the Mandalorian Saber, known in their language as the Beskad. Heavily resembling the dark saber, these sabers were first used by the ancient Tuang, the species that invented the Mandalorian culture.
Due to its extraordinary properties, almost all of the Beskar was strip-mined by the Imperials in both legends and canon. However, in legends, the war with the extragalactic Yuuzhan Vong exposed a gigantic vein of Beskar on the planet. So much in fact that they began armoring entire ships with this extremely durable metal, allowing the Mandalorians to become a great power once again.
The hide of the zillobeast was also highly lightsaber resistant as we saw during the Clone Wars. This armour was pretty much impervious to all forms of energy-based attacks, including blaster fire, explosions and of course lightsabers. Unfortunately not much is known about the Zillo beast or it's lightsaber resistant hide outside of the Clone Wars TV show, although it is known that Palpatine ordered for the creature to be cloned and for it's armor to be studied, so possibly we'll see more of the Zillo beast in the future.
The next lightsaber-resistant material is Cortosis, a very rare and brittle metal that worked slightly differently than other metals on this list. In it's refined form, Cortosis acted very similar to songsteel or phrik. However, it's pure form acted very differently indeed, hence why I've given it such a high up position on this list.
Instead of being lightsaber resistant due to a high tolerance for heat or because it is very strong, Cortosis was lightsaber resistant because it would short out the saber for several minutes due to its superconducting properties. This could be used to make pretty much any kind of weapon. We've seen Jedi use a Cortosis sword against Darth Vader while we also know that Cad Bane used this material to make bullets, although he stopped using it as it was way too expensive.
If Cortosis ore was left unrefined, it could also become highly energized, sending an electrical current through anyone who touched it and instantly killing them.
And lastly, we have the most overpowered material in the whole of Star Wars. Quantum Crystalline Armour. This material was developed by imperial scientists in the Maw installation for specific use within the Sun Crusher, arguably the most powerful Superweapon in the whole of Star wars.
Quantum armor as it was informally known was created by creating a molecular lattice of densely packed together atoms that were then stacked on top of another phase-shifted layer. The result was a near-indestructible and lightweight material.
In fact, it was so strong, that the sun crushers quantum armor, quite easily survived a hit from the death star prototype. And as I've explored before over on my shorts channel, the death star super laser is basically a giant lightsaber blade. Although a lightsaber has never been tested against it, the fact that this material was designed to survive supernovas suggests that this is certainly the strongest lightsaber-resistant material.
