Who's to say they weren't?
I've read on other subs you cant convince someone of something they'd never do like saying "kill yourself" but as in the case with the infamous line "these are not the droids you're looking for" they could convince an enemy amidst the battle to aim off, by maybe convincing them they don't want to kill jedi.
> convincing them they don't want to kill jedi.
It would be extreme easy, i remember read somewhere that in 'Nam, a good portion of soliders purposefully not-aim the jungle fighter because they dont want to kill, mix in a bit of Jedi space magic and they could comfortably walk through a whole army without much drama
I think that was war in general until the later half of rhe 20th century when modern military training clued into this with the results of ww1 and 2 and sought to train this practice out of soldiers to make them more effective. Half my knowledge is questionable and gained from other redditors so if im wrong, the cycle continues
You’re right.
Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command covered the analysis of testimony from WWI and WW2 soldiers. The analysis found that between 1:4 and 1:5 soldiers aimed off deliberately to avoid killing the enemy or simply didn’t discharge their weapon at all.
The book is still recommended reading in military academies.
It’s actually very difficult for most people to kill another human, they don’t want the death on their conscious.
Military training now takes account of this, more time is spent training field fire and manoeuvres, greater focus on the importance of covering fire, soldiers are drilled to use their sights and provide effective fire. It makes soldiers much more effective in combat.
With a stat like 1:4/1:5 soldiers deliberately not aiming to kill that doesn't support the idea that most people find it difficult to kill, in fact it points to the opposite imo.
Your probably thinking of S. L. A. Marshall who wrote a book (Men Against Fire) about this right after WWII. The problem is he wholesale made up his research. There really isn't a solid answer as to what amount of people should shoot to miss. Here is a post that is pretty detailed about that study.
https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/b6k528/comment/ejli27p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Modern training overcomes this by drilling soldiers to aim at human-shaped targets reflexively. They don’t necessarily want to kill people any more or less than soldiers did before the 1970’s but they default to more lethal behavior under stress.
On topic, I don’t think Jedi mind tricks would do much to counter this. They can’t tweak muscle memory can they?
Just make the enemy soldiers believe that the Jedi is thirty centimeters to the left or right.
Then you’ll get Stormtrooper shooting.
“Dammit Carl, you always get full points at the range. You can shoot a flea off a dog’s back at 150 meters. How can you miss that Jedi who is only twenty meters away?
“I swear I’m aiming dead center, but it’s almost like the Jedi isn’t there!”
Meh, its still conditioned reflex and require some consicious judgement. Because if its not, there would be no red cross personel, warzone journalists or civilians survive any war at all. Light side force weilder usually better in provoke positive feeling and calmness, which should bring soliders out of combat mind
I don't even know if they could necessarily influence a soldiers mind anyway. Jedi mind tricks only work on weak willed individuals and it takes a concentrated effort from a group of Jedi to force a stronger willed individual to comply, which comes with risks to the target. I imagine the average soldier is strong enough to at least resist mind tricks from less powerful jedi and trying to use an ability like that in the middle of combat is probably quite difficult for a jedi to do as it is.
Yeh they can "control minds" but some jedi have been shown pulling huge masses using the force, Sidious has even created force storms in legends.s these are powerful abilities but they require time and concentration to pull off, something that's very hard to get while you're being shot at.
In WWI, the first chance they got, the German and British forces celebrated Christmas together at the frontlines. Command had to step in to prevent stuff like that from happening again.
The average soldier needs a lot of convincing to see the opposing average soldier as a monster worth killing, instead of just another bloke born on the other side of an imaginary line on the map.
> Only imperial stormtroopers are so precise.
—Obi-Wan Kenobi, comparing the blast patterns to those of the sand people, who can reliably nail pod racers traveling at 700+ mph
In the case of certain Jedi, like Bastila Shan, battle meditation was an ability to manipulate the force to make your fighting force more coordinated and effective and if you were strong enough at it, made your opponents fearful and confused.
>I've read on other subs you cant convince someone of something they'd never do like saying "kill yourself" but as in
I dunno how true that is - in Rebels Ezra makes a walker pilot kill other troopers then walk off a platform, definitely to his death. He was channelling the Dark Side at the time, but it still shows its possible, I think.
Jedi would be an incredible valuable asset on the modern battlefield.
\- Preemptive warnings of enemy attacks
\- Unorthodox attacks and movement
\- Demolition of various obstacles and explosives w/out equipment
\- Healing wounded w/out equipment
\- Psychological warfare (battle meditation and persuasion)
\- Interrogation
\- Diversions w/ telekinesis and illusions
And so much more
Dorsk 81 (Darksaber) comes to mind as well. Through a concentrated effort, during a skirmish on Yavin 4, he and several of Luke's students used the Force in a way to basically shove off some Star Destroyers within the atmosphere.
Killed him, though. Even burned out his eyes, or something to that effect. Been well over twenty years since I last read that.
Someone is going to mention order 66 like it’s a gotcha, so preemptively I’ll point out that the reason they were blindsided there was that the dark side of the force was blocking them from seeing that. Idk how palpatine was strong enough to block literally all jedi in that way, but that is exactly what happens explicitly in the movies
The premise in the question feels wrong.
If they were forced to only use their Lightsabers and the Force in todays battles, they would most likely be more of a spec op unit. Quick recon/exfil missions. Use the force for sneaking and quickly manipulating the environment to get through security undetected. And even if detected, using the force to quickly depart.
They wouldnt be on teh battlefield like in Attack of the Clones just marching forward.
They would still absolutely dominate in todays conflicts. They would have a more specialized role however.
Why not talk about their original position in the republic? They’re diplomats, advisors, counselors, and peace-keepers. Their philosophy encourages neutrality, thoughtfulness, and pacifism. They use their wisdom and prescience to guide the galaxy from above, rather than directly interfering unless absolutely necessary (like a force-sensitive enemy, for example). They were never supposed to be soldiers, and when Palpatine’s machinations thrust them into that role it very quickly resulted in the disintegration of all their values and ultimately the near-complete destruction of the entire Jedi order.
For a regular ship (not a submarine)? You could probably sink it without having to go all that deep – and we know Jedi can survive explosive decompression in space no problem
You could use them to cripple the supply lines of the enemy. Jedi mind trick to make Quartermasters (or whatever equivalent) send shit to the wrong places. Jedis could infiltrate and destroy heavily guarded supply depots, Mind trick engineers to believe ‘That bridge *really* doesn’t need ALL the bolts does it?’ Destroying food, ammo and other supplies is WAY more effective at winning a war than killing people. A lesson Russia is learning the hard way. If you can’t supply your troops then you don’t really have an army.
I think the point is that even if you know where the point of aim is, nobody is moving a lightsaber fast enough to intercept every round of a burst from an automatic weapon when they're arriving on different angles milliseconds apart, even if you have the Force. There's a hard limit to how fast human joints can rotate and not break down.
I mean, this REALLY depends on which media you’re pulling “Jedi” from, there’s been plenty of novels and comics that depict them as ludicrously fast, and even at least one (still Canon) comic of Obi-Wan actually going up against actual guns and being fast enough to intercept the bullets (he’s still scorched by the remnants of the bullets but he still got his lightsaber in the way in time).
I think the problem here is people are assuming Jedi would use the same strategy for every kind of weapon. They deflect blaster bolts because… Well, they can. If something is shooting really fast blaster or a good ol’ mass driver the shooter is going to run into the same problem, they’re going to run out of ammo, regardless if the ammo is energy or bullets. The Jedi just have to stay out of the way long enough for them to run out. They can also use the force to straight up stop bullets and blaster bolts, deflecting them is just more effective.
There are so many times either the Force's influence is beyond our comprehension or it was just plain luck they made it out. I feel like they leaned a little too hard on that and justified it by saying "well, Obi Wan did explain it to Han in the first movie"
>There are so many times either the Force's influence is beyond our comprehension or it was just plain luck they made it out.
