Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide a small, versatile electrical personal weapon in LPD’s product line-up
- Image Source: original here, modified by yours truly
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Personal Defense
- Affiliation: Silver Jedi Concord, Directorate, Closed-Market
- Model: LPD-49 Astrapi Miniaturized Static Blaster
- Modularity: Can be easily integrated into personal armors or droids; armor easily added to gauntlet is so desired (not present on base model); can easily be attached as an underbarrel weapon on larger weapons like blaster rifles.
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: duravlex frame, dallorian alloy barrel and internals, spun-plast bracer fastenings(optional), spun-plast trigger ring, miscellaneous static blaster components
- Classification: Static Blaster
- Size: Small
- Weight: Light
Static Blaster ARC Caster Mode Electrobolt Mode Ammunition Type Powerpack Powerpack Powerpack Ammunition Capacity Small - 40 shots Very Small - 20 shots Small - 40 shots Effective Range Personal Personal Personal Rate of Fire Average Average Very High Stopping Power Average Very High Very Low Recoil Average High Average
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Electrical Weapon: Astrapi, in any of its fire modes, fires raw electrical energy that appears as some form of lightning to most users. This means that the weapon does not need any sort of blaster gas (despite its name) and that some defenses engineered specifically to impair most energy weapons may not necessarily affect the Astrapi.
- Variable Fire Modes: Astrapi can release in its electrical attacks at different rates of fire and intensities, allowing it to effectively mimic a number of existing electric weapons. In its standard mode, the Astrapi works like a typical electrical static blaster – firing bolts of condensed electricity and making it largely the equivalent of a typical blaster in raw performance. However, Astrapi’s static blaster mode does less concentrated, direct damage and instead spreads it apart in narrow areas at a high strength. For example, against flesh, the entry wound is likely to appear small and almost insignificant, but it may cause electrical burn injuries with surprisingly deep subdermal tissue burns along with cardiac dysrhythmias. Similarly, a droid hit by this weapon may initially appear to be almost intact from the outside, but have its circuits fried internally, rendering it inoperative. In its Arc Caster Mode, the Astrapi fires sustained high voltage electrical currents that have the potential to jump to several other nearby targets, though damage to these secondary targets is usually to a less severe degree. While its effects on targets are in general very similar to that of the static blaster, the sheer power difference involved typically makes damage severely more grievous, potentially causing arc burns that can create internal pressure wave that rip apart an organic target from the inside out or ignite the target on fire. In contrast to this setting, the Astrapi can also rapidly discharge packets of low-volt electricity much like an electrobolt assault rifle. Each energy packet is rarely lethal unless it hits a vital spot, but instead it tends to produce mostly superficial damage but with excruciating pain and uncontrollable muscle spasms, making it useful as a less-than lethal weapon. While harsher and arguably crueler than stun blasters, this setting also inflicts more enduring physiological debilities to subdue opponents. However, a quick succession of hits in this mode can kill a standard humanoid, typically through cardiac ventricular dysrhythmias and internal burns.
- Compact: The Astrapi is designed specifically for compactness in order to be easily fitted into a gauntlet, which does not much room for its operating system. Combined with a small ammunition capacity, it is quite light and compact, making it easy for the wearer to move his or her arms, as well as making it simple to conceal or integrate into personal armors, droid limbs, or attach as an underbarrel attachment to weapons like blaster rifles.
- Modular Trigger system: Astrapi by default has a trigger that's activated by pulling a ring that's worn on a finger, convenient for use in its gauntlet or underbarrel weapon form. However, it does have a space specifically set up within the body of the gauntlet itself to allow it to be integrated with an electronic trigger for use in battle armors or droids.
- Electrical Weapon: The Astrapi is a somewhat exotic weapon due to its method of discharging electricity, making it something fewer opponents are prepared for. In fact, wearing metal-based armor may be even counterproductive, as such armor can potentially conduct the electrical currents more directly into the target than some other armor and clothing types.
- Superior Firepower(Arc Caster mode): The Arc Caster mode is exceptionally powerful due to the quick application of high voltage electrical currents applied to its targets. It’s ability to leap to nearby targets also makes it valuable when fighting against multiple foes.
- Rapid Fire(Electrobolt mode): The electrical packets formed in Electrobolt mode are fairly low-powered, allowing them to be rapidly generated and discharged.
- Short Range: Like most electrical ranged weapons, the Astrapi has a shorter range than conventional blasters of similar size, being around two dozen meters in most instances..
- Limited Ammunition (Arc Caster mode): As a relatively small weapon, the Astrapi has a relatively small ammunition capacity to match it, being slightly less than that of a typical blaster pistol, especially in Arc Caster mode.
- Low Power (Electrobolt mode): In order to obtain such a high fire rate, the electrobolts formed in this mode are fairly low voltage and not typically lethal.
With Lucerne Personal Defense always seeking to tap into niche markets and provide its customers with new options, it should come as little surprise that Tresk Ek’ala eventually directed some of its efforts into the mature but frequently underutilized field of electrical weaponry. To that end, Lucerne Personal Defense coupled much of its miniaturized weapon chassis technology originally designed for the IceJet Miniaturized CryoBan Projector and married it to mature electric blaster technology. The resulting weapon is actually fairly simple in terms of design because it uses typical galactic standard electrical components. This makes it particularly easy to maintain, allowing laymen to repair with scavenged components from any number of common day objects from datapads to random droid parts. Not only has this made it a fairly cheap weapon to produce, but one that is also fairly modular due to simple programming to direct electrical energy discharge outputs.
In its most basic setting, the Astrapi acts like a typical static blaster pistol, discharging cohesive packets of electrical energy with roughly similar performance outline as a typical blaster pistol but with the internal burning characteristics on organics and fried circuitry effects on electronical targets typical of electrical weaponry. By altering the output to generate a sustained stream of crackling electrical activity, the Astrapi pump high voltage into a target that can leap into adjacent targets. Conversely, the Astrapi can rapidly fire small packets of electricity to replicate electrobolt guns, making a relatively non-lethal weapon that can still rapidly inflict light wounds that while temporarily debilitating can usually be recovered from easily through the body’s natural healing processes.
Astrapi is somewhat unusual for Lucerne Personal Defense in that was designed and created more as an experiment for the market rather than to fulfill a direct, already existing need. While available and bought in large numbers due to its relatively low cost, it remains to be seen if it will catch on to have a large and steady market presence. In order to enhance its attractiveness, the Astrapi is available in a number of form factors including as a gauntlet weapon, underbarrel weapon on larger rifle-like weapons, or as an onboard droid weapon. As of yet, there have been no widespread adopters of the weapon, with the largest purchases so far going to the Directorate to arm rebels where it is difficult to maintain and hide other personal weapons.
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