Within the twirl of a lightsaber hilt and the flick of a wrist on The Acolyte last week, Jedi Grasp Vernestra Rwoh delivered to display a Star Wars concept practically 40 years within the making: the Lightwhip. It’s removed from Star Wars‘ weirdest lightsaber, and even with its surprising on-screen appearance, it’s not a wholly new one both.
How Does a Lightwhip Work?
In present continuity, we solely have one instance of a Lightwhip: Vernestra’s lightsaber, the place it’s offered as a modification to her conventional lightsaber reasonably than its personal specific weapon. Little is understood how Vernestra’s whip works in present continuity, however within the Expanded Universe, Lightwhips operated through the use of a collection of smaller emitters and crystals that featured no cells across the plasma power they shaped, permitting for a versatile beam of power that may very well be operated like a conventional whip, over an extended vary than a regular lightsaber. Buying and selling a number of the coherent beam power of a conventional lightsaber for that flexibility and attain, lightwhips usually lacked a number of the slicing power of a lightsaber, capable of be rebuffed by extra sorts of armor {that a} lightsaber would in any other case reduce. They is also broken extra simply, and because of the unstable nature of the blade, had been susceptible to shorting out.
The unconventional nature of the lightwhip was as a lot an asset as its versatile blade. Uncommon and tough to grasp in comparison with a lightsaber (additionally one of many weapon’s downsides, resulting in its rarity), the lightwhip preyed on an opponent’s unfamiliarity—particularly Jedi, who had been primarily educated in fight towards conventional martial weapons. Lightwhips may assault a lightsaber wielder from an extended vary, flex round blocks and parries one other lightsaber couldn’t, and in some configurations with a number of tassels, may overwhelm an opponent with strikes from a number of angles directly.
The place Did the Lightwhip Come From?
Within the Expanded Universe, the Lightwhip was launched because the weapon of the Darkish Girl Lumiya, a Sith and one of many Emperor’s Fingers (an elite order of the Empire’s high brokers and secret operatives) from Marvel’s ongoing Star Wars comedian. First showing in 1985’s Star Wars #95, Lumiya’s lightwhip operated barely in a different way to what the weapon would in the end develop into in additional interpretations—in addition to a singular, prolonged power beam, Lumiya’s whip had a number of additional tassels constructed from leather-based and studded with lightsaber-resistant Mandalorian Iron (higher identified in each present continuity and the EU by its identify within the Mandalorian language, beskar).
Lumiya’s weapon result in Luke Skywalker crafting one other sort of Lightsaber that may go on to have its personal storied historical past within the Expanded Universe and past: the Shoto Lightsaber, a secondary weapon with a shortened blade that would counter the lightwhip’s a number of tassels, wrapping them up round his main saber’s blade whereas utilizing the shoto to sever the bodily extensions.
After Lumiya’s weapon birthed the existence of the Lightwhip, extra conventional types had been codified as historic and intensely uncommon weapons wielded by the Sith through the time of the New Sith Wars, hundreds of years earlier than the occasions of the movies. In contrast to Lumiya’s weapon nonetheless, most of the time earlier lightwhips had a singular power beam, just like the lightwhip wielded by the Sith Lord Githany.
Was the Lightwhip Canon Earlier than The Acolyte?
As is the case in The Acolyte itself, Vernestra is the one identified wielder of a lightwhip in present Star Wars continuity. Her saber’s alternate kind was launched within the 2021 Excessive Republic center grade novel A Take a look at of Braveness. There, the lightwhip modifcation got here to Vernestra as a imaginative and prescient within the Pressure whereas she was nonetheless a comparatively contemporary Jedi Knight. As soon as full, she saved the modification a secret from her former grasp and different senior Jedi, fearing that the Lightwhip’s historical past as an unorthodox weapon—and their historic affiliation with the Nightsisters of Dathomir—may very well be regarded down upon.
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