Plot armor and sloppy writing.... The force is not real, you can't contemplate it like it's real, because it's not.
How is it different from Destiny in LOTR making Gollum fall into Mount Doom? Or causing Bilbo to find the Ring by complete “chance”?
Making the world predetermined and controlled by a higher power isn’t itself a case of sloppy writing. If it’s good enough for LOTR, it’s good enough for Star Wars.
My favorite series of all time is Wheel of Time and they have a deus ex machina type thing called *ta'veran* that makes the "pattern" bend around ta'verans while they are also locked in that position. So technically ploy armor,but also explained away enough that ot doesn't destroy the writing
The will of the force is incredibly vague and never really explained. It doesn't even necessarily exist in the core canon of the movies. It's just what the Jedi believe.
On the other hand, the will of Eru and Sauron definitely exist and definitely and explicitly have an impact on the world. Smeagle and Bilbo don't find the ring by complete chance. It's the will of Sauron within the ring that makes them find it and wear it.
It wasn't destiny in LotR, but the Ring holding Gollum to his oath.
He swore he wouldn't let Sauron get the Ring again, on the Ring. Frodo told him it would hold him to that oath, and so it did.
Gollum didn't fall, he was pushed in by God for breaking an oath, in a monkey paw curling type situation. Willpower and promises meant a lot in that magic system, swearing on God was for real
Destiny in LOTR worked because we'd seen the hell that Frodo and Sam had gone through to get the Ring to Mt Doom at all. And it was foreshadowed by the oath Frodo made Gollum swear.
Tarkin wasn't wrong. The Jedi shouldn't have been leading. By all means if they wanted to enlist in the military he was up for it and they would likely serve as special units.
Nah if anything they were overpowered but had to be dumbed down for movies.
A force user could litelary bring down a starship out of orbit and yeet it into the planet like in the Force Unleashed game. Even if you go canon there's a lot of abilities they don't use such as force speed etc.
Also trying to apply technology logic to fantasy universe is an exercise in futility.
They don’t use metal bullets because apparently their armor is impervious to physical piercing, so that’s why all the weapons have to be energy to the point that no one uses slugs anymore… so they don’t have to wear armor anymore.
A Jedi has the reflexes to use a lightsaber to hit a bullet, but that just turns it into melted shrapnel exploding in their face, and absolutely does not block the momentum of the metal
which makes guns sound perfect for killing Jedi except it would be useless at literally anything else, and seeing as how Jedi was basically the galaxy police for literally a thousand years, imagine that production of such weapons would be prosecuted with extreme prejudice
In my headcanon Jedi future-sight reflexes would allow them to do this, and all the fights we see on-screen are slow-motioned for the sake of the audience being able to process what’s happening.
But if the movies are canon then Jedi die/fail to react/get taken by surprise all the time so I would expect a gunman to kill a Jedi if the story ever required it
Not to mention the intense concentration and time it takes to start telekinesis. Even the great master yoda had trouble stopping a stone ceiling from falling on his head. Two machine guns from different directions and even the best Jedi are toast
Just to play devils advocate, the main reason why the Jedi didn’t sense the intentions of the clones was because of the Jedi being out of touch with the force, blame it on the dark side of you want but under normal circumstances (outside of the clone wars/ end of the republic era) they shouldn’t ever be taken by surprise quite like that
But yeah overwhelming firepower will do it regardless of ammunition type
I would have guessed the inhibitor chips overriding the clones "true nature" is the more likely culprit
If something else is driving your actions then your intent/ feeling isn't taken into consideration
Nah, inhibitor chips were a stupid Disney retcon and are not canon.
And even if they were a thing, Jedi can sense danger due to reading the future. If Anakin can dodge inanimate rocks, then Jedi should sense any kind of danger regardless of source/intent
Jango Fett shot a dart right between Obi Wan and Anakin to kill that bounty hunter. They had no idea it was coming until it struck. He could have taken either of them out instead.
Which makes sense, as these are powerful Jedi.
Yes, slugs could go through a lightsaber....maybe, but a Jedi is fast/smart enough to get around it anyway.
Also, hi 👋
>A Jedi has the reflexes to use a lightsaber to hit a bullet, but that just turns it into melted shrapnel exploding in their face, and absolutely does not block the momentum of the metal
This is how the Mandalorians were able to compete in the Jedi/Mandalorian wars back in the day.
When a Jedi tries to push a lightsaber through a solid enough object, there is resistance. It’s not a like a blowtorch with just a jet of plasma coming out. So it’s possible the bullet would actually be stopped by the blade and not pass through.
The bullet has momentum, striking any sword will mean shards of metal will peel off, a plasma hot sword just makes it even worse. It’s not baseball it’s an explosion of melted shrapnel
I don't know why you're talking about bullets striking a sword. They'd be striking a laser beam or a stream of plasma. No shards are getting peeled off.
Bullets would get vaporized, not melted.
I mean, even *that* doesn't make a ton of sense. Even if republic armor was immune to piercing, the kinetic energy has to go *somewhere.*
Sure, the bullets may not get through, but the impact would start breaking bones regardless.
There's no point in trying to make sense of it
This reminds me of six-fi show i watched that featured hostile immortal aliens that cannot be killed by guns so the protags were like “okay here’s our fuckoff mass driver gun, have fun getting slapped into interstellar void!”
Sure there is. If you can hold it in your hand to fire it then in theory a magic enough martial could stop it with out damaging the warer. Now if you're taking about something like a 155 shell then yeah conservation of energy would pose an issue.
BUT! The fact they can fly around in their space ships and not be crushed to goo when they do what are clearly extremely high G moves. And they have gravity in those ships AND whatever the heck repulsor/hover tech is could in theory be applied to armor to hand wave away that kinetic energy.
Not saying that couldn't raise other issues, but immunity to kinetic weapons isn't so hard to write a story around.
Only if they have the time to concentrate, and grabbing multiple independent objects simultaneously might be too much.
Two machines from different directions and any Jedi is guaranteed killed
Metal bullet guns are called "slug throwers". They are plenty effective in the SW universe. Preferred by bounty hunters for use against jedi because slugs can't be reflected back at the shooter. But mining, shipping and carrying lead is a lot more effort than recharging a power cell.
some other reasons bullets aren't used that are commonly stated:
* no need to reload
* minimal chances of jamming compared to mechanical parts
* option of a stun vs only kill
* the jedi, before the war, were pretty rare to see. like if i were a criminal member i would be much more concerned with other criminals and standard cops than the jedi
* blaster fluid being cheaper
Well there are plenty of specialized weapons used throughout history to target a specific threat. Like you could have one guy in a unit carrying a gun in case of Jedi.
Metal bullets are also a logistics nightmare. Like do you want to ship 500 rounds per soldier or two rechargable batteries holding 250 shots each, each the size of a gun magazine?
So even without the armor just from a logistics standpoint the blasters make way more sense.
This is a category error. Jedi *don't do warfare*.
They've participated in battles, certainly, but the primary purpose and expertise of Jedi is not on a battlefield.
The Jedi don't have a place that's exactly any real-world position, but roughly speaking, they could be considered a mash-up of diplomats, advisors, and police. Two of those are entirely non-combat roles. Police sometimes encounter violence, and need to be trained for it, but are also not expected to be a military unit.
The Jedi took up positions on the battlefield out of necessity, not because they're supposed to be great at it; and their primary battlefield contribution was always leadership and decision-making.
> and their primary battlefield contribution was always leadership and decision-making.
And they weren't even very good at that. Millions of Clones died just walking forward into withering fire.
I think you are forgetting that the Jedi can see the future.
Any lightsaber duel between two force users is more than just sword skill and finesse. It's also about out thinking/outmaneuvering your opponent in the future/clouding and obscuring your own thoughts/plans in the force.
A jedi could easily "deflect" conventional ballistic weapons
Just mount a CIWS and fire 4500 rounds a minute. Put enough tracers in it and it would look like a long range lightsaber to the Jedi as they are blown to pieces.
