Ion blaster

Ion blasters, or ionization blasters, were any handheld weapons that fired ion energy instead of blaster bolts. They were commonly used in response to droids and other technology on the battlefield.

An ion blaster bolt disrupted electrical systems and melted fuses, destroying circuits and effectively rendering any kind of technology useless. Anakin Skywalker owned an ion blaster during his youth on Tatooine and used it to prevent the security chief from setting off the alarm. The prevalence of assassin droids and war droids during and after the Great Sith War resulted in the creation of advanced ion weapons to combat them. Ion blasters were developed following HK-01's Great Droid Revolution, and continued to be useful weapons against mechanized forces. They were used by Galactic Republic soldiers to combat threats such as the technology-reliant Mandalorians and their droids, as well as the battle droids of the Confederacy of Independent Systems during the Clone Wars. Most Ion weapons did little damage to organic enemies, though the more powerful cannons could seriously injure or kill a living creature due to the raw power of the blast. Larger cannon versions existed, for taking out threats too massive for a hand-held blaster to deal with.

Ion blasters were also used during the Galactic Civil War in the form of Merr-Sonn's Destructive ElectroMagnetic Pulse and DEMP 2 guns, used by the stormtroopers of the Galactic Empire. These weapons were more dangerous to living matter than most ion weapons. Another common model of ion blaster was the ionization blaster used by the Jawas of Tatooine to capture droids for sale. Despite battle droid based armies falling out of fashion in the years following the Clone Wars, Ionization-based weaponry still saw use during the Galactic Civil War, but to a substantially lesser degree.

Ion weapons ranged from small personal blasters to large rifles for heavy duty combat against droids to massive starship mounted weapons capable of disabling an enemy ship without causing damage to it. Many starfighters such as the Y-wing and B-wing carried ion weaponry for boarding operations where capturing a target was the primary objective, since the ionized target stayed undamaged, apart from its electrical systems. Ion pulse missiles with ionizing warheads could also be used as they were more powerful than ion cannons and were all but guaranteed to hit the target due to their advanced guidance systems. While ships were only able to carry a limited number of these missiles, they were so powerful they could usually disable a target with one hit.

Text and facts from the “Ion blaster/Legends” article on Wookieepedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. Modified for this site.