L3P0
El Threepio
Image Source:Wholly owned photo.
Intent: L3P0 is a pacifist lightsaber droid Character carried by an unaligned descendant of its Jawa Sith creator. It is destined to atone for its past master’s indiscretions.
Development Thread: If needed
Manufacturer: L3P0 was constructed by the self-titled Darth Pugn (381-428 ABY)
Model: L3P0 is a variant 3P0 droid model, literally “Little Threepio”.
Affiliation: L3P0 belongs to a tribe of Jawas from the northern desert of Eszit Wune on the planet Rubac.
Modularity: L3P0’s parts are configurable as dual sabers, as a tonfa, or as an intersecting cross-saber. Reassembly takes up to an hour. The droid brain is capable of up to three functions, currently linguistics, mechanical diagnosis and computer programming.
Production: Little 3P0 droids had Limited production for wealthy diplomats prior to 425 ABY, when production ceased. This lightsaber version is Unique.
Material: L3P0 is made of the strong and lightweight aluminium alloy ‘agrinium’. Its parts were scavenged from a vaporator and a diplomatic protocol droid scepter kit.
Classification: L3P0 is a third degree (protocol) droid.
Weight: L3P0 weighs just 800 grams configured as a tonfa or cross-saber. L3PO weighs 500 grams and 450 grams as separate sabers, adding the weight of a second louvred crystal housing part.
Height: L3P0 is 25½ cm long and varies from 3.3 to 3.8cm in diameter.
Movement: L3P0’s pommel and blade collar function as treads that spin around the axis of the lightsaber. That is, the solid silver segments of the lightsaber (from the image above) spin, acting as wheels. Pop-up ridges around the silver “tyres” provide tread also increase the diameter of the wheels. These ridges can also spring-jump up steps and other minor obstacles. The ridges are also electromagnetic, useful for clinging or climbing on ferromagnetic surfaces.
Armaments: Each of L3P0’s lightsabers can generate a “dual-length” (one metre and “zero metre”) slim, mercurial, bronze lightsaber blade.
Miscellaneous Equipment: The protocol droid L3P0 has an heuristic processor (droid brain), a vocabulator and a translator unit. The translator comprehends “only six thousand” languages, including Binary, Basic, Jawa and Gran. In addition to linguistics it is equipped for mechanical diagnosis and computer programming. Its enhanced senses include echolocation (using its own hum), vibration and footfall tracking (when placed on the ground) and olfactory sensors for understanding and speaking social Jawaese. L3P0 also possesses a computer interface probe and a restraining bolt. Luckily its droid caller has gone missing… for now.
Description:
L3P0 is a pair of lightsabers (the heavier one contains a droid brain) that can be assembled together as a tonfa or as a unique intersecting cross-saber. The sabers intersect just below the emitters. One saber contains a pair of focusing crystals that slot around the single crystal of the other saber.
The sabers resemble Jawa-hacked diplomatic scepters. L3P0 is comprised of two tiny protocol droid-head pommels stuck onto beige vaporator tubing. The tubing’s insulating hex-mesh has been partly exposed to provide grip. The sabers use brown rubac crystals (not ‘rubat’ crystals), each a sealed crystalline hexaferrum from the exposed core of the planet Rubac. These produce a slim, mercurial, bronze-colored blade. The crystal chamber is accessed through louvres which swing open for easy maintenance. The sabers are built to be extremely light and well balanced. Even when combined, L3P0 can be wielded by a single-handed Jawa.
Strengths:
- L3P0 excels at persuasion and deception from many years spent encouraging its original Sith master to minimize her trail of destruction. It is also programmed to be very good at linguistics, mechanical diagnostics and computer programming.
- L3P0 has mastered aspects of its creator’s Tràkata lightsaber form, using echolocation and blade length switching to avoid injuring the wielder. Changing between full-length and zero-length blades is very fast.
- Due to its small size, L3P0 can be quite stealthy when running around on the floor.
- L3P0’s protocol droid programming ensures it cannot intentionally harm a sentient living being or knowingly allow a sentient living being to be harmed. This limits its options as a lightsaber.
- L3P0’s Tràkata lightsaber form is also used to avoid harming anyone else. Darth Pugn used L3P0’s droid caller to prevent the droid from interfering in her battles. While the droid caller has gone missing L3P0 will use this to avoid intentionally harming anyone.
- Until L3P0 learns the full range of physical movements and behaviors of its wielder it can be extremely dangerous to wield L3P0 as a cross-saber. This is attested by both its one-armed creator, Darth Pugn, and its current one-armed owner, Junker Pugn.
- L3P0 has minimal strength of its own. It could press buttons with its probe.
- Use of the correct droid caller disables L3P0’s enhanced senses and its ability to manipulate the blade length. L3P0 could still be used as a lightsaber, however in its cross-saber configuration it would be very dangerous to an unpracticed wielder. Expect to lose a limb.
- L3P0’s non-standard lightsaber crystals cannot compete for long in a lock-up with a lightsaber using more reputable crystals. Darth Pugn accommodated this weakness by bringing the second blade into play before the first blade shorted out. An apprentice wielding L3P0 against a superior blade is likely to fare poorly.
L3P0 was created by an force sensitive Jawa female over 400 years ago. The Jawa started out mastering the Force Mind Trick, with a particular talent for indiscriminately targeting a crowd. As her self-trained potential grew she put together two very basic lightsabers using rubac crystals and vaporator parts. However she lacked the finesse with the Force necessary to make them work consistently. Naming herself “Darth Pugn”, she started out on a trail of destruction to find a tutor and further develop her talents.
The Sith Master that Darth Pugn eventually trained under is known only to L3P0. It is more widely known that at some point Darth Pugn’s tinkering habits led to installation of a protocol droid brain from a stolen diplomatic scepter kit into her sabers. This was undoubtedly for translation services. Further tinkering enabled the two sabers to be wielded as a cross-saber. A series of unfortunate events presumably followed this invention, leading to Darth Pugn losing an arm at the shoulder and L3P0 gaining a restraining bolt.
L3P0 later returned with Darth Pugn to her home planet of Rubac after she contracted the Gulag Virus, and she soon became one with the Force. She still managed to infect the millions of Gran and Human inhabitants of Interi Wune. L3P0 immediately led a planet-wide effort to connect despairing Virus survivors by radio with the voices of the citizens of the faraway land of Eszit Wune. This saved several million Gran lives.
Afterwards L3P0 sought to travel through the airless highlands of Rubac that separated Interi Wune from its birthplace in Eszit Wune. Unfortunately its trekker droid was struck down by a meteorite along the way, and L3P0 remained lost for a few centuries.
Eventually another trekker droid found L3P0 and carried it to Eszit Wune. There it was ultimately acquired by a force-sensitive descendant of Darth Pugn. The Jawa revelled in L3P0’s abridged, child-friendly tales of Darth Pugn, but suffered the same limb-lopping fate when he first tried wielding the cross-configured lightsaber. Nonetheless L3P0’s tales of adventure inspired the Jawa to take the name “Junker Pugn” and travel to the stars. L3P0 has been a willing accomplice, secretly motivated to atone for all the damage Darth Pugn did to the galaxy.
Primary Source:Wholly original.