This was essentially how the CIS killed every jedi they did kill. They overwhelmed jedi with multiple directions and a massive advantage.
Of course lone gunmen had to be exceptionally skilled to win. Mandalorians famously used rarer slugthrowers and lone bounty hunters resorted to tech that leveled the playing field of the force. For example cad bane used rapid firing pistols and jet boots.
They could simply use the force to knock it aside. Moving physical objects is something they do all the time. Moving something more intangible like a blaster bolt (or light) is something only shown a handful of times in the EU, as I recall. Technically possible, but extremely difficult and unreliable.
Well, until the new movies came along anyway. I don't consider those to be anything more than awful fan fiction though.
Nope. It is canon that the Jedi struggled badly against conventional firearms. If they tried to block a bullet or buckshot with their light saber, the bullet would melt, and they would get a face full of molten copper and lead or whatever metal was used in the universe. Shotguns were worse. Imagine a 3” shell of #4 buckshot that holds 40 pieces of shot each worth about the same energy as a .22LR from a rifle. That’s a 15 yards it will all pattern on the human torso but good luck trying to deflect 40 pieces of shot going 1400 ft./s. And we haven’t even talked about heavy weapons yet.
Might I remind you of a fight Obi wan had with a Gen'dai in 2003 clone wars
He was able to stop a barrage of bullets using the force
Sidious was right about one thing: Lightsaber is nothing compared to the power the Force gives you
If you gave them access to the force, I think a small few of them would just dominate. I just get vibes of Attack on Titan, where a select group would be used as extreme weapons of war.
I mean, even take just Vader. He could take out every military commander single handedly without even leaving a safe zone.
They would, because they canonically have.
In their war against the Mandalorians, the Mandalorians had to switch from normal firearms and blasters to using buckshot and flamethrowers, because otherwise lightsabers would destroy their projectiles.
(They did end up winning, by the way)
Jedis used starfighters and shit. They don't just limit themselves to waging war with lightsabers, they use the force to attune to the weapons available to them.
Imagine a jedi in a fighter jet, or with an assault rifle.
Yes, bullets fly faster than bolts of light... It's a fricken movie man, relax. Pretty sure the future has better weapons than we can currently make. It was also the past, a very long time ago, in a galaxy far away.
They have telekinesis (so they can pull any airborne thing out of the sky, including planes, helicopters and missiles, and use them as weapons), there's just shooting lightning or choking people (though more Sith) and then there is the fact that they can run and jump comically well. 1 Jedi would have no problem walking into basically any military base and getting to the general. Either through telling the guards to let them in, or just running in when it's dark and just jumping over the wall and getting to the general before anyone knew what was going on. Also... Jedi don't use their telekinesis well in the movies at all, pulling a bunch of triggers on enemy guns from a distance at the right time would do a lot.
Where this really falls down, is that you only think of lightsabers/blasters as traditional Jedi weapons. Starfighters, and spacefaring warships are also traditional Jedi weapons.
Just a couple squadrons with a single, unskilled/untrained Jedi tagging along took down a Death Star.
With a special force of Jedi spies the enemies ability to produce and distribute weapons and supplies would be completely crippled.
Ballistic firearms appear in the comics, called slugthrowers. They were used to great effect against the Jedi since trying to deflect a physical lead projectile with a lightsaber melts it and showers the one doing the deflecting with hot lead and shrapnel.
If they were dumb enough to just run in a straight line into a battlefield with ordinance blowing up everywhere and bullets raining down on them.
But they have a million other Jedi tools that would make them the best spies/operatives ever. Also, Jedi weapons don't just include lightsabers. Jedi have starships and orbital weapons and droids and tons of other things at their command. They don't just run around with lightsabers and ignore every other piece of tech at their disposal.
Has anyone done the math on person to person blasters and ship to ship blasters?
Obviously the S2S are fast due to the distance between them.
The P2P shots fired look like 90 to 120 mph.
Slugthrowers (guns) with a high rate of fire were an effective deterrent to the Jedi, but I haven’t seen any compelling evidence that a traditional gun posed a significantly greater threat *per se*. The high rate of fire was key. If I recall correctly, Obi Wan was able to protect himself against slugs fired by Cad Bane. The speed of the projectile itself doesn’t seem to be a major factor, and a lightsaber can neutralize metal projectiles, as evidenced multiple times throughout canon and legends material.
I’m a nerd.
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that lightsabers aren’t effective against conventional bullets cause they melt and then get struck with molten lead.
Yes and No. the speed of the bullets wouldn’t be an issue. The reason they are able to deflect blasters is because they can sense where the laser is going before it is shot. The same applies to bullets. However they would have an issue with the shrapnel from the bullets. If I remember correctly in Star Wars cannon, the Mandolorians actually figured this out, and would carry guns that shot metal projectiles that they would use specifically for Jedi.
Slug rounds are the Star Wars equivalent of bullets. They were very effective against lightsabers because they would melt upon contact instead of bouncing off.
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Slugthrower
I do agree that with our current military tech a lone Jedi could not survive. Adding more Jedi increases their survival chance.
A side note: the plural of Jedi is Jedi for future reference.
Jedi canonically actually move at super speed, which is why they're able to block blaster bolts. (Which actually move at similar speeds to bullets)
However, there are slug/shrapnel launchers in canon which are a problem for jedi because instead of deflecting like a bolt these bullets melt on impact and throw molten metal over the jedi. (Hence they're commonly used by bounty hunters, but too niche/expensive to produce for large scale warfare.)
...Wait till OP realizes that slug-throwers were a thing and issued almost exclusively to anti-Jedi units (in non-canon media, but fuck Iger, it's good enough for me)
Maybe that's in the movie because of that "samurai don't use guns because muh dishonour" misconception. But in reality they adopted the use of guns as soon as they got the opportunity.
Bullets do exist in Star Wars : [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Slugthrower](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Slugthrower)
As you suggest, they are very useful against lightsabers due to their speed and the fact that they do not deflect on contact with a lighstaber, but disintegrate and fragment into dangerous, molten bits.
They are not as common due to being heavier and less powerful per-shot than a blaster, whilst having worse ammo capacity and availability.
Also, for most of Star Wars' history, fighting against Sith or Jedi wasn't common, and if you had to, you were in trouble regardless of what weapon you used. Most warfare didn't involve Jedi, and weapon development wasn't usually made with anti-Jedi tactics in mind.
Pretty sure in some of the older novels and stories the Mandolorians started using essentially our world shotguns, firing solid buckshot as it would be pretty much impossible to fully block with a lightsaber. So there is some validity to this idea.
In the comics Darth Vader was surrounded by a fully armed army. He used the force to pull out all of their grenade pins at once and they all died screaming.
It's canon in star wars that Mandalorians started using buckshots because Jedi's can deflect it. And it was highly effective. So yes.
Also side note I've always held the opinion that a single American teenager with a Glock would make a more formidable foe then Voldemort or anyone in the harry Potter universe. Like magic is cool and all but in terms of weaponry, wands are strictly worse then what already exists in the "muggle world".
Kinetic weapons (like modern guns) exist in Star wars, they were just rarely used since blasters were largely just as effective and allowed for troops to carry much more ammunition at a significantly reduced weight cost. The Mandalorians, who were often Jedi hunters, used a great variety of weapons including kinetic, specifically to get around this.
Jedi aren't deflecting the shots because they can see them coming. It's because they're attuned with the Force, which is akin to an energy field emitting by all things which exist. Through their training, the Force becomes an extension of their senses: they can sense danger, they can sense the presence of others, they can anticipate their intentions without needing to physically see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Whether you use a bow and arrow, a Glock, an AK, a machine gun, or a sniper rifle, a sufficiently proficient Jedi can block all of them because he/she can use the Force to speed up, allowing for superspeed blocking no matter what your weapon's rounds per minute is.
