Image Source: Shopped image of a Proton Axe from Fallout New Vegas add on Old World Blues
Intent: To create a personalized melee weapon for Rekali the Hutt
Development Thread:
A Sound of Thunder (Mandalorian Raid of Ilum) – The Mandalorians Raid a Jedi Academy on Ilum. Not significant as a personal dev thread, only linked to the show the Mandalorians have some crystals lying around.
Furnaces for a Black Sky | Mandalorian Development– Rekali the Hutt and other Mandalorians labor over the Forge to create their own weapons and armor, Rekali the Hutt choosing to make his axe.
Manufacturer: Rekali the Hutt
Model: Based on a lightsaber
Affiliation: Rekali the Hutt
Modularity: Crystal/color, minor things(May put in a bi-furcating ignition cycle or something in later. Such additions would require additional dev threads and submission modification.)
Production: Unique
Material: Beskar, electronics, kyber crystal
Classification: Axe
Size: Two-handed
Length: 2m
Weight: 7kg
Special Features:
Lightsaber Resistant
Can be used as a bludgeoning weapon
Strengths:
+Lightsaber edge
+Increased kinetic force
+Lightsaber resistant haft
+Effectively able to be used as a hammer when saber is deactivated
Weaknesses:
-Much weightier than a traditional lightsaber. Despite Rekali the Hutt’s Hutt strength it’ll always be slower than if he was using a lightsaber.
-Much longer haft than a traditional lightsaber, taking away one of the lightsaber’s greatest advantages. Omni directional slashing on a dime.
-Much more difficult, if not impossible to deflect blaster bolts with.
-Much smaller cutting length than a lightsaber, making it inefficient when slicing at larger targets.
Description: Rekali’s Lightaxe is a beskar-made greataxe haft with two plates on either side that instead of being sharpened border the edge of a lightsaber, each of which may be activated independently. These plates are each three millimeters to the side of the lightsaber emitter, and extend out a centimeter past it. This ensures that the lightsaber will not burn itself out by trying to cut the beskar it borders, as well as gives it a measure of concealment in the event Rekali the Hutt decides to swing it unactivated as a bludgeoning weapon.
Rather than a 145cm long blade with a diameter of perhaps a couple centimeters the plasma of Rekali’s Lightaxe extend about fifteen centimeters from the beskar-plated emitters, which themselves around ten centimeters from the half, totaling to a half-meter wide double-edged ax. Other than the geometric differences the plasma of Rekali’s Lightaxe do not function in anyway different than a lightsaber, transferring no more heat or energy than a standard blade. However, due to the longer haft it does act a simple machine, transferring more kinetic force than a lightsaber in a similar hit. While not noticeable against something a lightsaber instantly cuts through or a very well made Sith Alchemized Metal or Beskar, it does cut noticeably quicker through the materials in between, for example Mandalorian Steel or Terentatek Hide. An armor that takes a lightsaber a good three-four strikes to cut through might be felled in a couple by the Lightaxe, or even a single well-placed blow with some momentum. It is notable that armorweave and other materials that protect from only glancing blows effectively become regular materials against the lightaxe.
This does not come without a price however. In return for the increased kinetic force there is significantly less cutting surface, with the axe blades being about 30 centimeters long rather than a standard lightsaber’s 145 centimeters. The increase in weight and size, while useful for transferring kinetic energy, also ensures that Rekali is always a step slower than he would be with a standard lightsaber. This, combined with the shorter(though wider) surface of the lightaxe ensure that blaster bolt deflection is all but impossible. While a stray bolt here or there may be deflected by mere chance, it is not a weapon that could ever be used to make a stand against a blaster.
Overall the Lightaxe is a weapon that had decidedly less utilitarian value than a lightsaber, in return for more force against a very particular set of enemies, those with lightsaber-resistant-but-not-immune armor. The choice of weapon was largely done for personal reasons, as the Hutt felt more comfortable with an axe than he did a lightsaber, or a human-sized Rekali Witchsword. The weapon as a whole is less exotic and precise than a lightsaber, requiring far less training and not having any millennia-long martial arts dedicated to its use. Finally it is notable that theoretically the design is simple enough for a non-force user could use it, though Rekali the Hutt is unlikely to part with it alive, and they would require a force user to build the design in the first place.
Primary Source: None
