I'm going to speak from a unique perspective... And others know it, but given you might not, i'm going to ping my pedigree... Not to brag or be arrogant, but so
you know i'm not talking out my shebs. I'm a blacksmith by training for 10 years approximately now, on and off. I'm a machinist for almost 16-17+, from working in a family shop since the age of 10 or so. I'm a trained and certified welder. In the past 5 years or so, metallurgy has became an ardent passion of mine.. Because, well, if you're going to make swords and knives and other things out of metal, you do your product, your customer, and yourself even, a disservice to not know
everything you can about the material(s) in your creation to maximize the products components and make-up. Further the last year has seen an obsessive spike in studying Star Wars canon so far as material study and capability, to better understand crafting and the like for this site.
What you are asking for is, frankly, impossible, even in the hand-wave filled 'science' of Star Wars. Excepting as a plot device. And on a roleplay site with a care for balance and fairness, it is game breaking. The problem with what you are asking is you aren't asking for an 'alternative' to beskar. I did once.. It spawned a 10+ page debate on the ins-and-outs of it, and my idea to crack alchemy for NFU (which is shelved, due to no help on it >.<)... But the idea was, there can be
alternatives, sure... HK from the OP has echani graphite. It has it's own unique features/drawbacks, etc.. And there was, to my understanding, a metric FETH-TON of work put into it. But it is an alternative. Not a bar-none better than replacement.
When you ask 'better than beskar', certain questions
need to be asked. Why? How? Et. al. For instance, these are my questions:
- Why do you need a material 'better' than beskar or phrik?
- What does your character, the board/site, or anyone gain in terms of story from this material, if anything?
- How is this material made, found, utilized, or whatever? It's obviously going to be a new alloy or discovery, so you got some 'splainin to do...
- Go back to the top of this list. Re-read the first question. Now repeat your answer out loud, and ask yourself again, in light of your answer to the second question, WHY do you need it? I'm betting you'll see your answer is pretty thin.
Honestly? I gave up on my 'super metal' idea. Bianca here helped me with that. Because it was silly. It doesn't really have any founded story application other than wanting a shiny. Some might disagree, but that's the conclusion I have came to. Even for a character whose absolute focus was metallurgy and blacksmith as applicable to war, it was a silly side-quest for an OP material to make myself awesome/uber. When I was honest with myself anyway.
If you want light metal for lightsaber proof armor, you have cortosis and phrik. One is brittle, one is not. Both are amazing. Phrik survived the freaking DEATH STAR container wise.. What more do you need? Really, what more do you need? But one can also, per Chaos Canon, be powdered and added to fabric. You have tikuluni hide and terentatek hide you can alchemise, or buy already made, for 'clothing' or light 'armor'. You could feasibly alchemise glistaweb or [member="Danger Arceneau"] 's variant shell-spider silk(which she sells through ATC/Browncoat arms marketplace). These all make lightweight fabric variants of lightsaber and in some cases, Force and blaster proof clothing. And you can add that to phrik or cortosis and make it armor of incomparable quality.
I'm sorry, you face someone in phrik or cortosis armor, with voiding on the joints made of desh-terenthium or tikuluni or terentatek leather via alchemy... You're in for a HUGE fight to get them down. I understand not wanting to use alchemy. I didn't on Ijaat. But there
has to be balance in things. And making a better than beskar metal for
reasons just isn't a good idea, imho.
There are a TON of alchemists out there who would be willing to help. Myself included. There are a ton of NFU crafters, like my own Ijaat, who would help, if the story is right. I made (or helped make) a protosaber for [member="Jaxton Ravos"] that could cut through beskar and phrik, and gave a non-mando beskar because his story was compelling enough. So seriously:
Why do you need it?
I think if you reflect on things in answering that question. You'll find it is just a want, not a need, which is cool. But even if you push on ahead, rather than relying on alternatives.. It
has to have a balance of mitigation. Beskar is incredibly heavy, and that is about it. Other than weight and providing no back up against kinetic damage. I've heard no proposed weaknesses to your potential new material, and that makes me nervous. And your mentioning of graphite and misunderstanding of it's applications again has me worried you don't really understand what you're tampering with. Though, admittedly, that comes through a lens of viewing most people don't have. I've studied with PhD's in metallurgy and such, so my scope is different...
I'm here to kick ideas around if your insistent in pursuing this, but you need to make sure you really, really grasp not only the idea of what your asking...How much work it will entail.. We're talking hundreds and hundreds of posts. If you get to the end of this post and still want it, even after all this ranting? Find me and we'll talk, because you are my kind of crazy.