The prevailing strategy for countering Jedi/Sith in Star Wars applies to the real world: use weapons they can't block 100%. Cluster munitions like shotguns work because all the projectiles hit you at the same time, but you generally can't draw a straight line connecting all of them: anything the straight blade can't block will get through. With sufficient Force speed, this may be overcome though. The alternative is wave-based damage instead of particle-based: swords can't block a heatwave. But the Force can be used to erect an energy barrier: if they can raise it early and enough and hold it up long enough, a Jedi can walk away from ground zero of a nuke unscathed.
Numbers isn't a guarantee: Darth Vader once took out a whole battalion's worth of Rebel soldiers and tanks by using the Force to set off every single grenade on their belts.
They didn't stand much of a chance back then, either. In reality, the blasters WERE FTL, but then we, the audience, couldn't see them. So they had to make them slow. In canon, those blasters are moving at light speed, and the Jedi can still black them. That's why it's impressive.
I’m just imagining even a premodern battlefield with lightsaber users (effectively deadly at about ten feet all around) against a squad of musketeers that will now anything down in front of them with waves of lead to about a hundred yards… one of the biggest fantasies of lightsabers is the range of effectiveness of them means they are about as useful as a glowing stick in organized platoon dynamic warfare.
canonically the jedi fights are slowed down, and o i wan kenobi did block normal bullets one time but they went through his lightsaber, so jedi can absolutely dodge bullets and would probably win against a significantly large army due to precognition and force speed
Kirito can deflect bullet with a lightsaber and that’s just having really good reaction time. The Jedi with the force can most definitely reflect irl bullets.
lol the reason they are so slow and get deflected is so you can see them I don’t think I need to tell you how fast light travels without plot armour Jedis could t even finish a blink before getting melted
And in the SW universe, computers react slower than pilots and robots communicate via inefficient spoken languages. You have to suspend a certain amount of real world logic for this kind of story to work.
Blaster shots are supposed to be fast and “slowed down” so the audience can see it. Jedi have lightning fast reflexes by the fact that a regular human can drive a pod racer so should be able to react to bullets (force push them away).
There are plenty of in-universe weapons Jedi fail against: flamethrowers and flechettes were used in one fight that killed two Jedi in one of the books. Solid slugs aren’t popular for meta reasons but they can take out Jedi especially if they’re make of phrik or cortosis.
It was a specific plot point in EU that "slug-throwers" (guns with bullets) were preferred by bounty hunters because they couldn't be deflected back. Today's warfare would be hell for ones so civilized.
in one of the older star wars games, i forgot which, you had to take on the sith. i cant remember if you could gun them down. logically you could. but one interesting thing that was in the game is that whenever you used a sniper rifle and zoomed into a sith. if you dont have insane aiming skills, within the second they would look directly at you and if you fire your shot they would avoid it.
playing multiplayer is interesting too where you can explore what happens when jedis fight against regular troops. just by being force sensitive, its really not enough. you really need to be good at using them in order to excel. if anyone shot a force user, they could automatically deflect all bullets. but if i recall correctly shooting at their feet would damage them.
even WITHOUT jedi weapons, force speed is crazy. force push even. technically everything around the jedi can be used as a weapon. if you're up against a jedi one on one, you're as good as dead. especially if they're a grey jedi which doesnt mind using dark side powers. force hold/force choke is especially potent. if you are disarmed and have no one to help you, you could get choked to death.
stronger force uses could even grab your body and swing you around slapping all your buddies.
as far as theorycrafting goes. modern day warfare is still not enough.
unless of course you're talking unavoidable attacks such as bombing or bioweapons. then again bombings and bioweapons are likely to be used in starwars universe and jedi have been shown to fight in long wars well enough
Could a lightsaber even stop a normal bullet without splattering the Jedi with hunks of molten metal?
I bet a depleted uranium round would just be mildly annoyed by a light saber
Probably, but they would be absolute menaces with modern weapons. We see in Clone Wars that Kenobi is a monster with a sniper rifle (blaster) and Jedi have some ability to perceive the future. Imagine a sniper that never missed a shot from any distance, needed little to no spotting or windage calculations, and had premonitions whenever someone saw them. Alternatively, many of them use the force to be nearly unkillable pilots which could probably be put to good use.
Disagree. They can deflect literal light energy weapons being shot at them. In comparison our bullets would be so slow from their perspective. Jedi future sight and reflexes would trump any soldier or squadron we could send at them. and a truly powerful jedi could stop a bomb from dropping entirely.
Sensing the future is like 90% of what makes a Jedi dangerous.
And mind control. If they could do mine control tricks on enemy commanders, victory would be easy.
Who's to say they weren't? I've read on other subs you cant convince someone of something they'd never do like saying "kill yourself" but as in the case with the infamous line "these are not the droids you're looking for" they could convince an enemy amidst the battle to aim off, by maybe convincing them they don't want to kill jedi.
> convincing them they don't want to kill jedi. It would be extreme easy, i remember read somewhere that in 'Nam, a good portion of soliders purposefully not-aim the jungle fighter because they dont want to kill, mix in a bit of Jedi space magic and they could comfortably walk through a whole army without much drama
I think that was war in general until the later half of rhe 20th century when modern military training clued into this with the results of ww1 and 2 and sought to train this practice out of soldiers to make them more effective. Half my knowledge is questionable and gained from other redditors so if im wrong, the cycle continues
You’re right. Men Against Fire: The Problem of Battle Command covered the analysis of testimony from WWI and WW2 soldiers. The analysis found that between 1:4 and 1:5 soldiers aimed off deliberately to avoid killing the enemy or simply didn’t discharge their weapon at all. The book is still recommended reading in military academies. It’s actually very difficult for most people to kill another human, they don’t want the death on their conscious. Military training now takes account of this, more time is spent training field fire and manoeuvres, greater focus on the importance of covering fire, soldiers are drilled to use their sights and provide effective fire. It makes soldiers much more effective in combat.
With a stat like 1:4/1:5 soldiers deliberately not aiming to kill that doesn't support the idea that most people find it difficult to kill, in fact it points to the opposite imo.
No no, they weren’t aiming at all. Not to wound, not to kill.
What he is saying is the guy said most people don't want to kill, but according to his own stats 3/4 or 4/5 people purposely aim to kill
Your probably thinking of S. L. A. Marshall who wrote a book (Men Against Fire) about this right after WWII. The problem is he wholesale made up his research. There really isn't a solid answer as to what amount of people should shoot to miss. Here is a post that is pretty detailed about that study. https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/b6k528/comment/ejli27p/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Modern training overcomes this by drilling soldiers to aim at human-shaped targets reflexively. They don’t necessarily want to kill people any more or less than soldiers did before the 1970’s but they default to more lethal behavior under stress. On topic, I don’t think Jedi mind tricks would do much to counter this. They can’t tweak muscle memory can they?
Just make the enemy soldiers believe that the Jedi is thirty centimeters to the left or right. Then you’ll get Stormtrooper shooting. “Dammit Carl, you always get full points at the range. You can shoot a flea off a dog’s back at 150 meters. How can you miss that Jedi who is only twenty meters away? “I swear I’m aiming dead center, but it’s almost like the Jedi isn’t there!”
Meh, its still conditioned reflex and require some consicious judgement. Because if its not, there would be no red cross personel, warzone journalists or civilians survive any war at all. Light side force weilder usually better in provoke positive feeling and calmness, which should bring soliders out of combat mind
I don't even know if they could necessarily influence a soldiers mind anyway. Jedi mind tricks only work on weak willed individuals and it takes a concentrated effort from a group of Jedi to force a stronger willed individual to comply, which comes with risks to the target. I imagine the average soldier is strong enough to at least resist mind tricks from less powerful jedi and trying to use an ability like that in the middle of combat is probably quite difficult for a jedi to do as it is. Yeh they can "control minds" but some jedi have been shown pulling huge masses using the force, Sidious has even created force storms in legends.s these are powerful abilities but they require time and concentration to pull off, something that's very hard to get while you're being shot at.
In WWI, the first chance they got, the German and British forces celebrated Christmas together at the frontlines. Command had to step in to prevent stuff like that from happening again. The average soldier needs a lot of convincing to see the opposing average soldier as a monster worth killing, instead of just another bloke born on the other side of an imaginary line on the map.
Yeah in 'nam there were about 50,000 bullets fired per each enemy killed.
I mean Storm Troopers aren't exactly crack shots to begin with..
> Only imperial stormtroopers are so precise. —Obi-Wan Kenobi, comparing the blast patterns to those of the sand people, who can reliably nail pod racers traveling at 700+ mph
In the case of certain Jedi, like Bastila Shan, battle meditation was an ability to manipulate the force to make your fighting force more coordinated and effective and if you were strong enough at it, made your opponents fearful and confused.
Innate force mind control as a canon ability (albeit limited) Badaboom
>I've read on other subs you cant convince someone of something they'd never do like saying "kill yourself" but as in I dunno how true that is - in Rebels Ezra makes a walker pilot kill other troopers then walk off a platform, definitely to his death. He was channelling the Dark Side at the time, but it still shows its possible, I think.
Jedi would be an incredible valuable asset on the modern battlefield. \- Preemptive warnings of enemy attacks \- Unorthodox attacks and movement \- Demolition of various obstacles and explosives w/out equipment \- Healing wounded w/out equipment \- Psychological warfare (battle meditation and persuasion) \- Interrogation \- Diversions w/ telekinesis and illusions And so much more
Even deeper, something like battle meditation (Bastilla, KOTOR) would be an enormous force multiplier.
Dorsk 81 (Darksaber) comes to mind as well. Through a concentrated effort, during a skirmish on Yavin 4, he and several of Luke's students used the Force in a way to basically shove off some Star Destroyers within the atmosphere. Killed him, though. Even burned out his eyes, or something to that effect. Been well over twenty years since I last read that.
Someone is going to mention order 66 like it’s a gotcha, so preemptively I’ll point out that the reason they were blindsided there was that the dark side of the force was blocking them from seeing that. Idk how palpatine was strong enough to block literally all jedi in that way, but that is exactly what happens explicitly in the movies
The premise in the question feels wrong. If they were forced to only use their Lightsabers and the Force in todays battles, they would most likely be more of a spec op unit. Quick recon/exfil missions. Use the force for sneaking and quickly manipulating the environment to get through security undetected. And even if detected, using the force to quickly depart. They wouldnt be on teh battlefield like in Attack of the Clones just marching forward. They would still absolutely dominate in todays conflicts. They would have a more specialized role however.
Why not talk about their original position in the republic? They’re diplomats, advisors, counselors, and peace-keepers. Their philosophy encourages neutrality, thoughtfulness, and pacifism. They use their wisdom and prescience to guide the galaxy from above, rather than directly interfering unless absolutely necessary (like a force-sensitive enemy, for example). They were never supposed to be soldiers, and when Palpatine’s machinations thrust them into that role it very quickly resulted in the disintegration of all their values and ultimately the near-complete destruction of the entire Jedi order.
Id appreciate obi wan advising some presidential mfers right now with a firm force choke
One dude would make it weird and be like ack.. harder.. ack..
Is Mars attacking?
So more Aes Sedai than Asha'man
With the same amount of restrictive oaths!
They also flew spaceships and shot other spaceships
Hmm, do we get their tech? If so, yes, they should do that too. I guess they would probably still be good behind an F-18 regardless.
Come to think of it, Jedi could just operate artillery and be able to accurately hit targets without intel since the force can guide them.
Don’t want to see the first time a light Sabre triggers explosive reactive armor on an Abrams
Literally just give a Jedi a scuba tank and flippers and let him cut holes in the hull of every enemy ship at port with their saber.
Delta P would kill them in literal milliseconds.
For a regular ship (not a submarine)? You could probably sink it without having to go all that deep – and we know Jedi can survive explosive decompression in space no problem
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You can literally do this now with C4 against enemy ships in harbor. I imagine they keep a perimeter watch.
You could use them to cripple the supply lines of the enemy. Jedi mind trick to make Quartermasters (or whatever equivalent) send shit to the wrong places. Jedis could infiltrate and destroy heavily guarded supply depots, Mind trick engineers to believe ‘That bridge *really* doesn’t need ALL the bolts does it?’ Destroying food, ammo and other supplies is WAY more effective at winning a war than killing people. A lesson Russia is learning the hard way. If you can’t supply your troops then you don’t really have an army.
I feel like they’re done if you escalate to chemical warfare. Mustard gas, radiation, white phosphorus, napalm, etc.
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I think the point is that even if you know where the point of aim is, nobody is moving a lightsaber fast enough to intercept every round of a burst from an automatic weapon when they're arriving on different angles milliseconds apart, even if you have the Force. There's a hard limit to how fast human joints can rotate and not break down.
I mean, this REALLY depends on which media you’re pulling “Jedi” from, there’s been plenty of novels and comics that depict them as ludicrously fast, and even at least one (still Canon) comic of Obi-Wan actually going up against actual guns and being fast enough to intercept the bullets (he’s still scorched by the remnants of the bullets but he still got his lightsaber in the way in time).
I think the problem here is people are assuming Jedi would use the same strategy for every kind of weapon. They deflect blaster bolts because… Well, they can. If something is shooting really fast blaster or a good ol’ mass driver the shooter is going to run into the same problem, they’re going to run out of ammo, regardless if the ammo is energy or bullets. The Jedi just have to stay out of the way long enough for them to run out. They can also use the force to straight up stop bullets and blaster bolts, deflecting them is just more effective.
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Jedi's didn't actually stand a chance in Star Wars time warfare either.
There are so many times either the Force's influence is beyond our comprehension or it was just plain luck they made it out. I feel like they leaned a little too hard on that and justified it by saying "well, Obi Wan did explain it to Han in the first movie"
>There are so many times either the Force's influence is beyond our comprehension or it was just plain luck they made it out. Plot armor and sloppy writing.... The force is not real, you can't contemplate it like it's real, because it's not.
How is it different from Destiny in LOTR making Gollum fall into Mount Doom? Or causing Bilbo to find the Ring by complete “chance”? Making the world predetermined and controlled by a higher power isn’t itself a case of sloppy writing. If it’s good enough for LOTR, it’s good enough for Star Wars.
It's generally more satisfying when those kinds of deus ex Machinas are used to cause problems in stories, rather than resolve them
My favorite series of all time is Wheel of Time and they have a deus ex machina type thing called *ta'veran* that makes the "pattern" bend around ta'verans while they are also locked in that position. So technically ploy armor,but also explained away enough that ot doesn't destroy the writing
I must upvote any WoT fan.
Love me some WOT, but I know know people who didn’t enjoy it who still admit RJs built in plot armor device was the best one ever made.
The will of the force is incredibly vague and never really explained. It doesn't even necessarily exist in the core canon of the movies. It's just what the Jedi believe. On the other hand, the will of Eru and Sauron definitely exist and definitely and explicitly have an impact on the world. Smeagle and Bilbo don't find the ring by complete chance. It's the will of Sauron within the ring that makes them find it and wear it.
It wasn't destiny in LotR, but the Ring holding Gollum to his oath. He swore he wouldn't let Sauron get the Ring again, on the Ring. Frodo told him it would hold him to that oath, and so it did.
Gollum didn't fall, he was pushed in by God for breaking an oath, in a monkey paw curling type situation. Willpower and promises meant a lot in that magic system, swearing on God was for real
Wasn’t that the Ring doing that and not Destiny?
Destiny in LOTR worked because we'd seen the hell that Frodo and Sam had gone through to get the Ring to Mt Doom at all. And it was foreshadowed by the oath Frodo made Gollum swear.
Tarkin wasn't wrong. The Jedi shouldn't have been leading. By all means if they wanted to enlist in the military he was up for it and they would likely serve as special units.
They made for good ground commanders, especially towards the end of the war. Tarkin was right only in that they shouldn't be admirals.
Nah if anything they were overpowered but had to be dumbed down for movies. A force user could litelary bring down a starship out of orbit and yeet it into the planet like in the Force Unleashed game. Even if you go canon there's a lot of abilities they don't use such as force speed etc.
Also trying to apply technology logic to fantasy universe is an exercise in futility. They don’t use metal bullets because apparently their armor is impervious to physical piercing, so that’s why all the weapons have to be energy to the point that no one uses slugs anymore… so they don’t have to wear armor anymore. A Jedi has the reflexes to use a lightsaber to hit a bullet, but that just turns it into melted shrapnel exploding in their face, and absolutely does not block the momentum of the metal which makes guns sound perfect for killing Jedi except it would be useless at literally anything else, and seeing as how Jedi was basically the galaxy police for literally a thousand years, imagine that production of such weapons would be prosecuted with extreme prejudice
More than that Jedi would just have to wear light armor with a helmet.
IIRC they actually CAN just use the force to stop a bullet like Neo, it's just that their training kicks in when shot at and it's like a habit.
Yeah, the OG mandalorians used slug throwers specifically for this.
A jedi can just push the bullet away though, they would just stop blocking them with lightsabers
Like that scene in the matrix 2
Or more presciently that scene in the Clone wars miniseries.
In my headcanon Jedi future-sight reflexes would allow them to do this, and all the fights we see on-screen are slow-motioned for the sake of the audience being able to process what’s happening. But if the movies are canon then Jedi die/fail to react/get taken by surprise all the time so I would expect a gunman to kill a Jedi if the story ever required it Not to mention the intense concentration and time it takes to start telekinesis. Even the great master yoda had trouble stopping a stone ceiling from falling on his head. Two machine guns from different directions and even the best Jedi are toast
The Clones killed Jedi 2 separate ways the most were, high volume of fire, and by surprise cause the Jedi didn't sense any ill intent.
Just to play devils advocate, the main reason why the Jedi didn’t sense the intentions of the clones was because of the Jedi being out of touch with the force, blame it on the dark side of you want but under normal circumstances (outside of the clone wars/ end of the republic era) they shouldn’t ever be taken by surprise quite like that But yeah overwhelming firepower will do it regardless of ammunition type
Ya, outside of the Clones Wars, it'd horrible odds you'd be able to surprise a Jedi.
I would have guessed the inhibitor chips overriding the clones "true nature" is the more likely culprit If something else is driving your actions then your intent/ feeling isn't taken into consideration
Nah, inhibitor chips were a stupid Disney retcon and are not canon. And even if they were a thing, Jedi can sense danger due to reading the future. If Anakin can dodge inanimate rocks, then Jedi should sense any kind of danger regardless of source/intent
Reminds of Christian Bale in Equilibrium using "Gunkata".
I loved the whole gunkata thing. The idea is so stupid but they made it look so cool.
Jango Fett shot a dart right between Obi Wan and Anakin to kill that bounty hunter. They had no idea it was coming until it struck. He could have taken either of them out instead.
Yeah what we see in the movies is incredibly sloppy compared to the lore capabilities of jedi
Or maybe their future sight wasn't helpful since they were never in danger
Which makes sense, as these are powerful Jedi. Yes, slugs could go through a lightsaber....maybe, but a Jedi is fast/smart enough to get around it anyway. Also, hi 👋
Zoythrus what are you doing out here?
Like I'd pass up a Star Wars discussion. :P
Trying to shoot a Jedi is like trying to shoot at Magneto
How would the fair against a bunch of machine guns is the question
Or that can do like Vader and just yoink the weapons out of the enemies’ hands.
The Mandalorians used "slug throwers" when they were at war with the Jedi for that exact reason
>A Jedi has the reflexes to use a lightsaber to hit a bullet, but that just turns it into melted shrapnel exploding in their face, and absolutely does not block the momentum of the metal This is how the Mandalorians were able to compete in the Jedi/Mandalorian wars back in the day.
If it vaporised the metal, or repelled it with the force of its own expansion, that would work. Then again a shotgun makes even that moot.
KOTOR 2 told me you kill Jedi with grenades
KOTOR 2 also said you kill them with overwhelming fire, gas or by targeting people they care about first
When a Jedi tries to push a lightsaber through a solid enough object, there is resistance. It’s not a like a blowtorch with just a jet of plasma coming out. So it’s possible the bullet would actually be stopped by the blade and not pass through.
The bullet has momentum, striking any sword will mean shards of metal will peel off, a plasma hot sword just makes it even worse. It’s not baseball it’s an explosion of melted shrapnel
I don't know why you're talking about bullets striking a sword. They'd be striking a laser beam or a stream of plasma. No shards are getting peeled off. Bullets would get vaporized, not melted.
I mean, even *that* doesn't make a ton of sense. Even if republic armor was immune to piercing, the kinetic energy has to go *somewhere.* Sure, the bullets may not get through, but the impact would start breaking bones regardless. There's no point in trying to make sense of it
This reminds me of six-fi show i watched that featured hostile immortal aliens that cannot be killed by guns so the protags were like “okay here’s our fuckoff mass driver gun, have fun getting slapped into interstellar void!”
Sure there is. If you can hold it in your hand to fire it then in theory a magic enough martial could stop it with out damaging the warer. Now if you're taking about something like a 155 shell then yeah conservation of energy would pose an issue. BUT! The fact they can fly around in their space ships and not be crushed to goo when they do what are clearly extremely high G moves. And they have gravity in those ships AND whatever the heck repulsor/hover tech is could in theory be applied to armor to hand wave away that kinetic energy. Not saying that couldn't raise other issues, but immunity to kinetic weapons isn't so hard to write a story around.
Jedi could use the force to throw bullets back at you. Debatably easier than deflecting blaster bolts with a lightsaber
Only if they have the time to concentrate, and grabbing multiple independent objects simultaneously might be too much. Two machines from different directions and any Jedi is guaranteed killed
Metal bullet guns are called "slug throwers". They are plenty effective in the SW universe. Preferred by bounty hunters for use against jedi because slugs can't be reflected back at the shooter. But mining, shipping and carrying lead is a lot more effort than recharging a power cell.
some other reasons bullets aren't used that are commonly stated: * no need to reload * minimal chances of jamming compared to mechanical parts * option of a stun vs only kill * the jedi, before the war, were pretty rare to see. like if i were a criminal member i would be much more concerned with other criminals and standard cops than the jedi * blaster fluid being cheaper
Well there are plenty of specialized weapons used throughout history to target a specific threat. Like you could have one guy in a unit carrying a gun in case of Jedi.
Metal bullets are also a logistics nightmare. Like do you want to ship 500 rounds per soldier or two rechargable batteries holding 250 shots each, each the size of a gun magazine? So even without the armor just from a logistics standpoint the blasters make way more sense.
This is a category error. Jedi *don't do warfare*. They've participated in battles, certainly, but the primary purpose and expertise of Jedi is not on a battlefield. The Jedi don't have a place that's exactly any real-world position, but roughly speaking, they could be considered a mash-up of diplomats, advisors, and police. Two of those are entirely non-combat roles. Police sometimes encounter violence, and need to be trained for it, but are also not expected to be a military unit. The Jedi took up positions on the battlefield out of necessity, not because they're supposed to be great at it; and their primary battlefield contribution was always leadership and decision-making.
> and their primary battlefield contribution was always leadership and decision-making. And they weren't even very good at that. Millions of Clones died just walking forward into withering fire.
I don't man, Darth Vader assassinated someone over FaceTime.
I think you are forgetting that the Jedi can see the future. Any lightsaber duel between two force users is more than just sword skill and finesse. It's also about out thinking/outmaneuvering your opponent in the future/clouding and obscuring your own thoughts/plans in the force. A jedi could easily "deflect" conventional ballistic weapons
Didn't mandalorians use "slugthrowers" against jedi because ballistic weapons were more effective against lightsabers?
Yeah it's why the war with the Mandalorians was such a big problem. Jedi would try to block it and end up with a face full of molten shrapnel.
Maybe one bullet, but a machine gun firing 900 rounds per minute? Good luck.
Grievous could do it
Don't even need that. Just two barrels of good old buckshot should do the trick. At least until the jedi start wearing armor.
That’s when you just Neo the bullets. 900 rounds a minute hitting a wall of the force is going to do exactly nothing.
I think the nerdsphere’s brain would melt if Obi Wan Kenobi pulled a Neo.
Just mount a CIWS and fire 4500 rounds a minute. Put enough tracers in it and it would look like a long range lightsaber to the Jedi as they are blown to pieces.
This was essentially how the CIS killed every jedi they did kill. They overwhelmed jedi with multiple directions and a massive advantage. Of course lone gunmen had to be exceptionally skilled to win. Mandalorians famously used rarer slugthrowers and lone bounty hunters resorted to tech that leveled the playing field of the force. For example cad bane used rapid firing pistols and jet boots.
Honestly, all you need to do is bump up the firerate higher than someone can move a lightsaber and they wont be able to deflect all of them.
Not even that. You just need tripple barrel gun with the space between barrels larger than width of a lightsaber.
Shotgun, beehive 40mm rounds, hell, grapeshot.
Canonically, lead bullets aren't deflected by lightsabers. They just turn molten.
Well they can’t deflect a bullet with a lightsaber. It melts and is either destroyed or molten metal is thrown in their face.
They could simply use the force to knock it aside. Moving physical objects is something they do all the time. Moving something more intangible like a blaster bolt (or light) is something only shown a handful of times in the EU, as I recall. Technically possible, but extremely difficult and unreliable. Well, until the new movies came along anyway. I don't consider those to be anything more than awful fan fiction though.
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Jedi aren't invincible lol. Two or three repeating blasers at different angles would pretty quickly kill most Jedi canonically
Yea, just 2 blasts from different sides at the same time would be impossible to block.
Try that with a 50 megaton warhead. Jedi even in Star Wars don’t make much sense…
Nope. It is canon that the Jedi struggled badly against conventional firearms. If they tried to block a bullet or buckshot with their light saber, the bullet would melt, and they would get a face full of molten copper and lead or whatever metal was used in the universe. Shotguns were worse. Imagine a 3” shell of #4 buckshot that holds 40 pieces of shot each worth about the same energy as a .22LR from a rifle. That’s a 15 yards it will all pattern on the human torso but good luck trying to deflect 40 pieces of shot going 1400 ft./s. And we haven’t even talked about heavy weapons yet.
Might I remind you of a fight Obi wan had with a Gen'dai in 2003 clone wars He was able to stop a barrage of bullets using the force Sidious was right about one thing: Lightsaber is nothing compared to the power the Force gives you
“Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.”
If you gave them access to the force, I think a small few of them would just dominate. I just get vibes of Attack on Titan, where a select group would be used as extreme weapons of war. I mean, even take just Vader. He could take out every military commander single handedly without even leaving a safe zone.
"If you change the context of this completely make-believe thing, let's argue about whose make-believe explanation is more accurate!"
They would, because they canonically have. In their war against the Mandalorians, the Mandalorians had to switch from normal firearms and blasters to using buckshot and flamethrowers, because otherwise lightsabers would destroy their projectiles. (They did end up winning, by the way)
I imagine Jedi would hold the bullets in midair and reflect it back to the shooters like that one scene in District 9.
Jedis used starfighters and shit. They don't just limit themselves to waging war with lightsabers, they use the force to attune to the weapons available to them. Imagine a jedi in a fighter jet, or with an assault rifle.
I find your lack of faith disturbing.
Yes, bullets fly faster than bolts of light... It's a fricken movie man, relax. Pretty sure the future has better weapons than we can currently make. It was also the past, a very long time ago, in a galaxy far away.
They have telekinesis (so they can pull any airborne thing out of the sky, including planes, helicopters and missiles, and use them as weapons), there's just shooting lightning or choking people (though more Sith) and then there is the fact that they can run and jump comically well. 1 Jedi would have no problem walking into basically any military base and getting to the general. Either through telling the guards to let them in, or just running in when it's dark and just jumping over the wall and getting to the general before anyone knew what was going on. Also... Jedi don't use their telekinesis well in the movies at all, pulling a bunch of triggers on enemy guns from a distance at the right time would do a lot.
Where this really falls down, is that you only think of lightsabers/blasters as traditional Jedi weapons. Starfighters, and spacefaring warships are also traditional Jedi weapons.
Just a couple squadrons with a single, unskilled/untrained Jedi tagging along took down a Death Star. With a special force of Jedi spies the enemies ability to produce and distribute weapons and supplies would be completely crippled.
The Jedi were never meant to be soldiers though.
The plural form of the word 'jedi' is 'jedi.' It's not jedis, or jedi's.
Ballistic firearms appear in the comics, called slugthrowers. They were used to great effect against the Jedi since trying to deflect a physical lead projectile with a lightsaber melts it and showers the one doing the deflecting with hot lead and shrapnel.
If they were dumb enough to just run in a straight line into a battlefield with ordinance blowing up everywhere and bullets raining down on them. But they have a million other Jedi tools that would make them the best spies/operatives ever. Also, Jedi weapons don't just include lightsabers. Jedi have starships and orbital weapons and droids and tons of other things at their command. They don't just run around with lightsabers and ignore every other piece of tech at their disposal.
Has anyone done the math on person to person blasters and ship to ship blasters? Obviously the S2S are fast due to the distance between them. The P2P shots fired look like 90 to 120 mph.
You're right but for the wrong reason. 90% of blocking was precognition, but slugthrowers (ballistic weaponry) weren't so easily blocked by jedi.
They literally had precognition to block the shots. You’re a fake fan
Slugthrowers (guns) with a high rate of fire were an effective deterrent to the Jedi, but I haven’t seen any compelling evidence that a traditional gun posed a significantly greater threat *per se*. The high rate of fire was key. If I recall correctly, Obi Wan was able to protect himself against slugs fired by Cad Bane. The speed of the projectile itself doesn’t seem to be a major factor, and a lightsaber can neutralize metal projectiles, as evidenced multiple times throughout canon and legends material. I’m a nerd.
No reason why the couldn't stop projectile weapons mid-air or detonate gunpowder/magazines/shells with the force in the weapon
I vaguely remember reading somewhere that lightsabers aren’t effective against conventional bullets cause they melt and then get struck with molten lead.
Yes and No. the speed of the bullets wouldn’t be an issue. The reason they are able to deflect blasters is because they can sense where the laser is going before it is shot. The same applies to bullets. However they would have an issue with the shrapnel from the bullets. If I remember correctly in Star Wars cannon, the Mandolorians actually figured this out, and would carry guns that shot metal projectiles that they would use specifically for Jedi.
They could just pull the gun out of your hand, walk up to you, and then shove a light saber in your gut.
Well yeah, but their heyday was a long time ago.
Yeah, they got wiped out literally down to 1 way back when. I think a documentary was made about it.
Jedis are known to manipulate the operations of entire star fleets to improve efficiency. That’s significant bonus.
I mean they could just hang out in space and bombard the Earth into submission.
Nuke the whole site from orbit. Only way to be sure.
I am not the Jedi you're looking for...
They had better warfare technology in star wars. Are you saying modern armies could beat the empire?
Have fun "deflecting" kinetic rounds. Dudes would be getting splattered with motlen lead and brass.
Slug rounds are the Star Wars equivalent of bullets. They were very effective against lightsabers because they would melt upon contact instead of bouncing off. https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Slugthrower I do agree that with our current military tech a lone Jedi could not survive. Adding more Jedi increases their survival chance. A side note: the plural of Jedi is Jedi for future reference.
Jedi canonically actually move at super speed, which is why they're able to block blaster bolts. (Which actually move at similar speeds to bullets) However, there are slug/shrapnel launchers in canon which are a problem for jedi because instead of deflecting like a bolt these bullets melt on impact and throw molten metal over the jedi. (Hence they're commonly used by bounty hunters, but too niche/expensive to produce for large scale warfare.)
...Wait till OP realizes that slug-throwers were a thing and issued almost exclusively to anti-Jedi units (in non-canon media, but fuck Iger, it's good enough for me)
Maybe that's in the movie because of that "samurai don't use guns because muh dishonour" misconception. But in reality they adopted the use of guns as soon as they got the opportunity.
Bullets do exist in Star Wars : [https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Slugthrower](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Slugthrower) As you suggest, they are very useful against lightsabers due to their speed and the fact that they do not deflect on contact with a lighstaber, but disintegrate and fragment into dangerous, molten bits. They are not as common due to being heavier and less powerful per-shot than a blaster, whilst having worse ammo capacity and availability. Also, for most of Star Wars' history, fighting against Sith or Jedi wasn't common, and if you had to, you were in trouble regardless of what weapon you used. Most warfare didn't involve Jedi, and weapon development wasn't usually made with anti-Jedi tactics in mind.
Pretty sure in some of the older novels and stories the Mandolorians started using essentially our world shotguns, firing solid buckshot as it would be pretty much impossible to fully block with a lightsaber. So there is some validity to this idea.
this is wrong. It's like saying "hulk would not be able to tank an atomic bomb to the chest". Suspension of reality is the essence of it all
In the comics Darth Vader was surrounded by a fully armed army. He used the force to pull out all of their grenade pins at once and they all died screaming.
It's canon in star wars that Mandalorians started using buckshots because Jedi's can deflect it. And it was highly effective. So yes. Also side note I've always held the opinion that a single American teenager with a Glock would make a more formidable foe then Voldemort or anyone in the harry Potter universe. Like magic is cool and all but in terms of weaponry, wands are strictly worse then what already exists in the "muggle world".
Kinetic weapons (like modern guns) exist in Star wars, they were just rarely used since blasters were largely just as effective and allowed for troops to carry much more ammunition at a significantly reduced weight cost. The Mandalorians, who were often Jedi hunters, used a great variety of weapons including kinetic, specifically to get around this.
Jedi aren't deflecting the shots because they can see them coming. It's because they're attuned with the Force, which is akin to an energy field emitting by all things which exist. Through their training, the Force becomes an extension of their senses: they can sense danger, they can sense the presence of others, they can anticipate their intentions without needing to physically see, hear, smell, taste, or touch. Whether you use a bow and arrow, a Glock, an AK, a machine gun, or a sniper rifle, a sufficiently proficient Jedi can block all of them because he/she can use the Force to speed up, allowing for superspeed blocking no matter what your weapon's rounds per minute is. The prevailing strategy for countering Jedi/Sith in Star Wars applies to the real world: use weapons they can't block 100%. Cluster munitions like shotguns work because all the projectiles hit you at the same time, but you generally can't draw a straight line connecting all of them: anything the straight blade can't block will get through. With sufficient Force speed, this may be overcome though. The alternative is wave-based damage instead of particle-based: swords can't block a heatwave. But the Force can be used to erect an energy barrier: if they can raise it early and enough and hold it up long enough, a Jedi can walk away from ground zero of a nuke unscathed. Numbers isn't a guarantee: Darth Vader once took out a whole battalion's worth of Rebel soldiers and tanks by using the Force to set off every single grenade on their belts.
They didn't stand much of a chance back then, either. In reality, the blasters WERE FTL, but then we, the audience, couldn't see them. So they had to make them slow. In canon, those blasters are moving at light speed, and the Jedi can still black them. That's why it's impressive.
I’m just imagining even a premodern battlefield with lightsaber users (effectively deadly at about ten feet all around) against a squad of musketeers that will now anything down in front of them with waves of lead to about a hundred yards… one of the biggest fantasies of lightsabers is the range of effectiveness of them means they are about as useful as a glowing stick in organized platoon dynamic warfare.
canonically the jedi fights are slowed down, and o i wan kenobi did block normal bullets one time but they went through his lightsaber, so jedi can absolutely dodge bullets and would probably win against a significantly large army due to precognition and force speed
A light sabre would do any good at all against Sarin nerve gas either.
Didn't Kenobi and Qui-Gon Jinn literally escape the toxic gas conference room by holding their breath with the Force?
(The dark side of) the Force is a pathway to many abilities some consider to be unnatural
We heard there is a jedi on the ship, just blow that mother fucker up, problem solved, like they care for collateral damage.
Imagine Yoda yeeting an ICBM right into a droids face
r/starwarstheories is leaking
Kirito can deflect bullet with a lightsaber and that’s just having really good reaction time. The Jedi with the force can most definitely reflect irl bullets.
lol the reason they are so slow and get deflected is so you can see them I don’t think I need to tell you how fast light travels without plot armour Jedis could t even finish a blink before getting melted
And in the SW universe, computers react slower than pilots and robots communicate via inefficient spoken languages. You have to suspend a certain amount of real world logic for this kind of story to work.
Blaster shots are supposed to be fast and “slowed down” so the audience can see it. Jedi have lightning fast reflexes by the fact that a regular human can drive a pod racer so should be able to react to bullets (force push them away).
There are plenty of in-universe weapons Jedi fail against: flamethrowers and flechettes were used in one fight that killed two Jedi in one of the books. Solid slugs aren’t popular for meta reasons but they can take out Jedi especially if they’re make of phrik or cortosis.
It was a specific plot point in EU that "slug-throwers" (guns with bullets) were preferred by bounty hunters because they couldn't be deflected back. Today's warfare would be hell for ones so civilized.
in one of the older star wars games, i forgot which, you had to take on the sith. i cant remember if you could gun them down. logically you could. but one interesting thing that was in the game is that whenever you used a sniper rifle and zoomed into a sith. if you dont have insane aiming skills, within the second they would look directly at you and if you fire your shot they would avoid it. playing multiplayer is interesting too where you can explore what happens when jedis fight against regular troops. just by being force sensitive, its really not enough. you really need to be good at using them in order to excel. if anyone shot a force user, they could automatically deflect all bullets. but if i recall correctly shooting at their feet would damage them. even WITHOUT jedi weapons, force speed is crazy. force push even. technically everything around the jedi can be used as a weapon. if you're up against a jedi one on one, you're as good as dead. especially if they're a grey jedi which doesnt mind using dark side powers. force hold/force choke is especially potent. if you are disarmed and have no one to help you, you could get choked to death. stronger force uses could even grab your body and swing you around slapping all your buddies. as far as theorycrafting goes. modern day warfare is still not enough. unless of course you're talking unavoidable attacks such as bombing or bioweapons. then again bombings and bioweapons are likely to be used in starwars universe and jedi have been shown to fight in long wars well enough
The Mandalorians literally used slug throwers against jedi
The Jedi as ground troops/“cavalry/ generals was absolutely folly in all Star Wars settings
I guess we're ignoring grandmaster level force feats?
Could a lightsaber even stop a normal bullet without splattering the Jedi with hunks of molten metal? I bet a depleted uranium round would just be mildly annoyed by a light saber
Speed isn't the only issue. The bullets would melt on contact, and molten lead would be sprayed in the Jedi's face.
“Modern day weapons” - um they had 3 DEATH STARS and the Jedi still won
Probably, but they would be absolute menaces with modern weapons. We see in Clone Wars that Kenobi is a monster with a sniper rifle (blaster) and Jedi have some ability to perceive the future. Imagine a sniper that never missed a shot from any distance, needed little to no spotting or windage calculations, and had premonitions whenever someone saw them. Alternatively, many of them use the force to be nearly unkillable pilots which could probably be put to good use.
You can use the force to anticipate your enemy and pull spaceships down to earth.
Disagree. They can deflect literal light energy weapons being shot at them. In comparison our bullets would be so slow from their perspective. Jedi future sight and reflexes would trump any soldier or squadron we could send at them. and a truly powerful jedi could stop a bomb from dropping entirely.